North–South differences in the Korean language

The Korean language has diverged between North and South Korea due to the length of time that the two states have been separated.

The Korean Language Society in 1933 made the "Proposal for Unified Korean Orthography", which continued to be used by both Korean states after the end of Japanese rule in 1945. But with the establishments of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and the Republic of Korea in 1948, the two states have taken on differing policies regarding the language.

Researching language differences between North and South Korea has been challenging, and there have been reports of inaccurate results. First of all, it is hard to know how North Koreans use their standard language because of the heavy propaganda against it. North Korea states its standard language as the language of Pyongyang. However, South Korean authors have claimed it is more similar to the pre-divided Seoul dialect than the pre-divided Pyongyang dialect, and suggested that its pronunciation and grammar are based on the Seoul area rather than the Pyongyang area.

In South Korea, there is also heavy political propaganda against the standard language of North Korea, with some officials believing that it is strange that North and South Korean speech are similar, and the lack of information about North Korea means that defectors often speak a dialect rather than a standard language in North Korea.

Some argue that North and South Koreans are also confused by North Korean propaganda and the South's over-interpretation of it. North Korea emphasizes the purity of its language and claims to have reduced the use of foreign words, but the reality is that many foreign words appear in North Korean dictionaries and textbooks. North Korean defectors say they knew that the language spoken by South Koreans contained foreign words, but they did not realize that the language they used in North Korea also contained many foreign words.

In some cases, South Korean schools have taught North Koreans to use purified words that are not actually used in North Korea, leading to disputes in South Korea over whether a North Korean defector actually uses the word in North Korea. Some scholars have also been reluctant to believe a study that found that the most common loanwords in North Korea were not Russian loanwords but English loanwords.

Development
In 1954, North Korea set out the rules for Korean orthography. Although this was only a minor revision in orthography that created little difference from that used in the South, from then on, the standard languages in the North and the South gradually differed more and more from each other.

In the 1960s, under the influence of the Juche ideology, came a big change in linguistic policies in North Korea. On 3 January 1964, Kim Il Sung issued his teachings on "A Number of Issues on the Development of the Korean language", and on 14 May 1966 on the topic "In Rightly Advancing the National Characteristics of the Korean language" , from which the "Standard Korean Language" rules followed in the same year, issued by the National Language Revision Committee that was directly under the control of the cabinet.

From then on, more important differences came about between the standard language in the North and the South. In 1987, North Korea revised the aforementioned rules further, and these have remained in use until today. In addition, the rules for spacing were separately laid out in the "Standard Spacing Rules in Writing Korean" in 2000 but have since been superseded by "Rules for Spacing in Writing Korean", issued in 2003.

South Korea continued to use the  as defined in 1933, until its amendment "Korean Orthography", together with "Standard Language Regulations" , were issued in 1988, which remain in use today.

As with the Korean phonology article, this article uses IPA symbols in pipes for morphophonemics, slashes  for phonemes, and brackets  for allophones. Pan-Korean romanized words are largely in Revised Romanization, and North Korean-specific romanized words are largely in McCune-Reischauer. Also, for the sake of consistency, this article also phonetically transcribes ㅓ as for pan-Korean and South-specific phonology, and as  for North-specific phonology.

Hangul / Chosŏn'gŭl
The same Hangul / Chosŏn'gŭl letters are used to write the language in the North and the South. However, in the North, the stroke that distinguishes ㅌ from ㄷ  is written above rather than inside the letter, as is done in the South.

In the South, the vowel digraphs and trigraphs ㅐ, ㅒ , ㅔ , ㅖ , ㅘ , ㅙ , ㅚ , ㅝ , ㅞ , ㅟ , ㅢ , and the consonant digraphs ㄲ , ㄸ , ㅃ , ㅆ , ㅉ , are not treated as separate letters, whereas in the North they are. Some letters and digraphs have different names in the North and in the South:

The names used in the South are the ones found in the Hunmongjahoe (훈몽자회, 訓蒙字會, published 1527). The names used in the North are formed mechanically with the pattern "letter + 이 + 으 + letter". Also for the tensed consonants, in the South, they are called "double" (쌍- ) consonants, while in the North, they are called "strong" (된- ) consonants.

Sort order

 * Initial consonants
 * {|style="text-align:center"


 * style="text-align:left"|North:||ㄱ||ㄴ||ㄷ||ㄹ||ㅁ||ㅂ||ㅅ||ㅈ||ㅊ||ㅋ||ㅌ||ㅍ||ㅎ||ㄲ||ㄸ||ㅃ||ㅆ||ㅉ||ㅇ
 * ||[k]||[n]||[t]||[l]||[m]||[p]||[s]||[tɕ]||[tɕʰ]||[kʰ]||[tʰ]||[pʰ]||[h]||[k͈]||[t͈]||[p͈]||[s͈]||[tɕ͈]||[∅]
 * style="text-align:left" |South:||ㄱ||ㄲ||ㄴ||ㄷ||ㄸ||ㄹ||ㅁ||ㅂ||ㅃ||ㅅ||ㅆ||ㅇ||ㅈ||ㅉ||ㅊ||ㅋ||ㅌ||ㅍ||ㅎ
 * -style="text-align:center"
 * ||[k]||[k͈]||[n]||[t]||[t͈]||[l]||[m]||[p]||[p͈]||[s]||[s͈]||[∅]||[tɕ]||[tɕ͈]||[tɕʰ]||[kʰ]||[tʰ]||[pʰ]||[h]
 * }
 * Vowels
 * {|style="text-align:center"
 * Vowels
 * {|style="text-align:center"


 * style="text-align:left"|North:||ㅏ||ㅑ||ㅓ||ㅕ||ㅗ||ㅛ||ㅜ||ㅠ||ㅡ||ㅣ||ㅐ||ㅒ||ㅔ||ㅖ||ㅚ||ㅟ||ㅢ||ㅘ||ㅝ||ㅙ||ㅞ
 * ||[a]||[ja]||[ɔ]||[jɔ]||[o]||[jo]||[u]||[ju]||[ɯ]||[i]||[ɛ]||[jɛ]||[e]||[je]||[ø]||[y]||[ɰi]||[wa]||[wɔ]||[wɛ]||[we]
 * style="text-align:left" |South:||ㅏ||ㅐ||ㅑ||ㅒ||ㅓ||ㅔ||ㅕ||ㅖ||ㅗ||ㅘ||ㅙ||ㅚ||ㅛ||ㅜ||ㅝ||ㅞ||ㅟ||ㅠ||ㅡ||ㅢ||ㅣ
 * ||[a]||[ɛ]||[ja]||[jɛ]||[ʌ]||[e]||[jʌ]||[je]||[o]||[wa]||[wɛ]||[ø]||[jo]||[u]||[wʌ]||[we]||[y]||[ju]||[ɯ]||[ɰi]||[i]
 * }
 * Final consonants
 * {|style="text-align:center"
 * }
 * Final consonants
 * {|style="text-align:center"


 * style="text-align:left" |North:||(none)||ㄱ||ㄳ||ㄴ||ㄵ||ㄶ||ㄷ||ㄹ||ㄺ||ㄻ||ㄼ||ㄽ||ㄾ||ㄿ||ㅀ||ㅁ||ㅂ||ㅄ||ㅅ||ㅇ||ㅈ||ㅊ||ㅋ||ㅌ||ㅍ||ㅎ||ㄲ||ㅆ
 * style="text-align:left"|South:||(none)||ㄱ||ㄲ||ㄳ||ㄴ||ㄵ||ㄶ||ㄷ||ㄹ||ㄺ||ㄻ||ㄼ||ㄽ||ㄾ||ㄿ||ㅀ||ㅁ||ㅂ||ㅄ||ㅅ||ㅆ||ㅇ||ㅈ||ㅊ||ㅋ||ㅌ||ㅍ||ㅎ
 * }
 * style="text-align:left"|South:||(none)||ㄱ||ㄲ||ㄳ||ㄴ||ㄵ||ㄶ||ㄷ||ㄹ||ㄺ||ㄻ||ㄼ||ㄽ||ㄾ||ㄿ||ㅀ||ㅁ||ㅂ||ㅄ||ㅅ||ㅆ||ㅇ||ㅈ||ㅊ||ㅋ||ㅌ||ㅍ||ㅎ
 * }

In the North, the consonant letter ㅇ ( and ) is placed between ㅅ and ㅈ  when pronounced, but after all consonants (after ㅉ ) when used as a placeholder indicating a null initial consonant (for syllables that begin with a vowel).

Pronunciation
The standard languages in the North and the South share the same types and the same number of phonemes, but there are some differences in the actual pronunciations. The South Korean standard pronunciation is based on the dialect as spoken in Seoul, and the North Korean standard pronunciation is based on the dialect as spoken in Pyongyang. However, South Korean authors have argued that the standard language of North Korea is actually not based on the Pyongyang dialect, but rather on the 1933 norms, which are based on the Seoul dialect. For example, in the view of such authors the dialect of Pyongyang has 8 monophthongs, while the standard North Korean language has 10 monophthongs, like the old Seoul dialect.

Consonants
The following differences are recognised in the consonants. In the Seoul dialect, ㅈ, ㅊ and ㅉ are typically pronounced with alveolo-palatal affricates, ,. In the Pyongyang dialect, they are typically pronounced with alveolar affricates, ,. Also, 지 and 시 can be pronounced without palatalisation as and  in the Pyongyang dialect.

In the South, when ㄴ or ㄹ  are at the beginning of a Sino-Korean word and are followed immediately by  or, they are dropped, and when ㄹ  is not immediately followed by  or , it becomes ㄴ , with this change being indicated in the orthography. But all initial ㄴ and ㄹ  are written out and pronounced in the North. For instance, the common last name 이 (often written out in English as Lee, staying true to the more conservative typography and pronunciation), and the word 여자  are written and pronounced as 리  and 녀자  in North Korean. Furthermore, the South Korean word 내일, which means "tomorrow", is written and pronounced as 래일 in North Korea. But this latter pronunciation was artificially crafted using older pronunciations in the 1960s, so it is common for older speakers to be unable to pronounce initial ㄴ and ㄹ  properly, thus pronouncing such words in the same way as they are pronounced in the South.

In South Korea, the liquid consonant does not come after the nasal consonants  and. In this position, ㄹ is pronounced as rather than. But in North Korea, ㄹ before vowels ㅑ, ㅕ, ㅛ, and ㅠ can remain in this context (or assimilate to [n]).

Vowels
Some South Korean linguists argue that the vowel system in the North Korean standard is based on the Pyongyang dialect. The vowel ㅓ is not as rounded in the Seoul dialect as it is in the Pyongyang dialect. If expressed in IPA, it would be or  for the one in Seoul dialect and  for the one in Pyongyang dialect. Due to this roundedness, speakers of the Seoul dialect would find that ㅓ as pronounced by speakers of the Pyongyang dialect sounds close to the vowel ㅗ. Additionally, the difference between the vowels ㅐ and ㅔ  is slowly diminishing amongst the younger speakers of the Seoul dialect. It is not well known if this is also happening with the Pyongyang dialect.

However, other South Korean linguists have argued that North Korean linguistic texts suggest that the vowel system and articulation positions of the North Korean standard language were completely consistent with those of the South. In particular, the rules stipulated 10 monophthongs, just like the old Seoul dialect.

Pitch
The pitch patterns in the Pyongyang and Seoul dialects differ, but there has been little research in detail. On the other hand, in the Chosŏnmal Taesajŏn (조선말대사전), published in 1992, where the pitches for certain words are shown in a three-pitch system, a word such as 꾀꼬리 ( "black-naped oriole") is marked as having pitch "232" (where "2" is low and "3" is high), from which one can see some difference in pitch patterns from the Seoul dialect.

Informal non-polite suffix 어/여
In words in which the word stem ends in ㅣ, ㅐ , ㅔ , ㅚ , ㅟ , ㅢ , in forms where -어 is appended to these endings in the South, but -여  is instead appended in the North. In actual pronunciation, however, the sound often accompanies the pronunciation of such words, even in the South.

Indication of tensed consonants after word endings that end with ㄹ
In word endings where the final consonant is ㄹ, where the South spells -ㄹ까 and -ㄹ쏘냐  to indicate the tensed consonants, in the North these are spelled -ㄹ가 ，-ㄹ소냐  instead. These etymologically are formed by attaching to the adnominal form (관형사형 gwanhyeongsahyeong) that ends in ㄹ, and in the North, the tensed consonants are denoted with normal consonants. Also, the word ending -ㄹ게 used to be spelt -ㄹ께  in the South, but has since been changed in the Hangeul Matchumbeop of 1988, and is now spelt -ㄹ게 just like in the North.

Initial sound rule
Initial ㄴ / ㄹ (두음법칙[頭音法則, dueum beopchik], "initial sound rule")

Initial ㄴ / ㄹ  appearing in Sino-Korean words are kept in the North. In the South, in Sino-Korean words that begin with ㄹ which is followed by the vowel sound or the semivowel sound  (when ㄹ is followed by one of ㅣ, ㅑ , ㅕ , ㅖ , ㅛ  and ㅠ ), ㄹ is replaced by ㅇ ; when this ㄹ is followed by other vowels it is replaced by ㄴ. In the North, the initial ㄹ is kept.

Similarly, in Sino-Korean words that begin with ㄴ and is followed by the vowel sound  or the semi-vowel sound  (when ㄴ is followed by one of ㅣ, ㅕ , ㅛ  and ㅠ ), in the South, this ㄴ is replaced by ㅇ , but this remains unchanged in the North.

These are thus pronounced as written in the North as ㄴ and ㄹ. However, even in the South, sometimes in order to disambiguate the surnames 유 (柳 Yu ) and 임 (林 Im ) from 유 (兪 Yu ) and 임 (任 Im ), the former may be written or pronounced as 류 Ryu and 림 Rim 林.

Hanja pronunciation
Where a Hanja is written 몌 or 폐  in the South, this is written 메, 페  in the North (but even in the South, these are pronounced 메 , 페 ).

Some hanja characters are pronounced differently.

Also in the North, the hanja 讐 is usually pronounced as 수 su, except in the word 怨讐/원쑤 wŏnssu ("enemy"), where it is pronounced as 쑤 ssu. It is thought that this is to avoid the word becoming a homonym with 元帥 ("military general"), written as 원수 wŏnsu.

Word stems in compound words
While the general rule is to write out the word stem from which the compound word is formed in its original form, but in cases where the etymological origin is no longer remembered, this is no longer written in original form. This happens both in the North and in the South. However, whether a compound word is seen to have its etymological origin forgotten or not is seen differently by different people:

In the first example, in the South, the 올 part shows that the etymological origin is forgotten, and the word is written as pronounced as 올바르다  olbareuda, but in the North, the first part is seen to come from 옳다 olt'a  and thus the whole word is written 옳바르다 olbarŭda (pronounced the same as in the South). Conversely, in the second example, the South spelling catches the word as the combination of 벚 beot and 꽃 kkot, but in the North, this is no longer recognised and thus the word is written as pronounced as 벗꽃 pŏtkkot.

Spacing
In the South, the rules of spacing are not very clear-cut, but in the North, these are very precise. In general, compared to the North, the writing in the South tends to include more spacing. One likely explanation is that the North remains closer to the Sinitic orthographical heritage, where spacing is less of an issue than with a syllabary or alphabet such as Hangul. The main differences are indicated below.

Bound nouns
Before bound nouns (North: 불완전명사: purwanjŏn myŏngsa/不完全名詞 "incomplete nouns"; South: 의존 명사: /依存名詞 "dependent nouns"), a space is added in the South but not in the North. This applies to counter words also, but the space is sometimes allowed to be omitted in the South.

Auxiliaries
Before auxiliaries, a space is inserted in the South but not in the North. Depending on the situation, however, the space may be omitted in the South.

In the above, in the rules of the South, auxiliaries coming after -아/-어 or an adnominal form allow the space before them to be omitted, but the space after -고 cannot be omitted.

Words indicating a single concept
Words formed from two or more words that indicate a single concept in principle are written with spaces in the South and without spaces in the North, as in Chinese and Japanese.

Note that since the spacing rules in the South are often unknown, not followed, or optional, spellings vary from place to place. For example, taking the word 국어 사전 gugeo sajeon, people who see this as two words will add a space, and people who see this as one word will write it without a space. Thus, the spacing depends on how one views what "one word" consists of, and so, while spacing is standardised in the South, in reality the standard does not matter much.

Sai siot (사이 시옷, "middle ㅅ -s")
When forming compound words from uninflected words, where the so-called "sai siot" (-ㅅ- interfix), originating from an Old Korean genitive suffix, is inserted in the South. This is left out in the North.

Second person pronoun 동무 tongmu
Besides the deferential second person pronoun 당신 tangsin, which is a noun in origin, there is the pronoun 동무 tongmu (plural 동무들 tongmudŭl), from a noun meaning "friend, comrade", in North Korea that may be used when speaking to peers.

Third person feminine pronoun
The third person feminine pronoun is South Korea is 그녀 geu-nyeo (plural 그녀들 geu-nyeodeul) while in North Korea it is 그 녀자 kŭ nyŏja (plural 그 녀자들 kŭ nyŏjadŭl), both literally meaning "that woman".

Informal polite suffix 오 -o
In the South, the polite suffixes are 요 /-jo/ after a vowel and 아요/어요 /-ajo, -ʌjo/ after a consonant. In the North, the suffixes 오 /-o/ and 소 /-s͈o/ are appended after a vowel and a consonant respectively. The northern forms of the suffix are older and considered obsolete in South Korea now. However, suffixes such as 아요/어요 and 요 are not uncommon in North Korea, and are even used in the nursery rhyme "대홍단감자(Daehongdan Potato)," which is a common expression in the standard North Korean language that can be used for children.

ㅂ p-irregular inflections
In the South, when the word root of a ㅂ-irregular inflected word has two or more syllables (for example, 고맙다 ), the ㅂ is dropped and replaced with 우 in the next syllable. When conjugated to the polite speech level, the ㅂ-irregular stem resyllabifies with the 어요 conjugation to form 워요  (as in 고맙다  → 고마우  → 고마워요 ), appearing to ignore vowel harmony. ㅂ is not replaced with 우 in the North (as it also was in the South before the 1988 Hangeul Matchumbeop). The vowel harmony is kept in both the South and the North if the word root has only one syllable (for example, 돕다 topta/dopda).

Emphasis
In the North, names of leaders 김일성 (Kim Il Sung), 김정일 (Kim Jong Il) and 김정은 (Kim Jong Un) are always set off from surrounding text, typically by bolding the characters, increasing the font size, or both.

Vocabulary
The standard language in the South (표준어/標準語 pyojuneo) is largely based on the Seoul dialect, and the standard language (문화어/文化語 munhwaŏ) in the North is largely based on the Pyongyang dialect. However, both in the North and in the South, the vocabulary and forms of the standard language come from Sajeonghan Joseoneo Pyojunmal Mo-eum 사정한 조선어 표준말 모음 published by the Korean Language Society in 1936, and so there is very little difference in the basic vocabulary between the standard languages used in the North and the South. Nevertheless, due to the difference in political systems and social structure, each country is constantly adding different words to its vocabulary.

Differences due to the difference in political system or social structure
The word 동무 tongmu/dongmu that is used to mean "friend" in the North was originally used across the whole of Korea, but after the division of Korea, North Korea began to use it as a translation of the Russian term товарищ (friend, comrade), and since then, the word has come to mean "comrade" in the South as well and has fallen out of use there.

Differences in words of foreign origin
South Korea has borrowed a lot of English words, but North Korea has borrowed a number of Russian words, and there are numerous differences in words used between the two coming from these different borrowings. Even when the same English word is borrowed, how this word is transliterated into Korean may differ between the North and the South, resulting in different words being adapted into the corresponding standard languages. For names of other nations and their places, the principle is to base the transliteration on the English word in the South and to base the transliteration on the word in the original language in the North.

Other differences in vocabulary
The other differences between the standard languages in the North and in the South are thought to be caused by the differences between the Seoul and Pyongyang dialects.

Words like 강냉이 kangnaeng-i and 우 u are also sometimes heard in various dialects in South Korea.

There are also some words that exist only in the North. The verb 마스다 (to break) and its passive form 마사지다  (to be broken) have no exactly corresponding words in the South.

Issues
During the 2018 Winter Olympics, the two Korean countries decided to play jointly for the Korea women's national ice hockey team. This led to issues with the South Korean athletes communicating with the North Korean athletes since the former uses English-influenced words in their postwar vocabulary, especially for hockey, while the latter uses only Korean-inspired words for their postwar vocabulary.

The language differences also pose challenges for researchers and for the tens of thousands of people who have defected from one side to the other since the Korean War. The defectors face difficulty and notably discrimination because they lack vocabulary, use differing accents, or have not culturally assimilated yet so may not understand jokes or references to pop culture. South Koreans see the North Korean accent as strange and old-fashioned, making it a constant target of mockery and further exacerbating problems with North Korean integration.

The differences among northern and southern dialects have become so significant that many North Korean defectors reportedly have had great difficulty communicating with South Koreans after having initially settled into South Korea. In response to the diverging vocabularies, an app called Univoca was designed to help North Korean defectors learn South Korean terms by translating them into North Korean ones.

Meanwhile, in South Korea, some South Korean linguists and North Korean defectors have argued that South Korean media and education overemphasize or exaggerate the differences between North Korean and South Korean languages. At the 2014 National Conference of the Korean Language and Literature Association, Yonsei University professor Hong Yun-pyo argued that language differences between North and South Korea were exaggerated in the context of the Cold War.

According to Hong, after the Korean War, words like dongmu(동무; comrade, friend) and inmin(인민; people) that had been in common use in South Korea before that disappeared, and if anyone used them, they could be reported to the authorities, which was important evidence of espionage. The language differences between the North and South continued to be exaggerated. The language of the North, the North Korean language, was used to promote anti-communist ideology. He even said that research on North Korean in South Korea "has not been done with actual language materials."

Hong had numerous meetings with North Korean scholars for academic conferences and dictionary compilations, but he rarely encountered communication difficulties; rather, he was more likely to encounter communication difficulties with speakers of the Gyeongsang or Jeolla dialects.

Journalist Joo Sung-ha, a North Korean defector, and Park No-pyeong, a North Korean defector who worked as a professor in North Korea, claimed that there are exaggerations, such as claiming that vocabulary that is unfamiliar to South Koreans but also unfamiliar to North Koreans is common in North Korea, or claiming vocabulary that is different from the North Korean standard as the standard in North Korea. For example, he said that there are rumors in South Korea that the word jeon-gu(전구; bulb) is called bural(불알; balls) in North Korea, which is not true. Most North Korean defectors spoke the dialect of their homeland, not the standard North Korean language, which has some similarities to the standard South Korean language, and it is believed that many did not even know the standard North Korean language when they arrived in South Korea.

In South Korea, the idea that there are linguistic differences between the languages of North and South Korea gained traction until the mid-to-late 2010s. However, as exploration of the actual language of North Korea has progressed, it has been argued that any differences in communication between the two Koreas stem from "cultural" differences, such as economic conditions and traditional ways of expression in certain regions.

For example, North Korean defectors who have fled the country tend to have more direct communication habits that reveal their true feelings compared to South Korean language etiquette, which is prominent in defectors' hometowns but rare in other areas where defection is rare, such as Pyongyang.

The North Korean government has become increasingly wary of the Korean Wave, and as such, has been very wary of slangs that reflect South Korean culture since 2020. In January 2023, North Korea adopted a law that could lead to public execution for excessive use of South Korean slang, which the North's government labeled as "puppet language" or "koeroemal (괴뢰말)." The word oppa(오빠, originally used by a woman who was the younger sibling in a sibling relationship to refer to a man who was older than her, but in South Korea, also became a way for a younger woman to refer to her male lover in a romantic relationship) was a prime example of this.