Korean Language
Korean alphabet, Korean orthography, Korean language history and sources
Korean language
Korean: Official language of Korea.
Number of Korean Speakers: 75 million worldwide.
Korean Speakers: In North and South Korea, China, Japan, United States, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, and Russia.
Language Classification: Ural-Altaic family, which includes Mongolian, Finnish, and Hungarian. Related to Japanese in some features.
Korean Alphabet: 28 symbols (four of which dropped later on). Kong Sejong introduced the alphabet in 1443. Similar sounds originate from similar characters. Learning the Korean alphabet (Hangul) is easy.
Korean Orthography: Ten vowels and 14 consonants. Symbols are combined into blocks and written in a vertical fashion. Vertical columns are read from right to left, or left to right if written horizontally.
Korean Language History: Korya Dynasty made Korean the national language.
Unique Features of Korean: There are formal and informal words used according to the person whom spoken with.
For more linguistic affiliation, language variation, orthography, linguistic sketch, and history of Korean language UCLA Language Materials Project has a good linguistics and interlingual background information on Korean.
