Korea language

Korean
한국어 (韓國語) (South Korea) 조선말 (朝鮮語) (North Korea)
Pronunciation	[han.ɡu.ɡʌ] / [tɕo.sʰʌn.mal]
Native to	Korea
Ethnicity	Korean people
Native speakers	77,233,270 (2010)
Language family	Koreanic Buyeo Sillan Korean
Early forms	Proto-Korean Old Korean Middle Korean
Standard forms	Munhwaŏ (North Korea) Pyojuneo (South Korea)
Dialects	Korean dialects
Writing system	Hangul (primary) Hanja Romaja Korean Braille
Official status
Official language in	Republic of Korea  Democratic People's Republic of Korea  People's Republic of China (Yanbian and Changbai)
Recognised minority language in	CIS
Regulated by	The Language Research Institute, Academy of Social Science 사회과학원 어학연구소 / 社會科學院 語學研究所 (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) National Institute of the Korean Language 국립국어원 / 國立國語院 (Republic of Korea) China Korean Language Regulatory Commission 중국조선어규범위원회 中国朝鲜语规范委员会 (People's Republic of China)
Language codes
ISO 639-1	ko
ISO 639-2	kor
ISO 639-3	Variously:  – Modern Korean  – Jeju  – Middle Korean  – Old Korean  – Proto Korean
Linguist List	okm Middle Korean
	oko Old Korean
Glottolog	kore1280
Linguasphere	45-AAA-a
Countries with native Korean-speaking populations (established immigrant communities in green).
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The Language Research Institute, Academy of Social Science 사회과학원 어학연구소 / 社會科學院 語學研究所 (Democratic People's Republic of Korea)
National Institute of the Korean Language 국립국어원 / 國立國語院 (Republic of Korea)

The Korean language (/, see below) is the official and national language of both Koreas: the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea) and the Republic of Korea (South Korea), with different standardized official forms used in each territory. It is also one of the two official languages in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture and Changbai Korean Autonomous County of the People's Republic of China. Approximately 80 million people worldwide speak Korean.

Historical and modern linguists classify Korean as a language isolate; however, it does have a few extinct relatives, which together with Korean itself and the Jeju language (spoken in the Jeju Province and considered somewhat distinct) form the Koreanic language family. This implies that Korean is not an isolate, but a member of a small family. The idea that Korean belongs to the controversial Altaic language family is discredited in academic research. There is still debate about a relation to Dravidian languages and on whether Korean and Japanese are related to each other. The Korean language is agglutinative in its morphology and SOV in its syntax.