Language

All Koreans speak and write the same language, which has been a decisive factor in forging their strong national identity. Koreans have developed several different dialects in addition to the standard used in Seoul. However, the dialects, except for that of Jeju-do province, are similar enough for native speakers to understand without any difficulties. Linguistic and ethnological studies have classified the Korean language into the Ural-Altaic language group, along with Turkish, Hungarian, Finnish, Mongolian, Tibetan and Japanese.

The Korean alphabet, called Hangeul, was created by a group of scholars under the patronage of King Sejong the Great during the 15th century. Before its creation, only a relatively small percentage of the population could learn the Chinese characters due to their difficulty.

In attempting to invent a Korean writing system, King Sejong and his scholars looked to several writing systems known to them at the time, such as Chinese old seal characters, the Uighur script and the Mongolian scripts. The system that they came up with, however, is predominantly based upon their phonological studies.

Above all, they developed a theory of tripartite division of the syllable into initial, medial and final phonemes, as opposed to the bipartite division of traditional Chinese phonology. Hangeul which consists of 10 vowels and 14 consonants, can be combined to form numerous syllabic groupings. It is simple, yet systematic and comprehensive, and is considered one of the most scientific writing systems in the world.

Hangeul is easy to learn and write, which has greatly contributed to Korea's high literacy rate and advanced publication industry.