 |
The Korean language is classified as a Ural-Altaic language, a group which also includes Mongolian, Hungarian, and Finnish. The Korean character system, Han-gul, is completely different from Japanese. 'Han-gul' was developed by a group of scholars under the patronage of King Sejong in 1443 of the Chosun Dynasty.
Koreans all speak and write the same language, which has been a crucial factor in their strong national identity. Modern Korean has several dialects including the standard one used in Seoul and central areas, but they are similar enough that speakers do not have trouble understanding each other.
It is composed of 10 vowels and 14 consonants. This unique phonetic syllabic
system allows great freedom of expression. This romanization system is based
closely on the McCune-Reischauer (M-R) system. M-R romanization differs
substantially from that of English and may take a little while to get used to.
(There are some vowel and consonant sounds that English does not have.)
The letter ''o (ng)'' at the beginning of a syllable is silent.
Consonants followed by an apostrophe are heavily aspirated.
Vowels marked with the symbol "" such as , tend to be pronounced at the
half-way back in the mouth. For example, is very similar to the ''u'' of Customs.
is pronounced like U (''oo'') but with the lips in the position for i (''ee'').
