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)
In the Other Atlases
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.
Wikidata: Koreanic
Wikidata Q11263525, class allow-list match (w-wdresolver-0926)View the Source 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.