Korean

About Korean

Korean is the language of South Korea and North Korea, with about 77 million native speakers. It is also spoken by Korean communities in China, Japan, Central Asia and the United States. Its relationship to other languages is not settled, so it is usually placed in a small family of its own, Koreanic.

Korean is written in Hangul, an alphabet created in the 15th century under King Sejong. Its letters are grouped into square syllable blocks, so 한 (han) is built from ㅎ (h), ㅏ (a) and ㄴ (n). How you speak depends on who you speak to. The polite ending -yo, as in annyeonghaseyo (hello), is safe with anyone you do not know well. Koreans rarely say "you" to someone directly and use the person's name or title instead.

FamilyKoreanic
Native speakersabout 77 million (2019)
Official inSouth Korea, North Korea
ScriptHangul, with Chinese characters (Hanja) used occasionally
Codesko (ISO 639-1), kor (ISO 639-3)

Speaker numbers: Ethnologue (2019), via Wikidata. Retrieved 26 September 2026.

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