Korean vs Chinese Language
Asian countries, due to their proximity to one another, share many things and are often shaped, molded, and influenced by each other. Language is just one factor that has evolved over time as a result of close associations with each other, and their languages also resemble one another to a certain extent. Korean and Chinese are two languages that often get confused amongst those who are not familiar with them.
Korean Language
The official language of North and South Korea and in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture of China, Korean is spoken by approximately 80 million people worldwide. It was adapted and written from Chinese hanji characters for over a millennium until the 15th century when Sejong the Great commissioned a writing system named Hangul. However, it only came into widespread use in the 20th century.
Descended from Old Korean, Middle Korean, and Old Korean to Modern Korean, some linguists consider Korean to belong to the controversial Altaic language family while others recognize it as a language isolate. It is similar to Altaic languages, yet it lacks several grammatical elements such as articles, relative pronouns, and fusional morphology. However, the Korean language is SOV in its syntax and agglutinative in its morphology.
Chinese Language
The Chinese language, forming one of the branches of the Sino-Tibetan language family, consists of a bouquet of mutually unintelligible language varieties. Some form of Chinese is spoken as the first language by about one-fifth of the world’s population, and it is said that among 7 to 13 main regional groups of Chinese, Mandarin is the most spoken by far in the world.
Standard Chinese is based upon the Beijing dialect of Mandarin. It is also the official language of the Republic of China (Taiwan) and the People’s Republic of China. Standard Chinese is also one of the official languages of Singapore and one of the six official languages of the United Nations.
During the early and middle Zhou dynasty (1046–256 BCE), Old Chinese was used, while during the Song, Sui, and Tang dynasties (6th through 10th centuries CE) and Southern and Northern Dynasties, Middle Chinese was used. However, until the mid-20th century, it is said that only the native local variety of Chinese was spoken by most southern Chinese.
Key Takeaways
- Korean is the official language of North and South Korea and in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture of China, whereas Chinese is a group of languages and the most spoken language in the world.
- Some linguists consider Korean to belong to the Altaic language family, while Chinese cannot be properly categorized into any such group.
- In written Chinese, Chinese characters are used, while in Korean, Hangeul characters are used.
