Koreanic groups Korean with a small number of closely related, mostly extinct varieties historically spoken on the Korean peninsula. Like Japonic, its wider affiliations are unresolved: the once-influential Altaic hypothesis linking Korean to Turkic, Mongolic and Tungusic languages has fallen out of favor with most specialists for lack of the systematic sound correspondences a genetic relationship requires, so Koreanic is treated here as an independent family rather than as a proven branch of a larger grouping.
Facts
Disputed
Proto-Language StatusKorean is usually treated at the family level as a language isolate; Koreanic here groups it with the closely related and severely endangered Jeju language. Proposed deeper connections to Japonic or to a broader Altaic grouping are fringe hypotheses rejected by most comparative linguists. 3 Korean at the family level is usually treated as an isolate rather than as securely reconstructed from multiple sister languages. Speaker CountAggregate across Korean and Jeju; mid-2020s estimate. Connections
Includes
Source The Cambridge Encyclopedia of LanguageDavid Crystal (editor)
Sources
1. The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language
David Crystal (editor), Cambridge University Press, 2010
2. Ethnologue: Languages of the World
3. Glottolog
Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary AnthropologyComments on family membership section, glottolog.org/resource/languoid/id/kore1284Quote, Comments on family membership section, glottolog.org/resource/languoid/id/kore1284
for the latest critique of Altaic.
Reader Challenges (0)
No disputes yet. Spotted an error or a better source? Open the first one.
Sign in to dispute this or suggest a correction.