The Korean language has diverged between North and South Korea due to the prolonged separation and the mutual hostility between the two states.
The Korean Language Society in 1933 made the "Proposal for Unified Korean Orthography" (). But with the establishment of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and the Republic of Korea in 1948, the two states have taken on differing policies regarding the language.
Researching language differences between North and South Korea has been challenging, and there have been reports of inaccurate results. It is hard to know how North Koreans use their standard language because North Korean defectors often speak a dialect rather than the standard language. Some scholars argue that North Korean propaganda and the South's over-interpretation of it contribute to the confusion regarding the North Korean standard language. North Korean propaganda has characterized its language as being "pure", contrary to South Korea's.
North Korea states its standard language as the language of Pyongyang. However, South Korean scholars have claimed it is more similar to the pre-divided Seoul dialect than the pre-divided Pyongyang dialect, and suggested that its pronunciation and grammar are based on the Seoul area rather than the Pyongyang area.
In some cases, South Korean schools have taught North Korean purified words that are not actually used in North Korea, leading to disputes in South Korea over whether a North Korean defector actually uses the word in North Korea. Some scholars have also doubted a study that found that the most common loan words in North Korea were not Russian loanwords but English loanwords.
Development In 1954, North Korea set out the rules for Korean orthography (). Although this was only a minor revision in orthography that created little difference from that used in the South, from then on, the standard languages in the North and the South gradually differed more and more from each other.
On 3 January 1964, Kim Il Sung issued his teachings on "A Number of Issues on the Development of the Korean language" (), and on 14 May 1966 on the topic "In Rightly Advancing the National Characteristics of the Korean language" (), from which the "Standard Korean Language" () rules followed in the same year, issued by the National Language Revision Committee that was directly under the control of the cabinet.
From then on, more important differences came about between the standard language in the North and the South. In 1987, North Korea revised the aforementioned rules further, and these have remained in use until today. In addition, the rules for spacing were separately laid out in the "Standard Spacing Rules in Writing Korean" () in 2000 but have since been superseded by "Rules for Spacing in Writing Korean" (), issued in 2003.
South Korea continued to use the as defined in 1933, until its amendment "Korean Orthography" (), together with "Standard Language Regulations" (), were issued in 1988 and amended in 2017.
As with the Korean phonology article, this article uses IPA symbols in pipes for morphophonemics, slashes for phonemes, and brackets for allophones. Pan-Korean romanized words are largely in Revised Romanization, and North Korean-specific romanized words are largely in McCune-Reischauer. For the sake of consistency, this article phonetically transcribes as for pan-Korean and South-specific phonology, and as for North-specific phonology.
Hangul / Chosŏn'gŭl The same Hangul / Chosŏn'gŭl letters are used to write the language in the North and the South. However, in the North, the stroke that distinguishes ㅌ from ㄷ is written above rather than inside the letter, as is done in the South.
In the South, the vowel digraphs and trigraphs ㅐ , ㅒ , ㅔ , ㅖ , ㅘ , ㅙ , ㅚ , ㅝ , ㅞ , ㅟ , ㅢ , and the consonant digraphs ㄲ , ㄸ , ㅃ , ㅆ , ㅉ , are not treated as separate letters, whereas in the North they are. Some letters and digraphs have different names in the North and in the South:
LetterNorth Korean nameSouth Korean name
The names used in the South are the ones found in the Hunmongjahoe (훈몽자회, 訓蒙字會, published 1527). The names used in the North are formed mechanically with the pattern "letter + 이 + 으 + letter". Also for the tensed consonants, in the South, they are called "double" (쌍- ) consonants, while in the North, they are called "strong" (된- ) consonants.
Sort order Initial consonants {|style="text-align:center" |style="text-align:left"|North:||ㄱ||ㄴ||ㄷ||ㄹ||ㅁ||ㅂ||ㅅ||ㅈ||ㅊ||ㅋ||ㅌ||ㅍ||ㅎ||ㄲ||ㄸ||ㅃ||ㅆ||ㅉ||ㅇ |- | ||[k]||[n]||[t]||[l]||[m]||[p]||[s]||[tɕ]||[tɕʰ]||[kʰ]||[tʰ]||[pʰ]||[h]||[k͈]||[t͈]||[p͈]||[s͈]||[tɕ͈]||[∅] |- | style="text-align:left" |South:||ㄱ||ㄲ||ㄴ||ㄷ||ㄸ||ㄹ||ㅁ||ㅂ||ㅃ||ㅅ||ㅆ||ㅇ||ㅈ||ㅉ||ㅊ||ㅋ||ㅌ||ㅍ||ㅎ |-style="text-align:center" | ||[k]||[k͈]||[n]||[t]||[t͈]||[l]||[m]||[p]||[p͈]||[s]||[s͈]||[∅]||[tɕ]||[tɕ͈]||[tɕʰ]||[kʰ]||[tʰ]||[pʰ]||[h] |} Vowels {|style="text-align:center" |style="text-align:left"|North:||ㅏ||ㅑ||ㅓ||ㅕ||ㅗ||ㅛ||ㅜ||ㅠ||ㅡ||ㅣ||ㅐ||ㅒ||ㅔ||ㅖ||ㅚ||ㅟ||ㅢ||ㅘ||ㅝ||ㅙ||ㅞ |- | ||[a]||[ja]||[ɔ]||[jɔ]||[o]||[jo]||[u]||[ju]||[ɯ]||[i]||[ɛ]||[jɛ]||[e]||[je]||[ø]||[y]||[ɰi]||[wa]||[wɔ]||[wɛ]||[we] |- | style="text-align:left" |South:||ㅏ||ㅐ||ㅑ||ㅒ||ㅓ||ㅔ||ㅕ||ㅖ||ㅗ||ㅘ||ㅙ||ㅚ||ㅛ||ㅜ||ㅝ||ㅞ||ㅟ||ㅠ||ㅡ||ㅢ||ㅣ |- | ||[a]||[ɛ]||[ja]||[jɛ]||[ʌ]||[e]||[jʌ]||[je]||[o]||[wa]||[wɛ]||[ø]||[jo]||[u]||[wʌ]||[we]||[y]||[ju]||[ɯ]||[ɰi]||[i] |} Final consonants {|style="text-align:center" |- | style="text-align:left" |North:||(none)||ㄱ||ㄳ||ㄴ||ㄵ||ㄶ||ㄷ||ㄹ||ㄺ||ㄻ||ㄼ||ㄽ||ㄾ||ㄿ||ㅀ||ㅁ||ㅂ||ㅄ||ㅅ||ㅇ||ㅈ||ㅊ||ㅋ||ㅌ||ㅍ||ㅎ||ㄲ||ㅆ |- |style="text-align:left"|South:||(none)||ㄱ||ㄲ||ㄳ||ㄴ||ㄵ||ㄶ||ㄷ||ㄹ||ㄺ||ㄻ||ㄼ||ㄽ||ㄾ||ㄿ||ㅀ||ㅁ||ㅂ||ㅄ||ㅅ||ㅆ||ㅇ||ㅈ||ㅊ||ㅋ||ㅌ||ㅍ||ㅎ
In the North, the consonant letter ( and ) is placed between and when pronounced , but after all consonants (i.e., after ) when used as a placeholder indicating a null initial consonant (for syllables that begin with a vowel).
Pronunciation
The standard languages in the North and the South share the same types and the same number of phonemes, but there are some differences in the actual pronunciations. The South Korean standard pronunciation is based on the dialect as spoken in Seoul, and the North Korean standard pronunciation is based on the dialect as spoken in Pyongyang. However, South Korean authors have argued that the standard language of North Korea is actually not based on the Pyongyang dialect, but rather on the 1933 norms, which are based on the Seoul dialect. For example, in the view of such authors, the dialect of Pyongyang has eight monophthongs, while the standard North Korean language has 10 monophthongs, like the old Seoul dialect.
Consonants The following differences are recognized in the consonants. In the Seoul dialect, ㅈ, ㅊ and ㅉ are typically pronounced with alveolo-palatal affricates , , . In the Pyongyang dialect, they are typically pronounced with alveolar affricates , , . Also, and can be pronounced without palatalization as and in the Pyongyang dialect.
In the South, when or are at the beginning of a Sino-Korean word and are followed immediately by or , they are dropped, and when ㄹ is not immediately followed by or , it becomes ㄴ , with this change being indicated in the orthography. But all initial and are written out and pronounced in the North. For instance, the common last name 이 (often written out in English as Lee, staying true to the more conservative typography and pronunciation), and the word (woman) are written and pronounced as 리 and in North Korean. Furthermore, the South Korean word , which means "tomorrow", is written and pronounced as in North Korea. But this latter pronunciation was artificially crafted using older pronunciations in the 1960s, so it is common for older speakers to be unable to pronounce initial and properly, thus pronouncing such words in the same way as they are pronounced in the South.
In South Korea, the liquid consonant does not come after the nasal consonants and . In this position, is pronounced as rather than . But in North Korea, before vowels , , , and can remain in this context (or assimilate to [n]).
HangulHanjaNorthSouth[] or [] [] [] or [] [] or or
Vowels Some South Korean linguists argue that the vowel system in the North Korean standard is based on the Pyongyang dialect. The vowel ㅓ is not as rounded in the Seoul dialect as it is in the Pyongyang dialect. If expressed in IPA, it would be or for the one in Seoul dialect and for the one in Pyongyang dialect. Due to this roundedness, speakers of the Seoul dialect would find that ㅓ as pronounced by speakers of the Pyongyang dialect sounds close to the vowel ㅗ . Additionally, the difference between the vowels and is slowly diminishing amongst the younger speakers of the Seoul dialect. It is not well known if this is also happening with the Pyongyang dialect.
However, other South Korean linguists have argued that North Korean linguistic texts suggest that the vowel system and articulation positions of the North Korean standard language were completely consistent with those of the South. In particular, the rules stipulated 10 monophthongs, just like the old Seoul dialect.
Pitch The pitch patterns in the Pyongyang and Seoul dialects differ, but there has been little research in detail. On the other hand, in the Chosŏnmal Taesajŏn (조선말대사전), published in 1992, where the pitches for certain words are shown in a three-pitch system, a word such as 꾀꼬리 ( "black-naped oriole") is marked as having pitch "232" (where "2" is low and "3" is high), from which one can see some difference in pitch patterns from the Seoul dialect.
Orthography Inflected words Informal non-polite suffix 어/여 In words in which the word stem ends in ㅣ , ㅐ , ㅔ , ㅚ , ㅟ , ㅢ , in forms where -어 is appended to these endings in the South, but -여 is instead appended in the North. In actual pronunciation, however, the sound often accompanies the pronunciation of such words, even in the South.
Inflected wordNorth inflectionSouth inflectionMeaning p'iyŏ pi-eo (pyeo)bloom nae-yŏ nae-eo(nae)take out se-yŏ se-eo(se)count toe-yŏ doe-eo (dwae)become ttwi-yŏ ttwi-eojump hi-yŏ hi-eowhite
Indication of tensed consonants after word endings that end with ㄹ In word endings where the final consonant is ㄹ , where the South spells -ㄹ까 () and -ㄹ쏘냐 () to indicate the tensed consonants, in the North these are spelled -ㄹ가 ，-ㄹ소냐 instead. These etymologically are formed by attaching to the adnominal form (관형사형 gwanhyeongsahyeong) that ends in ㄹ, and in the North, the tensed consonants are denoted with normal consonants. Also, the word ending -ㄹ게 used to be spelled -ㄹ께 in the South, but has since been changed in the Hangeul Matchumbeop of 1988, and is now spelled -ㄹ게 just like in the North.
Sino-Korean words Initial sound rule
Initial ㄴ / ㄹ appearing in Sino-Korean words are kept in the North. In the South, in Sino-Korean words that begin with ㄹ which is followed by the vowel sound or the semivowel sound (when ㄹ is followed by one of ㅣ , ㅑ , ㅕ , ㅖ , ㅛ and ㅠ ), ㄹ is replaced by ㅇ ; when this ㄹ is followed by other vowels it is replaced by ㄴ . In the North, the initial ㄹ is kept.
NorthSouthHanjaMeaning Ri Sŏnggye I SeonggyeYi Seong-gye ryŏnsŭp yeonseuppractice rak'a nakafall raengmyŏn naengmyeoncold noodles
Similarly, in Sino-Korean words that begin with ㄴ and is followed by the vowel sound or the semi-vowel sound (when ㄴ is followed by one of , , and ), in the South, this ㄴ is replaced by ㅇ , but this remains unchanged in the North.
NorthSouthHanjaMeaning nisŭng iseungpriestess nyŏja yeojawoman ryuk yuksix
These are thus pronounced as written in the North as ㄴ and ㄹ . However, even in the South, sometimes in order to disambiguate the surnames 유 ( Yu ) and 임 ( Im ) from 유 ( Yu ) and 임 ( Im ), the former may be written or pronounced as 류 Ryu () and 림 Rim ().
Hanja pronunciation Where a Hanja is written or in the South, this is written , in the North (but even in the South, these are pronounced , ).