Korean Language is the language of the Korean Peninsula in northeast Asia. It is believed that the ancestors of the Korean people arrived in the Korean peninsula and in Manchuria around 4000 BC. There are many theories about the origin and affiliation of the Korean language. What makes Korean linguistic affiliation very difficult to establish is its long history of contact with Chinese and Japanese. Based on southern theory, Korean belongs to Austronesian language family, but based on northern theory, Korean belongs to Altaic language family. People also argues that Korean might belong to the japonica group because the similarities between Korean and Japanese. Because I have very limited linguistic knowledge, I have no idea which language family Korean belongs to. However, I have studied Japanese and Chinese is my first language, I found a lot of similarity between these three languages. Japanese and Korean shares similar grammar structure, Subject, Object, and Verb, and conjugation between Subject, object, time, processive and place. At the same time, Chinese and Korean shares very similar vocabs, and just like Japanese, both language has a kanji system. Because Korean’s similarity with Japanese and Chinese, it is much easier for me to learn the language. For example Korean has a Chinese number system and Chinese characters are also used in Korean names. Because the similarity, I do see the influence from China and Japan.
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