Korean dialects

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Various words for "dragonfly" (Standard Korean 잠자리).

Dialects of Korean

A number of different Korean dialects are spoken in the Korean peninsula. The peninsula is extremely mountainous, and each dialect's "territory" corresponds closely to the natural boundaries between different geographical regions. Most of the dialects are named for one of Korea's traditional Eight Provinces.

Standard dialects

• In South Korea, Standard Korean (표준어/標準語) is defined by the National Institute of the Korean Language as "the modern speech of Seoul widely used by the well-cultivated" (교양있는 사람들이 두루 쓰는 현대 서울말). In practice, it tends not to include features that are found exclusively in Seoul.
  • Seoul dialect (서울말) is the basis of the standard dialect in South Korea, and is spoken in Seoul, Incheon, and Gyeonggi in South Korea, as well as in Kaesŏng in North Korea.
• P'yŏng'an dialect (평안방언) is the standard dialect in North Korea, and is spoken in P'yŏngyang, the P'yŏng'an region, and Chagang Province.

Regional dialects

• Hamgyŏng dialect (함경 방언) is used in the Hamgyŏng (Kwanbuk & Kwannam) region and Ryanggang Province of North Korea as well as the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture of northeast China (in Jilin).
• Hwanghae dialect (황해 방언) is used in the Hwanghae (Haesŏ) region of North Korea.
• Gangwon dialect (강원 방언) is used in Gangwon Province in South Korea and neighbouring Kangwŏn Province in North Korea.
• Chungcheong dialect (충청 방언) is used in the Chungcheong(Hoseo) region of South Korea, including the city of Daejeon.
• Gyeongsang dialect (경상 방언) is used in Gyeongsang (Yeongnam) region of South Korea, including the cities of Busan, Daegu, and Ulsan. This dialect is easily distinguished from the Seoul dialect because its pitch is more varied.
• Jeolla dialect (전라 방언) is used in the Jeolla (Honam) region of South Korea, including the city of Gwangju.
• Jeju dialect (제주 방언) is spoken on Jeju Island, off the southwest coast of South Korea.

Outside of the Korean peninsula

• Koryo-mar (Autonym: Корё мар/고려말, Standard Korean: 중앙아시아 한국어), usually identified as a descendant of the Hamgyŏng dialect, is spoken by the Koryo-saram, ethnic Koreans in the former USSR. It consists of a Korean base vocabulary, but takes many loanwords and calques from Russian and the Turkic languages.
• Zainichi Korean language (재일어; 재일조선어) is a language or a dialect spoken among Zainichi Koreans in Japan, strongly influenced by Japanese.
• As discussed above, Koreans in China use a dialect nearly identical to Hamgyŏng dialect in North Korea, but there are still some differences, as the former has many modern terms that came from Chinese.

See also

• Korean language North-South differences
• List of Korea-related topics
• Eight Provinces (Korea)
• Regions of Korea
• Tsushima dialect of Japanese, which contains loanwords from Korean.