Learn about Korean dialects
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| Korean Teachers Answer Your Questions - Lesson #5 - How Many Varieties of Korean Are There? |
Intro |
|---|
| Michael: How many varieties of Korean are there? |
| Kyejin: And are they universally intelligible? |
| Michael: At KoreanClass101.com, we hear these questions often. Ben Morris is an exchange student and he is in a cafe with his friend, Ga-eun Gim. Ben overhears the conversation of the men at the next table and hears a word he doesn't recognize. He asks Ga-uen, |
| "What is 'jisil'?" |
| Ben Morris: 지실이 뭐예요? (Jisiri mwoyeyo?) |
| Dialogue |
| Ben Morris: 지실이 뭐예요? (Jisiri mwoyeyo?) |
| Ga-eun Gim: 제주도 사투리로 감자예요. (Jejudo saturiro gamjayeyo.) |
| Michael: Once more with the English translation. |
| Ben Morris: 지실이 뭐예요? (Jisiri mwoyeyo?) |
| Michael: "What is 'jisil'?" |
| Ga-eun Gim: 제주도 사투리로 감자예요. (Jejudo saturiro gamjayeyo.) |
| Michael: "It's potato in the Jeju dialect." |
Lesson focus |
| Michael: Korean standard dialect, which you will most likely learn as a Korean learner is called the |
| Kyejin: 경기 방언 (Gyeonggi bangeon) |
| Michael: dialect. This dialect is spoken in the northern regions of South Korea, but primarily in Seoul and Incheon. Since, in many ways, it's considered standard Korean, you'll often hear this dialect on the radio, television shows, and news outlets. No matter a person's native dialect, all Korean speakers can easily understand it. |
| As you advance in your studies, you'll learn that this dialect has some slight differences to what is referred to as, |
| Kyejin: 표준어 (pyojuneo) |
| Michael: or the official standard Korean. |
| But, as a beginner learner, those differences won't play a big role in your studies. |
| However, Korean has five more dialects you'll come across if you continue your studies. Let's have a look at them. |
| The first dialect is the, |
| Kyejin: 강원 (Gangwon) |
| Michael: dialect, and it is spoken primarily in the Northeast region of South Korea, a beautiful, mountainous and heavily forested region of the country, which was also home to the Pyeongchang Olympics in 2018. |
| The next South Korean dialect is the |
| Kyejin: 충청 방언 (Chungcheong bangeon) |
| Michael: dialect, spoken primarily in |
| Kyejin: 충청북도 (Chungcheongbukdo) and 충청남도(Chungcheongnamdo), |
| Michael: just south of the capital city of |
| Kyejin: 서울 (Seoul). |
| Michael: Next, we have the |
| Kyejin: 경상 방언 (Gyeongsang bangeon) |
| Michael: dialect. This dialect is spoken in the southern regions of South Korea, primarily in the cities of |
| Kyejin: 부산(Busan), 울산(Ulsan), and 대구(Daegu). |
| Michael: The next Korean dialect is called |
| Kyejin: 전라도 방언 (Jeollado bangeon). |
| Michael: It's spoken in the southwestern region of South Korea, in cities like Gwangju. There are a few key characteristics that set it apart from South Korea's other regional dialects. |
| Michael: The final dialect of Korean is often considered its own language. It's called |
| Kyejin: 제주 방언 (Jeju bangeon) |
| Michael: and is spoken on |
| Kyejin: 제주(Jeju) |
| Michael: Island, due south of mainland Korea. It's likely the most difficult of the dialects to master since its characteristics make it significantly different from the rest of the above-mentioned dialects. Some people will even classify it as an independent Koreanic language. |
| Speaking of characteristics, you'll distinguish the dialects by their own specific accents, also referred to as |
| Kyejin: 방언 (bangeon) |
| Michael: or |
| Kyejin: 사투리 (saturi). |
| Michael: Also, each dialect has its specific suffixes. Listing all of them would take too long for this lesson, but to have an better understanding, let's have a look at the |
| Kyejin: 강원 (Gangwon) |
| Michael: dialect. |
| For instance, while forming questions, oftentimes, final syllables are tagged onto the end of a question. The most common being |
| Kyejin: -나 (na), -노 (no), -고 (go), and -가 (ga). |
| Michael: To ask, "Is it raining?" instead of the standard |
| Kyejin: 비 와? (Bi wa?), |
| Michael: we would instead say |
| Kyejin: 비 오나? (Bi ona?) |
| Michael: Also, you might experience dialect specific words, which you will not hear in the standard Korean dialect. |
| [Recall 1] |
| Michael: Let's take a closer look at the dialogue we just heard. |
| Do you remember how Ben asked "What is 'jisil?'" |
| (pause 4 seconds) |
| Ben Morris: 지실이 뭐예요? (Jisiri mwoyeyo?) |
| Michael: "What is 'jisil'?" |
| And how Ga-eun Gim answered |
| (Pause 4 Seconds) |
| Ga-eun Gim: 제주도 사투리로 감자예요. (Jejudo saturiro gamjayeyo.) |
| Michael: "It's potato in the Jeju dialect." |
| As we mentioned before, the Jeju dialect differs a lot from the standard Korean, so it's no wonder that Ben didn't understand the word for potato. |
| But the Jeju dialect is the only dialect where the vocabulary differs from standard Korean. For the remaining dialects, the vocabulary is mostly the same, although there are differences in how words are pronounced. |
| [Summary] |
| Michael: In this lesson, we learned that Korean has six different dialects in total, spoken in different parts of the country, with one of them being different enough to be classified as an independent language. |
| Cultural Insight/Expansion |
| Michael: We talked before about six Korean dialects spoken in South Korea. Let's have a look now at the language spoken in South Korea's neighbor country, North Korea. |
| In North Korea, the |
| Kyejin: 평안 (Pyongan) |
| dialect is the official dialect spoken in the capital city of Pyongyang and its surrounding regions. In actuality, the standard language of North Korea is still heavily rooted in the |
| Kyejin: 경기 방언 (Gyeonggi bangeon) |
| Michael: dialect, also widely spoken in Seoul. |
| Regardless, there are still significant differences between the language of North and South Korea that reflect political and social boundaries. |
| For example, if we want to refer to the Korean peninsula, a person from South Korea would call it |
| Kyejin: 한반도 (韓半島) (Hanbando), |
| Michael: whereas a person from North Korea would call it |
| Kyejin: 조선반도 (朝鮮半島) (Josunbando) |
| Michael: The use of loanwords is another indication of the differences between Korean spoken in North Korea versus South Korea. Many North Korean loanwords come from Russian, whereas their South Korean equivalents may come from English. |
| Michael: Take the word for "tractor," for example. In the South, we would say, |
| Kyejin: 트랙터 (teuraekteo), |
| Michael: very similar to the English word. But, in the North, the word is |
| Kyejin: 뜨락또르 (tturakttoreu), |
| Michael: which comes from Russian. |
| Or the word for "Poland," which, in South Korea, is referred to as |
| Kyejin: 폴란드 (Pollandeu) |
| Michael: But in the North is called |
| Kyejin: 뽈스까 (Ppolseukka). |
| Michael: In 2018, North and South Korea made a powerful statement to the rest of the world as their Olympic teams, including the women's ice hockey team, competed as one unified front. Yet, once again, it became even more apparent that there were significant differences between the dialects spoken in North Korea and South Korea. For example, South Koreans referred to the goalie as |
| Kyejin: 골키퍼(golkipeo) |
| Michael: while North Koreans called the same position |
| Kyejin: 문지기(munjigi), |
| Michael: "door keeper." The team ended up creating a dictionary of their own so that they could easily communicate with each other, both on and off the field. Ultimately, the team sent a message to the rest of the world that not only sportsmanship, but true camaraderie and harmony may one day be possible between these two countries. |
Outro |
| Michael: Do you have any more questions? We're here to answer them! |
| Kyejin: 안녕히 계세요 (Annyeonghi gyeseyo) |
| Michael: See you soon! |
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