North Korean standard language

North Korean standard language
문화어
Native toNorth Korea
EthnicityKoreans
EraSecond half of the 20 th century and 21 st century
Koreanic
  • Korean
    • North Korean standard language
Early forms
Chosŏn'gŭl
Official status
Official language in
 North Korea
Regulated byThe Language Research Institute, Academy of Social Science
(사회과학원 어학연구소)
Language codes
ISO 639-3
IETFko-KP
North Korean standard language
Hangul
문화어
Hanja
文化語
Revised RomanizationMunhwaeo
McCune–ReischauerMunhwaŏ
IPA/munhwɐʌ/
An example of North Korean standard language as spoken by the translator and Kim Jong Un at the 2018 North Korea–United States Singapore Summit

North Korean standard language or Munhwaŏ (Korean문화어; Hancha文化語; lit. "cultural language") is the North Korean standard version of the Korean language. Munhwaŏ was adopted as the standard in 1966. The adopting proclamation stated that the Pyongan dialect spoken in the North Korean capital Pyongyang and its surroundings should be the basis for Munhwaŏ. Though this view is supported by some linguists,[1] others posit that Munhwaŏ remains "firmly rooted" in the Seoul dialect, which had been the national standard for centuries. Thus, while the first group indicate that, besides the large divergence at the level of vocabulary, differences between the North and South Korean standards also include phonetic and phonological features, as well as stress and intonation,[2] the others consider these differences attributable to replacement of Sino-Korean vocabulary and other loanwords with pure Korean words, or the Northern ideological preference for "the speech of the working class" which includes some words considered non-standard in the South.[3]

  1. ^ Brown, Lucien; Yeon, Jaehoon (2015). The handbook of Korean linguistics (1st. ed.). Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. pp. 477, 484. ISBN 9781118371008.
  2. ^ Brown, Lucien; Yeon, Jaehoon (2015). The handbook of Korean linguistics (1st. ed.). Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. pp. 60–461. ISBN 9781118371008.
  3. ^ Lee, Iksop; Ramsey, S. Robert (2000). The Korean Language. SUNY Press. p. 309. ISBN 978-0-7914-4831-1.