korean language

Korean (Korean: 한국어/조선말, see below) is the official language of South Korea and North Korea as well as one of the two official languages in China's Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture. Approximately 78 million people speak Korean worldwide. For over a millennium, Korean was written with adapted Chinese characters called hanja, complemented by phonetic systems like hyangchal, gugyeol, and idu. In the 15th century, a national writing system called hangul was commissioned by Sejong the Great, but it only came into widespread use in the 20th century, because of the yangban aristocracy's preference for hanja.
Most historical linguists classify Korean as a language isolate^[2] while a few consider it to be in the controversial Altaic language family.^[3] The Korean language is agglutinative in its morphology and SOV in its syntax.
Farhani==Names== The Korean names for the language are based on the names for Korea used in North and South Korea.
In South Korea, the language is most often called Hangungmal (한국말), or more formally, Hangugeo (한국어) or Gugeo (국어}; literally "national language").
In North Korea and Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in China, the language is most often called Chosŏnmal (조선말), or more formally, Chosŏnŏ (조선어).
On the other hand, Korean people in the former USSR, who refer to themselves as Koryo-saram (고려사람; also Goryeoin [고려인; 高麗人; literally, "Goryeo person(s)"]) call the language Goryeomal (고려말).
In mainland China, following the establishment of diplomatic relations with South Korea in 1992, the term Cháoxiǎnyǔ (朝鲜语 or the short form: Cháoyǔ (朝语)) has normally been used to refer to the standard language of North Korea and Yanbian, while Hánguóyǔ (韩国语 or the short form: Hányǔ (韩语)) is used to refer to the standard language of South Korea.
Some older English sources also used the name "Korean" to refer to the language, country, and people. The word "Korean" is derived from Goryeo, which is thought to be the first dynasty known to western countries.

info from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_language