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Jakarta | Did the economy improve in Jakarta in 2007 | yes | data/set3/a5 | Jakarta
Jakarta (also DKI Jakarta) is the capital and largest city of Indonesia. Located on the northwest coast of Java, it has an area of and a population of 8,490,000. Jakarta is the country's economic, cultural and political center. It is the most populous city in Indonesia and Southeast Asia, and is the twelfth-largest city in the world. The metropolitan area, Jabodetabek, is the second largest in the world. Jakarta is listed as a global city in the 2008 Globalization and World Cities Study Group and Network (GaWC) research. the city's name is derived from the Sanskrit word "Jayakarta" (à¤à¤¯à¤à¤°à¥) which translates as "victorious deed," "complete act,"or "complete victory."
Established in the fourth century, the city became an important trading port for the Kingdom of Sunda. It grew as the capital of the colonial Dutch East Indies. It was made capital of Indonesia when the country became independent after World War II. It was formerly known as Sunda Kelapa (397â1527), Jayakarta (1527â1619), Batavia (1619â1942), and Djakarta (1942â1972).
Landmarks include the National Monument and Istiqlal Mosque. The city is the seat of the ASEAN Secretariat. Jakarta is served by the Soekarno-Hatta International Airport, Halim Perdanakusuma International Airport, and Tanjung Priok harbour; it is connected by several intercity and commuter railways, and served by several bus lines running on reserved busways.
The former Stadhuis of Batavia, the seat of Governor General of VOC. The building now serves as Jakarta History Museum, Jakarta Old Town area.
Dutch Batavia in the 17th Century, built in what is now North Jakarta
The Jakarta area was part of the fourth century Indianized kingdom of Tarumanagara. In AD 39, King Purnawarman established Sunda Pura as a new capital city for the kingdom, located at the northern coast of Java. Purnawarman left seven memorial stones across the area with inscriptions bearing his name, including the present-day Banten and West Java provinces. After the power of Tarumanagara declined, its territories, including Sunda Pura, became part of the Kingdom of Sunda. The harbour area was renamed Sunda Kalapa as written in a Hindu monk's lontar manuscripts. Bujangga Manik Manuscript which are now located at the Bodleian Library of Oxford University in England, and travel records by Prince Bujangga Manik.( ) By the fourteenth century, Sunda Kelapa became a major trading port for the kingdom. The first European fleet, four Portuguese ships from Malacca, arrived in 1513 when the Portuguese were looking for a route for spices, especially black pepper.
The Kingdom of Sunda made a peace agreement with Portugal by allowing the Portuguese to build a port in 1522 in order to defend against the rising power of the Sultanate of Demak from central Java.
In 1527, Fatahillah, a Sumatran Malay warrior from Demak attacked Kingdom of Sunda and succeeded in conquering the harbour on June 22, 1527, after which Sunda Kelapa was renamed Jayakarta.
The Castle of Batavia, seen from West Kali Besar by Andries Beeckman circa 1656-58
Through the relationship with Prince Jayawikarta from the Sultanate of Banten, Dutch ships arrived in Jayakarta in 1596. In 1602, the British East India Company's first voyage, commanded by Sir James Lancaster, arrived in Aceh and sailed on to Banten where they were allowed to build a trading post. This site became the center of British trade in Indonesia until 1682.
Jayawikarta is thought to have made trading connections with the English merchants, rivals of the Dutch, by allowing them to build houses directly across from the Dutch buildings in 1615. When relations between Prince Jayawikarta and the Dutch deteriorated, Jayawikarta's soldiers attacked the Dutch fortress. Prince Jayakarta's army and the British were defeated by the Dutch, in part owing to the timely arrival of Jan Pieterszoon Coen (J.P. Coen). The Dutch burned the English fort, and forced the English to retreat on their ships. The victory consolidated Dutch power and in 1619 they renamed the city "Batavia."
Batavia c.1870
Commercial opportunities in the capital of the Dutch colony attracted Indonesian and especially Chinese immigrants, the increasing numbers creating burdens on the city. Tensions grew as the colonial government tried to restrict Chinese migration through deportations. On 9 October 1740, 5,000 Chinese were massacred and the following year, Chinese inhabitants were moved to Glodok outside the city walls. The city began to move further south as epidemics in 1835 and 1870 encouraged more people to move far south of the port. The Koningsplein, now Merdeka Square was completed in 1818, the housing park of Menteng was started in 1913, and Kebayoran Baru was the last Dutch-built residential area. By 1930 Batavia had more than 500,000 inhabitants, Colonial Economy and Society, 1870-1940. Source: U.S. Library of Congress. including 37,067 Europeans. Governance Failure: Rethinking the Institutional Dimensions of Urban Water Supply to Poor Households. ScienceDirect.
The Japanese renamed the city "Jakarta" during their World War II occupation of Indonesia. Following World War II, Indonesian Republicans withdrew from allied-occupied Jakarta during their fight for Indonesian independence and established their capital in Yogyakarta. In 1950, once independence was secured, Jakarta was once again made the national capital. Indonesia's founding president, Sukarno, envisaged Jakarta as a great international city. He instigated large government-funded projects undertaken with openly nationalistic and modernist architecture. Projects in Jakarta included a clover-leaf highway, a major boulevard (Jalan MH Thamrin-Sudirman), monuments such as The National Monument, major hotels, shopping centre, and a new parliament building.
In October 1965, Jakarta was the site of an abortive coup attempt which saw 6 top generals killed, and ultimately resulted in the downfall of Sukarno and the start of Suharto's "New Order. A propaganda monument stands at the place where the general's bodies were dumped. In 1966, Jakarta was declared a "special capital city district" (daerah khusus ibukota), thus gaining a status approximately equivalent to that of a state or province. Lieutenant General Ali Sadikin served as Governor from the mid-60's commencement of the "New Order" through to 1977; he rehabilitated roads and bridges, encouraged the arts, built several hospitals, and a large number of new schools. He also cleared out slum dwellers for new development projects some for the benefit of the Suharto family and tried to eliminate rickshaws and ban street vendors. He began control of migration to the city in order to stem the overcrowding and poverty.
Foreign investment contributed to a real estate boom which changed the face of the city.
The boom ended with the 1997/98 East Asian Economic crisis putting Jakarta at the center of violence, protest, and political maneuvering. Long-time president, Suharto, began to lose his grip on power. Tensions reached a peak in the Jakarta riots of May 1998, when four students were shot dead at Trisakti University by security forces; four days of riots and violence ensued that killed an estimated 1,200, and destroyed or damaged 6,000 buildings. The Jakarta riots targeted Chinese Indonesians. Wages of Hatred. Michael Shari. Business Week. Suharto resigned as president, and Jakarta has remained the focal point of democratic change in Indonesia. Jemaah Islamiah-connected bombings have occurred in the city since 2000 on an almost annual basis, although the 2009 bombing of two international hotels was the first since 2005.
Map of the Cities (Kotamadya) of DKI Jakarta. Each Cities are divided into Subdistricts (Kecamatan)
Officially, Jakarta is not a city, but a province with special status as the capital of Indonesia. It has a governor (instead of a mayor), and is divided into several sub-regions with their own administrative systems. As a province, the official name of Jakarta is Daerah Khusus Ibukota Jakarta ("Special Capital City District of Jakarta"), which in Indonesian is abbreviated to DKI Jakarta.
Jakarta is divided into five kota or kotamadya ("cities" - formerly municipalities), each headed by a mayor, and one regency (kabupaten) headed by a regent. In August 2007, Jakarta held its first ever election to choose a governor, whereas previously the city's governors were appointed by local parliament. The poll is part of a country-wide decentralization drive, allowing for direct local elections in several areas.
The Cities/Municipalities of Jakarta are:
* Central Jakarta (Jakarta Pusat) is Jakarta's smallest city and home to most of Jakarta's administrative and political center. It is characterized by large parks and Dutch colonial buildings. Landmarks include the National Monument (Monas), the Istiqlal Mosque, and museums.
* West Jakarta (Jakarta Barat) has the highest concentration of small-scale industries in Jakarta. The area includes Jakarta's Chinatown and landmarks include the Chinese Langgam building and the Toko Merah building. West Jakarta contains part of the Jakarta Old Town.
* South Jakarta (Jakarta Selatan), previously planned as a satellite city, is now the location of large upscale shopping centers and affluent residential areas. Jakarta Selatan functions as Jakarta's ground water buffer, but recently the green belt areas are threatened by new developments. Most CBD area of Jakarta is concentrated in South Jakarta.
* East Jakarta (Jakarta Timur) territory is characterized with several industrial sectors erected in this city. There is also still some area of swamps and rice fields in this city.
* North Jakarta (Jakarta Utara) is the only city in Jakarta that is bounded by the sea (Java Sea). It is the location of the Tanjung Priok Port. Big-scale and medium-scale industries are concentrated in North Jakarta. North Jakarta contains the location of Jakarta Old Town, formerly known as Batavia since the 17 th century, and was a center of VOC trade activity in Dutch East Indies. Also located in North Jakarta is Ancol Dreamland (Taman Impian Jaya Ancol), currently the largest integrated tourism area in South East Asia.
The only Regency (Kabupaten) of Jakarta is:
* Thousand Islands (Kepulauan Seribu), formerly a subdistrict of North Jakarta, is a collection of 105 small islands located on Java Sea. It has a high conservation value because of its unique and special ecosystems. Marine tourism, such as diving, water bicycle, and wind surfing, is the most important touristic activities in this territory. The main transportation between these islands are speed boat or small ferries.
Since September 1945, the governmental of Jakarta City has been changed from the Japanese Djakarta Toku-Betsu Shi into Jakarta National Administration. This first government was held by a Mayor until the end of 1960 when it was changed into a Governor. The last Mayor of Jakarta is Sudiro, until he was replaced by Dr. Sumarno as a Governor.
In 1974, Based on the Act No. 5 of 1974 about Fundamental of Regional Government, Jakarta was stated as the Capital City of Indonesia and part of the 26 Province in Indonesia.
Jakarta is located on the northwest coast of Java, at the mouth of the Ciliwung River on Jakarta Bay, which is an inlet of the Java Sea. The city is a lowland area averaging 7 meters above sea level. Officially, the area of the Jakarta Special District is 662 km 2 of land area and 6,977 km 2 of sea area. Based on Governor Decree in 2007, No. 171. taken from Statistics DKI Jakarta Provincial Office, Jakarta in Figures, 2008, BPS Province of DKI Jakarta Rivers flow from the hilly southern parts of the city northwards towards the Java Sea. The most important river is the Ciliwung River, which divides the city into the western and eastern principalities.
The northern part of Jakarta lies on a plain, approximately eight meters above the sea level. This contributes to the frequent flooding. The coastal area extends around from west to east. The southern parts of the city are hilly. During the wet season, Jakarta suffers from flooding due to clogged sewage pipes and waterways, deforestation near rapidly urbanizing Bogor and Depok, and the fact that 40% of it is below sea level . Major floods occurred in 1996 Asiaviews - Asian News when 5,000 hectares of land were flooded and 2007. Bloomberg.com: Asia Losses from infrastructure damage and state revenue were at least 5.2 trillion rupiah (572 million US dollars) and at least 85 people were killed Three killed, 90,000 evacuated in Jakarta floods: officials - Yahoo! News and about 350,000 people forced from their homes.. Disease fears as floods ravage Jakarta Approximately 70% of Jakarta's total area was flooded with water up to four meters deep in parts of the city. Jakarta Flood Feb 2007 « (Geo) Information for All /ref>
The Thousand Islands, which are administratively a part of Jakarta, are located in Jakarta Bay north of the city.
Jakarta has a hot and humid equatorial/tropical climate (Af) according to the Köppen climate classification system. Located in the western-part of Indonesia, Jakarta's wet season rainfall peak is January with average monthly rainfall of , and its dry season low point is August with a monthly average of .
Average daily temperatures range from 25° to 36°C (77°-97°F).
Tanjidor orchestra celebrating the Chinese New Year.
As the economic and political capital of Indonesia, Jakarta attracts many domestic immigrants who bring their various languages, dialects, foods and customs.
The Betawi (Orang Betawi, or "people of Batavia") is a term used to describe the descendants of the people living in and around Batavia and recognized as an ethnic group from around the 18th-19th century. The Betawi people are mostly descended from various Southeast Asian ethnic groups brought or attracted to Batavia to meet labor needs, and include people from parts of Indonesia. The Betawi - due to their diverse origins - play a major role concerning ethnic and national identity in contemporary Jakarta; see Knörr, Jacqueline: Kreolität und postkoloniale Gesellschaft. Integration und Differenzierung in Jakarta, Campus Verlag: Frankfurt a.M. & New York, 2007, ISBN 978-3-593-38344-6 The language and the culture of these immigrants is distinct from that of the Sundanese or Javanese. The language is more based on the East Malay dialect and enriched by loan words from Sundanese, Javanese, Chinese, and Arabic. Nowadays, the Jakarta-dialects used by people in Jakarta are loosely based on the Betawi language.
The parade of Ondel-ondel, a Betawi large puppet-mask dance.
Betawi arts are rarely found in Jakarta due to their infamous low-profile and most Betawi have moved to the border of Jakarta, displaced by new immigrants. It is easier to find Java or Minang based wedding ceremonial instead of Betawi weddings in Jakarta. It is easier to find Javanese Gamelan instead of Gambang Kromong (a mixture between Betawi and Chinese music) or Tanjidor (a mixture between Betawi and Portuguese music) or Marawis (a mixture between Betawi and Yaman music). However, some festivals such as the Jalan Jaksa Festival or Kemang Festival include efforts to preserve Betawi arts by inviting artists to give performances.
There has also been a Chinese community in Jakarta for many centuries. Officially, they make up 6% of the Jakarta population, though this number may be under-reported.
Jakarta has several performing art centers, such as the Taman Ismail Marzuki (TIM) art center in Cikini, Gedung Kesenian Jakarta near Pasar Baru, Balai Sarbini in Plaza Semanggi area, Bentara Budaya Jakarta in Palmerah area, Pasar Seni (Art Market) in Ancol, and traditional Indonesian art performances at the pavilions of some Provinces in Taman Mini Indonesia Indah. Traditional music is often found at high-class hotels, including Wayang and Gamelan performances. Javanese Wayang Orang performance can be found at Wayang Orang Bharata theater near Senen bus terminal. As the nation's largest city and capital, Jakarta has lured much national and regional talent who hope to find a greater audience and more opportunities for success.
Jakarta is hosting several prestigious art and culture festivals as well as exhibitions, such as the annual Jakarta International Film Festival (JiFFest), Jakarta International Java Jazz Festival, Jakarta Fashion Week, Jakarta Fashion & Food Festival (JFFF), Flona Jakarta (Flora and Fauna exhibition, held annually on August in Lapangan Banteng park featuring flowers, plant nursery, and pets), also Indonesia Creative Products and Jakarta Arts and Crafts exhibition. The Jakarta Fair is held annually from mid June to mid July to celebrate the anniversary of the city. It is largely centered around a trade fair, however this month-long fair also has featured entertainments, arts and music performances by local bands and musicians.
Several foreign art and culture centers also established in Jakarta, mainly serve to promote culture and language through learning centers, libraries, and art galleries. Among these foreign art and cultural centers are Netherlands Erasmus Huis, UK British Council, France Centre Culturel Français, Germany Goethe-Institut, Japan Foundation, and Jawaharlal Nehru Indian Cultural Center.
National Museum of Indonesia in Central Jakarta
The museums in Jakarta cluster around the Central Jakarta Merdeka Square area, Jakarta Old Town, and Taman Mini Indonesia Indah.
The Jakarta Old Town contains museums that are former institution buildings of Batavia. Some of these museums are Jakarta History Museum (former City Hall of Batavia), Wayang Museum, the Fine Art and Ceramic Museum (former Court House of Batavia), Maritime Museum (former Sunda Kelapa warehouse), Bank Indonesia Museum, and Bank Mandiri Museum.
Several museums that are clustered around the Merdeka Square area are National Museum of Indonesia, Monas, Bayt al-Qur'an and Istiqlal Islamic Museum, and Jakarta Cathedral Museum.
The recreational area of Taman Mini Indonesia Indah in East Jakarta contains fourteen museums such as Purna Bhakti Pertiwi Museum, Asmat Museum, and other science-based museum such as Research & Technology Information Centre, Insect Museum, Petrol and Gas Museum.
Other museums are Satria Mandala Military Museum, Museum Sumpah Pemuda, and Lubang Buaya.
Jakarta has a vast range of food available at hundreds of eating complexes located all over the city. There is also international food, especially Indian, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean food because of the cosmopolitan population. /ref> One of the popular local cuisine of Jakarta is Soto betawi, which is a cow milk or coconut milk broth with beef tendons, intestines, tripe. The other popular cuisine are kerak telor, gado-gado, and cucur.
Daily newspapers in Jakarta include Bisnis Indonesia, Investor Daily, Jakarta Globe, The Jakarta Post, Indo Pos, Seputar Indonesia, Kompas, Media Indonesia, Republika, Pos Kota, Warta Kota, Lampu Merah and Suara Pembaruan.
* Government television: TVRI.
* Private national television: TPI, RCTI, Metro TV, Indosiar, StarANTV, SCTV, Trans TV, TV ONE, Trans 7, and Global TV.
* Local television: Jak-TV, O-Channel, and Space-Toon.
* Cable television: First Media, TelkomVision
* Satellite television: Indovision, Astro Nusantara, TelkomVision, Aora TV
The headquarter of Bank Indonesia in Central Jakarta. Financial services, trade and manufacturing are the largest sectors of the city's economy.
Jakarta's economy depends heavily on financial service, trade, and manufacturing. Industry includes electronics, automotive, chemicals, mechanical engineering and biomedical sciences manufacturing. In 2009, 13% of the population had an income per capita in excess of US$ 10,000 (Rp 108,000,000).
The economic growth of Jakarta in 2007 was 6.44% up from 5.95% the previous year, with the growth in the transportation and communication (15.25%), construction (7.81%) and trade, hotel and restaurant sectors (6.88%). In 2007, GRP (Growth Regional Domestic Product) was Rp. 566.45 trillion. The largest contributions to GDRP was by finance, ownership and business services (28.7%); trade, hotel and restaurant sector (20.4%), and manufacturing industry sector (15.97%). In 2007, per capita GRDP of DKI Jakarta inhabitants was an 11.63% compared to previous year
Both GRDP by at current market price and GRDP by at 2000 constant price in 2007 for Municipality of Central Jakarta (Jakarta Pusat) is higher than other municipalities in DKI Jakarta, which is 145.81 million rupiahs and 80.78 million rupiahs.
A new law in 2007 forbids the giving of money to beggars, buskers and hawkers, bans squatter settlements on river banks and highways, and prohibits spitting and smoking on public transportation. Unauthorized people cleaning car windscreens and taking tips for directing traffic at intersections will also be penalized. Critics of the new legislation claim that such laws will be difficult to enforce and it tends to ignore the desperate poverty of many of the capital's inhabitants. "Condemned Communities: Forced Evictions in Jakarta" Human Rights Watch Sep 2006.
In 2005, Jakarta's contribution to the national GDP was 17% up from 15% in 2000. The manufacturing and construction sectors in Jakarta decreased indicating that Jakarta has shifted from industry city to the services city. Most manufacturing plants in Jakarta have been relocated to peripheral areas like Tangerang, Bogor, Depok and Bekasi.
Based on 2007 National Socio-Economic Survey estimates, the population of DKI Jakarta Province was 9.06 million. The area of DKI Jakarta is 662.33 km 2 , suggesting a population density of 137,000 people/km 2 . Population growth between 2000 and 2007 was 1.11 percent compared 0.15 percent during the 1990s. Inwards immigration tended to negate the effect of family planning programs. The population has risen from 1.2 million in 1960 to 8.8 million in 2004, counting only its legal residents. The population of greater Jakarta is estimated at 23 million, making it the second largest urban area in the world. By 2025 the population of Jakarta may reach 24.9 million, not counting millions more in surrounding areas. Far Eastern Economic Review, Asia 1998 Yearbook, p. 63.
Population growth has outgrown the government's ability to provide basic needs for its residents. Jakarta suffers from severe traffic congestion. Air pollution and waste management are also problems.
Jakarta's Central Business District along the Jenderal Sudirman Road, centered at the Wisma 46 building, currently the tallest office building in Indonesia.
West Irian Liberation Statue, one of the many Sukarno era monuments in the city.
The National Monument
The National Monument, stands at the center of Merdeka Square, the central park of the city. Other landmarks include the Istiqlal Mosque and Jakarta Cathedral. The Wisma 46 building in Central Jakarta is currently the highest building in Jakarta and Indonesia. Tourist attractions include Taman Mini Indonesia Indah, Ragunan Zoo, Jakarta Old Town, and Ancol Dreamland complex on Jakarta Bay, include Dunia Fantasi theme park, Sea World, Atlantis Water Adventure, and Gelanggang Samudra.
Jakarta shopping malls with areas in excess of 100,000 metres square, include Grand Indonesia, Plaza Indonesia, Senayan City, Plaza Senayan, Pondok Indah Mall, Mal Taman Anggrek, Mal Kelapa Gading, Mal Artha Gading. /ref> Traditional markets include Blok M, Tanah Abang, Senen, Glodok, Mangga Dua, Cempaka Mas, and Jatinegara.
Taman Suropati is located in Menteng garden city subdistrict, Central Jakarta. The park is surrounded by several Dutch colonial buildings. Taman Suropati was known as Burgemeester Bishopplein during the Dutch colonial time. The park is circular shaped with a surface area of 16,322 m2. There are several modern statues in the park made by artists of the ASEAN countries, which contributes to the other nickname of the park "Taman persahabatan seniman ASEAN" ("Park of the ASEAN artists relationship").
Taman Lapangan Banteng (Banteng Field Park) is located in Central Jakarta. It is about 4,5 hectares. The most notable landmark inside the park is the Monumen Pembebasan Irian Barat (Monument of the Liberation of Irian Barat). During the 1980s, the park is used as a bus terminal. In 1993, the park turned into a public space again and has become a recreation place for people and occasionally also used as an exhibition place or other events.
Taman Monas (Monas Park) or Taman Medan Merdeka (Medan Merdeka Park) is the park where the symbol of Jakarta, Monas or Monumen Nasional (National Monument) is located. The large open space was created by Dutch Governor General Herman Willem Deandels (1870) and was completed in 1910 under the name of Koningsplein. on 10 Januari 1993, President Soeharto initiate the action toward the beautification of the park. Several features in the park is a deer park and 33 trees that represents the 33 provinces of Indonesia.
Jalan Thamrin, the main avenue in Central Jakarta
One of the most populous cities in the world, Jakarta is strained by transportation problems. In Indonesia most communal transport is provided by mikrolets, which are privately run minibuses although these normally stay off the main roads.
Jakarta suffers from traffic congestion. A 'three in one' rule during peak hour was introduced in 1992, prohibiting fewer than three passengers per car on certain roads.
Motorised bajaj
Auto rickshaws, called bajaj, provide local transportation in the back streets of some parts of the city. From the early 1940s to 1991 they were a common form of local transportation in the city. In 1966, an estimated 160,000 rickshaws were operating in the city; as much as fifteen percent of Jakarta's total workforce was engaged in rickshaw driving. In 1971, rickshaws were banned from major roads, and shortly thereafter the government attempted a total ban, which substantially reduced their numbers but did not eliminate them. A campaign to eliminate them succeeded in 1990 and 1991, but during the economic crisis of 1998, some returned amid less effective government attempts to control them. Azuma, Yoshifumi (2003). Urban peasants: beca drivers in Jakarta. Jakarta: Pustaka Sinar Harapan.
TransJakarta bus service in Jakarta
The TransJakarta bus rapid transit service operates on seven reserved busway corridors in the city; connecting seven main points of Jakarta. The first TransJakarta line, from Blok M to Jakarta Kota opened in January 2004.
An outer ring road is under constructed and is partly operational A toll road connects Jakarta to Soekarno-Hatta International Airport in the northwest of Jakarta, as are the port of Merak and Tangerang to the west, and Bogor and Puncak to the south. Bekasi, Cikarang, Karawang, Cikampek, Purwakarta, and Bandung to the east.
A train at Gambir station in Central Jakarta
Railways connect the city to its neighboring regions: Depok and Bogor to the south, Tangerang and Serpong to the west, and Bekasi, Karawang, and Cikampek to the east. The major rail stations are Gambir, Jakarta Kota, Jatinegara, Pasar Senen, Manggarai, and Tanah Abang. During peak hours, the number of passengers greatly exceeds the system's capacity, and crowding is common.
Two lines of the Jakarta Monorail are under construction: the green line serving Semanggi-Casablanca Road-Kuningan-Semanggi and the blue line serving Kampung Melayu-Casablanca Road-Tanah Abang-Roxy. There are plans for a two-line metro (MRT) system, with a north-south line between Kota and Lebak Bulus, with connections to both monorail lines; and an east-west line, which will connect with the north-south line at the Sawah Besar station. The current project, which began in 2005, has been delayed due to a lack of funds, and the project has been abandoned by the developer PT Jakarta Monorail in March 2008.
On 6 June 2007, the city administration started to introduce the Waterway, a new river boat service along the Ciliwung River.
Soekarno-Hatta International Airport (CGK) is Jakarta's major airport. It is Indonesia's busiest airport handling more than 30 million passengers annually. A second airport, Halim Perdanakusuma International Airport (HLP) serves mostly private and VVIP/presidential flights.
The main seaport for this transportation mode is the Tanjung Priok seaport.
The biggest university in Jakarta is the University of Indonesia with campuses in Salemba and Depok. /ref> Others government universities include Jakarta State University, Jakarta State Polytechnic, and Jakarta Islamic State University. Nowadays, the oldest of which is the privately-owned Universitas Nasional (UNAS). Web Universitas Nasional 1949 Private universities in Jakarta include Trisakti University Atma Jaya University, and Tarumanagara University.
STOVIA was the first high school in Jakarta, established in 1851. As the largest city and the capital, Jakarta houses a large number of students from various parts of Indonesia, many of whom reside in dormitories or home-stay residences. For basic education, there are a variety of primary and secondary schools, tagged with public (national), private (national and bi-lingual national plus) and international schools. Two of the major international schools located in Jakarta are the Jakarta International School and the British International School (BIS).
The Bung Karno Stadium is capable of hosting 100,000 spectators
Jakarta was host to the Asian Games in 1962, /ref> host of the Asian Cup 2007, /ref> and has hosted the regional-scale Sea Games several times. Jakarta's most popular footbal club is Persija, which plays its matches in the Lebak Bulus Stadium. Another premiere division team is Persitara.
The biggest stadium in Jakarta is the Bung Karno Stadium with a capacity of 100,000 seats Football stadiums of the world - Stadiums in Indonesia . For basketball, the Kelapa Gading Sport Mall in Kelapa Gading, North Jakarta, with a capacity of 7,000 seats, is the home arena of the Indonesian national basketball team. The Senayan sports complex has several sport venues, including the Bung Karno soccer stadium, Madya Stadium, Istora Senayan, a shooting range, a tennis court and a golf driving range. The Senayan complex was built in 1959 to accommodate the Asian Games in 1962.
In 2011, Jakarta, together with Bandung, will again host the Southeast Asian Games.
A trash dump in Bantar Gebang, Bekasi
Surveys show that "less than a quarter of the population is fully served by improved water sources. The rest rely on a variety of sources, including rivers, lakes and private water vendors. Some 7.2 million people are [without clean water]." United Nations Human Development Report 2006, p. 39
Sister relationships with towns and regions worldwide include:
*History of Jakarta
*Port of Jakarta
* Official website
* Jakarta Official Travel Website
*
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Jakarta | Did the economy improve in Jakarta in 2007 | Yes | data/set3/a5 | Jakarta
Jakarta (also DKI Jakarta) is the capital and largest city of Indonesia. Located on the northwest coast of Java, it has an area of and a population of 8,490,000. Jakarta is the country's economic, cultural and political center. It is the most populous city in Indonesia and Southeast Asia, and is the twelfth-largest city in the world. The metropolitan area, Jabodetabek, is the second largest in the world. Jakarta is listed as a global city in the 2008 Globalization and World Cities Study Group and Network (GaWC) research. the city's name is derived from the Sanskrit word "Jayakarta" (à¤à¤¯à¤à¤°à¥) which translates as "victorious deed," "complete act,"or "complete victory."
Established in the fourth century, the city became an important trading port for the Kingdom of Sunda. It grew as the capital of the colonial Dutch East Indies. It was made capital of Indonesia when the country became independent after World War II. It was formerly known as Sunda Kelapa (397â1527), Jayakarta (1527â1619), Batavia (1619â1942), and Djakarta (1942â1972).
Landmarks include the National Monument and Istiqlal Mosque. The city is the seat of the ASEAN Secretariat. Jakarta is served by the Soekarno-Hatta International Airport, Halim Perdanakusuma International Airport, and Tanjung Priok harbour; it is connected by several intercity and commuter railways, and served by several bus lines running on reserved busways.
The former Stadhuis of Batavia, the seat of Governor General of VOC. The building now serves as Jakarta History Museum, Jakarta Old Town area.
Dutch Batavia in the 17th Century, built in what is now North Jakarta
The Jakarta area was part of the fourth century Indianized kingdom of Tarumanagara. In AD 39, King Purnawarman established Sunda Pura as a new capital city for the kingdom, located at the northern coast of Java. Purnawarman left seven memorial stones across the area with inscriptions bearing his name, including the present-day Banten and West Java provinces. After the power of Tarumanagara declined, its territories, including Sunda Pura, became part of the Kingdom of Sunda. The harbour area was renamed Sunda Kalapa as written in a Hindu monk's lontar manuscripts. Bujangga Manik Manuscript which are now located at the Bodleian Library of Oxford University in England, and travel records by Prince Bujangga Manik.( ) By the fourteenth century, Sunda Kelapa became a major trading port for the kingdom. The first European fleet, four Portuguese ships from Malacca, arrived in 1513 when the Portuguese were looking for a route for spices, especially black pepper.
The Kingdom of Sunda made a peace agreement with Portugal by allowing the Portuguese to build a port in 1522 in order to defend against the rising power of the Sultanate of Demak from central Java.
In 1527, Fatahillah, a Sumatran Malay warrior from Demak attacked Kingdom of Sunda and succeeded in conquering the harbour on June 22, 1527, after which Sunda Kelapa was renamed Jayakarta.
The Castle of Batavia, seen from West Kali Besar by Andries Beeckman circa 1656-58
Through the relationship with Prince Jayawikarta from the Sultanate of Banten, Dutch ships arrived in Jayakarta in 1596. In 1602, the British East India Company's first voyage, commanded by Sir James Lancaster, arrived in Aceh and sailed on to Banten where they were allowed to build a trading post. This site became the center of British trade in Indonesia until 1682.
Jayawikarta is thought to have made trading connections with the English merchants, rivals of the Dutch, by allowing them to build houses directly across from the Dutch buildings in 1615. When relations between Prince Jayawikarta and the Dutch deteriorated, Jayawikarta's soldiers attacked the Dutch fortress. Prince Jayakarta's army and the British were defeated by the Dutch, in part owing to the timely arrival of Jan Pieterszoon Coen (J.P. Coen). The Dutch burned the English fort, and forced the English to retreat on their ships. The victory consolidated Dutch power and in 1619 they renamed the city "Batavia."
Batavia c.1870
Commercial opportunities in the capital of the Dutch colony attracted Indonesian and especially Chinese immigrants, the increasing numbers creating burdens on the city. Tensions grew as the colonial government tried to restrict Chinese migration through deportations. On 9 October 1740, 5,000 Chinese were massacred and the following year, Chinese inhabitants were moved to Glodok outside the city walls. The city began to move further south as epidemics in 1835 and 1870 encouraged more people to move far south of the port. The Koningsplein, now Merdeka Square was completed in 1818, the housing park of Menteng was started in 1913, and Kebayoran Baru was the last Dutch-built residential area. By 1930 Batavia had more than 500,000 inhabitants, Colonial Economy and Society, 1870-1940. Source: U.S. Library of Congress. including 37,067 Europeans. Governance Failure: Rethinking the Institutional Dimensions of Urban Water Supply to Poor Households. ScienceDirect.
The Japanese renamed the city "Jakarta" during their World War II occupation of Indonesia. Following World War II, Indonesian Republicans withdrew from allied-occupied Jakarta during their fight for Indonesian independence and established their capital in Yogyakarta. In 1950, once independence was secured, Jakarta was once again made the national capital. Indonesia's founding president, Sukarno, envisaged Jakarta as a great international city. He instigated large government-funded projects undertaken with openly nationalistic and modernist architecture. Projects in Jakarta included a clover-leaf highway, a major boulevard (Jalan MH Thamrin-Sudirman), monuments such as The National Monument, major hotels, shopping centre, and a new parliament building.
In October 1965, Jakarta was the site of an abortive coup attempt which saw 6 top generals killed, and ultimately resulted in the downfall of Sukarno and the start of Suharto's "New Order. A propaganda monument stands at the place where the general's bodies were dumped. In 1966, Jakarta was declared a "special capital city district" (daerah khusus ibukota), thus gaining a status approximately equivalent to that of a state or province. Lieutenant General Ali Sadikin served as Governor from the mid-60's commencement of the "New Order" through to 1977; he rehabilitated roads and bridges, encouraged the arts, built several hospitals, and a large number of new schools. He also cleared out slum dwellers for new development projects some for the benefit of the Suharto family and tried to eliminate rickshaws and ban street vendors. He began control of migration to the city in order to stem the overcrowding and poverty.
Foreign investment contributed to a real estate boom which changed the face of the city.
The boom ended with the 1997/98 East Asian Economic crisis putting Jakarta at the center of violence, protest, and political maneuvering. Long-time president, Suharto, began to lose his grip on power. Tensions reached a peak in the Jakarta riots of May 1998, when four students were shot dead at Trisakti University by security forces; four days of riots and violence ensued that killed an estimated 1,200, and destroyed or damaged 6,000 buildings. The Jakarta riots targeted Chinese Indonesians. Wages of Hatred. Michael Shari. Business Week. Suharto resigned as president, and Jakarta has remained the focal point of democratic change in Indonesia. Jemaah Islamiah-connected bombings have occurred in the city since 2000 on an almost annual basis, although the 2009 bombing of two international hotels was the first since 2005.
Map of the Cities (Kotamadya) of DKI Jakarta. Each Cities are divided into Subdistricts (Kecamatan)
Officially, Jakarta is not a city, but a province with special status as the capital of Indonesia. It has a governor (instead of a mayor), and is divided into several sub-regions with their own administrative systems. As a province, the official name of Jakarta is Daerah Khusus Ibukota Jakarta ("Special Capital City District of Jakarta"), which in Indonesian is abbreviated to DKI Jakarta.
Jakarta is divided into five kota or kotamadya ("cities" - formerly municipalities), each headed by a mayor, and one regency (kabupaten) headed by a regent. In August 2007, Jakarta held its first ever election to choose a governor, whereas previously the city's governors were appointed by local parliament. The poll is part of a country-wide decentralization drive, allowing for direct local elections in several areas.
The Cities/Municipalities of Jakarta are:
* Central Jakarta (Jakarta Pusat) is Jakarta's smallest city and home to most of Jakarta's administrative and political center. It is characterized by large parks and Dutch colonial buildings. Landmarks include the National Monument (Monas), the Istiqlal Mosque, and museums.
* West Jakarta (Jakarta Barat) has the highest concentration of small-scale industries in Jakarta. The area includes Jakarta's Chinatown and landmarks include the Chinese Langgam building and the Toko Merah building. West Jakarta contains part of the Jakarta Old Town.
* South Jakarta (Jakarta Selatan), previously planned as a satellite city, is now the location of large upscale shopping centers and affluent residential areas. Jakarta Selatan functions as Jakarta's ground water buffer, but recently the green belt areas are threatened by new developments. Most CBD area of Jakarta is concentrated in South Jakarta.
* East Jakarta (Jakarta Timur) territory is characterized with several industrial sectors erected in this city. There is also still some area of swamps and rice fields in this city.
* North Jakarta (Jakarta Utara) is the only city in Jakarta that is bounded by the sea (Java Sea). It is the location of the Tanjung Priok Port. Big-scale and medium-scale industries are concentrated in North Jakarta. North Jakarta contains the location of Jakarta Old Town, formerly known as Batavia since the 17 th century, and was a center of VOC trade activity in Dutch East Indies. Also located in North Jakarta is Ancol Dreamland (Taman Impian Jaya Ancol), currently the largest integrated tourism area in South East Asia.
The only Regency (Kabupaten) of Jakarta is:
* Thousand Islands (Kepulauan Seribu), formerly a subdistrict of North Jakarta, is a collection of 105 small islands located on Java Sea. It has a high conservation value because of its unique and special ecosystems. Marine tourism, such as diving, water bicycle, and wind surfing, is the most important touristic activities in this territory. The main transportation between these islands are speed boat or small ferries.
Since September 1945, the governmental of Jakarta City has been changed from the Japanese Djakarta Toku-Betsu Shi into Jakarta National Administration. This first government was held by a Mayor until the end of 1960 when it was changed into a Governor. The last Mayor of Jakarta is Sudiro, until he was replaced by Dr. Sumarno as a Governor.
In 1974, Based on the Act No. 5 of 1974 about Fundamental of Regional Government, Jakarta was stated as the Capital City of Indonesia and part of the 26 Province in Indonesia.
Jakarta is located on the northwest coast of Java, at the mouth of the Ciliwung River on Jakarta Bay, which is an inlet of the Java Sea. The city is a lowland area averaging 7 meters above sea level. Officially, the area of the Jakarta Special District is 662 km 2 of land area and 6,977 km 2 of sea area. Based on Governor Decree in 2007, No. 171. taken from Statistics DKI Jakarta Provincial Office, Jakarta in Figures, 2008, BPS Province of DKI Jakarta Rivers flow from the hilly southern parts of the city northwards towards the Java Sea. The most important river is the Ciliwung River, which divides the city into the western and eastern principalities.
The northern part of Jakarta lies on a plain, approximately eight meters above the sea level. This contributes to the frequent flooding. The coastal area extends around from west to east. The southern parts of the city are hilly. During the wet season, Jakarta suffers from flooding due to clogged sewage pipes and waterways, deforestation near rapidly urbanizing Bogor and Depok, and the fact that 40% of it is below sea level . Major floods occurred in 1996 Asiaviews - Asian News when 5,000 hectares of land were flooded and 2007. Bloomberg.com: Asia Losses from infrastructure damage and state revenue were at least 5.2 trillion rupiah (572 million US dollars) and at least 85 people were killed Three killed, 90,000 evacuated in Jakarta floods: officials - Yahoo! News and about 350,000 people forced from their homes.. Disease fears as floods ravage Jakarta Approximately 70% of Jakarta's total area was flooded with water up to four meters deep in parts of the city. Jakarta Flood Feb 2007 « (Geo) Information for All /ref>
The Thousand Islands, which are administratively a part of Jakarta, are located in Jakarta Bay north of the city.
Jakarta has a hot and humid equatorial/tropical climate (Af) according to the Köppen climate classification system. Located in the western-part of Indonesia, Jakarta's wet season rainfall peak is January with average monthly rainfall of , and its dry season low point is August with a monthly average of .
Average daily temperatures range from 25° to 36°C (77°-97°F).
Tanjidor orchestra celebrating the Chinese New Year.
As the economic and political capital of Indonesia, Jakarta attracts many domestic immigrants who bring their various languages, dialects, foods and customs.
The Betawi (Orang Betawi, or "people of Batavia") is a term used to describe the descendants of the people living in and around Batavia and recognized as an ethnic group from around the 18th-19th century. The Betawi people are mostly descended from various Southeast Asian ethnic groups brought or attracted to Batavia to meet labor needs, and include people from parts of Indonesia. The Betawi - due to their diverse origins - play a major role concerning ethnic and national identity in contemporary Jakarta; see Knörr, Jacqueline: Kreolität und postkoloniale Gesellschaft. Integration und Differenzierung in Jakarta, Campus Verlag: Frankfurt a.M. & New York, 2007, ISBN 978-3-593-38344-6 The language and the culture of these immigrants is distinct from that of the Sundanese or Javanese. The language is more based on the East Malay dialect and enriched by loan words from Sundanese, Javanese, Chinese, and Arabic. Nowadays, the Jakarta-dialects used by people in Jakarta are loosely based on the Betawi language.
The parade of Ondel-ondel, a Betawi large puppet-mask dance.
Betawi arts are rarely found in Jakarta due to their infamous low-profile and most Betawi have moved to the border of Jakarta, displaced by new immigrants. It is easier to find Java or Minang based wedding ceremonial instead of Betawi weddings in Jakarta. It is easier to find Javanese Gamelan instead of Gambang Kromong (a mixture between Betawi and Chinese music) or Tanjidor (a mixture between Betawi and Portuguese music) or Marawis (a mixture between Betawi and Yaman music). However, some festivals such as the Jalan Jaksa Festival or Kemang Festival include efforts to preserve Betawi arts by inviting artists to give performances.
There has also been a Chinese community in Jakarta for many centuries. Officially, they make up 6% of the Jakarta population, though this number may be under-reported.
Jakarta has several performing art centers, such as the Taman Ismail Marzuki (TIM) art center in Cikini, Gedung Kesenian Jakarta near Pasar Baru, Balai Sarbini in Plaza Semanggi area, Bentara Budaya Jakarta in Palmerah area, Pasar Seni (Art Market) in Ancol, and traditional Indonesian art performances at the pavilions of some Provinces in Taman Mini Indonesia Indah. Traditional music is often found at high-class hotels, including Wayang and Gamelan performances. Javanese Wayang Orang performance can be found at Wayang Orang Bharata theater near Senen bus terminal. As the nation's largest city and capital, Jakarta has lured much national and regional talent who hope to find a greater audience and more opportunities for success.
Jakarta is hosting several prestigious art and culture festivals as well as exhibitions, such as the annual Jakarta International Film Festival (JiFFest), Jakarta International Java Jazz Festival, Jakarta Fashion Week, Jakarta Fashion & Food Festival (JFFF), Flona Jakarta (Flora and Fauna exhibition, held annually on August in Lapangan Banteng park featuring flowers, plant nursery, and pets), also Indonesia Creative Products and Jakarta Arts and Crafts exhibition. The Jakarta Fair is held annually from mid June to mid July to celebrate the anniversary of the city. It is largely centered around a trade fair, however this month-long fair also has featured entertainments, arts and music performances by local bands and musicians.
Several foreign art and culture centers also established in Jakarta, mainly serve to promote culture and language through learning centers, libraries, and art galleries. Among these foreign art and cultural centers are Netherlands Erasmus Huis, UK British Council, France Centre Culturel Français, Germany Goethe-Institut, Japan Foundation, and Jawaharlal Nehru Indian Cultural Center.
National Museum of Indonesia in Central Jakarta
The museums in Jakarta cluster around the Central Jakarta Merdeka Square area, Jakarta Old Town, and Taman Mini Indonesia Indah.
The Jakarta Old Town contains museums that are former institution buildings of Batavia. Some of these museums are Jakarta History Museum (former City Hall of Batavia), Wayang Museum, the Fine Art and Ceramic Museum (former Court House of Batavia), Maritime Museum (former Sunda Kelapa warehouse), Bank Indonesia Museum, and Bank Mandiri Museum.
Several museums that are clustered around the Merdeka Square area are National Museum of Indonesia, Monas, Bayt al-Qur'an and Istiqlal Islamic Museum, and Jakarta Cathedral Museum.
The recreational area of Taman Mini Indonesia Indah in East Jakarta contains fourteen museums such as Purna Bhakti Pertiwi Museum, Asmat Museum, and other science-based museum such as Research & Technology Information Centre, Insect Museum, Petrol and Gas Museum.
Other museums are Satria Mandala Military Museum, Museum Sumpah Pemuda, and Lubang Buaya.
Jakarta has a vast range of food available at hundreds of eating complexes located all over the city. There is also international food, especially Indian, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean food because of the cosmopolitan population. /ref> One of the popular local cuisine of Jakarta is Soto betawi, which is a cow milk or coconut milk broth with beef tendons, intestines, tripe. The other popular cuisine are kerak telor, gado-gado, and cucur.
Daily newspapers in Jakarta include Bisnis Indonesia, Investor Daily, Jakarta Globe, The Jakarta Post, Indo Pos, Seputar Indonesia, Kompas, Media Indonesia, Republika, Pos Kota, Warta Kota, Lampu Merah and Suara Pembaruan.
* Government television: TVRI.
* Private national television: TPI, RCTI, Metro TV, Indosiar, StarANTV, SCTV, Trans TV, TV ONE, Trans 7, and Global TV.
* Local television: Jak-TV, O-Channel, and Space-Toon.
* Cable television: First Media, TelkomVision
* Satellite television: Indovision, Astro Nusantara, TelkomVision, Aora TV
The headquarter of Bank Indonesia in Central Jakarta. Financial services, trade and manufacturing are the largest sectors of the city's economy.
Jakarta's economy depends heavily on financial service, trade, and manufacturing. Industry includes electronics, automotive, chemicals, mechanical engineering and biomedical sciences manufacturing. In 2009, 13% of the population had an income per capita in excess of US$ 10,000 (Rp 108,000,000).
The economic growth of Jakarta in 2007 was 6.44% up from 5.95% the previous year, with the growth in the transportation and communication (15.25%), construction (7.81%) and trade, hotel and restaurant sectors (6.88%). In 2007, GRP (Growth Regional Domestic Product) was Rp. 566.45 trillion. The largest contributions to GDRP was by finance, ownership and business services (28.7%); trade, hotel and restaurant sector (20.4%), and manufacturing industry sector (15.97%). In 2007, per capita GRDP of DKI Jakarta inhabitants was an 11.63% compared to previous year
Both GRDP by at current market price and GRDP by at 2000 constant price in 2007 for Municipality of Central Jakarta (Jakarta Pusat) is higher than other municipalities in DKI Jakarta, which is 145.81 million rupiahs and 80.78 million rupiahs.
A new law in 2007 forbids the giving of money to beggars, buskers and hawkers, bans squatter settlements on river banks and highways, and prohibits spitting and smoking on public transportation. Unauthorized people cleaning car windscreens and taking tips for directing traffic at intersections will also be penalized. Critics of the new legislation claim that such laws will be difficult to enforce and it tends to ignore the desperate poverty of many of the capital's inhabitants. "Condemned Communities: Forced Evictions in Jakarta" Human Rights Watch Sep 2006.
In 2005, Jakarta's contribution to the national GDP was 17% up from 15% in 2000. The manufacturing and construction sectors in Jakarta decreased indicating that Jakarta has shifted from industry city to the services city. Most manufacturing plants in Jakarta have been relocated to peripheral areas like Tangerang, Bogor, Depok and Bekasi.
Based on 2007 National Socio-Economic Survey estimates, the population of DKI Jakarta Province was 9.06 million. The area of DKI Jakarta is 662.33 km 2 , suggesting a population density of 137,000 people/km 2 . Population growth between 2000 and 2007 was 1.11 percent compared 0.15 percent during the 1990s. Inwards immigration tended to negate the effect of family planning programs. The population has risen from 1.2 million in 1960 to 8.8 million in 2004, counting only its legal residents. The population of greater Jakarta is estimated at 23 million, making it the second largest urban area in the world. By 2025 the population of Jakarta may reach 24.9 million, not counting millions more in surrounding areas. Far Eastern Economic Review, Asia 1998 Yearbook, p. 63.
Population growth has outgrown the government's ability to provide basic needs for its residents. Jakarta suffers from severe traffic congestion. Air pollution and waste management are also problems.
Jakarta's Central Business District along the Jenderal Sudirman Road, centered at the Wisma 46 building, currently the tallest office building in Indonesia.
West Irian Liberation Statue, one of the many Sukarno era monuments in the city.
The National Monument
The National Monument, stands at the center of Merdeka Square, the central park of the city. Other landmarks include the Istiqlal Mosque and Jakarta Cathedral. The Wisma 46 building in Central Jakarta is currently the highest building in Jakarta and Indonesia. Tourist attractions include Taman Mini Indonesia Indah, Ragunan Zoo, Jakarta Old Town, and Ancol Dreamland complex on Jakarta Bay, include Dunia Fantasi theme park, Sea World, Atlantis Water Adventure, and Gelanggang Samudra.
Jakarta shopping malls with areas in excess of 100,000 metres square, include Grand Indonesia, Plaza Indonesia, Senayan City, Plaza Senayan, Pondok Indah Mall, Mal Taman Anggrek, Mal Kelapa Gading, Mal Artha Gading. /ref> Traditional markets include Blok M, Tanah Abang, Senen, Glodok, Mangga Dua, Cempaka Mas, and Jatinegara.
Taman Suropati is located in Menteng garden city subdistrict, Central Jakarta. The park is surrounded by several Dutch colonial buildings. Taman Suropati was known as Burgemeester Bishopplein during the Dutch colonial time. The park is circular shaped with a surface area of 16,322 m2. There are several modern statues in the park made by artists of the ASEAN countries, which contributes to the other nickname of the park "Taman persahabatan seniman ASEAN" ("Park of the ASEAN artists relationship").
Taman Lapangan Banteng (Banteng Field Park) is located in Central Jakarta. It is about 4,5 hectares. The most notable landmark inside the park is the Monumen Pembebasan Irian Barat (Monument of the Liberation of Irian Barat). During the 1980s, the park is used as a bus terminal. In 1993, the park turned into a public space again and has become a recreation place for people and occasionally also used as an exhibition place or other events.
Taman Monas (Monas Park) or Taman Medan Merdeka (Medan Merdeka Park) is the park where the symbol of Jakarta, Monas or Monumen Nasional (National Monument) is located. The large open space was created by Dutch Governor General Herman Willem Deandels (1870) and was completed in 1910 under the name of Koningsplein. on 10 Januari 1993, President Soeharto initiate the action toward the beautification of the park. Several features in the park is a deer park and 33 trees that represents the 33 provinces of Indonesia.
Jalan Thamrin, the main avenue in Central Jakarta
One of the most populous cities in the world, Jakarta is strained by transportation problems. In Indonesia most communal transport is provided by mikrolets, which are privately run minibuses although these normally stay off the main roads.
Jakarta suffers from traffic congestion. A 'three in one' rule during peak hour was introduced in 1992, prohibiting fewer than three passengers per car on certain roads.
Motorised bajaj
Auto rickshaws, called bajaj, provide local transportation in the back streets of some parts of the city. From the early 1940s to 1991 they were a common form of local transportation in the city. In 1966, an estimated 160,000 rickshaws were operating in the city; as much as fifteen percent of Jakarta's total workforce was engaged in rickshaw driving. In 1971, rickshaws were banned from major roads, and shortly thereafter the government attempted a total ban, which substantially reduced their numbers but did not eliminate them. A campaign to eliminate them succeeded in 1990 and 1991, but during the economic crisis of 1998, some returned amid less effective government attempts to control them. Azuma, Yoshifumi (2003). Urban peasants: beca drivers in Jakarta. Jakarta: Pustaka Sinar Harapan.
TransJakarta bus service in Jakarta
The TransJakarta bus rapid transit service operates on seven reserved busway corridors in the city; connecting seven main points of Jakarta. The first TransJakarta line, from Blok M to Jakarta Kota opened in January 2004.
An outer ring road is under constructed and is partly operational A toll road connects Jakarta to Soekarno-Hatta International Airport in the northwest of Jakarta, as are the port of Merak and Tangerang to the west, and Bogor and Puncak to the south. Bekasi, Cikarang, Karawang, Cikampek, Purwakarta, and Bandung to the east.
A train at Gambir station in Central Jakarta
Railways connect the city to its neighboring regions: Depok and Bogor to the south, Tangerang and Serpong to the west, and Bekasi, Karawang, and Cikampek to the east. The major rail stations are Gambir, Jakarta Kota, Jatinegara, Pasar Senen, Manggarai, and Tanah Abang. During peak hours, the number of passengers greatly exceeds the system's capacity, and crowding is common.
Two lines of the Jakarta Monorail are under construction: the green line serving Semanggi-Casablanca Road-Kuningan-Semanggi and the blue line serving Kampung Melayu-Casablanca Road-Tanah Abang-Roxy. There are plans for a two-line metro (MRT) system, with a north-south line between Kota and Lebak Bulus, with connections to both monorail lines; and an east-west line, which will connect with the north-south line at the Sawah Besar station. The current project, which began in 2005, has been delayed due to a lack of funds, and the project has been abandoned by the developer PT Jakarta Monorail in March 2008.
On 6 June 2007, the city administration started to introduce the Waterway, a new river boat service along the Ciliwung River.
Soekarno-Hatta International Airport (CGK) is Jakarta's major airport. It is Indonesia's busiest airport handling more than 30 million passengers annually. A second airport, Halim Perdanakusuma International Airport (HLP) serves mostly private and VVIP/presidential flights.
The main seaport for this transportation mode is the Tanjung Priok seaport.
The biggest university in Jakarta is the University of Indonesia with campuses in Salemba and Depok. /ref> Others government universities include Jakarta State University, Jakarta State Polytechnic, and Jakarta Islamic State University. Nowadays, the oldest of which is the privately-owned Universitas Nasional (UNAS). Web Universitas Nasional 1949 Private universities in Jakarta include Trisakti University Atma Jaya University, and Tarumanagara University.
STOVIA was the first high school in Jakarta, established in 1851. As the largest city and the capital, Jakarta houses a large number of students from various parts of Indonesia, many of whom reside in dormitories or home-stay residences. For basic education, there are a variety of primary and secondary schools, tagged with public (national), private (national and bi-lingual national plus) and international schools. Two of the major international schools located in Jakarta are the Jakarta International School and the British International School (BIS).
The Bung Karno Stadium is capable of hosting 100,000 spectators
Jakarta was host to the Asian Games in 1962, /ref> host of the Asian Cup 2007, /ref> and has hosted the regional-scale Sea Games several times. Jakarta's most popular footbal club is Persija, which plays its matches in the Lebak Bulus Stadium. Another premiere division team is Persitara.
The biggest stadium in Jakarta is the Bung Karno Stadium with a capacity of 100,000 seats Football stadiums of the world - Stadiums in Indonesia . For basketball, the Kelapa Gading Sport Mall in Kelapa Gading, North Jakarta, with a capacity of 7,000 seats, is the home arena of the Indonesian national basketball team. The Senayan sports complex has several sport venues, including the Bung Karno soccer stadium, Madya Stadium, Istora Senayan, a shooting range, a tennis court and a golf driving range. The Senayan complex was built in 1959 to accommodate the Asian Games in 1962.
In 2011, Jakarta, together with Bandung, will again host the Southeast Asian Games.
A trash dump in Bantar Gebang, Bekasi
Surveys show that "less than a quarter of the population is fully served by improved water sources. The rest rely on a variety of sources, including rivers, lakes and private water vendors. Some 7.2 million people are [without clean water]." United Nations Human Development Report 2006, p. 39
Sister relationships with towns and regions worldwide include:
*History of Jakarta
*Port of Jakarta
* Official website
* Jakarta Official Travel Website
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Jakarta | In AD 39, King Purnawarman established Sunda Pura as a new capital city for the kingdom, located at the northern coast of where? | Java | data/set3/a5 | Jakarta
Jakarta (also DKI Jakarta) is the capital and largest city of Indonesia. Located on the northwest coast of Java, it has an area of and a population of 8,490,000. Jakarta is the country's economic, cultural and political center. It is the most populous city in Indonesia and Southeast Asia, and is the twelfth-largest city in the world. The metropolitan area, Jabodetabek, is the second largest in the world. Jakarta is listed as a global city in the 2008 Globalization and World Cities Study Group and Network (GaWC) research. the city's name is derived from the Sanskrit word "Jayakarta" (à¤à¤¯à¤à¤°à¥) which translates as "victorious deed," "complete act,"or "complete victory."
Established in the fourth century, the city became an important trading port for the Kingdom of Sunda. It grew as the capital of the colonial Dutch East Indies. It was made capital of Indonesia when the country became independent after World War II. It was formerly known as Sunda Kelapa (397â1527), Jayakarta (1527â1619), Batavia (1619â1942), and Djakarta (1942â1972).
Landmarks include the National Monument and Istiqlal Mosque. The city is the seat of the ASEAN Secretariat. Jakarta is served by the Soekarno-Hatta International Airport, Halim Perdanakusuma International Airport, and Tanjung Priok harbour; it is connected by several intercity and commuter railways, and served by several bus lines running on reserved busways.
The former Stadhuis of Batavia, the seat of Governor General of VOC. The building now serves as Jakarta History Museum, Jakarta Old Town area.
Dutch Batavia in the 17th Century, built in what is now North Jakarta
The Jakarta area was part of the fourth century Indianized kingdom of Tarumanagara. In AD 39, King Purnawarman established Sunda Pura as a new capital city for the kingdom, located at the northern coast of Java. Purnawarman left seven memorial stones across the area with inscriptions bearing his name, including the present-day Banten and West Java provinces. After the power of Tarumanagara declined, its territories, including Sunda Pura, became part of the Kingdom of Sunda. The harbour area was renamed Sunda Kalapa as written in a Hindu monk's lontar manuscripts. Bujangga Manik Manuscript which are now located at the Bodleian Library of Oxford University in England, and travel records by Prince Bujangga Manik.( ) By the fourteenth century, Sunda Kelapa became a major trading port for the kingdom. The first European fleet, four Portuguese ships from Malacca, arrived in 1513 when the Portuguese were looking for a route for spices, especially black pepper.
The Kingdom of Sunda made a peace agreement with Portugal by allowing the Portuguese to build a port in 1522 in order to defend against the rising power of the Sultanate of Demak from central Java.
In 1527, Fatahillah, a Sumatran Malay warrior from Demak attacked Kingdom of Sunda and succeeded in conquering the harbour on June 22, 1527, after which Sunda Kelapa was renamed Jayakarta.
The Castle of Batavia, seen from West Kali Besar by Andries Beeckman circa 1656-58
Through the relationship with Prince Jayawikarta from the Sultanate of Banten, Dutch ships arrived in Jayakarta in 1596. In 1602, the British East India Company's first voyage, commanded by Sir James Lancaster, arrived in Aceh and sailed on to Banten where they were allowed to build a trading post. This site became the center of British trade in Indonesia until 1682.
Jayawikarta is thought to have made trading connections with the English merchants, rivals of the Dutch, by allowing them to build houses directly across from the Dutch buildings in 1615. When relations between Prince Jayawikarta and the Dutch deteriorated, Jayawikarta's soldiers attacked the Dutch fortress. Prince Jayakarta's army and the British were defeated by the Dutch, in part owing to the timely arrival of Jan Pieterszoon Coen (J.P. Coen). The Dutch burned the English fort, and forced the English to retreat on their ships. The victory consolidated Dutch power and in 1619 they renamed the city "Batavia."
Batavia c.1870
Commercial opportunities in the capital of the Dutch colony attracted Indonesian and especially Chinese immigrants, the increasing numbers creating burdens on the city. Tensions grew as the colonial government tried to restrict Chinese migration through deportations. On 9 October 1740, 5,000 Chinese were massacred and the following year, Chinese inhabitants were moved to Glodok outside the city walls. The city began to move further south as epidemics in 1835 and 1870 encouraged more people to move far south of the port. The Koningsplein, now Merdeka Square was completed in 1818, the housing park of Menteng was started in 1913, and Kebayoran Baru was the last Dutch-built residential area. By 1930 Batavia had more than 500,000 inhabitants, Colonial Economy and Society, 1870-1940. Source: U.S. Library of Congress. including 37,067 Europeans. Governance Failure: Rethinking the Institutional Dimensions of Urban Water Supply to Poor Households. ScienceDirect.
The Japanese renamed the city "Jakarta" during their World War II occupation of Indonesia. Following World War II, Indonesian Republicans withdrew from allied-occupied Jakarta during their fight for Indonesian independence and established their capital in Yogyakarta. In 1950, once independence was secured, Jakarta was once again made the national capital. Indonesia's founding president, Sukarno, envisaged Jakarta as a great international city. He instigated large government-funded projects undertaken with openly nationalistic and modernist architecture. Projects in Jakarta included a clover-leaf highway, a major boulevard (Jalan MH Thamrin-Sudirman), monuments such as The National Monument, major hotels, shopping centre, and a new parliament building.
In October 1965, Jakarta was the site of an abortive coup attempt which saw 6 top generals killed, and ultimately resulted in the downfall of Sukarno and the start of Suharto's "New Order. A propaganda monument stands at the place where the general's bodies were dumped. In 1966, Jakarta was declared a "special capital city district" (daerah khusus ibukota), thus gaining a status approximately equivalent to that of a state or province. Lieutenant General Ali Sadikin served as Governor from the mid-60's commencement of the "New Order" through to 1977; he rehabilitated roads and bridges, encouraged the arts, built several hospitals, and a large number of new schools. He also cleared out slum dwellers for new development projects some for the benefit of the Suharto family and tried to eliminate rickshaws and ban street vendors. He began control of migration to the city in order to stem the overcrowding and poverty.
Foreign investment contributed to a real estate boom which changed the face of the city.
The boom ended with the 1997/98 East Asian Economic crisis putting Jakarta at the center of violence, protest, and political maneuvering. Long-time president, Suharto, began to lose his grip on power. Tensions reached a peak in the Jakarta riots of May 1998, when four students were shot dead at Trisakti University by security forces; four days of riots and violence ensued that killed an estimated 1,200, and destroyed or damaged 6,000 buildings. The Jakarta riots targeted Chinese Indonesians. Wages of Hatred. Michael Shari. Business Week. Suharto resigned as president, and Jakarta has remained the focal point of democratic change in Indonesia. Jemaah Islamiah-connected bombings have occurred in the city since 2000 on an almost annual basis, although the 2009 bombing of two international hotels was the first since 2005.
Map of the Cities (Kotamadya) of DKI Jakarta. Each Cities are divided into Subdistricts (Kecamatan)
Officially, Jakarta is not a city, but a province with special status as the capital of Indonesia. It has a governor (instead of a mayor), and is divided into several sub-regions with their own administrative systems. As a province, the official name of Jakarta is Daerah Khusus Ibukota Jakarta ("Special Capital City District of Jakarta"), which in Indonesian is abbreviated to DKI Jakarta.
Jakarta is divided into five kota or kotamadya ("cities" - formerly municipalities), each headed by a mayor, and one regency (kabupaten) headed by a regent. In August 2007, Jakarta held its first ever election to choose a governor, whereas previously the city's governors were appointed by local parliament. The poll is part of a country-wide decentralization drive, allowing for direct local elections in several areas.
The Cities/Municipalities of Jakarta are:
* Central Jakarta (Jakarta Pusat) is Jakarta's smallest city and home to most of Jakarta's administrative and political center. It is characterized by large parks and Dutch colonial buildings. Landmarks include the National Monument (Monas), the Istiqlal Mosque, and museums.
* West Jakarta (Jakarta Barat) has the highest concentration of small-scale industries in Jakarta. The area includes Jakarta's Chinatown and landmarks include the Chinese Langgam building and the Toko Merah building. West Jakarta contains part of the Jakarta Old Town.
* South Jakarta (Jakarta Selatan), previously planned as a satellite city, is now the location of large upscale shopping centers and affluent residential areas. Jakarta Selatan functions as Jakarta's ground water buffer, but recently the green belt areas are threatened by new developments. Most CBD area of Jakarta is concentrated in South Jakarta.
* East Jakarta (Jakarta Timur) territory is characterized with several industrial sectors erected in this city. There is also still some area of swamps and rice fields in this city.
* North Jakarta (Jakarta Utara) is the only city in Jakarta that is bounded by the sea (Java Sea). It is the location of the Tanjung Priok Port. Big-scale and medium-scale industries are concentrated in North Jakarta. North Jakarta contains the location of Jakarta Old Town, formerly known as Batavia since the 17 th century, and was a center of VOC trade activity in Dutch East Indies. Also located in North Jakarta is Ancol Dreamland (Taman Impian Jaya Ancol), currently the largest integrated tourism area in South East Asia.
The only Regency (Kabupaten) of Jakarta is:
* Thousand Islands (Kepulauan Seribu), formerly a subdistrict of North Jakarta, is a collection of 105 small islands located on Java Sea. It has a high conservation value because of its unique and special ecosystems. Marine tourism, such as diving, water bicycle, and wind surfing, is the most important touristic activities in this territory. The main transportation between these islands are speed boat or small ferries.
Since September 1945, the governmental of Jakarta City has been changed from the Japanese Djakarta Toku-Betsu Shi into Jakarta National Administration. This first government was held by a Mayor until the end of 1960 when it was changed into a Governor. The last Mayor of Jakarta is Sudiro, until he was replaced by Dr. Sumarno as a Governor.
In 1974, Based on the Act No. 5 of 1974 about Fundamental of Regional Government, Jakarta was stated as the Capital City of Indonesia and part of the 26 Province in Indonesia.
Jakarta is located on the northwest coast of Java, at the mouth of the Ciliwung River on Jakarta Bay, which is an inlet of the Java Sea. The city is a lowland area averaging 7 meters above sea level. Officially, the area of the Jakarta Special District is 662 km 2 of land area and 6,977 km 2 of sea area. Based on Governor Decree in 2007, No. 171. taken from Statistics DKI Jakarta Provincial Office, Jakarta in Figures, 2008, BPS Province of DKI Jakarta Rivers flow from the hilly southern parts of the city northwards towards the Java Sea. The most important river is the Ciliwung River, which divides the city into the western and eastern principalities.
The northern part of Jakarta lies on a plain, approximately eight meters above the sea level. This contributes to the frequent flooding. The coastal area extends around from west to east. The southern parts of the city are hilly. During the wet season, Jakarta suffers from flooding due to clogged sewage pipes and waterways, deforestation near rapidly urbanizing Bogor and Depok, and the fact that 40% of it is below sea level . Major floods occurred in 1996 Asiaviews - Asian News when 5,000 hectares of land were flooded and 2007. Bloomberg.com: Asia Losses from infrastructure damage and state revenue were at least 5.2 trillion rupiah (572 million US dollars) and at least 85 people were killed Three killed, 90,000 evacuated in Jakarta floods: officials - Yahoo! News and about 350,000 people forced from their homes.. Disease fears as floods ravage Jakarta Approximately 70% of Jakarta's total area was flooded with water up to four meters deep in parts of the city. Jakarta Flood Feb 2007 « (Geo) Information for All /ref>
The Thousand Islands, which are administratively a part of Jakarta, are located in Jakarta Bay north of the city.
Jakarta has a hot and humid equatorial/tropical climate (Af) according to the Köppen climate classification system. Located in the western-part of Indonesia, Jakarta's wet season rainfall peak is January with average monthly rainfall of , and its dry season low point is August with a monthly average of .
Average daily temperatures range from 25° to 36°C (77°-97°F).
Tanjidor orchestra celebrating the Chinese New Year.
As the economic and political capital of Indonesia, Jakarta attracts many domestic immigrants who bring their various languages, dialects, foods and customs.
The Betawi (Orang Betawi, or "people of Batavia") is a term used to describe the descendants of the people living in and around Batavia and recognized as an ethnic group from around the 18th-19th century. The Betawi people are mostly descended from various Southeast Asian ethnic groups brought or attracted to Batavia to meet labor needs, and include people from parts of Indonesia. The Betawi - due to their diverse origins - play a major role concerning ethnic and national identity in contemporary Jakarta; see Knörr, Jacqueline: Kreolität und postkoloniale Gesellschaft. Integration und Differenzierung in Jakarta, Campus Verlag: Frankfurt a.M. & New York, 2007, ISBN 978-3-593-38344-6 The language and the culture of these immigrants is distinct from that of the Sundanese or Javanese. The language is more based on the East Malay dialect and enriched by loan words from Sundanese, Javanese, Chinese, and Arabic. Nowadays, the Jakarta-dialects used by people in Jakarta are loosely based on the Betawi language.
The parade of Ondel-ondel, a Betawi large puppet-mask dance.
Betawi arts are rarely found in Jakarta due to their infamous low-profile and most Betawi have moved to the border of Jakarta, displaced by new immigrants. It is easier to find Java or Minang based wedding ceremonial instead of Betawi weddings in Jakarta. It is easier to find Javanese Gamelan instead of Gambang Kromong (a mixture between Betawi and Chinese music) or Tanjidor (a mixture between Betawi and Portuguese music) or Marawis (a mixture between Betawi and Yaman music). However, some festivals such as the Jalan Jaksa Festival or Kemang Festival include efforts to preserve Betawi arts by inviting artists to give performances.
There has also been a Chinese community in Jakarta for many centuries. Officially, they make up 6% of the Jakarta population, though this number may be under-reported.
Jakarta has several performing art centers, such as the Taman Ismail Marzuki (TIM) art center in Cikini, Gedung Kesenian Jakarta near Pasar Baru, Balai Sarbini in Plaza Semanggi area, Bentara Budaya Jakarta in Palmerah area, Pasar Seni (Art Market) in Ancol, and traditional Indonesian art performances at the pavilions of some Provinces in Taman Mini Indonesia Indah. Traditional music is often found at high-class hotels, including Wayang and Gamelan performances. Javanese Wayang Orang performance can be found at Wayang Orang Bharata theater near Senen bus terminal. As the nation's largest city and capital, Jakarta has lured much national and regional talent who hope to find a greater audience and more opportunities for success.
Jakarta is hosting several prestigious art and culture festivals as well as exhibitions, such as the annual Jakarta International Film Festival (JiFFest), Jakarta International Java Jazz Festival, Jakarta Fashion Week, Jakarta Fashion & Food Festival (JFFF), Flona Jakarta (Flora and Fauna exhibition, held annually on August in Lapangan Banteng park featuring flowers, plant nursery, and pets), also Indonesia Creative Products and Jakarta Arts and Crafts exhibition. The Jakarta Fair is held annually from mid June to mid July to celebrate the anniversary of the city. It is largely centered around a trade fair, however this month-long fair also has featured entertainments, arts and music performances by local bands and musicians.
Several foreign art and culture centers also established in Jakarta, mainly serve to promote culture and language through learning centers, libraries, and art galleries. Among these foreign art and cultural centers are Netherlands Erasmus Huis, UK British Council, France Centre Culturel Français, Germany Goethe-Institut, Japan Foundation, and Jawaharlal Nehru Indian Cultural Center.
National Museum of Indonesia in Central Jakarta
The museums in Jakarta cluster around the Central Jakarta Merdeka Square area, Jakarta Old Town, and Taman Mini Indonesia Indah.
The Jakarta Old Town contains museums that are former institution buildings of Batavia. Some of these museums are Jakarta History Museum (former City Hall of Batavia), Wayang Museum, the Fine Art and Ceramic Museum (former Court House of Batavia), Maritime Museum (former Sunda Kelapa warehouse), Bank Indonesia Museum, and Bank Mandiri Museum.
Several museums that are clustered around the Merdeka Square area are National Museum of Indonesia, Monas, Bayt al-Qur'an and Istiqlal Islamic Museum, and Jakarta Cathedral Museum.
The recreational area of Taman Mini Indonesia Indah in East Jakarta contains fourteen museums such as Purna Bhakti Pertiwi Museum, Asmat Museum, and other science-based museum such as Research & Technology Information Centre, Insect Museum, Petrol and Gas Museum.
Other museums are Satria Mandala Military Museum, Museum Sumpah Pemuda, and Lubang Buaya.
Jakarta has a vast range of food available at hundreds of eating complexes located all over the city. There is also international food, especially Indian, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean food because of the cosmopolitan population. /ref> One of the popular local cuisine of Jakarta is Soto betawi, which is a cow milk or coconut milk broth with beef tendons, intestines, tripe. The other popular cuisine are kerak telor, gado-gado, and cucur.
Daily newspapers in Jakarta include Bisnis Indonesia, Investor Daily, Jakarta Globe, The Jakarta Post, Indo Pos, Seputar Indonesia, Kompas, Media Indonesia, Republika, Pos Kota, Warta Kota, Lampu Merah and Suara Pembaruan.
* Government television: TVRI.
* Private national television: TPI, RCTI, Metro TV, Indosiar, StarANTV, SCTV, Trans TV, TV ONE, Trans 7, and Global TV.
* Local television: Jak-TV, O-Channel, and Space-Toon.
* Cable television: First Media, TelkomVision
* Satellite television: Indovision, Astro Nusantara, TelkomVision, Aora TV
The headquarter of Bank Indonesia in Central Jakarta. Financial services, trade and manufacturing are the largest sectors of the city's economy.
Jakarta's economy depends heavily on financial service, trade, and manufacturing. Industry includes electronics, automotive, chemicals, mechanical engineering and biomedical sciences manufacturing. In 2009, 13% of the population had an income per capita in excess of US$ 10,000 (Rp 108,000,000).
The economic growth of Jakarta in 2007 was 6.44% up from 5.95% the previous year, with the growth in the transportation and communication (15.25%), construction (7.81%) and trade, hotel and restaurant sectors (6.88%). In 2007, GRP (Growth Regional Domestic Product) was Rp. 566.45 trillion. The largest contributions to GDRP was by finance, ownership and business services (28.7%); trade, hotel and restaurant sector (20.4%), and manufacturing industry sector (15.97%). In 2007, per capita GRDP of DKI Jakarta inhabitants was an 11.63% compared to previous year
Both GRDP by at current market price and GRDP by at 2000 constant price in 2007 for Municipality of Central Jakarta (Jakarta Pusat) is higher than other municipalities in DKI Jakarta, which is 145.81 million rupiahs and 80.78 million rupiahs.
A new law in 2007 forbids the giving of money to beggars, buskers and hawkers, bans squatter settlements on river banks and highways, and prohibits spitting and smoking on public transportation. Unauthorized people cleaning car windscreens and taking tips for directing traffic at intersections will also be penalized. Critics of the new legislation claim that such laws will be difficult to enforce and it tends to ignore the desperate poverty of many of the capital's inhabitants. "Condemned Communities: Forced Evictions in Jakarta" Human Rights Watch Sep 2006.
In 2005, Jakarta's contribution to the national GDP was 17% up from 15% in 2000. The manufacturing and construction sectors in Jakarta decreased indicating that Jakarta has shifted from industry city to the services city. Most manufacturing plants in Jakarta have been relocated to peripheral areas like Tangerang, Bogor, Depok and Bekasi.
Based on 2007 National Socio-Economic Survey estimates, the population of DKI Jakarta Province was 9.06 million. The area of DKI Jakarta is 662.33 km 2 , suggesting a population density of 137,000 people/km 2 . Population growth between 2000 and 2007 was 1.11 percent compared 0.15 percent during the 1990s. Inwards immigration tended to negate the effect of family planning programs. The population has risen from 1.2 million in 1960 to 8.8 million in 2004, counting only its legal residents. The population of greater Jakarta is estimated at 23 million, making it the second largest urban area in the world. By 2025 the population of Jakarta may reach 24.9 million, not counting millions more in surrounding areas. Far Eastern Economic Review, Asia 1998 Yearbook, p. 63.
Population growth has outgrown the government's ability to provide basic needs for its residents. Jakarta suffers from severe traffic congestion. Air pollution and waste management are also problems.
Jakarta's Central Business District along the Jenderal Sudirman Road, centered at the Wisma 46 building, currently the tallest office building in Indonesia.
West Irian Liberation Statue, one of the many Sukarno era monuments in the city.
The National Monument
The National Monument, stands at the center of Merdeka Square, the central park of the city. Other landmarks include the Istiqlal Mosque and Jakarta Cathedral. The Wisma 46 building in Central Jakarta is currently the highest building in Jakarta and Indonesia. Tourist attractions include Taman Mini Indonesia Indah, Ragunan Zoo, Jakarta Old Town, and Ancol Dreamland complex on Jakarta Bay, include Dunia Fantasi theme park, Sea World, Atlantis Water Adventure, and Gelanggang Samudra.
Jakarta shopping malls with areas in excess of 100,000 metres square, include Grand Indonesia, Plaza Indonesia, Senayan City, Plaza Senayan, Pondok Indah Mall, Mal Taman Anggrek, Mal Kelapa Gading, Mal Artha Gading. /ref> Traditional markets include Blok M, Tanah Abang, Senen, Glodok, Mangga Dua, Cempaka Mas, and Jatinegara.
Taman Suropati is located in Menteng garden city subdistrict, Central Jakarta. The park is surrounded by several Dutch colonial buildings. Taman Suropati was known as Burgemeester Bishopplein during the Dutch colonial time. The park is circular shaped with a surface area of 16,322 m2. There are several modern statues in the park made by artists of the ASEAN countries, which contributes to the other nickname of the park "Taman persahabatan seniman ASEAN" ("Park of the ASEAN artists relationship").
Taman Lapangan Banteng (Banteng Field Park) is located in Central Jakarta. It is about 4,5 hectares. The most notable landmark inside the park is the Monumen Pembebasan Irian Barat (Monument of the Liberation of Irian Barat). During the 1980s, the park is used as a bus terminal. In 1993, the park turned into a public space again and has become a recreation place for people and occasionally also used as an exhibition place or other events.
Taman Monas (Monas Park) or Taman Medan Merdeka (Medan Merdeka Park) is the park where the symbol of Jakarta, Monas or Monumen Nasional (National Monument) is located. The large open space was created by Dutch Governor General Herman Willem Deandels (1870) and was completed in 1910 under the name of Koningsplein. on 10 Januari 1993, President Soeharto initiate the action toward the beautification of the park. Several features in the park is a deer park and 33 trees that represents the 33 provinces of Indonesia.
Jalan Thamrin, the main avenue in Central Jakarta
One of the most populous cities in the world, Jakarta is strained by transportation problems. In Indonesia most communal transport is provided by mikrolets, which are privately run minibuses although these normally stay off the main roads.
Jakarta suffers from traffic congestion. A 'three in one' rule during peak hour was introduced in 1992, prohibiting fewer than three passengers per car on certain roads.
Motorised bajaj
Auto rickshaws, called bajaj, provide local transportation in the back streets of some parts of the city. From the early 1940s to 1991 they were a common form of local transportation in the city. In 1966, an estimated 160,000 rickshaws were operating in the city; as much as fifteen percent of Jakarta's total workforce was engaged in rickshaw driving. In 1971, rickshaws were banned from major roads, and shortly thereafter the government attempted a total ban, which substantially reduced their numbers but did not eliminate them. A campaign to eliminate them succeeded in 1990 and 1991, but during the economic crisis of 1998, some returned amid less effective government attempts to control them. Azuma, Yoshifumi (2003). Urban peasants: beca drivers in Jakarta. Jakarta: Pustaka Sinar Harapan.
TransJakarta bus service in Jakarta
The TransJakarta bus rapid transit service operates on seven reserved busway corridors in the city; connecting seven main points of Jakarta. The first TransJakarta line, from Blok M to Jakarta Kota opened in January 2004.
An outer ring road is under constructed and is partly operational A toll road connects Jakarta to Soekarno-Hatta International Airport in the northwest of Jakarta, as are the port of Merak and Tangerang to the west, and Bogor and Puncak to the south. Bekasi, Cikarang, Karawang, Cikampek, Purwakarta, and Bandung to the east.
A train at Gambir station in Central Jakarta
Railways connect the city to its neighboring regions: Depok and Bogor to the south, Tangerang and Serpong to the west, and Bekasi, Karawang, and Cikampek to the east. The major rail stations are Gambir, Jakarta Kota, Jatinegara, Pasar Senen, Manggarai, and Tanah Abang. During peak hours, the number of passengers greatly exceeds the system's capacity, and crowding is common.
Two lines of the Jakarta Monorail are under construction: the green line serving Semanggi-Casablanca Road-Kuningan-Semanggi and the blue line serving Kampung Melayu-Casablanca Road-Tanah Abang-Roxy. There are plans for a two-line metro (MRT) system, with a north-south line between Kota and Lebak Bulus, with connections to both monorail lines; and an east-west line, which will connect with the north-south line at the Sawah Besar station. The current project, which began in 2005, has been delayed due to a lack of funds, and the project has been abandoned by the developer PT Jakarta Monorail in March 2008.
On 6 June 2007, the city administration started to introduce the Waterway, a new river boat service along the Ciliwung River.
Soekarno-Hatta International Airport (CGK) is Jakarta's major airport. It is Indonesia's busiest airport handling more than 30 million passengers annually. A second airport, Halim Perdanakusuma International Airport (HLP) serves mostly private and VVIP/presidential flights.
The main seaport for this transportation mode is the Tanjung Priok seaport.
The biggest university in Jakarta is the University of Indonesia with campuses in Salemba and Depok. /ref> Others government universities include Jakarta State University, Jakarta State Polytechnic, and Jakarta Islamic State University. Nowadays, the oldest of which is the privately-owned Universitas Nasional (UNAS). Web Universitas Nasional 1949 Private universities in Jakarta include Trisakti University Atma Jaya University, and Tarumanagara University.
STOVIA was the first high school in Jakarta, established in 1851. As the largest city and the capital, Jakarta houses a large number of students from various parts of Indonesia, many of whom reside in dormitories or home-stay residences. For basic education, there are a variety of primary and secondary schools, tagged with public (national), private (national and bi-lingual national plus) and international schools. Two of the major international schools located in Jakarta are the Jakarta International School and the British International School (BIS).
The Bung Karno Stadium is capable of hosting 100,000 spectators
Jakarta was host to the Asian Games in 1962, /ref> host of the Asian Cup 2007, /ref> and has hosted the regional-scale Sea Games several times. Jakarta's most popular footbal club is Persija, which plays its matches in the Lebak Bulus Stadium. Another premiere division team is Persitara.
The biggest stadium in Jakarta is the Bung Karno Stadium with a capacity of 100,000 seats Football stadiums of the world - Stadiums in Indonesia . For basketball, the Kelapa Gading Sport Mall in Kelapa Gading, North Jakarta, with a capacity of 7,000 seats, is the home arena of the Indonesian national basketball team. The Senayan sports complex has several sport venues, including the Bung Karno soccer stadium, Madya Stadium, Istora Senayan, a shooting range, a tennis court and a golf driving range. The Senayan complex was built in 1959 to accommodate the Asian Games in 1962.
In 2011, Jakarta, together with Bandung, will again host the Southeast Asian Games.
A trash dump in Bantar Gebang, Bekasi
Surveys show that "less than a quarter of the population is fully served by improved water sources. The rest rely on a variety of sources, including rivers, lakes and private water vendors. Some 7.2 million people are [without clean water]." United Nations Human Development Report 2006, p. 39
Sister relationships with towns and regions worldwide include:
*History of Jakarta
*Port of Jakarta
* Official website
* Jakarta Official Travel Website
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Jakarta | In 1602, the British East India Company's first voyage, commanded by Sir who, arrived in Aceh and sailed on to Banten where they were allowed to build a trading post? | James Lancaster | data/set3/a5 | Jakarta
Jakarta (also DKI Jakarta) is the capital and largest city of Indonesia. Located on the northwest coast of Java, it has an area of and a population of 8,490,000. Jakarta is the country's economic, cultural and political center. It is the most populous city in Indonesia and Southeast Asia, and is the twelfth-largest city in the world. The metropolitan area, Jabodetabek, is the second largest in the world. Jakarta is listed as a global city in the 2008 Globalization and World Cities Study Group and Network (GaWC) research. the city's name is derived from the Sanskrit word "Jayakarta" (à¤à¤¯à¤à¤°à¥) which translates as "victorious deed," "complete act,"or "complete victory."
Established in the fourth century, the city became an important trading port for the Kingdom of Sunda. It grew as the capital of the colonial Dutch East Indies. It was made capital of Indonesia when the country became independent after World War II. It was formerly known as Sunda Kelapa (397â1527), Jayakarta (1527â1619), Batavia (1619â1942), and Djakarta (1942â1972).
Landmarks include the National Monument and Istiqlal Mosque. The city is the seat of the ASEAN Secretariat. Jakarta is served by the Soekarno-Hatta International Airport, Halim Perdanakusuma International Airport, and Tanjung Priok harbour; it is connected by several intercity and commuter railways, and served by several bus lines running on reserved busways.
The former Stadhuis of Batavia, the seat of Governor General of VOC. The building now serves as Jakarta History Museum, Jakarta Old Town area.
Dutch Batavia in the 17th Century, built in what is now North Jakarta
The Jakarta area was part of the fourth century Indianized kingdom of Tarumanagara. In AD 39, King Purnawarman established Sunda Pura as a new capital city for the kingdom, located at the northern coast of Java. Purnawarman left seven memorial stones across the area with inscriptions bearing his name, including the present-day Banten and West Java provinces. After the power of Tarumanagara declined, its territories, including Sunda Pura, became part of the Kingdom of Sunda. The harbour area was renamed Sunda Kalapa as written in a Hindu monk's lontar manuscripts. Bujangga Manik Manuscript which are now located at the Bodleian Library of Oxford University in England, and travel records by Prince Bujangga Manik.( ) By the fourteenth century, Sunda Kelapa became a major trading port for the kingdom. The first European fleet, four Portuguese ships from Malacca, arrived in 1513 when the Portuguese were looking for a route for spices, especially black pepper.
The Kingdom of Sunda made a peace agreement with Portugal by allowing the Portuguese to build a port in 1522 in order to defend against the rising power of the Sultanate of Demak from central Java.
In 1527, Fatahillah, a Sumatran Malay warrior from Demak attacked Kingdom of Sunda and succeeded in conquering the harbour on June 22, 1527, after which Sunda Kelapa was renamed Jayakarta.
The Castle of Batavia, seen from West Kali Besar by Andries Beeckman circa 1656-58
Through the relationship with Prince Jayawikarta from the Sultanate of Banten, Dutch ships arrived in Jayakarta in 1596. In 1602, the British East India Company's first voyage, commanded by Sir James Lancaster, arrived in Aceh and sailed on to Banten where they were allowed to build a trading post. This site became the center of British trade in Indonesia until 1682.
Jayawikarta is thought to have made trading connections with the English merchants, rivals of the Dutch, by allowing them to build houses directly across from the Dutch buildings in 1615. When relations between Prince Jayawikarta and the Dutch deteriorated, Jayawikarta's soldiers attacked the Dutch fortress. Prince Jayakarta's army and the British were defeated by the Dutch, in part owing to the timely arrival of Jan Pieterszoon Coen (J.P. Coen). The Dutch burned the English fort, and forced the English to retreat on their ships. The victory consolidated Dutch power and in 1619 they renamed the city "Batavia."
Batavia c.1870
Commercial opportunities in the capital of the Dutch colony attracted Indonesian and especially Chinese immigrants, the increasing numbers creating burdens on the city. Tensions grew as the colonial government tried to restrict Chinese migration through deportations. On 9 October 1740, 5,000 Chinese were massacred and the following year, Chinese inhabitants were moved to Glodok outside the city walls. The city began to move further south as epidemics in 1835 and 1870 encouraged more people to move far south of the port. The Koningsplein, now Merdeka Square was completed in 1818, the housing park of Menteng was started in 1913, and Kebayoran Baru was the last Dutch-built residential area. By 1930 Batavia had more than 500,000 inhabitants, Colonial Economy and Society, 1870-1940. Source: U.S. Library of Congress. including 37,067 Europeans. Governance Failure: Rethinking the Institutional Dimensions of Urban Water Supply to Poor Households. ScienceDirect.
The Japanese renamed the city "Jakarta" during their World War II occupation of Indonesia. Following World War II, Indonesian Republicans withdrew from allied-occupied Jakarta during their fight for Indonesian independence and established their capital in Yogyakarta. In 1950, once independence was secured, Jakarta was once again made the national capital. Indonesia's founding president, Sukarno, envisaged Jakarta as a great international city. He instigated large government-funded projects undertaken with openly nationalistic and modernist architecture. Projects in Jakarta included a clover-leaf highway, a major boulevard (Jalan MH Thamrin-Sudirman), monuments such as The National Monument, major hotels, shopping centre, and a new parliament building.
In October 1965, Jakarta was the site of an abortive coup attempt which saw 6 top generals killed, and ultimately resulted in the downfall of Sukarno and the start of Suharto's "New Order. A propaganda monument stands at the place where the general's bodies were dumped. In 1966, Jakarta was declared a "special capital city district" (daerah khusus ibukota), thus gaining a status approximately equivalent to that of a state or province. Lieutenant General Ali Sadikin served as Governor from the mid-60's commencement of the "New Order" through to 1977; he rehabilitated roads and bridges, encouraged the arts, built several hospitals, and a large number of new schools. He also cleared out slum dwellers for new development projects some for the benefit of the Suharto family and tried to eliminate rickshaws and ban street vendors. He began control of migration to the city in order to stem the overcrowding and poverty.
Foreign investment contributed to a real estate boom which changed the face of the city.
The boom ended with the 1997/98 East Asian Economic crisis putting Jakarta at the center of violence, protest, and political maneuvering. Long-time president, Suharto, began to lose his grip on power. Tensions reached a peak in the Jakarta riots of May 1998, when four students were shot dead at Trisakti University by security forces; four days of riots and violence ensued that killed an estimated 1,200, and destroyed or damaged 6,000 buildings. The Jakarta riots targeted Chinese Indonesians. Wages of Hatred. Michael Shari. Business Week. Suharto resigned as president, and Jakarta has remained the focal point of democratic change in Indonesia. Jemaah Islamiah-connected bombings have occurred in the city since 2000 on an almost annual basis, although the 2009 bombing of two international hotels was the first since 2005.
Map of the Cities (Kotamadya) of DKI Jakarta. Each Cities are divided into Subdistricts (Kecamatan)
Officially, Jakarta is not a city, but a province with special status as the capital of Indonesia. It has a governor (instead of a mayor), and is divided into several sub-regions with their own administrative systems. As a province, the official name of Jakarta is Daerah Khusus Ibukota Jakarta ("Special Capital City District of Jakarta"), which in Indonesian is abbreviated to DKI Jakarta.
Jakarta is divided into five kota or kotamadya ("cities" - formerly municipalities), each headed by a mayor, and one regency (kabupaten) headed by a regent. In August 2007, Jakarta held its first ever election to choose a governor, whereas previously the city's governors were appointed by local parliament. The poll is part of a country-wide decentralization drive, allowing for direct local elections in several areas.
The Cities/Municipalities of Jakarta are:
* Central Jakarta (Jakarta Pusat) is Jakarta's smallest city and home to most of Jakarta's administrative and political center. It is characterized by large parks and Dutch colonial buildings. Landmarks include the National Monument (Monas), the Istiqlal Mosque, and museums.
* West Jakarta (Jakarta Barat) has the highest concentration of small-scale industries in Jakarta. The area includes Jakarta's Chinatown and landmarks include the Chinese Langgam building and the Toko Merah building. West Jakarta contains part of the Jakarta Old Town.
* South Jakarta (Jakarta Selatan), previously planned as a satellite city, is now the location of large upscale shopping centers and affluent residential areas. Jakarta Selatan functions as Jakarta's ground water buffer, but recently the green belt areas are threatened by new developments. Most CBD area of Jakarta is concentrated in South Jakarta.
* East Jakarta (Jakarta Timur) territory is characterized with several industrial sectors erected in this city. There is also still some area of swamps and rice fields in this city.
* North Jakarta (Jakarta Utara) is the only city in Jakarta that is bounded by the sea (Java Sea). It is the location of the Tanjung Priok Port. Big-scale and medium-scale industries are concentrated in North Jakarta. North Jakarta contains the location of Jakarta Old Town, formerly known as Batavia since the 17 th century, and was a center of VOC trade activity in Dutch East Indies. Also located in North Jakarta is Ancol Dreamland (Taman Impian Jaya Ancol), currently the largest integrated tourism area in South East Asia.
The only Regency (Kabupaten) of Jakarta is:
* Thousand Islands (Kepulauan Seribu), formerly a subdistrict of North Jakarta, is a collection of 105 small islands located on Java Sea. It has a high conservation value because of its unique and special ecosystems. Marine tourism, such as diving, water bicycle, and wind surfing, is the most important touristic activities in this territory. The main transportation between these islands are speed boat or small ferries.
Since September 1945, the governmental of Jakarta City has been changed from the Japanese Djakarta Toku-Betsu Shi into Jakarta National Administration. This first government was held by a Mayor until the end of 1960 when it was changed into a Governor. The last Mayor of Jakarta is Sudiro, until he was replaced by Dr. Sumarno as a Governor.
In 1974, Based on the Act No. 5 of 1974 about Fundamental of Regional Government, Jakarta was stated as the Capital City of Indonesia and part of the 26 Province in Indonesia.
Jakarta is located on the northwest coast of Java, at the mouth of the Ciliwung River on Jakarta Bay, which is an inlet of the Java Sea. The city is a lowland area averaging 7 meters above sea level. Officially, the area of the Jakarta Special District is 662 km 2 of land area and 6,977 km 2 of sea area. Based on Governor Decree in 2007, No. 171. taken from Statistics DKI Jakarta Provincial Office, Jakarta in Figures, 2008, BPS Province of DKI Jakarta Rivers flow from the hilly southern parts of the city northwards towards the Java Sea. The most important river is the Ciliwung River, which divides the city into the western and eastern principalities.
The northern part of Jakarta lies on a plain, approximately eight meters above the sea level. This contributes to the frequent flooding. The coastal area extends around from west to east. The southern parts of the city are hilly. During the wet season, Jakarta suffers from flooding due to clogged sewage pipes and waterways, deforestation near rapidly urbanizing Bogor and Depok, and the fact that 40% of it is below sea level . Major floods occurred in 1996 Asiaviews - Asian News when 5,000 hectares of land were flooded and 2007. Bloomberg.com: Asia Losses from infrastructure damage and state revenue were at least 5.2 trillion rupiah (572 million US dollars) and at least 85 people were killed Three killed, 90,000 evacuated in Jakarta floods: officials - Yahoo! News and about 350,000 people forced from their homes.. Disease fears as floods ravage Jakarta Approximately 70% of Jakarta's total area was flooded with water up to four meters deep in parts of the city. Jakarta Flood Feb 2007 « (Geo) Information for All /ref>
The Thousand Islands, which are administratively a part of Jakarta, are located in Jakarta Bay north of the city.
Jakarta has a hot and humid equatorial/tropical climate (Af) according to the Köppen climate classification system. Located in the western-part of Indonesia, Jakarta's wet season rainfall peak is January with average monthly rainfall of , and its dry season low point is August with a monthly average of .
Average daily temperatures range from 25° to 36°C (77°-97°F).
Tanjidor orchestra celebrating the Chinese New Year.
As the economic and political capital of Indonesia, Jakarta attracts many domestic immigrants who bring their various languages, dialects, foods and customs.
The Betawi (Orang Betawi, or "people of Batavia") is a term used to describe the descendants of the people living in and around Batavia and recognized as an ethnic group from around the 18th-19th century. The Betawi people are mostly descended from various Southeast Asian ethnic groups brought or attracted to Batavia to meet labor needs, and include people from parts of Indonesia. The Betawi - due to their diverse origins - play a major role concerning ethnic and national identity in contemporary Jakarta; see Knörr, Jacqueline: Kreolität und postkoloniale Gesellschaft. Integration und Differenzierung in Jakarta, Campus Verlag: Frankfurt a.M. & New York, 2007, ISBN 978-3-593-38344-6 The language and the culture of these immigrants is distinct from that of the Sundanese or Javanese. The language is more based on the East Malay dialect and enriched by loan words from Sundanese, Javanese, Chinese, and Arabic. Nowadays, the Jakarta-dialects used by people in Jakarta are loosely based on the Betawi language.
The parade of Ondel-ondel, a Betawi large puppet-mask dance.
Betawi arts are rarely found in Jakarta due to their infamous low-profile and most Betawi have moved to the border of Jakarta, displaced by new immigrants. It is easier to find Java or Minang based wedding ceremonial instead of Betawi weddings in Jakarta. It is easier to find Javanese Gamelan instead of Gambang Kromong (a mixture between Betawi and Chinese music) or Tanjidor (a mixture between Betawi and Portuguese music) or Marawis (a mixture between Betawi and Yaman music). However, some festivals such as the Jalan Jaksa Festival or Kemang Festival include efforts to preserve Betawi arts by inviting artists to give performances.
There has also been a Chinese community in Jakarta for many centuries. Officially, they make up 6% of the Jakarta population, though this number may be under-reported.
Jakarta has several performing art centers, such as the Taman Ismail Marzuki (TIM) art center in Cikini, Gedung Kesenian Jakarta near Pasar Baru, Balai Sarbini in Plaza Semanggi area, Bentara Budaya Jakarta in Palmerah area, Pasar Seni (Art Market) in Ancol, and traditional Indonesian art performances at the pavilions of some Provinces in Taman Mini Indonesia Indah. Traditional music is often found at high-class hotels, including Wayang and Gamelan performances. Javanese Wayang Orang performance can be found at Wayang Orang Bharata theater near Senen bus terminal. As the nation's largest city and capital, Jakarta has lured much national and regional talent who hope to find a greater audience and more opportunities for success.
Jakarta is hosting several prestigious art and culture festivals as well as exhibitions, such as the annual Jakarta International Film Festival (JiFFest), Jakarta International Java Jazz Festival, Jakarta Fashion Week, Jakarta Fashion & Food Festival (JFFF), Flona Jakarta (Flora and Fauna exhibition, held annually on August in Lapangan Banteng park featuring flowers, plant nursery, and pets), also Indonesia Creative Products and Jakarta Arts and Crafts exhibition. The Jakarta Fair is held annually from mid June to mid July to celebrate the anniversary of the city. It is largely centered around a trade fair, however this month-long fair also has featured entertainments, arts and music performances by local bands and musicians.
Several foreign art and culture centers also established in Jakarta, mainly serve to promote culture and language through learning centers, libraries, and art galleries. Among these foreign art and cultural centers are Netherlands Erasmus Huis, UK British Council, France Centre Culturel Français, Germany Goethe-Institut, Japan Foundation, and Jawaharlal Nehru Indian Cultural Center.
National Museum of Indonesia in Central Jakarta
The museums in Jakarta cluster around the Central Jakarta Merdeka Square area, Jakarta Old Town, and Taman Mini Indonesia Indah.
The Jakarta Old Town contains museums that are former institution buildings of Batavia. Some of these museums are Jakarta History Museum (former City Hall of Batavia), Wayang Museum, the Fine Art and Ceramic Museum (former Court House of Batavia), Maritime Museum (former Sunda Kelapa warehouse), Bank Indonesia Museum, and Bank Mandiri Museum.
Several museums that are clustered around the Merdeka Square area are National Museum of Indonesia, Monas, Bayt al-Qur'an and Istiqlal Islamic Museum, and Jakarta Cathedral Museum.
The recreational area of Taman Mini Indonesia Indah in East Jakarta contains fourteen museums such as Purna Bhakti Pertiwi Museum, Asmat Museum, and other science-based museum such as Research & Technology Information Centre, Insect Museum, Petrol and Gas Museum.
Other museums are Satria Mandala Military Museum, Museum Sumpah Pemuda, and Lubang Buaya.
Jakarta has a vast range of food available at hundreds of eating complexes located all over the city. There is also international food, especially Indian, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean food because of the cosmopolitan population. /ref> One of the popular local cuisine of Jakarta is Soto betawi, which is a cow milk or coconut milk broth with beef tendons, intestines, tripe. The other popular cuisine are kerak telor, gado-gado, and cucur.
Daily newspapers in Jakarta include Bisnis Indonesia, Investor Daily, Jakarta Globe, The Jakarta Post, Indo Pos, Seputar Indonesia, Kompas, Media Indonesia, Republika, Pos Kota, Warta Kota, Lampu Merah and Suara Pembaruan.
* Government television: TVRI.
* Private national television: TPI, RCTI, Metro TV, Indosiar, StarANTV, SCTV, Trans TV, TV ONE, Trans 7, and Global TV.
* Local television: Jak-TV, O-Channel, and Space-Toon.
* Cable television: First Media, TelkomVision
* Satellite television: Indovision, Astro Nusantara, TelkomVision, Aora TV
The headquarter of Bank Indonesia in Central Jakarta. Financial services, trade and manufacturing are the largest sectors of the city's economy.
Jakarta's economy depends heavily on financial service, trade, and manufacturing. Industry includes electronics, automotive, chemicals, mechanical engineering and biomedical sciences manufacturing. In 2009, 13% of the population had an income per capita in excess of US$ 10,000 (Rp 108,000,000).
The economic growth of Jakarta in 2007 was 6.44% up from 5.95% the previous year, with the growth in the transportation and communication (15.25%), construction (7.81%) and trade, hotel and restaurant sectors (6.88%). In 2007, GRP (Growth Regional Domestic Product) was Rp. 566.45 trillion. The largest contributions to GDRP was by finance, ownership and business services (28.7%); trade, hotel and restaurant sector (20.4%), and manufacturing industry sector (15.97%). In 2007, per capita GRDP of DKI Jakarta inhabitants was an 11.63% compared to previous year
Both GRDP by at current market price and GRDP by at 2000 constant price in 2007 for Municipality of Central Jakarta (Jakarta Pusat) is higher than other municipalities in DKI Jakarta, which is 145.81 million rupiahs and 80.78 million rupiahs.
A new law in 2007 forbids the giving of money to beggars, buskers and hawkers, bans squatter settlements on river banks and highways, and prohibits spitting and smoking on public transportation. Unauthorized people cleaning car windscreens and taking tips for directing traffic at intersections will also be penalized. Critics of the new legislation claim that such laws will be difficult to enforce and it tends to ignore the desperate poverty of many of the capital's inhabitants. "Condemned Communities: Forced Evictions in Jakarta" Human Rights Watch Sep 2006.
In 2005, Jakarta's contribution to the national GDP was 17% up from 15% in 2000. The manufacturing and construction sectors in Jakarta decreased indicating that Jakarta has shifted from industry city to the services city. Most manufacturing plants in Jakarta have been relocated to peripheral areas like Tangerang, Bogor, Depok and Bekasi.
Based on 2007 National Socio-Economic Survey estimates, the population of DKI Jakarta Province was 9.06 million. The area of DKI Jakarta is 662.33 km 2 , suggesting a population density of 137,000 people/km 2 . Population growth between 2000 and 2007 was 1.11 percent compared 0.15 percent during the 1990s. Inwards immigration tended to negate the effect of family planning programs. The population has risen from 1.2 million in 1960 to 8.8 million in 2004, counting only its legal residents. The population of greater Jakarta is estimated at 23 million, making it the second largest urban area in the world. By 2025 the population of Jakarta may reach 24.9 million, not counting millions more in surrounding areas. Far Eastern Economic Review, Asia 1998 Yearbook, p. 63.
Population growth has outgrown the government's ability to provide basic needs for its residents. Jakarta suffers from severe traffic congestion. Air pollution and waste management are also problems.
Jakarta's Central Business District along the Jenderal Sudirman Road, centered at the Wisma 46 building, currently the tallest office building in Indonesia.
West Irian Liberation Statue, one of the many Sukarno era monuments in the city.
The National Monument
The National Monument, stands at the center of Merdeka Square, the central park of the city. Other landmarks include the Istiqlal Mosque and Jakarta Cathedral. The Wisma 46 building in Central Jakarta is currently the highest building in Jakarta and Indonesia. Tourist attractions include Taman Mini Indonesia Indah, Ragunan Zoo, Jakarta Old Town, and Ancol Dreamland complex on Jakarta Bay, include Dunia Fantasi theme park, Sea World, Atlantis Water Adventure, and Gelanggang Samudra.
Jakarta shopping malls with areas in excess of 100,000 metres square, include Grand Indonesia, Plaza Indonesia, Senayan City, Plaza Senayan, Pondok Indah Mall, Mal Taman Anggrek, Mal Kelapa Gading, Mal Artha Gading. /ref> Traditional markets include Blok M, Tanah Abang, Senen, Glodok, Mangga Dua, Cempaka Mas, and Jatinegara.
Taman Suropati is located in Menteng garden city subdistrict, Central Jakarta. The park is surrounded by several Dutch colonial buildings. Taman Suropati was known as Burgemeester Bishopplein during the Dutch colonial time. The park is circular shaped with a surface area of 16,322 m2. There are several modern statues in the park made by artists of the ASEAN countries, which contributes to the other nickname of the park "Taman persahabatan seniman ASEAN" ("Park of the ASEAN artists relationship").
Taman Lapangan Banteng (Banteng Field Park) is located in Central Jakarta. It is about 4,5 hectares. The most notable landmark inside the park is the Monumen Pembebasan Irian Barat (Monument of the Liberation of Irian Barat). During the 1980s, the park is used as a bus terminal. In 1993, the park turned into a public space again and has become a recreation place for people and occasionally also used as an exhibition place or other events.
Taman Monas (Monas Park) or Taman Medan Merdeka (Medan Merdeka Park) is the park where the symbol of Jakarta, Monas or Monumen Nasional (National Monument) is located. The large open space was created by Dutch Governor General Herman Willem Deandels (1870) and was completed in 1910 under the name of Koningsplein. on 10 Januari 1993, President Soeharto initiate the action toward the beautification of the park. Several features in the park is a deer park and 33 trees that represents the 33 provinces of Indonesia.
Jalan Thamrin, the main avenue in Central Jakarta
One of the most populous cities in the world, Jakarta is strained by transportation problems. In Indonesia most communal transport is provided by mikrolets, which are privately run minibuses although these normally stay off the main roads.
Jakarta suffers from traffic congestion. A 'three in one' rule during peak hour was introduced in 1992, prohibiting fewer than three passengers per car on certain roads.
Motorised bajaj
Auto rickshaws, called bajaj, provide local transportation in the back streets of some parts of the city. From the early 1940s to 1991 they were a common form of local transportation in the city. In 1966, an estimated 160,000 rickshaws were operating in the city; as much as fifteen percent of Jakarta's total workforce was engaged in rickshaw driving. In 1971, rickshaws were banned from major roads, and shortly thereafter the government attempted a total ban, which substantially reduced their numbers but did not eliminate them. A campaign to eliminate them succeeded in 1990 and 1991, but during the economic crisis of 1998, some returned amid less effective government attempts to control them. Azuma, Yoshifumi (2003). Urban peasants: beca drivers in Jakarta. Jakarta: Pustaka Sinar Harapan.
TransJakarta bus service in Jakarta
The TransJakarta bus rapid transit service operates on seven reserved busway corridors in the city; connecting seven main points of Jakarta. The first TransJakarta line, from Blok M to Jakarta Kota opened in January 2004.
An outer ring road is under constructed and is partly operational A toll road connects Jakarta to Soekarno-Hatta International Airport in the northwest of Jakarta, as are the port of Merak and Tangerang to the west, and Bogor and Puncak to the south. Bekasi, Cikarang, Karawang, Cikampek, Purwakarta, and Bandung to the east.
A train at Gambir station in Central Jakarta
Railways connect the city to its neighboring regions: Depok and Bogor to the south, Tangerang and Serpong to the west, and Bekasi, Karawang, and Cikampek to the east. The major rail stations are Gambir, Jakarta Kota, Jatinegara, Pasar Senen, Manggarai, and Tanah Abang. During peak hours, the number of passengers greatly exceeds the system's capacity, and crowding is common.
Two lines of the Jakarta Monorail are under construction: the green line serving Semanggi-Casablanca Road-Kuningan-Semanggi and the blue line serving Kampung Melayu-Casablanca Road-Tanah Abang-Roxy. There are plans for a two-line metro (MRT) system, with a north-south line between Kota and Lebak Bulus, with connections to both monorail lines; and an east-west line, which will connect with the north-south line at the Sawah Besar station. The current project, which began in 2005, has been delayed due to a lack of funds, and the project has been abandoned by the developer PT Jakarta Monorail in March 2008.
On 6 June 2007, the city administration started to introduce the Waterway, a new river boat service along the Ciliwung River.
Soekarno-Hatta International Airport (CGK) is Jakarta's major airport. It is Indonesia's busiest airport handling more than 30 million passengers annually. A second airport, Halim Perdanakusuma International Airport (HLP) serves mostly private and VVIP/presidential flights.
The main seaport for this transportation mode is the Tanjung Priok seaport.
The biggest university in Jakarta is the University of Indonesia with campuses in Salemba and Depok. /ref> Others government universities include Jakarta State University, Jakarta State Polytechnic, and Jakarta Islamic State University. Nowadays, the oldest of which is the privately-owned Universitas Nasional (UNAS). Web Universitas Nasional 1949 Private universities in Jakarta include Trisakti University Atma Jaya University, and Tarumanagara University.
STOVIA was the first high school in Jakarta, established in 1851. As the largest city and the capital, Jakarta houses a large number of students from various parts of Indonesia, many of whom reside in dormitories or home-stay residences. For basic education, there are a variety of primary and secondary schools, tagged with public (national), private (national and bi-lingual national plus) and international schools. Two of the major international schools located in Jakarta are the Jakarta International School and the British International School (BIS).
The Bung Karno Stadium is capable of hosting 100,000 spectators
Jakarta was host to the Asian Games in 1962, /ref> host of the Asian Cup 2007, /ref> and has hosted the regional-scale Sea Games several times. Jakarta's most popular footbal club is Persija, which plays its matches in the Lebak Bulus Stadium. Another premiere division team is Persitara.
The biggest stadium in Jakarta is the Bung Karno Stadium with a capacity of 100,000 seats Football stadiums of the world - Stadiums in Indonesia . For basketball, the Kelapa Gading Sport Mall in Kelapa Gading, North Jakarta, with a capacity of 7,000 seats, is the home arena of the Indonesian national basketball team. The Senayan sports complex has several sport venues, including the Bung Karno soccer stadium, Madya Stadium, Istora Senayan, a shooting range, a tennis court and a golf driving range. The Senayan complex was built in 1959 to accommodate the Asian Games in 1962.
In 2011, Jakarta, together with Bandung, will again host the Southeast Asian Games.
A trash dump in Bantar Gebang, Bekasi
Surveys show that "less than a quarter of the population is fully served by improved water sources. The rest rely on a variety of sources, including rivers, lakes and private water vendors. Some 7.2 million people are [without clean water]." United Nations Human Development Report 2006, p. 39
Sister relationships with towns and regions worldwide include:
*History of Jakarta
*Port of Jakarta
* Official website
* Jakarta Official Travel Website
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Jakarta | Who began control of migration to the city in order to stem the overcrowding and poverty? | Lieutenant General Ali Sadikin began control of migration to the city in order to stem the overcrowding and poverty. | data/set3/a5 | Jakarta
Jakarta (also DKI Jakarta) is the capital and largest city of Indonesia. Located on the northwest coast of Java, it has an area of and a population of 8,490,000. Jakarta is the country's economic, cultural and political center. It is the most populous city in Indonesia and Southeast Asia, and is the twelfth-largest city in the world. The metropolitan area, Jabodetabek, is the second largest in the world. Jakarta is listed as a global city in the 2008 Globalization and World Cities Study Group and Network (GaWC) research. the city's name is derived from the Sanskrit word "Jayakarta" (à¤à¤¯à¤à¤°à¥) which translates as "victorious deed," "complete act,"or "complete victory."
Established in the fourth century, the city became an important trading port for the Kingdom of Sunda. It grew as the capital of the colonial Dutch East Indies. It was made capital of Indonesia when the country became independent after World War II. It was formerly known as Sunda Kelapa (397â1527), Jayakarta (1527â1619), Batavia (1619â1942), and Djakarta (1942â1972).
Landmarks include the National Monument and Istiqlal Mosque. The city is the seat of the ASEAN Secretariat. Jakarta is served by the Soekarno-Hatta International Airport, Halim Perdanakusuma International Airport, and Tanjung Priok harbour; it is connected by several intercity and commuter railways, and served by several bus lines running on reserved busways.
The former Stadhuis of Batavia, the seat of Governor General of VOC. The building now serves as Jakarta History Museum, Jakarta Old Town area.
Dutch Batavia in the 17th Century, built in what is now North Jakarta
The Jakarta area was part of the fourth century Indianized kingdom of Tarumanagara. In AD 39, King Purnawarman established Sunda Pura as a new capital city for the kingdom, located at the northern coast of Java. Purnawarman left seven memorial stones across the area with inscriptions bearing his name, including the present-day Banten and West Java provinces. After the power of Tarumanagara declined, its territories, including Sunda Pura, became part of the Kingdom of Sunda. The harbour area was renamed Sunda Kalapa as written in a Hindu monk's lontar manuscripts. Bujangga Manik Manuscript which are now located at the Bodleian Library of Oxford University in England, and travel records by Prince Bujangga Manik.( ) By the fourteenth century, Sunda Kelapa became a major trading port for the kingdom. The first European fleet, four Portuguese ships from Malacca, arrived in 1513 when the Portuguese were looking for a route for spices, especially black pepper.
The Kingdom of Sunda made a peace agreement with Portugal by allowing the Portuguese to build a port in 1522 in order to defend against the rising power of the Sultanate of Demak from central Java.
In 1527, Fatahillah, a Sumatran Malay warrior from Demak attacked Kingdom of Sunda and succeeded in conquering the harbour on June 22, 1527, after which Sunda Kelapa was renamed Jayakarta.
The Castle of Batavia, seen from West Kali Besar by Andries Beeckman circa 1656-58
Through the relationship with Prince Jayawikarta from the Sultanate of Banten, Dutch ships arrived in Jayakarta in 1596. In 1602, the British East India Company's first voyage, commanded by Sir James Lancaster, arrived in Aceh and sailed on to Banten where they were allowed to build a trading post. This site became the center of British trade in Indonesia until 1682.
Jayawikarta is thought to have made trading connections with the English merchants, rivals of the Dutch, by allowing them to build houses directly across from the Dutch buildings in 1615. When relations between Prince Jayawikarta and the Dutch deteriorated, Jayawikarta's soldiers attacked the Dutch fortress. Prince Jayakarta's army and the British were defeated by the Dutch, in part owing to the timely arrival of Jan Pieterszoon Coen (J.P. Coen). The Dutch burned the English fort, and forced the English to retreat on their ships. The victory consolidated Dutch power and in 1619 they renamed the city "Batavia."
Batavia c.1870
Commercial opportunities in the capital of the Dutch colony attracted Indonesian and especially Chinese immigrants, the increasing numbers creating burdens on the city. Tensions grew as the colonial government tried to restrict Chinese migration through deportations. On 9 October 1740, 5,000 Chinese were massacred and the following year, Chinese inhabitants were moved to Glodok outside the city walls. The city began to move further south as epidemics in 1835 and 1870 encouraged more people to move far south of the port. The Koningsplein, now Merdeka Square was completed in 1818, the housing park of Menteng was started in 1913, and Kebayoran Baru was the last Dutch-built residential area. By 1930 Batavia had more than 500,000 inhabitants, Colonial Economy and Society, 1870-1940. Source: U.S. Library of Congress. including 37,067 Europeans. Governance Failure: Rethinking the Institutional Dimensions of Urban Water Supply to Poor Households. ScienceDirect.
The Japanese renamed the city "Jakarta" during their World War II occupation of Indonesia. Following World War II, Indonesian Republicans withdrew from allied-occupied Jakarta during their fight for Indonesian independence and established their capital in Yogyakarta. In 1950, once independence was secured, Jakarta was once again made the national capital. Indonesia's founding president, Sukarno, envisaged Jakarta as a great international city. He instigated large government-funded projects undertaken with openly nationalistic and modernist architecture. Projects in Jakarta included a clover-leaf highway, a major boulevard (Jalan MH Thamrin-Sudirman), monuments such as The National Monument, major hotels, shopping centre, and a new parliament building.
In October 1965, Jakarta was the site of an abortive coup attempt which saw 6 top generals killed, and ultimately resulted in the downfall of Sukarno and the start of Suharto's "New Order. A propaganda monument stands at the place where the general's bodies were dumped. In 1966, Jakarta was declared a "special capital city district" (daerah khusus ibukota), thus gaining a status approximately equivalent to that of a state or province. Lieutenant General Ali Sadikin served as Governor from the mid-60's commencement of the "New Order" through to 1977; he rehabilitated roads and bridges, encouraged the arts, built several hospitals, and a large number of new schools. He also cleared out slum dwellers for new development projects some for the benefit of the Suharto family and tried to eliminate rickshaws and ban street vendors. He began control of migration to the city in order to stem the overcrowding and poverty.
Foreign investment contributed to a real estate boom which changed the face of the city.
The boom ended with the 1997/98 East Asian Economic crisis putting Jakarta at the center of violence, protest, and political maneuvering. Long-time president, Suharto, began to lose his grip on power. Tensions reached a peak in the Jakarta riots of May 1998, when four students were shot dead at Trisakti University by security forces; four days of riots and violence ensued that killed an estimated 1,200, and destroyed or damaged 6,000 buildings. The Jakarta riots targeted Chinese Indonesians. Wages of Hatred. Michael Shari. Business Week. Suharto resigned as president, and Jakarta has remained the focal point of democratic change in Indonesia. Jemaah Islamiah-connected bombings have occurred in the city since 2000 on an almost annual basis, although the 2009 bombing of two international hotels was the first since 2005.
Map of the Cities (Kotamadya) of DKI Jakarta. Each Cities are divided into Subdistricts (Kecamatan)
Officially, Jakarta is not a city, but a province with special status as the capital of Indonesia. It has a governor (instead of a mayor), and is divided into several sub-regions with their own administrative systems. As a province, the official name of Jakarta is Daerah Khusus Ibukota Jakarta ("Special Capital City District of Jakarta"), which in Indonesian is abbreviated to DKI Jakarta.
Jakarta is divided into five kota or kotamadya ("cities" - formerly municipalities), each headed by a mayor, and one regency (kabupaten) headed by a regent. In August 2007, Jakarta held its first ever election to choose a governor, whereas previously the city's governors were appointed by local parliament. The poll is part of a country-wide decentralization drive, allowing for direct local elections in several areas.
The Cities/Municipalities of Jakarta are:
* Central Jakarta (Jakarta Pusat) is Jakarta's smallest city and home to most of Jakarta's administrative and political center. It is characterized by large parks and Dutch colonial buildings. Landmarks include the National Monument (Monas), the Istiqlal Mosque, and museums.
* West Jakarta (Jakarta Barat) has the highest concentration of small-scale industries in Jakarta. The area includes Jakarta's Chinatown and landmarks include the Chinese Langgam building and the Toko Merah building. West Jakarta contains part of the Jakarta Old Town.
* South Jakarta (Jakarta Selatan), previously planned as a satellite city, is now the location of large upscale shopping centers and affluent residential areas. Jakarta Selatan functions as Jakarta's ground water buffer, but recently the green belt areas are threatened by new developments. Most CBD area of Jakarta is concentrated in South Jakarta.
* East Jakarta (Jakarta Timur) territory is characterized with several industrial sectors erected in this city. There is also still some area of swamps and rice fields in this city.
* North Jakarta (Jakarta Utara) is the only city in Jakarta that is bounded by the sea (Java Sea). It is the location of the Tanjung Priok Port. Big-scale and medium-scale industries are concentrated in North Jakarta. North Jakarta contains the location of Jakarta Old Town, formerly known as Batavia since the 17 th century, and was a center of VOC trade activity in Dutch East Indies. Also located in North Jakarta is Ancol Dreamland (Taman Impian Jaya Ancol), currently the largest integrated tourism area in South East Asia.
The only Regency (Kabupaten) of Jakarta is:
* Thousand Islands (Kepulauan Seribu), formerly a subdistrict of North Jakarta, is a collection of 105 small islands located on Java Sea. It has a high conservation value because of its unique and special ecosystems. Marine tourism, such as diving, water bicycle, and wind surfing, is the most important touristic activities in this territory. The main transportation between these islands are speed boat or small ferries.
Since September 1945, the governmental of Jakarta City has been changed from the Japanese Djakarta Toku-Betsu Shi into Jakarta National Administration. This first government was held by a Mayor until the end of 1960 when it was changed into a Governor. The last Mayor of Jakarta is Sudiro, until he was replaced by Dr. Sumarno as a Governor.
In 1974, Based on the Act No. 5 of 1974 about Fundamental of Regional Government, Jakarta was stated as the Capital City of Indonesia and part of the 26 Province in Indonesia.
Jakarta is located on the northwest coast of Java, at the mouth of the Ciliwung River on Jakarta Bay, which is an inlet of the Java Sea. The city is a lowland area averaging 7 meters above sea level. Officially, the area of the Jakarta Special District is 662 km 2 of land area and 6,977 km 2 of sea area. Based on Governor Decree in 2007, No. 171. taken from Statistics DKI Jakarta Provincial Office, Jakarta in Figures, 2008, BPS Province of DKI Jakarta Rivers flow from the hilly southern parts of the city northwards towards the Java Sea. The most important river is the Ciliwung River, which divides the city into the western and eastern principalities.
The northern part of Jakarta lies on a plain, approximately eight meters above the sea level. This contributes to the frequent flooding. The coastal area extends around from west to east. The southern parts of the city are hilly. During the wet season, Jakarta suffers from flooding due to clogged sewage pipes and waterways, deforestation near rapidly urbanizing Bogor and Depok, and the fact that 40% of it is below sea level . Major floods occurred in 1996 Asiaviews - Asian News when 5,000 hectares of land were flooded and 2007. Bloomberg.com: Asia Losses from infrastructure damage and state revenue were at least 5.2 trillion rupiah (572 million US dollars) and at least 85 people were killed Three killed, 90,000 evacuated in Jakarta floods: officials - Yahoo! News and about 350,000 people forced from their homes.. Disease fears as floods ravage Jakarta Approximately 70% of Jakarta's total area was flooded with water up to four meters deep in parts of the city. Jakarta Flood Feb 2007 « (Geo) Information for All /ref>
The Thousand Islands, which are administratively a part of Jakarta, are located in Jakarta Bay north of the city.
Jakarta has a hot and humid equatorial/tropical climate (Af) according to the Köppen climate classification system. Located in the western-part of Indonesia, Jakarta's wet season rainfall peak is January with average monthly rainfall of , and its dry season low point is August with a monthly average of .
Average daily temperatures range from 25° to 36°C (77°-97°F).
Tanjidor orchestra celebrating the Chinese New Year.
As the economic and political capital of Indonesia, Jakarta attracts many domestic immigrants who bring their various languages, dialects, foods and customs.
The Betawi (Orang Betawi, or "people of Batavia") is a term used to describe the descendants of the people living in and around Batavia and recognized as an ethnic group from around the 18th-19th century. The Betawi people are mostly descended from various Southeast Asian ethnic groups brought or attracted to Batavia to meet labor needs, and include people from parts of Indonesia. The Betawi - due to their diverse origins - play a major role concerning ethnic and national identity in contemporary Jakarta; see Knörr, Jacqueline: Kreolität und postkoloniale Gesellschaft. Integration und Differenzierung in Jakarta, Campus Verlag: Frankfurt a.M. & New York, 2007, ISBN 978-3-593-38344-6 The language and the culture of these immigrants is distinct from that of the Sundanese or Javanese. The language is more based on the East Malay dialect and enriched by loan words from Sundanese, Javanese, Chinese, and Arabic. Nowadays, the Jakarta-dialects used by people in Jakarta are loosely based on the Betawi language.
The parade of Ondel-ondel, a Betawi large puppet-mask dance.
Betawi arts are rarely found in Jakarta due to their infamous low-profile and most Betawi have moved to the border of Jakarta, displaced by new immigrants. It is easier to find Java or Minang based wedding ceremonial instead of Betawi weddings in Jakarta. It is easier to find Javanese Gamelan instead of Gambang Kromong (a mixture between Betawi and Chinese music) or Tanjidor (a mixture between Betawi and Portuguese music) or Marawis (a mixture between Betawi and Yaman music). However, some festivals such as the Jalan Jaksa Festival or Kemang Festival include efforts to preserve Betawi arts by inviting artists to give performances.
There has also been a Chinese community in Jakarta for many centuries. Officially, they make up 6% of the Jakarta population, though this number may be under-reported.
Jakarta has several performing art centers, such as the Taman Ismail Marzuki (TIM) art center in Cikini, Gedung Kesenian Jakarta near Pasar Baru, Balai Sarbini in Plaza Semanggi area, Bentara Budaya Jakarta in Palmerah area, Pasar Seni (Art Market) in Ancol, and traditional Indonesian art performances at the pavilions of some Provinces in Taman Mini Indonesia Indah. Traditional music is often found at high-class hotels, including Wayang and Gamelan performances. Javanese Wayang Orang performance can be found at Wayang Orang Bharata theater near Senen bus terminal. As the nation's largest city and capital, Jakarta has lured much national and regional talent who hope to find a greater audience and more opportunities for success.
Jakarta is hosting several prestigious art and culture festivals as well as exhibitions, such as the annual Jakarta International Film Festival (JiFFest), Jakarta International Java Jazz Festival, Jakarta Fashion Week, Jakarta Fashion & Food Festival (JFFF), Flona Jakarta (Flora and Fauna exhibition, held annually on August in Lapangan Banteng park featuring flowers, plant nursery, and pets), also Indonesia Creative Products and Jakarta Arts and Crafts exhibition. The Jakarta Fair is held annually from mid June to mid July to celebrate the anniversary of the city. It is largely centered around a trade fair, however this month-long fair also has featured entertainments, arts and music performances by local bands and musicians.
Several foreign art and culture centers also established in Jakarta, mainly serve to promote culture and language through learning centers, libraries, and art galleries. Among these foreign art and cultural centers are Netherlands Erasmus Huis, UK British Council, France Centre Culturel Français, Germany Goethe-Institut, Japan Foundation, and Jawaharlal Nehru Indian Cultural Center.
National Museum of Indonesia in Central Jakarta
The museums in Jakarta cluster around the Central Jakarta Merdeka Square area, Jakarta Old Town, and Taman Mini Indonesia Indah.
The Jakarta Old Town contains museums that are former institution buildings of Batavia. Some of these museums are Jakarta History Museum (former City Hall of Batavia), Wayang Museum, the Fine Art and Ceramic Museum (former Court House of Batavia), Maritime Museum (former Sunda Kelapa warehouse), Bank Indonesia Museum, and Bank Mandiri Museum.
Several museums that are clustered around the Merdeka Square area are National Museum of Indonesia, Monas, Bayt al-Qur'an and Istiqlal Islamic Museum, and Jakarta Cathedral Museum.
The recreational area of Taman Mini Indonesia Indah in East Jakarta contains fourteen museums such as Purna Bhakti Pertiwi Museum, Asmat Museum, and other science-based museum such as Research & Technology Information Centre, Insect Museum, Petrol and Gas Museum.
Other museums are Satria Mandala Military Museum, Museum Sumpah Pemuda, and Lubang Buaya.
Jakarta has a vast range of food available at hundreds of eating complexes located all over the city. There is also international food, especially Indian, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean food because of the cosmopolitan population. /ref> One of the popular local cuisine of Jakarta is Soto betawi, which is a cow milk or coconut milk broth with beef tendons, intestines, tripe. The other popular cuisine are kerak telor, gado-gado, and cucur.
Daily newspapers in Jakarta include Bisnis Indonesia, Investor Daily, Jakarta Globe, The Jakarta Post, Indo Pos, Seputar Indonesia, Kompas, Media Indonesia, Republika, Pos Kota, Warta Kota, Lampu Merah and Suara Pembaruan.
* Government television: TVRI.
* Private national television: TPI, RCTI, Metro TV, Indosiar, StarANTV, SCTV, Trans TV, TV ONE, Trans 7, and Global TV.
* Local television: Jak-TV, O-Channel, and Space-Toon.
* Cable television: First Media, TelkomVision
* Satellite television: Indovision, Astro Nusantara, TelkomVision, Aora TV
The headquarter of Bank Indonesia in Central Jakarta. Financial services, trade and manufacturing are the largest sectors of the city's economy.
Jakarta's economy depends heavily on financial service, trade, and manufacturing. Industry includes electronics, automotive, chemicals, mechanical engineering and biomedical sciences manufacturing. In 2009, 13% of the population had an income per capita in excess of US$ 10,000 (Rp 108,000,000).
The economic growth of Jakarta in 2007 was 6.44% up from 5.95% the previous year, with the growth in the transportation and communication (15.25%), construction (7.81%) and trade, hotel and restaurant sectors (6.88%). In 2007, GRP (Growth Regional Domestic Product) was Rp. 566.45 trillion. The largest contributions to GDRP was by finance, ownership and business services (28.7%); trade, hotel and restaurant sector (20.4%), and manufacturing industry sector (15.97%). In 2007, per capita GRDP of DKI Jakarta inhabitants was an 11.63% compared to previous year
Both GRDP by at current market price and GRDP by at 2000 constant price in 2007 for Municipality of Central Jakarta (Jakarta Pusat) is higher than other municipalities in DKI Jakarta, which is 145.81 million rupiahs and 80.78 million rupiahs.
A new law in 2007 forbids the giving of money to beggars, buskers and hawkers, bans squatter settlements on river banks and highways, and prohibits spitting and smoking on public transportation. Unauthorized people cleaning car windscreens and taking tips for directing traffic at intersections will also be penalized. Critics of the new legislation claim that such laws will be difficult to enforce and it tends to ignore the desperate poverty of many of the capital's inhabitants. "Condemned Communities: Forced Evictions in Jakarta" Human Rights Watch Sep 2006.
In 2005, Jakarta's contribution to the national GDP was 17% up from 15% in 2000. The manufacturing and construction sectors in Jakarta decreased indicating that Jakarta has shifted from industry city to the services city. Most manufacturing plants in Jakarta have been relocated to peripheral areas like Tangerang, Bogor, Depok and Bekasi.
Based on 2007 National Socio-Economic Survey estimates, the population of DKI Jakarta Province was 9.06 million. The area of DKI Jakarta is 662.33 km 2 , suggesting a population density of 137,000 people/km 2 . Population growth between 2000 and 2007 was 1.11 percent compared 0.15 percent during the 1990s. Inwards immigration tended to negate the effect of family planning programs. The population has risen from 1.2 million in 1960 to 8.8 million in 2004, counting only its legal residents. The population of greater Jakarta is estimated at 23 million, making it the second largest urban area in the world. By 2025 the population of Jakarta may reach 24.9 million, not counting millions more in surrounding areas. Far Eastern Economic Review, Asia 1998 Yearbook, p. 63.
Population growth has outgrown the government's ability to provide basic needs for its residents. Jakarta suffers from severe traffic congestion. Air pollution and waste management are also problems.
Jakarta's Central Business District along the Jenderal Sudirman Road, centered at the Wisma 46 building, currently the tallest office building in Indonesia.
West Irian Liberation Statue, one of the many Sukarno era monuments in the city.
The National Monument
The National Monument, stands at the center of Merdeka Square, the central park of the city. Other landmarks include the Istiqlal Mosque and Jakarta Cathedral. The Wisma 46 building in Central Jakarta is currently the highest building in Jakarta and Indonesia. Tourist attractions include Taman Mini Indonesia Indah, Ragunan Zoo, Jakarta Old Town, and Ancol Dreamland complex on Jakarta Bay, include Dunia Fantasi theme park, Sea World, Atlantis Water Adventure, and Gelanggang Samudra.
Jakarta shopping malls with areas in excess of 100,000 metres square, include Grand Indonesia, Plaza Indonesia, Senayan City, Plaza Senayan, Pondok Indah Mall, Mal Taman Anggrek, Mal Kelapa Gading, Mal Artha Gading. /ref> Traditional markets include Blok M, Tanah Abang, Senen, Glodok, Mangga Dua, Cempaka Mas, and Jatinegara.
Taman Suropati is located in Menteng garden city subdistrict, Central Jakarta. The park is surrounded by several Dutch colonial buildings. Taman Suropati was known as Burgemeester Bishopplein during the Dutch colonial time. The park is circular shaped with a surface area of 16,322 m2. There are several modern statues in the park made by artists of the ASEAN countries, which contributes to the other nickname of the park "Taman persahabatan seniman ASEAN" ("Park of the ASEAN artists relationship").
Taman Lapangan Banteng (Banteng Field Park) is located in Central Jakarta. It is about 4,5 hectares. The most notable landmark inside the park is the Monumen Pembebasan Irian Barat (Monument of the Liberation of Irian Barat). During the 1980s, the park is used as a bus terminal. In 1993, the park turned into a public space again and has become a recreation place for people and occasionally also used as an exhibition place or other events.
Taman Monas (Monas Park) or Taman Medan Merdeka (Medan Merdeka Park) is the park where the symbol of Jakarta, Monas or Monumen Nasional (National Monument) is located. The large open space was created by Dutch Governor General Herman Willem Deandels (1870) and was completed in 1910 under the name of Koningsplein. on 10 Januari 1993, President Soeharto initiate the action toward the beautification of the park. Several features in the park is a deer park and 33 trees that represents the 33 provinces of Indonesia.
Jalan Thamrin, the main avenue in Central Jakarta
One of the most populous cities in the world, Jakarta is strained by transportation problems. In Indonesia most communal transport is provided by mikrolets, which are privately run minibuses although these normally stay off the main roads.
Jakarta suffers from traffic congestion. A 'three in one' rule during peak hour was introduced in 1992, prohibiting fewer than three passengers per car on certain roads.
Motorised bajaj
Auto rickshaws, called bajaj, provide local transportation in the back streets of some parts of the city. From the early 1940s to 1991 they were a common form of local transportation in the city. In 1966, an estimated 160,000 rickshaws were operating in the city; as much as fifteen percent of Jakarta's total workforce was engaged in rickshaw driving. In 1971, rickshaws were banned from major roads, and shortly thereafter the government attempted a total ban, which substantially reduced their numbers but did not eliminate them. A campaign to eliminate them succeeded in 1990 and 1991, but during the economic crisis of 1998, some returned amid less effective government attempts to control them. Azuma, Yoshifumi (2003). Urban peasants: beca drivers in Jakarta. Jakarta: Pustaka Sinar Harapan.
TransJakarta bus service in Jakarta
The TransJakarta bus rapid transit service operates on seven reserved busway corridors in the city; connecting seven main points of Jakarta. The first TransJakarta line, from Blok M to Jakarta Kota opened in January 2004.
An outer ring road is under constructed and is partly operational A toll road connects Jakarta to Soekarno-Hatta International Airport in the northwest of Jakarta, as are the port of Merak and Tangerang to the west, and Bogor and Puncak to the south. Bekasi, Cikarang, Karawang, Cikampek, Purwakarta, and Bandung to the east.
A train at Gambir station in Central Jakarta
Railways connect the city to its neighboring regions: Depok and Bogor to the south, Tangerang and Serpong to the west, and Bekasi, Karawang, and Cikampek to the east. The major rail stations are Gambir, Jakarta Kota, Jatinegara, Pasar Senen, Manggarai, and Tanah Abang. During peak hours, the number of passengers greatly exceeds the system's capacity, and crowding is common.
Two lines of the Jakarta Monorail are under construction: the green line serving Semanggi-Casablanca Road-Kuningan-Semanggi and the blue line serving Kampung Melayu-Casablanca Road-Tanah Abang-Roxy. There are plans for a two-line metro (MRT) system, with a north-south line between Kota and Lebak Bulus, with connections to both monorail lines; and an east-west line, which will connect with the north-south line at the Sawah Besar station. The current project, which began in 2005, has been delayed due to a lack of funds, and the project has been abandoned by the developer PT Jakarta Monorail in March 2008.
On 6 June 2007, the city administration started to introduce the Waterway, a new river boat service along the Ciliwung River.
Soekarno-Hatta International Airport (CGK) is Jakarta's major airport. It is Indonesia's busiest airport handling more than 30 million passengers annually. A second airport, Halim Perdanakusuma International Airport (HLP) serves mostly private and VVIP/presidential flights.
The main seaport for this transportation mode is the Tanjung Priok seaport.
The biggest university in Jakarta is the University of Indonesia with campuses in Salemba and Depok. /ref> Others government universities include Jakarta State University, Jakarta State Polytechnic, and Jakarta Islamic State University. Nowadays, the oldest of which is the privately-owned Universitas Nasional (UNAS). Web Universitas Nasional 1949 Private universities in Jakarta include Trisakti University Atma Jaya University, and Tarumanagara University.
STOVIA was the first high school in Jakarta, established in 1851. As the largest city and the capital, Jakarta houses a large number of students from various parts of Indonesia, many of whom reside in dormitories or home-stay residences. For basic education, there are a variety of primary and secondary schools, tagged with public (national), private (national and bi-lingual national plus) and international schools. Two of the major international schools located in Jakarta are the Jakarta International School and the British International School (BIS).
The Bung Karno Stadium is capable of hosting 100,000 spectators
Jakarta was host to the Asian Games in 1962, /ref> host of the Asian Cup 2007, /ref> and has hosted the regional-scale Sea Games several times. Jakarta's most popular footbal club is Persija, which plays its matches in the Lebak Bulus Stadium. Another premiere division team is Persitara.
The biggest stadium in Jakarta is the Bung Karno Stadium with a capacity of 100,000 seats Football stadiums of the world - Stadiums in Indonesia . For basketball, the Kelapa Gading Sport Mall in Kelapa Gading, North Jakarta, with a capacity of 7,000 seats, is the home arena of the Indonesian national basketball team. The Senayan sports complex has several sport venues, including the Bung Karno soccer stadium, Madya Stadium, Istora Senayan, a shooting range, a tennis court and a golf driving range. The Senayan complex was built in 1959 to accommodate the Asian Games in 1962.
In 2011, Jakarta, together with Bandung, will again host the Southeast Asian Games.
A trash dump in Bantar Gebang, Bekasi
Surveys show that "less than a quarter of the population is fully served by improved water sources. The rest rely on a variety of sources, including rivers, lakes and private water vendors. Some 7.2 million people are [without clean water]." United Nations Human Development Report 2006, p. 39
Sister relationships with towns and regions worldwide include:
*History of Jakarta
*Port of Jakarta
* Official website
* Jakarta Official Travel Website
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Jakarta | Did Jayawikarta's soldiers attack the Dutch fortress? | yes | data/set3/a5 | Jakarta
Jakarta (also DKI Jakarta) is the capital and largest city of Indonesia. Located on the northwest coast of Java, it has an area of and a population of 8,490,000. Jakarta is the country's economic, cultural and political center. It is the most populous city in Indonesia and Southeast Asia, and is the twelfth-largest city in the world. The metropolitan area, Jabodetabek, is the second largest in the world. Jakarta is listed as a global city in the 2008 Globalization and World Cities Study Group and Network (GaWC) research. the city's name is derived from the Sanskrit word "Jayakarta" (à¤à¤¯à¤à¤°à¥) which translates as "victorious deed," "complete act,"or "complete victory."
Established in the fourth century, the city became an important trading port for the Kingdom of Sunda. It grew as the capital of the colonial Dutch East Indies. It was made capital of Indonesia when the country became independent after World War II. It was formerly known as Sunda Kelapa (397â1527), Jayakarta (1527â1619), Batavia (1619â1942), and Djakarta (1942â1972).
Landmarks include the National Monument and Istiqlal Mosque. The city is the seat of the ASEAN Secretariat. Jakarta is served by the Soekarno-Hatta International Airport, Halim Perdanakusuma International Airport, and Tanjung Priok harbour; it is connected by several intercity and commuter railways, and served by several bus lines running on reserved busways.
The former Stadhuis of Batavia, the seat of Governor General of VOC. The building now serves as Jakarta History Museum, Jakarta Old Town area.
Dutch Batavia in the 17th Century, built in what is now North Jakarta
The Jakarta area was part of the fourth century Indianized kingdom of Tarumanagara. In AD 39, King Purnawarman established Sunda Pura as a new capital city for the kingdom, located at the northern coast of Java. Purnawarman left seven memorial stones across the area with inscriptions bearing his name, including the present-day Banten and West Java provinces. After the power of Tarumanagara declined, its territories, including Sunda Pura, became part of the Kingdom of Sunda. The harbour area was renamed Sunda Kalapa as written in a Hindu monk's lontar manuscripts. Bujangga Manik Manuscript which are now located at the Bodleian Library of Oxford University in England, and travel records by Prince Bujangga Manik.( ) By the fourteenth century, Sunda Kelapa became a major trading port for the kingdom. The first European fleet, four Portuguese ships from Malacca, arrived in 1513 when the Portuguese were looking for a route for spices, especially black pepper.
The Kingdom of Sunda made a peace agreement with Portugal by allowing the Portuguese to build a port in 1522 in order to defend against the rising power of the Sultanate of Demak from central Java.
In 1527, Fatahillah, a Sumatran Malay warrior from Demak attacked Kingdom of Sunda and succeeded in conquering the harbour on June 22, 1527, after which Sunda Kelapa was renamed Jayakarta.
The Castle of Batavia, seen from West Kali Besar by Andries Beeckman circa 1656-58
Through the relationship with Prince Jayawikarta from the Sultanate of Banten, Dutch ships arrived in Jayakarta in 1596. In 1602, the British East India Company's first voyage, commanded by Sir James Lancaster, arrived in Aceh and sailed on to Banten where they were allowed to build a trading post. This site became the center of British trade in Indonesia until 1682.
Jayawikarta is thought to have made trading connections with the English merchants, rivals of the Dutch, by allowing them to build houses directly across from the Dutch buildings in 1615. When relations between Prince Jayawikarta and the Dutch deteriorated, Jayawikarta's soldiers attacked the Dutch fortress. Prince Jayakarta's army and the British were defeated by the Dutch, in part owing to the timely arrival of Jan Pieterszoon Coen (J.P. Coen). The Dutch burned the English fort, and forced the English to retreat on their ships. The victory consolidated Dutch power and in 1619 they renamed the city "Batavia."
Batavia c.1870
Commercial opportunities in the capital of the Dutch colony attracted Indonesian and especially Chinese immigrants, the increasing numbers creating burdens on the city. Tensions grew as the colonial government tried to restrict Chinese migration through deportations. On 9 October 1740, 5,000 Chinese were massacred and the following year, Chinese inhabitants were moved to Glodok outside the city walls. The city began to move further south as epidemics in 1835 and 1870 encouraged more people to move far south of the port. The Koningsplein, now Merdeka Square was completed in 1818, the housing park of Menteng was started in 1913, and Kebayoran Baru was the last Dutch-built residential area. By 1930 Batavia had more than 500,000 inhabitants, Colonial Economy and Society, 1870-1940. Source: U.S. Library of Congress. including 37,067 Europeans. Governance Failure: Rethinking the Institutional Dimensions of Urban Water Supply to Poor Households. ScienceDirect.
The Japanese renamed the city "Jakarta" during their World War II occupation of Indonesia. Following World War II, Indonesian Republicans withdrew from allied-occupied Jakarta during their fight for Indonesian independence and established their capital in Yogyakarta. In 1950, once independence was secured, Jakarta was once again made the national capital. Indonesia's founding president, Sukarno, envisaged Jakarta as a great international city. He instigated large government-funded projects undertaken with openly nationalistic and modernist architecture. Projects in Jakarta included a clover-leaf highway, a major boulevard (Jalan MH Thamrin-Sudirman), monuments such as The National Monument, major hotels, shopping centre, and a new parliament building.
In October 1965, Jakarta was the site of an abortive coup attempt which saw 6 top generals killed, and ultimately resulted in the downfall of Sukarno and the start of Suharto's "New Order. A propaganda monument stands at the place where the general's bodies were dumped. In 1966, Jakarta was declared a "special capital city district" (daerah khusus ibukota), thus gaining a status approximately equivalent to that of a state or province. Lieutenant General Ali Sadikin served as Governor from the mid-60's commencement of the "New Order" through to 1977; he rehabilitated roads and bridges, encouraged the arts, built several hospitals, and a large number of new schools. He also cleared out slum dwellers for new development projects some for the benefit of the Suharto family and tried to eliminate rickshaws and ban street vendors. He began control of migration to the city in order to stem the overcrowding and poverty.
Foreign investment contributed to a real estate boom which changed the face of the city.
The boom ended with the 1997/98 East Asian Economic crisis putting Jakarta at the center of violence, protest, and political maneuvering. Long-time president, Suharto, began to lose his grip on power. Tensions reached a peak in the Jakarta riots of May 1998, when four students were shot dead at Trisakti University by security forces; four days of riots and violence ensued that killed an estimated 1,200, and destroyed or damaged 6,000 buildings. The Jakarta riots targeted Chinese Indonesians. Wages of Hatred. Michael Shari. Business Week. Suharto resigned as president, and Jakarta has remained the focal point of democratic change in Indonesia. Jemaah Islamiah-connected bombings have occurred in the city since 2000 on an almost annual basis, although the 2009 bombing of two international hotels was the first since 2005.
Map of the Cities (Kotamadya) of DKI Jakarta. Each Cities are divided into Subdistricts (Kecamatan)
Officially, Jakarta is not a city, but a province with special status as the capital of Indonesia. It has a governor (instead of a mayor), and is divided into several sub-regions with their own administrative systems. As a province, the official name of Jakarta is Daerah Khusus Ibukota Jakarta ("Special Capital City District of Jakarta"), which in Indonesian is abbreviated to DKI Jakarta.
Jakarta is divided into five kota or kotamadya ("cities" - formerly municipalities), each headed by a mayor, and one regency (kabupaten) headed by a regent. In August 2007, Jakarta held its first ever election to choose a governor, whereas previously the city's governors were appointed by local parliament. The poll is part of a country-wide decentralization drive, allowing for direct local elections in several areas.
The Cities/Municipalities of Jakarta are:
* Central Jakarta (Jakarta Pusat) is Jakarta's smallest city and home to most of Jakarta's administrative and political center. It is characterized by large parks and Dutch colonial buildings. Landmarks include the National Monument (Monas), the Istiqlal Mosque, and museums.
* West Jakarta (Jakarta Barat) has the highest concentration of small-scale industries in Jakarta. The area includes Jakarta's Chinatown and landmarks include the Chinese Langgam building and the Toko Merah building. West Jakarta contains part of the Jakarta Old Town.
* South Jakarta (Jakarta Selatan), previously planned as a satellite city, is now the location of large upscale shopping centers and affluent residential areas. Jakarta Selatan functions as Jakarta's ground water buffer, but recently the green belt areas are threatened by new developments. Most CBD area of Jakarta is concentrated in South Jakarta.
* East Jakarta (Jakarta Timur) territory is characterized with several industrial sectors erected in this city. There is also still some area of swamps and rice fields in this city.
* North Jakarta (Jakarta Utara) is the only city in Jakarta that is bounded by the sea (Java Sea). It is the location of the Tanjung Priok Port. Big-scale and medium-scale industries are concentrated in North Jakarta. North Jakarta contains the location of Jakarta Old Town, formerly known as Batavia since the 17 th century, and was a center of VOC trade activity in Dutch East Indies. Also located in North Jakarta is Ancol Dreamland (Taman Impian Jaya Ancol), currently the largest integrated tourism area in South East Asia.
The only Regency (Kabupaten) of Jakarta is:
* Thousand Islands (Kepulauan Seribu), formerly a subdistrict of North Jakarta, is a collection of 105 small islands located on Java Sea. It has a high conservation value because of its unique and special ecosystems. Marine tourism, such as diving, water bicycle, and wind surfing, is the most important touristic activities in this territory. The main transportation between these islands are speed boat or small ferries.
Since September 1945, the governmental of Jakarta City has been changed from the Japanese Djakarta Toku-Betsu Shi into Jakarta National Administration. This first government was held by a Mayor until the end of 1960 when it was changed into a Governor. The last Mayor of Jakarta is Sudiro, until he was replaced by Dr. Sumarno as a Governor.
In 1974, Based on the Act No. 5 of 1974 about Fundamental of Regional Government, Jakarta was stated as the Capital City of Indonesia and part of the 26 Province in Indonesia.
Jakarta is located on the northwest coast of Java, at the mouth of the Ciliwung River on Jakarta Bay, which is an inlet of the Java Sea. The city is a lowland area averaging 7 meters above sea level. Officially, the area of the Jakarta Special District is 662 km 2 of land area and 6,977 km 2 of sea area. Based on Governor Decree in 2007, No. 171. taken from Statistics DKI Jakarta Provincial Office, Jakarta in Figures, 2008, BPS Province of DKI Jakarta Rivers flow from the hilly southern parts of the city northwards towards the Java Sea. The most important river is the Ciliwung River, which divides the city into the western and eastern principalities.
The northern part of Jakarta lies on a plain, approximately eight meters above the sea level. This contributes to the frequent flooding. The coastal area extends around from west to east. The southern parts of the city are hilly. During the wet season, Jakarta suffers from flooding due to clogged sewage pipes and waterways, deforestation near rapidly urbanizing Bogor and Depok, and the fact that 40% of it is below sea level . Major floods occurred in 1996 Asiaviews - Asian News when 5,000 hectares of land were flooded and 2007. Bloomberg.com: Asia Losses from infrastructure damage and state revenue were at least 5.2 trillion rupiah (572 million US dollars) and at least 85 people were killed Three killed, 90,000 evacuated in Jakarta floods: officials - Yahoo! News and about 350,000 people forced from their homes.. Disease fears as floods ravage Jakarta Approximately 70% of Jakarta's total area was flooded with water up to four meters deep in parts of the city. Jakarta Flood Feb 2007 « (Geo) Information for All /ref>
The Thousand Islands, which are administratively a part of Jakarta, are located in Jakarta Bay north of the city.
Jakarta has a hot and humid equatorial/tropical climate (Af) according to the Köppen climate classification system. Located in the western-part of Indonesia, Jakarta's wet season rainfall peak is January with average monthly rainfall of , and its dry season low point is August with a monthly average of .
Average daily temperatures range from 25° to 36°C (77°-97°F).
Tanjidor orchestra celebrating the Chinese New Year.
As the economic and political capital of Indonesia, Jakarta attracts many domestic immigrants who bring their various languages, dialects, foods and customs.
The Betawi (Orang Betawi, or "people of Batavia") is a term used to describe the descendants of the people living in and around Batavia and recognized as an ethnic group from around the 18th-19th century. The Betawi people are mostly descended from various Southeast Asian ethnic groups brought or attracted to Batavia to meet labor needs, and include people from parts of Indonesia. The Betawi - due to their diverse origins - play a major role concerning ethnic and national identity in contemporary Jakarta; see Knörr, Jacqueline: Kreolität und postkoloniale Gesellschaft. Integration und Differenzierung in Jakarta, Campus Verlag: Frankfurt a.M. & New York, 2007, ISBN 978-3-593-38344-6 The language and the culture of these immigrants is distinct from that of the Sundanese or Javanese. The language is more based on the East Malay dialect and enriched by loan words from Sundanese, Javanese, Chinese, and Arabic. Nowadays, the Jakarta-dialects used by people in Jakarta are loosely based on the Betawi language.
The parade of Ondel-ondel, a Betawi large puppet-mask dance.
Betawi arts are rarely found in Jakarta due to their infamous low-profile and most Betawi have moved to the border of Jakarta, displaced by new immigrants. It is easier to find Java or Minang based wedding ceremonial instead of Betawi weddings in Jakarta. It is easier to find Javanese Gamelan instead of Gambang Kromong (a mixture between Betawi and Chinese music) or Tanjidor (a mixture between Betawi and Portuguese music) or Marawis (a mixture between Betawi and Yaman music). However, some festivals such as the Jalan Jaksa Festival or Kemang Festival include efforts to preserve Betawi arts by inviting artists to give performances.
There has also been a Chinese community in Jakarta for many centuries. Officially, they make up 6% of the Jakarta population, though this number may be under-reported.
Jakarta has several performing art centers, such as the Taman Ismail Marzuki (TIM) art center in Cikini, Gedung Kesenian Jakarta near Pasar Baru, Balai Sarbini in Plaza Semanggi area, Bentara Budaya Jakarta in Palmerah area, Pasar Seni (Art Market) in Ancol, and traditional Indonesian art performances at the pavilions of some Provinces in Taman Mini Indonesia Indah. Traditional music is often found at high-class hotels, including Wayang and Gamelan performances. Javanese Wayang Orang performance can be found at Wayang Orang Bharata theater near Senen bus terminal. As the nation's largest city and capital, Jakarta has lured much national and regional talent who hope to find a greater audience and more opportunities for success.
Jakarta is hosting several prestigious art and culture festivals as well as exhibitions, such as the annual Jakarta International Film Festival (JiFFest), Jakarta International Java Jazz Festival, Jakarta Fashion Week, Jakarta Fashion & Food Festival (JFFF), Flona Jakarta (Flora and Fauna exhibition, held annually on August in Lapangan Banteng park featuring flowers, plant nursery, and pets), also Indonesia Creative Products and Jakarta Arts and Crafts exhibition. The Jakarta Fair is held annually from mid June to mid July to celebrate the anniversary of the city. It is largely centered around a trade fair, however this month-long fair also has featured entertainments, arts and music performances by local bands and musicians.
Several foreign art and culture centers also established in Jakarta, mainly serve to promote culture and language through learning centers, libraries, and art galleries. Among these foreign art and cultural centers are Netherlands Erasmus Huis, UK British Council, France Centre Culturel Français, Germany Goethe-Institut, Japan Foundation, and Jawaharlal Nehru Indian Cultural Center.
National Museum of Indonesia in Central Jakarta
The museums in Jakarta cluster around the Central Jakarta Merdeka Square area, Jakarta Old Town, and Taman Mini Indonesia Indah.
The Jakarta Old Town contains museums that are former institution buildings of Batavia. Some of these museums are Jakarta History Museum (former City Hall of Batavia), Wayang Museum, the Fine Art and Ceramic Museum (former Court House of Batavia), Maritime Museum (former Sunda Kelapa warehouse), Bank Indonesia Museum, and Bank Mandiri Museum.
Several museums that are clustered around the Merdeka Square area are National Museum of Indonesia, Monas, Bayt al-Qur'an and Istiqlal Islamic Museum, and Jakarta Cathedral Museum.
The recreational area of Taman Mini Indonesia Indah in East Jakarta contains fourteen museums such as Purna Bhakti Pertiwi Museum, Asmat Museum, and other science-based museum such as Research & Technology Information Centre, Insect Museum, Petrol and Gas Museum.
Other museums are Satria Mandala Military Museum, Museum Sumpah Pemuda, and Lubang Buaya.
Jakarta has a vast range of food available at hundreds of eating complexes located all over the city. There is also international food, especially Indian, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean food because of the cosmopolitan population. /ref> One of the popular local cuisine of Jakarta is Soto betawi, which is a cow milk or coconut milk broth with beef tendons, intestines, tripe. The other popular cuisine are kerak telor, gado-gado, and cucur.
Daily newspapers in Jakarta include Bisnis Indonesia, Investor Daily, Jakarta Globe, The Jakarta Post, Indo Pos, Seputar Indonesia, Kompas, Media Indonesia, Republika, Pos Kota, Warta Kota, Lampu Merah and Suara Pembaruan.
* Government television: TVRI.
* Private national television: TPI, RCTI, Metro TV, Indosiar, StarANTV, SCTV, Trans TV, TV ONE, Trans 7, and Global TV.
* Local television: Jak-TV, O-Channel, and Space-Toon.
* Cable television: First Media, TelkomVision
* Satellite television: Indovision, Astro Nusantara, TelkomVision, Aora TV
The headquarter of Bank Indonesia in Central Jakarta. Financial services, trade and manufacturing are the largest sectors of the city's economy.
Jakarta's economy depends heavily on financial service, trade, and manufacturing. Industry includes electronics, automotive, chemicals, mechanical engineering and biomedical sciences manufacturing. In 2009, 13% of the population had an income per capita in excess of US$ 10,000 (Rp 108,000,000).
The economic growth of Jakarta in 2007 was 6.44% up from 5.95% the previous year, with the growth in the transportation and communication (15.25%), construction (7.81%) and trade, hotel and restaurant sectors (6.88%). In 2007, GRP (Growth Regional Domestic Product) was Rp. 566.45 trillion. The largest contributions to GDRP was by finance, ownership and business services (28.7%); trade, hotel and restaurant sector (20.4%), and manufacturing industry sector (15.97%). In 2007, per capita GRDP of DKI Jakarta inhabitants was an 11.63% compared to previous year
Both GRDP by at current market price and GRDP by at 2000 constant price in 2007 for Municipality of Central Jakarta (Jakarta Pusat) is higher than other municipalities in DKI Jakarta, which is 145.81 million rupiahs and 80.78 million rupiahs.
A new law in 2007 forbids the giving of money to beggars, buskers and hawkers, bans squatter settlements on river banks and highways, and prohibits spitting and smoking on public transportation. Unauthorized people cleaning car windscreens and taking tips for directing traffic at intersections will also be penalized. Critics of the new legislation claim that such laws will be difficult to enforce and it tends to ignore the desperate poverty of many of the capital's inhabitants. "Condemned Communities: Forced Evictions in Jakarta" Human Rights Watch Sep 2006.
In 2005, Jakarta's contribution to the national GDP was 17% up from 15% in 2000. The manufacturing and construction sectors in Jakarta decreased indicating that Jakarta has shifted from industry city to the services city. Most manufacturing plants in Jakarta have been relocated to peripheral areas like Tangerang, Bogor, Depok and Bekasi.
Based on 2007 National Socio-Economic Survey estimates, the population of DKI Jakarta Province was 9.06 million. The area of DKI Jakarta is 662.33 km 2 , suggesting a population density of 137,000 people/km 2 . Population growth between 2000 and 2007 was 1.11 percent compared 0.15 percent during the 1990s. Inwards immigration tended to negate the effect of family planning programs. The population has risen from 1.2 million in 1960 to 8.8 million in 2004, counting only its legal residents. The population of greater Jakarta is estimated at 23 million, making it the second largest urban area in the world. By 2025 the population of Jakarta may reach 24.9 million, not counting millions more in surrounding areas. Far Eastern Economic Review, Asia 1998 Yearbook, p. 63.
Population growth has outgrown the government's ability to provide basic needs for its residents. Jakarta suffers from severe traffic congestion. Air pollution and waste management are also problems.
Jakarta's Central Business District along the Jenderal Sudirman Road, centered at the Wisma 46 building, currently the tallest office building in Indonesia.
West Irian Liberation Statue, one of the many Sukarno era monuments in the city.
The National Monument
The National Monument, stands at the center of Merdeka Square, the central park of the city. Other landmarks include the Istiqlal Mosque and Jakarta Cathedral. The Wisma 46 building in Central Jakarta is currently the highest building in Jakarta and Indonesia. Tourist attractions include Taman Mini Indonesia Indah, Ragunan Zoo, Jakarta Old Town, and Ancol Dreamland complex on Jakarta Bay, include Dunia Fantasi theme park, Sea World, Atlantis Water Adventure, and Gelanggang Samudra.
Jakarta shopping malls with areas in excess of 100,000 metres square, include Grand Indonesia, Plaza Indonesia, Senayan City, Plaza Senayan, Pondok Indah Mall, Mal Taman Anggrek, Mal Kelapa Gading, Mal Artha Gading. /ref> Traditional markets include Blok M, Tanah Abang, Senen, Glodok, Mangga Dua, Cempaka Mas, and Jatinegara.
Taman Suropati is located in Menteng garden city subdistrict, Central Jakarta. The park is surrounded by several Dutch colonial buildings. Taman Suropati was known as Burgemeester Bishopplein during the Dutch colonial time. The park is circular shaped with a surface area of 16,322 m2. There are several modern statues in the park made by artists of the ASEAN countries, which contributes to the other nickname of the park "Taman persahabatan seniman ASEAN" ("Park of the ASEAN artists relationship").
Taman Lapangan Banteng (Banteng Field Park) is located in Central Jakarta. It is about 4,5 hectares. The most notable landmark inside the park is the Monumen Pembebasan Irian Barat (Monument of the Liberation of Irian Barat). During the 1980s, the park is used as a bus terminal. In 1993, the park turned into a public space again and has become a recreation place for people and occasionally also used as an exhibition place or other events.
Taman Monas (Monas Park) or Taman Medan Merdeka (Medan Merdeka Park) is the park where the symbol of Jakarta, Monas or Monumen Nasional (National Monument) is located. The large open space was created by Dutch Governor General Herman Willem Deandels (1870) and was completed in 1910 under the name of Koningsplein. on 10 Januari 1993, President Soeharto initiate the action toward the beautification of the park. Several features in the park is a deer park and 33 trees that represents the 33 provinces of Indonesia.
Jalan Thamrin, the main avenue in Central Jakarta
One of the most populous cities in the world, Jakarta is strained by transportation problems. In Indonesia most communal transport is provided by mikrolets, which are privately run minibuses although these normally stay off the main roads.
Jakarta suffers from traffic congestion. A 'three in one' rule during peak hour was introduced in 1992, prohibiting fewer than three passengers per car on certain roads.
Motorised bajaj
Auto rickshaws, called bajaj, provide local transportation in the back streets of some parts of the city. From the early 1940s to 1991 they were a common form of local transportation in the city. In 1966, an estimated 160,000 rickshaws were operating in the city; as much as fifteen percent of Jakarta's total workforce was engaged in rickshaw driving. In 1971, rickshaws were banned from major roads, and shortly thereafter the government attempted a total ban, which substantially reduced their numbers but did not eliminate them. A campaign to eliminate them succeeded in 1990 and 1991, but during the economic crisis of 1998, some returned amid less effective government attempts to control them. Azuma, Yoshifumi (2003). Urban peasants: beca drivers in Jakarta. Jakarta: Pustaka Sinar Harapan.
TransJakarta bus service in Jakarta
The TransJakarta bus rapid transit service operates on seven reserved busway corridors in the city; connecting seven main points of Jakarta. The first TransJakarta line, from Blok M to Jakarta Kota opened in January 2004.
An outer ring road is under constructed and is partly operational A toll road connects Jakarta to Soekarno-Hatta International Airport in the northwest of Jakarta, as are the port of Merak and Tangerang to the west, and Bogor and Puncak to the south. Bekasi, Cikarang, Karawang, Cikampek, Purwakarta, and Bandung to the east.
A train at Gambir station in Central Jakarta
Railways connect the city to its neighboring regions: Depok and Bogor to the south, Tangerang and Serpong to the west, and Bekasi, Karawang, and Cikampek to the east. The major rail stations are Gambir, Jakarta Kota, Jatinegara, Pasar Senen, Manggarai, and Tanah Abang. During peak hours, the number of passengers greatly exceeds the system's capacity, and crowding is common.
Two lines of the Jakarta Monorail are under construction: the green line serving Semanggi-Casablanca Road-Kuningan-Semanggi and the blue line serving Kampung Melayu-Casablanca Road-Tanah Abang-Roxy. There are plans for a two-line metro (MRT) system, with a north-south line between Kota and Lebak Bulus, with connections to both monorail lines; and an east-west line, which will connect with the north-south line at the Sawah Besar station. The current project, which began in 2005, has been delayed due to a lack of funds, and the project has been abandoned by the developer PT Jakarta Monorail in March 2008.
On 6 June 2007, the city administration started to introduce the Waterway, a new river boat service along the Ciliwung River.
Soekarno-Hatta International Airport (CGK) is Jakarta's major airport. It is Indonesia's busiest airport handling more than 30 million passengers annually. A second airport, Halim Perdanakusuma International Airport (HLP) serves mostly private and VVIP/presidential flights.
The main seaport for this transportation mode is the Tanjung Priok seaport.
The biggest university in Jakarta is the University of Indonesia with campuses in Salemba and Depok. /ref> Others government universities include Jakarta State University, Jakarta State Polytechnic, and Jakarta Islamic State University. Nowadays, the oldest of which is the privately-owned Universitas Nasional (UNAS). Web Universitas Nasional 1949 Private universities in Jakarta include Trisakti University Atma Jaya University, and Tarumanagara University.
STOVIA was the first high school in Jakarta, established in 1851. As the largest city and the capital, Jakarta houses a large number of students from various parts of Indonesia, many of whom reside in dormitories or home-stay residences. For basic education, there are a variety of primary and secondary schools, tagged with public (national), private (national and bi-lingual national plus) and international schools. Two of the major international schools located in Jakarta are the Jakarta International School and the British International School (BIS).
The Bung Karno Stadium is capable of hosting 100,000 spectators
Jakarta was host to the Asian Games in 1962, /ref> host of the Asian Cup 2007, /ref> and has hosted the regional-scale Sea Games several times. Jakarta's most popular footbal club is Persija, which plays its matches in the Lebak Bulus Stadium. Another premiere division team is Persitara.
The biggest stadium in Jakarta is the Bung Karno Stadium with a capacity of 100,000 seats Football stadiums of the world - Stadiums in Indonesia . For basketball, the Kelapa Gading Sport Mall in Kelapa Gading, North Jakarta, with a capacity of 7,000 seats, is the home arena of the Indonesian national basketball team. The Senayan sports complex has several sport venues, including the Bung Karno soccer stadium, Madya Stadium, Istora Senayan, a shooting range, a tennis court and a golf driving range. The Senayan complex was built in 1959 to accommodate the Asian Games in 1962.
In 2011, Jakarta, together with Bandung, will again host the Southeast Asian Games.
A trash dump in Bantar Gebang, Bekasi
Surveys show that "less than a quarter of the population is fully served by improved water sources. The rest rely on a variety of sources, including rivers, lakes and private water vendors. Some 7.2 million people are [without clean water]." United Nations Human Development Report 2006, p. 39
Sister relationships with towns and regions worldwide include:
*History of Jakarta
*Port of Jakarta
* Official website
* Jakarta Official Travel Website
*
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Jakarta | Did Suharto resign as president? | Yes | data/set3/a5 | Jakarta
Jakarta (also DKI Jakarta) is the capital and largest city of Indonesia. Located on the northwest coast of Java, it has an area of and a population of 8,490,000. Jakarta is the country's economic, cultural and political center. It is the most populous city in Indonesia and Southeast Asia, and is the twelfth-largest city in the world. The metropolitan area, Jabodetabek, is the second largest in the world. Jakarta is listed as a global city in the 2008 Globalization and World Cities Study Group and Network (GaWC) research. the city's name is derived from the Sanskrit word "Jayakarta" (à¤à¤¯à¤à¤°à¥) which translates as "victorious deed," "complete act,"or "complete victory."
Established in the fourth century, the city became an important trading port for the Kingdom of Sunda. It grew as the capital of the colonial Dutch East Indies. It was made capital of Indonesia when the country became independent after World War II. It was formerly known as Sunda Kelapa (397â1527), Jayakarta (1527â1619), Batavia (1619â1942), and Djakarta (1942â1972).
Landmarks include the National Monument and Istiqlal Mosque. The city is the seat of the ASEAN Secretariat. Jakarta is served by the Soekarno-Hatta International Airport, Halim Perdanakusuma International Airport, and Tanjung Priok harbour; it is connected by several intercity and commuter railways, and served by several bus lines running on reserved busways.
The former Stadhuis of Batavia, the seat of Governor General of VOC. The building now serves as Jakarta History Museum, Jakarta Old Town area.
Dutch Batavia in the 17th Century, built in what is now North Jakarta
The Jakarta area was part of the fourth century Indianized kingdom of Tarumanagara. In AD 39, King Purnawarman established Sunda Pura as a new capital city for the kingdom, located at the northern coast of Java. Purnawarman left seven memorial stones across the area with inscriptions bearing his name, including the present-day Banten and West Java provinces. After the power of Tarumanagara declined, its territories, including Sunda Pura, became part of the Kingdom of Sunda. The harbour area was renamed Sunda Kalapa as written in a Hindu monk's lontar manuscripts. Bujangga Manik Manuscript which are now located at the Bodleian Library of Oxford University in England, and travel records by Prince Bujangga Manik.( ) By the fourteenth century, Sunda Kelapa became a major trading port for the kingdom. The first European fleet, four Portuguese ships from Malacca, arrived in 1513 when the Portuguese were looking for a route for spices, especially black pepper.
The Kingdom of Sunda made a peace agreement with Portugal by allowing the Portuguese to build a port in 1522 in order to defend against the rising power of the Sultanate of Demak from central Java.
In 1527, Fatahillah, a Sumatran Malay warrior from Demak attacked Kingdom of Sunda and succeeded in conquering the harbour on June 22, 1527, after which Sunda Kelapa was renamed Jayakarta.
The Castle of Batavia, seen from West Kali Besar by Andries Beeckman circa 1656-58
Through the relationship with Prince Jayawikarta from the Sultanate of Banten, Dutch ships arrived in Jayakarta in 1596. In 1602, the British East India Company's first voyage, commanded by Sir James Lancaster, arrived in Aceh and sailed on to Banten where they were allowed to build a trading post. This site became the center of British trade in Indonesia until 1682.
Jayawikarta is thought to have made trading connections with the English merchants, rivals of the Dutch, by allowing them to build houses directly across from the Dutch buildings in 1615. When relations between Prince Jayawikarta and the Dutch deteriorated, Jayawikarta's soldiers attacked the Dutch fortress. Prince Jayakarta's army and the British were defeated by the Dutch, in part owing to the timely arrival of Jan Pieterszoon Coen (J.P. Coen). The Dutch burned the English fort, and forced the English to retreat on their ships. The victory consolidated Dutch power and in 1619 they renamed the city "Batavia."
Batavia c.1870
Commercial opportunities in the capital of the Dutch colony attracted Indonesian and especially Chinese immigrants, the increasing numbers creating burdens on the city. Tensions grew as the colonial government tried to restrict Chinese migration through deportations. On 9 October 1740, 5,000 Chinese were massacred and the following year, Chinese inhabitants were moved to Glodok outside the city walls. The city began to move further south as epidemics in 1835 and 1870 encouraged more people to move far south of the port. The Koningsplein, now Merdeka Square was completed in 1818, the housing park of Menteng was started in 1913, and Kebayoran Baru was the last Dutch-built residential area. By 1930 Batavia had more than 500,000 inhabitants, Colonial Economy and Society, 1870-1940. Source: U.S. Library of Congress. including 37,067 Europeans. Governance Failure: Rethinking the Institutional Dimensions of Urban Water Supply to Poor Households. ScienceDirect.
The Japanese renamed the city "Jakarta" during their World War II occupation of Indonesia. Following World War II, Indonesian Republicans withdrew from allied-occupied Jakarta during their fight for Indonesian independence and established their capital in Yogyakarta. In 1950, once independence was secured, Jakarta was once again made the national capital. Indonesia's founding president, Sukarno, envisaged Jakarta as a great international city. He instigated large government-funded projects undertaken with openly nationalistic and modernist architecture. Projects in Jakarta included a clover-leaf highway, a major boulevard (Jalan MH Thamrin-Sudirman), monuments such as The National Monument, major hotels, shopping centre, and a new parliament building.
In October 1965, Jakarta was the site of an abortive coup attempt which saw 6 top generals killed, and ultimately resulted in the downfall of Sukarno and the start of Suharto's "New Order. A propaganda monument stands at the place where the general's bodies were dumped. In 1966, Jakarta was declared a "special capital city district" (daerah khusus ibukota), thus gaining a status approximately equivalent to that of a state or province. Lieutenant General Ali Sadikin served as Governor from the mid-60's commencement of the "New Order" through to 1977; he rehabilitated roads and bridges, encouraged the arts, built several hospitals, and a large number of new schools. He also cleared out slum dwellers for new development projects some for the benefit of the Suharto family and tried to eliminate rickshaws and ban street vendors. He began control of migration to the city in order to stem the overcrowding and poverty.
Foreign investment contributed to a real estate boom which changed the face of the city.
The boom ended with the 1997/98 East Asian Economic crisis putting Jakarta at the center of violence, protest, and political maneuvering. Long-time president, Suharto, began to lose his grip on power. Tensions reached a peak in the Jakarta riots of May 1998, when four students were shot dead at Trisakti University by security forces; four days of riots and violence ensued that killed an estimated 1,200, and destroyed or damaged 6,000 buildings. The Jakarta riots targeted Chinese Indonesians. Wages of Hatred. Michael Shari. Business Week. Suharto resigned as president, and Jakarta has remained the focal point of democratic change in Indonesia. Jemaah Islamiah-connected bombings have occurred in the city since 2000 on an almost annual basis, although the 2009 bombing of two international hotels was the first since 2005.
Map of the Cities (Kotamadya) of DKI Jakarta. Each Cities are divided into Subdistricts (Kecamatan)
Officially, Jakarta is not a city, but a province with special status as the capital of Indonesia. It has a governor (instead of a mayor), and is divided into several sub-regions with their own administrative systems. As a province, the official name of Jakarta is Daerah Khusus Ibukota Jakarta ("Special Capital City District of Jakarta"), which in Indonesian is abbreviated to DKI Jakarta.
Jakarta is divided into five kota or kotamadya ("cities" - formerly municipalities), each headed by a mayor, and one regency (kabupaten) headed by a regent. In August 2007, Jakarta held its first ever election to choose a governor, whereas previously the city's governors were appointed by local parliament. The poll is part of a country-wide decentralization drive, allowing for direct local elections in several areas.
The Cities/Municipalities of Jakarta are:
* Central Jakarta (Jakarta Pusat) is Jakarta's smallest city and home to most of Jakarta's administrative and political center. It is characterized by large parks and Dutch colonial buildings. Landmarks include the National Monument (Monas), the Istiqlal Mosque, and museums.
* West Jakarta (Jakarta Barat) has the highest concentration of small-scale industries in Jakarta. The area includes Jakarta's Chinatown and landmarks include the Chinese Langgam building and the Toko Merah building. West Jakarta contains part of the Jakarta Old Town.
* South Jakarta (Jakarta Selatan), previously planned as a satellite city, is now the location of large upscale shopping centers and affluent residential areas. Jakarta Selatan functions as Jakarta's ground water buffer, but recently the green belt areas are threatened by new developments. Most CBD area of Jakarta is concentrated in South Jakarta.
* East Jakarta (Jakarta Timur) territory is characterized with several industrial sectors erected in this city. There is also still some area of swamps and rice fields in this city.
* North Jakarta (Jakarta Utara) is the only city in Jakarta that is bounded by the sea (Java Sea). It is the location of the Tanjung Priok Port. Big-scale and medium-scale industries are concentrated in North Jakarta. North Jakarta contains the location of Jakarta Old Town, formerly known as Batavia since the 17 th century, and was a center of VOC trade activity in Dutch East Indies. Also located in North Jakarta is Ancol Dreamland (Taman Impian Jaya Ancol), currently the largest integrated tourism area in South East Asia.
The only Regency (Kabupaten) of Jakarta is:
* Thousand Islands (Kepulauan Seribu), formerly a subdistrict of North Jakarta, is a collection of 105 small islands located on Java Sea. It has a high conservation value because of its unique and special ecosystems. Marine tourism, such as diving, water bicycle, and wind surfing, is the most important touristic activities in this territory. The main transportation between these islands are speed boat or small ferries.
Since September 1945, the governmental of Jakarta City has been changed from the Japanese Djakarta Toku-Betsu Shi into Jakarta National Administration. This first government was held by a Mayor until the end of 1960 when it was changed into a Governor. The last Mayor of Jakarta is Sudiro, until he was replaced by Dr. Sumarno as a Governor.
In 1974, Based on the Act No. 5 of 1974 about Fundamental of Regional Government, Jakarta was stated as the Capital City of Indonesia and part of the 26 Province in Indonesia.
Jakarta is located on the northwest coast of Java, at the mouth of the Ciliwung River on Jakarta Bay, which is an inlet of the Java Sea. The city is a lowland area averaging 7 meters above sea level. Officially, the area of the Jakarta Special District is 662 km 2 of land area and 6,977 km 2 of sea area. Based on Governor Decree in 2007, No. 171. taken from Statistics DKI Jakarta Provincial Office, Jakarta in Figures, 2008, BPS Province of DKI Jakarta Rivers flow from the hilly southern parts of the city northwards towards the Java Sea. The most important river is the Ciliwung River, which divides the city into the western and eastern principalities.
The northern part of Jakarta lies on a plain, approximately eight meters above the sea level. This contributes to the frequent flooding. The coastal area extends around from west to east. The southern parts of the city are hilly. During the wet season, Jakarta suffers from flooding due to clogged sewage pipes and waterways, deforestation near rapidly urbanizing Bogor and Depok, and the fact that 40% of it is below sea level . Major floods occurred in 1996 Asiaviews - Asian News when 5,000 hectares of land were flooded and 2007. Bloomberg.com: Asia Losses from infrastructure damage and state revenue were at least 5.2 trillion rupiah (572 million US dollars) and at least 85 people were killed Three killed, 90,000 evacuated in Jakarta floods: officials - Yahoo! News and about 350,000 people forced from their homes.. Disease fears as floods ravage Jakarta Approximately 70% of Jakarta's total area was flooded with water up to four meters deep in parts of the city. Jakarta Flood Feb 2007 « (Geo) Information for All /ref>
The Thousand Islands, which are administratively a part of Jakarta, are located in Jakarta Bay north of the city.
Jakarta has a hot and humid equatorial/tropical climate (Af) according to the Köppen climate classification system. Located in the western-part of Indonesia, Jakarta's wet season rainfall peak is January with average monthly rainfall of , and its dry season low point is August with a monthly average of .
Average daily temperatures range from 25° to 36°C (77°-97°F).
Tanjidor orchestra celebrating the Chinese New Year.
As the economic and political capital of Indonesia, Jakarta attracts many domestic immigrants who bring their various languages, dialects, foods and customs.
The Betawi (Orang Betawi, or "people of Batavia") is a term used to describe the descendants of the people living in and around Batavia and recognized as an ethnic group from around the 18th-19th century. The Betawi people are mostly descended from various Southeast Asian ethnic groups brought or attracted to Batavia to meet labor needs, and include people from parts of Indonesia. The Betawi - due to their diverse origins - play a major role concerning ethnic and national identity in contemporary Jakarta; see Knörr, Jacqueline: Kreolität und postkoloniale Gesellschaft. Integration und Differenzierung in Jakarta, Campus Verlag: Frankfurt a.M. & New York, 2007, ISBN 978-3-593-38344-6 The language and the culture of these immigrants is distinct from that of the Sundanese or Javanese. The language is more based on the East Malay dialect and enriched by loan words from Sundanese, Javanese, Chinese, and Arabic. Nowadays, the Jakarta-dialects used by people in Jakarta are loosely based on the Betawi language.
The parade of Ondel-ondel, a Betawi large puppet-mask dance.
Betawi arts are rarely found in Jakarta due to their infamous low-profile and most Betawi have moved to the border of Jakarta, displaced by new immigrants. It is easier to find Java or Minang based wedding ceremonial instead of Betawi weddings in Jakarta. It is easier to find Javanese Gamelan instead of Gambang Kromong (a mixture between Betawi and Chinese music) or Tanjidor (a mixture between Betawi and Portuguese music) or Marawis (a mixture between Betawi and Yaman music). However, some festivals such as the Jalan Jaksa Festival or Kemang Festival include efforts to preserve Betawi arts by inviting artists to give performances.
There has also been a Chinese community in Jakarta for many centuries. Officially, they make up 6% of the Jakarta population, though this number may be under-reported.
Jakarta has several performing art centers, such as the Taman Ismail Marzuki (TIM) art center in Cikini, Gedung Kesenian Jakarta near Pasar Baru, Balai Sarbini in Plaza Semanggi area, Bentara Budaya Jakarta in Palmerah area, Pasar Seni (Art Market) in Ancol, and traditional Indonesian art performances at the pavilions of some Provinces in Taman Mini Indonesia Indah. Traditional music is often found at high-class hotels, including Wayang and Gamelan performances. Javanese Wayang Orang performance can be found at Wayang Orang Bharata theater near Senen bus terminal. As the nation's largest city and capital, Jakarta has lured much national and regional talent who hope to find a greater audience and more opportunities for success.
Jakarta is hosting several prestigious art and culture festivals as well as exhibitions, such as the annual Jakarta International Film Festival (JiFFest), Jakarta International Java Jazz Festival, Jakarta Fashion Week, Jakarta Fashion & Food Festival (JFFF), Flona Jakarta (Flora and Fauna exhibition, held annually on August in Lapangan Banteng park featuring flowers, plant nursery, and pets), also Indonesia Creative Products and Jakarta Arts and Crafts exhibition. The Jakarta Fair is held annually from mid June to mid July to celebrate the anniversary of the city. It is largely centered around a trade fair, however this month-long fair also has featured entertainments, arts and music performances by local bands and musicians.
Several foreign art and culture centers also established in Jakarta, mainly serve to promote culture and language through learning centers, libraries, and art galleries. Among these foreign art and cultural centers are Netherlands Erasmus Huis, UK British Council, France Centre Culturel Français, Germany Goethe-Institut, Japan Foundation, and Jawaharlal Nehru Indian Cultural Center.
National Museum of Indonesia in Central Jakarta
The museums in Jakarta cluster around the Central Jakarta Merdeka Square area, Jakarta Old Town, and Taman Mini Indonesia Indah.
The Jakarta Old Town contains museums that are former institution buildings of Batavia. Some of these museums are Jakarta History Museum (former City Hall of Batavia), Wayang Museum, the Fine Art and Ceramic Museum (former Court House of Batavia), Maritime Museum (former Sunda Kelapa warehouse), Bank Indonesia Museum, and Bank Mandiri Museum.
Several museums that are clustered around the Merdeka Square area are National Museum of Indonesia, Monas, Bayt al-Qur'an and Istiqlal Islamic Museum, and Jakarta Cathedral Museum.
The recreational area of Taman Mini Indonesia Indah in East Jakarta contains fourteen museums such as Purna Bhakti Pertiwi Museum, Asmat Museum, and other science-based museum such as Research & Technology Information Centre, Insect Museum, Petrol and Gas Museum.
Other museums are Satria Mandala Military Museum, Museum Sumpah Pemuda, and Lubang Buaya.
Jakarta has a vast range of food available at hundreds of eating complexes located all over the city. There is also international food, especially Indian, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean food because of the cosmopolitan population. /ref> One of the popular local cuisine of Jakarta is Soto betawi, which is a cow milk or coconut milk broth with beef tendons, intestines, tripe. The other popular cuisine are kerak telor, gado-gado, and cucur.
Daily newspapers in Jakarta include Bisnis Indonesia, Investor Daily, Jakarta Globe, The Jakarta Post, Indo Pos, Seputar Indonesia, Kompas, Media Indonesia, Republika, Pos Kota, Warta Kota, Lampu Merah and Suara Pembaruan.
* Government television: TVRI.
* Private national television: TPI, RCTI, Metro TV, Indosiar, StarANTV, SCTV, Trans TV, TV ONE, Trans 7, and Global TV.
* Local television: Jak-TV, O-Channel, and Space-Toon.
* Cable television: First Media, TelkomVision
* Satellite television: Indovision, Astro Nusantara, TelkomVision, Aora TV
The headquarter of Bank Indonesia in Central Jakarta. Financial services, trade and manufacturing are the largest sectors of the city's economy.
Jakarta's economy depends heavily on financial service, trade, and manufacturing. Industry includes electronics, automotive, chemicals, mechanical engineering and biomedical sciences manufacturing. In 2009, 13% of the population had an income per capita in excess of US$ 10,000 (Rp 108,000,000).
The economic growth of Jakarta in 2007 was 6.44% up from 5.95% the previous year, with the growth in the transportation and communication (15.25%), construction (7.81%) and trade, hotel and restaurant sectors (6.88%). In 2007, GRP (Growth Regional Domestic Product) was Rp. 566.45 trillion. The largest contributions to GDRP was by finance, ownership and business services (28.7%); trade, hotel and restaurant sector (20.4%), and manufacturing industry sector (15.97%). In 2007, per capita GRDP of DKI Jakarta inhabitants was an 11.63% compared to previous year
Both GRDP by at current market price and GRDP by at 2000 constant price in 2007 for Municipality of Central Jakarta (Jakarta Pusat) is higher than other municipalities in DKI Jakarta, which is 145.81 million rupiahs and 80.78 million rupiahs.
A new law in 2007 forbids the giving of money to beggars, buskers and hawkers, bans squatter settlements on river banks and highways, and prohibits spitting and smoking on public transportation. Unauthorized people cleaning car windscreens and taking tips for directing traffic at intersections will also be penalized. Critics of the new legislation claim that such laws will be difficult to enforce and it tends to ignore the desperate poverty of many of the capital's inhabitants. "Condemned Communities: Forced Evictions in Jakarta" Human Rights Watch Sep 2006.
In 2005, Jakarta's contribution to the national GDP was 17% up from 15% in 2000. The manufacturing and construction sectors in Jakarta decreased indicating that Jakarta has shifted from industry city to the services city. Most manufacturing plants in Jakarta have been relocated to peripheral areas like Tangerang, Bogor, Depok and Bekasi.
Based on 2007 National Socio-Economic Survey estimates, the population of DKI Jakarta Province was 9.06 million. The area of DKI Jakarta is 662.33 km 2 , suggesting a population density of 137,000 people/km 2 . Population growth between 2000 and 2007 was 1.11 percent compared 0.15 percent during the 1990s. Inwards immigration tended to negate the effect of family planning programs. The population has risen from 1.2 million in 1960 to 8.8 million in 2004, counting only its legal residents. The population of greater Jakarta is estimated at 23 million, making it the second largest urban area in the world. By 2025 the population of Jakarta may reach 24.9 million, not counting millions more in surrounding areas. Far Eastern Economic Review, Asia 1998 Yearbook, p. 63.
Population growth has outgrown the government's ability to provide basic needs for its residents. Jakarta suffers from severe traffic congestion. Air pollution and waste management are also problems.
Jakarta's Central Business District along the Jenderal Sudirman Road, centered at the Wisma 46 building, currently the tallest office building in Indonesia.
West Irian Liberation Statue, one of the many Sukarno era monuments in the city.
The National Monument
The National Monument, stands at the center of Merdeka Square, the central park of the city. Other landmarks include the Istiqlal Mosque and Jakarta Cathedral. The Wisma 46 building in Central Jakarta is currently the highest building in Jakarta and Indonesia. Tourist attractions include Taman Mini Indonesia Indah, Ragunan Zoo, Jakarta Old Town, and Ancol Dreamland complex on Jakarta Bay, include Dunia Fantasi theme park, Sea World, Atlantis Water Adventure, and Gelanggang Samudra.
Jakarta shopping malls with areas in excess of 100,000 metres square, include Grand Indonesia, Plaza Indonesia, Senayan City, Plaza Senayan, Pondok Indah Mall, Mal Taman Anggrek, Mal Kelapa Gading, Mal Artha Gading. /ref> Traditional markets include Blok M, Tanah Abang, Senen, Glodok, Mangga Dua, Cempaka Mas, and Jatinegara.
Taman Suropati is located in Menteng garden city subdistrict, Central Jakarta. The park is surrounded by several Dutch colonial buildings. Taman Suropati was known as Burgemeester Bishopplein during the Dutch colonial time. The park is circular shaped with a surface area of 16,322 m2. There are several modern statues in the park made by artists of the ASEAN countries, which contributes to the other nickname of the park "Taman persahabatan seniman ASEAN" ("Park of the ASEAN artists relationship").
Taman Lapangan Banteng (Banteng Field Park) is located in Central Jakarta. It is about 4,5 hectares. The most notable landmark inside the park is the Monumen Pembebasan Irian Barat (Monument of the Liberation of Irian Barat). During the 1980s, the park is used as a bus terminal. In 1993, the park turned into a public space again and has become a recreation place for people and occasionally also used as an exhibition place or other events.
Taman Monas (Monas Park) or Taman Medan Merdeka (Medan Merdeka Park) is the park where the symbol of Jakarta, Monas or Monumen Nasional (National Monument) is located. The large open space was created by Dutch Governor General Herman Willem Deandels (1870) and was completed in 1910 under the name of Koningsplein. on 10 Januari 1993, President Soeharto initiate the action toward the beautification of the park. Several features in the park is a deer park and 33 trees that represents the 33 provinces of Indonesia.
Jalan Thamrin, the main avenue in Central Jakarta
One of the most populous cities in the world, Jakarta is strained by transportation problems. In Indonesia most communal transport is provided by mikrolets, which are privately run minibuses although these normally stay off the main roads.
Jakarta suffers from traffic congestion. A 'three in one' rule during peak hour was introduced in 1992, prohibiting fewer than three passengers per car on certain roads.
Motorised bajaj
Auto rickshaws, called bajaj, provide local transportation in the back streets of some parts of the city. From the early 1940s to 1991 they were a common form of local transportation in the city. In 1966, an estimated 160,000 rickshaws were operating in the city; as much as fifteen percent of Jakarta's total workforce was engaged in rickshaw driving. In 1971, rickshaws were banned from major roads, and shortly thereafter the government attempted a total ban, which substantially reduced their numbers but did not eliminate them. A campaign to eliminate them succeeded in 1990 and 1991, but during the economic crisis of 1998, some returned amid less effective government attempts to control them. Azuma, Yoshifumi (2003). Urban peasants: beca drivers in Jakarta. Jakarta: Pustaka Sinar Harapan.
TransJakarta bus service in Jakarta
The TransJakarta bus rapid transit service operates on seven reserved busway corridors in the city; connecting seven main points of Jakarta. The first TransJakarta line, from Blok M to Jakarta Kota opened in January 2004.
An outer ring road is under constructed and is partly operational A toll road connects Jakarta to Soekarno-Hatta International Airport in the northwest of Jakarta, as are the port of Merak and Tangerang to the west, and Bogor and Puncak to the south. Bekasi, Cikarang, Karawang, Cikampek, Purwakarta, and Bandung to the east.
A train at Gambir station in Central Jakarta
Railways connect the city to its neighboring regions: Depok and Bogor to the south, Tangerang and Serpong to the west, and Bekasi, Karawang, and Cikampek to the east. The major rail stations are Gambir, Jakarta Kota, Jatinegara, Pasar Senen, Manggarai, and Tanah Abang. During peak hours, the number of passengers greatly exceeds the system's capacity, and crowding is common.
Two lines of the Jakarta Monorail are under construction: the green line serving Semanggi-Casablanca Road-Kuningan-Semanggi and the blue line serving Kampung Melayu-Casablanca Road-Tanah Abang-Roxy. There are plans for a two-line metro (MRT) system, with a north-south line between Kota and Lebak Bulus, with connections to both monorail lines; and an east-west line, which will connect with the north-south line at the Sawah Besar station. The current project, which began in 2005, has been delayed due to a lack of funds, and the project has been abandoned by the developer PT Jakarta Monorail in March 2008.
On 6 June 2007, the city administration started to introduce the Waterway, a new river boat service along the Ciliwung River.
Soekarno-Hatta International Airport (CGK) is Jakarta's major airport. It is Indonesia's busiest airport handling more than 30 million passengers annually. A second airport, Halim Perdanakusuma International Airport (HLP) serves mostly private and VVIP/presidential flights.
The main seaport for this transportation mode is the Tanjung Priok seaport.
The biggest university in Jakarta is the University of Indonesia with campuses in Salemba and Depok. /ref> Others government universities include Jakarta State University, Jakarta State Polytechnic, and Jakarta Islamic State University. Nowadays, the oldest of which is the privately-owned Universitas Nasional (UNAS). Web Universitas Nasional 1949 Private universities in Jakarta include Trisakti University Atma Jaya University, and Tarumanagara University.
STOVIA was the first high school in Jakarta, established in 1851. As the largest city and the capital, Jakarta houses a large number of students from various parts of Indonesia, many of whom reside in dormitories or home-stay residences. For basic education, there are a variety of primary and secondary schools, tagged with public (national), private (national and bi-lingual national plus) and international schools. Two of the major international schools located in Jakarta are the Jakarta International School and the British International School (BIS).
The Bung Karno Stadium is capable of hosting 100,000 spectators
Jakarta was host to the Asian Games in 1962, /ref> host of the Asian Cup 2007, /ref> and has hosted the regional-scale Sea Games several times. Jakarta's most popular footbal club is Persija, which plays its matches in the Lebak Bulus Stadium. Another premiere division team is Persitara.
The biggest stadium in Jakarta is the Bung Karno Stadium with a capacity of 100,000 seats Football stadiums of the world - Stadiums in Indonesia . For basketball, the Kelapa Gading Sport Mall in Kelapa Gading, North Jakarta, with a capacity of 7,000 seats, is the home arena of the Indonesian national basketball team. The Senayan sports complex has several sport venues, including the Bung Karno soccer stadium, Madya Stadium, Istora Senayan, a shooting range, a tennis court and a golf driving range. The Senayan complex was built in 1959 to accommodate the Asian Games in 1962.
In 2011, Jakarta, together with Bandung, will again host the Southeast Asian Games.
A trash dump in Bantar Gebang, Bekasi
Surveys show that "less than a quarter of the population is fully served by improved water sources. The rest rely on a variety of sources, including rivers, lakes and private water vendors. Some 7.2 million people are [without clean water]." United Nations Human Development Report 2006, p. 39
Sister relationships with towns and regions worldwide include:
*History of Jakarta
*Port of Jakarta
* Official website
* Jakarta Official Travel Website
*
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Jakarta | Was the Jakarta area part of the fourth century Indianized kingdom of Tarumanagara? | Yes | data/set3/a5 | Jakarta
Jakarta (also DKI Jakarta) is the capital and largest city of Indonesia. Located on the northwest coast of Java, it has an area of and a population of 8,490,000. Jakarta is the country's economic, cultural and political center. It is the most populous city in Indonesia and Southeast Asia, and is the twelfth-largest city in the world. The metropolitan area, Jabodetabek, is the second largest in the world. Jakarta is listed as a global city in the 2008 Globalization and World Cities Study Group and Network (GaWC) research. the city's name is derived from the Sanskrit word "Jayakarta" (à¤à¤¯à¤à¤°à¥) which translates as "victorious deed," "complete act,"or "complete victory."
Established in the fourth century, the city became an important trading port for the Kingdom of Sunda. It grew as the capital of the colonial Dutch East Indies. It was made capital of Indonesia when the country became independent after World War II. It was formerly known as Sunda Kelapa (397â1527), Jayakarta (1527â1619), Batavia (1619â1942), and Djakarta (1942â1972).
Landmarks include the National Monument and Istiqlal Mosque. The city is the seat of the ASEAN Secretariat. Jakarta is served by the Soekarno-Hatta International Airport, Halim Perdanakusuma International Airport, and Tanjung Priok harbour; it is connected by several intercity and commuter railways, and served by several bus lines running on reserved busways.
The former Stadhuis of Batavia, the seat of Governor General of VOC. The building now serves as Jakarta History Museum, Jakarta Old Town area.
Dutch Batavia in the 17th Century, built in what is now North Jakarta
The Jakarta area was part of the fourth century Indianized kingdom of Tarumanagara. In AD 39, King Purnawarman established Sunda Pura as a new capital city for the kingdom, located at the northern coast of Java. Purnawarman left seven memorial stones across the area with inscriptions bearing his name, including the present-day Banten and West Java provinces. After the power of Tarumanagara declined, its territories, including Sunda Pura, became part of the Kingdom of Sunda. The harbour area was renamed Sunda Kalapa as written in a Hindu monk's lontar manuscripts. Bujangga Manik Manuscript which are now located at the Bodleian Library of Oxford University in England, and travel records by Prince Bujangga Manik.( ) By the fourteenth century, Sunda Kelapa became a major trading port for the kingdom. The first European fleet, four Portuguese ships from Malacca, arrived in 1513 when the Portuguese were looking for a route for spices, especially black pepper.
The Kingdom of Sunda made a peace agreement with Portugal by allowing the Portuguese to build a port in 1522 in order to defend against the rising power of the Sultanate of Demak from central Java.
In 1527, Fatahillah, a Sumatran Malay warrior from Demak attacked Kingdom of Sunda and succeeded in conquering the harbour on June 22, 1527, after which Sunda Kelapa was renamed Jayakarta.
The Castle of Batavia, seen from West Kali Besar by Andries Beeckman circa 1656-58
Through the relationship with Prince Jayawikarta from the Sultanate of Banten, Dutch ships arrived in Jayakarta in 1596. In 1602, the British East India Company's first voyage, commanded by Sir James Lancaster, arrived in Aceh and sailed on to Banten where they were allowed to build a trading post. This site became the center of British trade in Indonesia until 1682.
Jayawikarta is thought to have made trading connections with the English merchants, rivals of the Dutch, by allowing them to build houses directly across from the Dutch buildings in 1615. When relations between Prince Jayawikarta and the Dutch deteriorated, Jayawikarta's soldiers attacked the Dutch fortress. Prince Jayakarta's army and the British were defeated by the Dutch, in part owing to the timely arrival of Jan Pieterszoon Coen (J.P. Coen). The Dutch burned the English fort, and forced the English to retreat on their ships. The victory consolidated Dutch power and in 1619 they renamed the city "Batavia."
Batavia c.1870
Commercial opportunities in the capital of the Dutch colony attracted Indonesian and especially Chinese immigrants, the increasing numbers creating burdens on the city. Tensions grew as the colonial government tried to restrict Chinese migration through deportations. On 9 October 1740, 5,000 Chinese were massacred and the following year, Chinese inhabitants were moved to Glodok outside the city walls. The city began to move further south as epidemics in 1835 and 1870 encouraged more people to move far south of the port. The Koningsplein, now Merdeka Square was completed in 1818, the housing park of Menteng was started in 1913, and Kebayoran Baru was the last Dutch-built residential area. By 1930 Batavia had more than 500,000 inhabitants, Colonial Economy and Society, 1870-1940. Source: U.S. Library of Congress. including 37,067 Europeans. Governance Failure: Rethinking the Institutional Dimensions of Urban Water Supply to Poor Households. ScienceDirect.
The Japanese renamed the city "Jakarta" during their World War II occupation of Indonesia. Following World War II, Indonesian Republicans withdrew from allied-occupied Jakarta during their fight for Indonesian independence and established their capital in Yogyakarta. In 1950, once independence was secured, Jakarta was once again made the national capital. Indonesia's founding president, Sukarno, envisaged Jakarta as a great international city. He instigated large government-funded projects undertaken with openly nationalistic and modernist architecture. Projects in Jakarta included a clover-leaf highway, a major boulevard (Jalan MH Thamrin-Sudirman), monuments such as The National Monument, major hotels, shopping centre, and a new parliament building.
In October 1965, Jakarta was the site of an abortive coup attempt which saw 6 top generals killed, and ultimately resulted in the downfall of Sukarno and the start of Suharto's "New Order. A propaganda monument stands at the place where the general's bodies were dumped. In 1966, Jakarta was declared a "special capital city district" (daerah khusus ibukota), thus gaining a status approximately equivalent to that of a state or province. Lieutenant General Ali Sadikin served as Governor from the mid-60's commencement of the "New Order" through to 1977; he rehabilitated roads and bridges, encouraged the arts, built several hospitals, and a large number of new schools. He also cleared out slum dwellers for new development projects some for the benefit of the Suharto family and tried to eliminate rickshaws and ban street vendors. He began control of migration to the city in order to stem the overcrowding and poverty.
Foreign investment contributed to a real estate boom which changed the face of the city.
The boom ended with the 1997/98 East Asian Economic crisis putting Jakarta at the center of violence, protest, and political maneuvering. Long-time president, Suharto, began to lose his grip on power. Tensions reached a peak in the Jakarta riots of May 1998, when four students were shot dead at Trisakti University by security forces; four days of riots and violence ensued that killed an estimated 1,200, and destroyed or damaged 6,000 buildings. The Jakarta riots targeted Chinese Indonesians. Wages of Hatred. Michael Shari. Business Week. Suharto resigned as president, and Jakarta has remained the focal point of democratic change in Indonesia. Jemaah Islamiah-connected bombings have occurred in the city since 2000 on an almost annual basis, although the 2009 bombing of two international hotels was the first since 2005.
Map of the Cities (Kotamadya) of DKI Jakarta. Each Cities are divided into Subdistricts (Kecamatan)
Officially, Jakarta is not a city, but a province with special status as the capital of Indonesia. It has a governor (instead of a mayor), and is divided into several sub-regions with their own administrative systems. As a province, the official name of Jakarta is Daerah Khusus Ibukota Jakarta ("Special Capital City District of Jakarta"), which in Indonesian is abbreviated to DKI Jakarta.
Jakarta is divided into five kota or kotamadya ("cities" - formerly municipalities), each headed by a mayor, and one regency (kabupaten) headed by a regent. In August 2007, Jakarta held its first ever election to choose a governor, whereas previously the city's governors were appointed by local parliament. The poll is part of a country-wide decentralization drive, allowing for direct local elections in several areas.
The Cities/Municipalities of Jakarta are:
* Central Jakarta (Jakarta Pusat) is Jakarta's smallest city and home to most of Jakarta's administrative and political center. It is characterized by large parks and Dutch colonial buildings. Landmarks include the National Monument (Monas), the Istiqlal Mosque, and museums.
* West Jakarta (Jakarta Barat) has the highest concentration of small-scale industries in Jakarta. The area includes Jakarta's Chinatown and landmarks include the Chinese Langgam building and the Toko Merah building. West Jakarta contains part of the Jakarta Old Town.
* South Jakarta (Jakarta Selatan), previously planned as a satellite city, is now the location of large upscale shopping centers and affluent residential areas. Jakarta Selatan functions as Jakarta's ground water buffer, but recently the green belt areas are threatened by new developments. Most CBD area of Jakarta is concentrated in South Jakarta.
* East Jakarta (Jakarta Timur) territory is characterized with several industrial sectors erected in this city. There is also still some area of swamps and rice fields in this city.
* North Jakarta (Jakarta Utara) is the only city in Jakarta that is bounded by the sea (Java Sea). It is the location of the Tanjung Priok Port. Big-scale and medium-scale industries are concentrated in North Jakarta. North Jakarta contains the location of Jakarta Old Town, formerly known as Batavia since the 17 th century, and was a center of VOC trade activity in Dutch East Indies. Also located in North Jakarta is Ancol Dreamland (Taman Impian Jaya Ancol), currently the largest integrated tourism area in South East Asia.
The only Regency (Kabupaten) of Jakarta is:
* Thousand Islands (Kepulauan Seribu), formerly a subdistrict of North Jakarta, is a collection of 105 small islands located on Java Sea. It has a high conservation value because of its unique and special ecosystems. Marine tourism, such as diving, water bicycle, and wind surfing, is the most important touristic activities in this territory. The main transportation between these islands are speed boat or small ferries.
Since September 1945, the governmental of Jakarta City has been changed from the Japanese Djakarta Toku-Betsu Shi into Jakarta National Administration. This first government was held by a Mayor until the end of 1960 when it was changed into a Governor. The last Mayor of Jakarta is Sudiro, until he was replaced by Dr. Sumarno as a Governor.
In 1974, Based on the Act No. 5 of 1974 about Fundamental of Regional Government, Jakarta was stated as the Capital City of Indonesia and part of the 26 Province in Indonesia.
Jakarta is located on the northwest coast of Java, at the mouth of the Ciliwung River on Jakarta Bay, which is an inlet of the Java Sea. The city is a lowland area averaging 7 meters above sea level. Officially, the area of the Jakarta Special District is 662 km 2 of land area and 6,977 km 2 of sea area. Based on Governor Decree in 2007, No. 171. taken from Statistics DKI Jakarta Provincial Office, Jakarta in Figures, 2008, BPS Province of DKI Jakarta Rivers flow from the hilly southern parts of the city northwards towards the Java Sea. The most important river is the Ciliwung River, which divides the city into the western and eastern principalities.
The northern part of Jakarta lies on a plain, approximately eight meters above the sea level. This contributes to the frequent flooding. The coastal area extends around from west to east. The southern parts of the city are hilly. During the wet season, Jakarta suffers from flooding due to clogged sewage pipes and waterways, deforestation near rapidly urbanizing Bogor and Depok, and the fact that 40% of it is below sea level . Major floods occurred in 1996 Asiaviews - Asian News when 5,000 hectares of land were flooded and 2007. Bloomberg.com: Asia Losses from infrastructure damage and state revenue were at least 5.2 trillion rupiah (572 million US dollars) and at least 85 people were killed Three killed, 90,000 evacuated in Jakarta floods: officials - Yahoo! News and about 350,000 people forced from their homes.. Disease fears as floods ravage Jakarta Approximately 70% of Jakarta's total area was flooded with water up to four meters deep in parts of the city. Jakarta Flood Feb 2007 « (Geo) Information for All /ref>
The Thousand Islands, which are administratively a part of Jakarta, are located in Jakarta Bay north of the city.
Jakarta has a hot and humid equatorial/tropical climate (Af) according to the Köppen climate classification system. Located in the western-part of Indonesia, Jakarta's wet season rainfall peak is January with average monthly rainfall of , and its dry season low point is August with a monthly average of .
Average daily temperatures range from 25° to 36°C (77°-97°F).
Tanjidor orchestra celebrating the Chinese New Year.
As the economic and political capital of Indonesia, Jakarta attracts many domestic immigrants who bring their various languages, dialects, foods and customs.
The Betawi (Orang Betawi, or "people of Batavia") is a term used to describe the descendants of the people living in and around Batavia and recognized as an ethnic group from around the 18th-19th century. The Betawi people are mostly descended from various Southeast Asian ethnic groups brought or attracted to Batavia to meet labor needs, and include people from parts of Indonesia. The Betawi - due to their diverse origins - play a major role concerning ethnic and national identity in contemporary Jakarta; see Knörr, Jacqueline: Kreolität und postkoloniale Gesellschaft. Integration und Differenzierung in Jakarta, Campus Verlag: Frankfurt a.M. & New York, 2007, ISBN 978-3-593-38344-6 The language and the culture of these immigrants is distinct from that of the Sundanese or Javanese. The language is more based on the East Malay dialect and enriched by loan words from Sundanese, Javanese, Chinese, and Arabic. Nowadays, the Jakarta-dialects used by people in Jakarta are loosely based on the Betawi language.
The parade of Ondel-ondel, a Betawi large puppet-mask dance.
Betawi arts are rarely found in Jakarta due to their infamous low-profile and most Betawi have moved to the border of Jakarta, displaced by new immigrants. It is easier to find Java or Minang based wedding ceremonial instead of Betawi weddings in Jakarta. It is easier to find Javanese Gamelan instead of Gambang Kromong (a mixture between Betawi and Chinese music) or Tanjidor (a mixture between Betawi and Portuguese music) or Marawis (a mixture between Betawi and Yaman music). However, some festivals such as the Jalan Jaksa Festival or Kemang Festival include efforts to preserve Betawi arts by inviting artists to give performances.
There has also been a Chinese community in Jakarta for many centuries. Officially, they make up 6% of the Jakarta population, though this number may be under-reported.
Jakarta has several performing art centers, such as the Taman Ismail Marzuki (TIM) art center in Cikini, Gedung Kesenian Jakarta near Pasar Baru, Balai Sarbini in Plaza Semanggi area, Bentara Budaya Jakarta in Palmerah area, Pasar Seni (Art Market) in Ancol, and traditional Indonesian art performances at the pavilions of some Provinces in Taman Mini Indonesia Indah. Traditional music is often found at high-class hotels, including Wayang and Gamelan performances. Javanese Wayang Orang performance can be found at Wayang Orang Bharata theater near Senen bus terminal. As the nation's largest city and capital, Jakarta has lured much national and regional talent who hope to find a greater audience and more opportunities for success.
Jakarta is hosting several prestigious art and culture festivals as well as exhibitions, such as the annual Jakarta International Film Festival (JiFFest), Jakarta International Java Jazz Festival, Jakarta Fashion Week, Jakarta Fashion & Food Festival (JFFF), Flona Jakarta (Flora and Fauna exhibition, held annually on August in Lapangan Banteng park featuring flowers, plant nursery, and pets), also Indonesia Creative Products and Jakarta Arts and Crafts exhibition. The Jakarta Fair is held annually from mid June to mid July to celebrate the anniversary of the city. It is largely centered around a trade fair, however this month-long fair also has featured entertainments, arts and music performances by local bands and musicians.
Several foreign art and culture centers also established in Jakarta, mainly serve to promote culture and language through learning centers, libraries, and art galleries. Among these foreign art and cultural centers are Netherlands Erasmus Huis, UK British Council, France Centre Culturel Français, Germany Goethe-Institut, Japan Foundation, and Jawaharlal Nehru Indian Cultural Center.
National Museum of Indonesia in Central Jakarta
The museums in Jakarta cluster around the Central Jakarta Merdeka Square area, Jakarta Old Town, and Taman Mini Indonesia Indah.
The Jakarta Old Town contains museums that are former institution buildings of Batavia. Some of these museums are Jakarta History Museum (former City Hall of Batavia), Wayang Museum, the Fine Art and Ceramic Museum (former Court House of Batavia), Maritime Museum (former Sunda Kelapa warehouse), Bank Indonesia Museum, and Bank Mandiri Museum.
Several museums that are clustered around the Merdeka Square area are National Museum of Indonesia, Monas, Bayt al-Qur'an and Istiqlal Islamic Museum, and Jakarta Cathedral Museum.
The recreational area of Taman Mini Indonesia Indah in East Jakarta contains fourteen museums such as Purna Bhakti Pertiwi Museum, Asmat Museum, and other science-based museum such as Research & Technology Information Centre, Insect Museum, Petrol and Gas Museum.
Other museums are Satria Mandala Military Museum, Museum Sumpah Pemuda, and Lubang Buaya.
Jakarta has a vast range of food available at hundreds of eating complexes located all over the city. There is also international food, especially Indian, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean food because of the cosmopolitan population. /ref> One of the popular local cuisine of Jakarta is Soto betawi, which is a cow milk or coconut milk broth with beef tendons, intestines, tripe. The other popular cuisine are kerak telor, gado-gado, and cucur.
Daily newspapers in Jakarta include Bisnis Indonesia, Investor Daily, Jakarta Globe, The Jakarta Post, Indo Pos, Seputar Indonesia, Kompas, Media Indonesia, Republika, Pos Kota, Warta Kota, Lampu Merah and Suara Pembaruan.
* Government television: TVRI.
* Private national television: TPI, RCTI, Metro TV, Indosiar, StarANTV, SCTV, Trans TV, TV ONE, Trans 7, and Global TV.
* Local television: Jak-TV, O-Channel, and Space-Toon.
* Cable television: First Media, TelkomVision
* Satellite television: Indovision, Astro Nusantara, TelkomVision, Aora TV
The headquarter of Bank Indonesia in Central Jakarta. Financial services, trade and manufacturing are the largest sectors of the city's economy.
Jakarta's economy depends heavily on financial service, trade, and manufacturing. Industry includes electronics, automotive, chemicals, mechanical engineering and biomedical sciences manufacturing. In 2009, 13% of the population had an income per capita in excess of US$ 10,000 (Rp 108,000,000).
The economic growth of Jakarta in 2007 was 6.44% up from 5.95% the previous year, with the growth in the transportation and communication (15.25%), construction (7.81%) and trade, hotel and restaurant sectors (6.88%). In 2007, GRP (Growth Regional Domestic Product) was Rp. 566.45 trillion. The largest contributions to GDRP was by finance, ownership and business services (28.7%); trade, hotel and restaurant sector (20.4%), and manufacturing industry sector (15.97%). In 2007, per capita GRDP of DKI Jakarta inhabitants was an 11.63% compared to previous year
Both GRDP by at current market price and GRDP by at 2000 constant price in 2007 for Municipality of Central Jakarta (Jakarta Pusat) is higher than other municipalities in DKI Jakarta, which is 145.81 million rupiahs and 80.78 million rupiahs.
A new law in 2007 forbids the giving of money to beggars, buskers and hawkers, bans squatter settlements on river banks and highways, and prohibits spitting and smoking on public transportation. Unauthorized people cleaning car windscreens and taking tips for directing traffic at intersections will also be penalized. Critics of the new legislation claim that such laws will be difficult to enforce and it tends to ignore the desperate poverty of many of the capital's inhabitants. "Condemned Communities: Forced Evictions in Jakarta" Human Rights Watch Sep 2006.
In 2005, Jakarta's contribution to the national GDP was 17% up from 15% in 2000. The manufacturing and construction sectors in Jakarta decreased indicating that Jakarta has shifted from industry city to the services city. Most manufacturing plants in Jakarta have been relocated to peripheral areas like Tangerang, Bogor, Depok and Bekasi.
Based on 2007 National Socio-Economic Survey estimates, the population of DKI Jakarta Province was 9.06 million. The area of DKI Jakarta is 662.33 km 2 , suggesting a population density of 137,000 people/km 2 . Population growth between 2000 and 2007 was 1.11 percent compared 0.15 percent during the 1990s. Inwards immigration tended to negate the effect of family planning programs. The population has risen from 1.2 million in 1960 to 8.8 million in 2004, counting only its legal residents. The population of greater Jakarta is estimated at 23 million, making it the second largest urban area in the world. By 2025 the population of Jakarta may reach 24.9 million, not counting millions more in surrounding areas. Far Eastern Economic Review, Asia 1998 Yearbook, p. 63.
Population growth has outgrown the government's ability to provide basic needs for its residents. Jakarta suffers from severe traffic congestion. Air pollution and waste management are also problems.
Jakarta's Central Business District along the Jenderal Sudirman Road, centered at the Wisma 46 building, currently the tallest office building in Indonesia.
West Irian Liberation Statue, one of the many Sukarno era monuments in the city.
The National Monument
The National Monument, stands at the center of Merdeka Square, the central park of the city. Other landmarks include the Istiqlal Mosque and Jakarta Cathedral. The Wisma 46 building in Central Jakarta is currently the highest building in Jakarta and Indonesia. Tourist attractions include Taman Mini Indonesia Indah, Ragunan Zoo, Jakarta Old Town, and Ancol Dreamland complex on Jakarta Bay, include Dunia Fantasi theme park, Sea World, Atlantis Water Adventure, and Gelanggang Samudra.
Jakarta shopping malls with areas in excess of 100,000 metres square, include Grand Indonesia, Plaza Indonesia, Senayan City, Plaza Senayan, Pondok Indah Mall, Mal Taman Anggrek, Mal Kelapa Gading, Mal Artha Gading. /ref> Traditional markets include Blok M, Tanah Abang, Senen, Glodok, Mangga Dua, Cempaka Mas, and Jatinegara.
Taman Suropati is located in Menteng garden city subdistrict, Central Jakarta. The park is surrounded by several Dutch colonial buildings. Taman Suropati was known as Burgemeester Bishopplein during the Dutch colonial time. The park is circular shaped with a surface area of 16,322 m2. There are several modern statues in the park made by artists of the ASEAN countries, which contributes to the other nickname of the park "Taman persahabatan seniman ASEAN" ("Park of the ASEAN artists relationship").
Taman Lapangan Banteng (Banteng Field Park) is located in Central Jakarta. It is about 4,5 hectares. The most notable landmark inside the park is the Monumen Pembebasan Irian Barat (Monument of the Liberation of Irian Barat). During the 1980s, the park is used as a bus terminal. In 1993, the park turned into a public space again and has become a recreation place for people and occasionally also used as an exhibition place or other events.
Taman Monas (Monas Park) or Taman Medan Merdeka (Medan Merdeka Park) is the park where the symbol of Jakarta, Monas or Monumen Nasional (National Monument) is located. The large open space was created by Dutch Governor General Herman Willem Deandels (1870) and was completed in 1910 under the name of Koningsplein. on 10 Januari 1993, President Soeharto initiate the action toward the beautification of the park. Several features in the park is a deer park and 33 trees that represents the 33 provinces of Indonesia.
Jalan Thamrin, the main avenue in Central Jakarta
One of the most populous cities in the world, Jakarta is strained by transportation problems. In Indonesia most communal transport is provided by mikrolets, which are privately run minibuses although these normally stay off the main roads.
Jakarta suffers from traffic congestion. A 'three in one' rule during peak hour was introduced in 1992, prohibiting fewer than three passengers per car on certain roads.
Motorised bajaj
Auto rickshaws, called bajaj, provide local transportation in the back streets of some parts of the city. From the early 1940s to 1991 they were a common form of local transportation in the city. In 1966, an estimated 160,000 rickshaws were operating in the city; as much as fifteen percent of Jakarta's total workforce was engaged in rickshaw driving. In 1971, rickshaws were banned from major roads, and shortly thereafter the government attempted a total ban, which substantially reduced their numbers but did not eliminate them. A campaign to eliminate them succeeded in 1990 and 1991, but during the economic crisis of 1998, some returned amid less effective government attempts to control them. Azuma, Yoshifumi (2003). Urban peasants: beca drivers in Jakarta. Jakarta: Pustaka Sinar Harapan.
TransJakarta bus service in Jakarta
The TransJakarta bus rapid transit service operates on seven reserved busway corridors in the city; connecting seven main points of Jakarta. The first TransJakarta line, from Blok M to Jakarta Kota opened in January 2004.
An outer ring road is under constructed and is partly operational A toll road connects Jakarta to Soekarno-Hatta International Airport in the northwest of Jakarta, as are the port of Merak and Tangerang to the west, and Bogor and Puncak to the south. Bekasi, Cikarang, Karawang, Cikampek, Purwakarta, and Bandung to the east.
A train at Gambir station in Central Jakarta
Railways connect the city to its neighboring regions: Depok and Bogor to the south, Tangerang and Serpong to the west, and Bekasi, Karawang, and Cikampek to the east. The major rail stations are Gambir, Jakarta Kota, Jatinegara, Pasar Senen, Manggarai, and Tanah Abang. During peak hours, the number of passengers greatly exceeds the system's capacity, and crowding is common.
Two lines of the Jakarta Monorail are under construction: the green line serving Semanggi-Casablanca Road-Kuningan-Semanggi and the blue line serving Kampung Melayu-Casablanca Road-Tanah Abang-Roxy. There are plans for a two-line metro (MRT) system, with a north-south line between Kota and Lebak Bulus, with connections to both monorail lines; and an east-west line, which will connect with the north-south line at the Sawah Besar station. The current project, which began in 2005, has been delayed due to a lack of funds, and the project has been abandoned by the developer PT Jakarta Monorail in March 2008.
On 6 June 2007, the city administration started to introduce the Waterway, a new river boat service along the Ciliwung River.
Soekarno-Hatta International Airport (CGK) is Jakarta's major airport. It is Indonesia's busiest airport handling more than 30 million passengers annually. A second airport, Halim Perdanakusuma International Airport (HLP) serves mostly private and VVIP/presidential flights.
The main seaport for this transportation mode is the Tanjung Priok seaport.
The biggest university in Jakarta is the University of Indonesia with campuses in Salemba and Depok. /ref> Others government universities include Jakarta State University, Jakarta State Polytechnic, and Jakarta Islamic State University. Nowadays, the oldest of which is the privately-owned Universitas Nasional (UNAS). Web Universitas Nasional 1949 Private universities in Jakarta include Trisakti University Atma Jaya University, and Tarumanagara University.
STOVIA was the first high school in Jakarta, established in 1851. As the largest city and the capital, Jakarta houses a large number of students from various parts of Indonesia, many of whom reside in dormitories or home-stay residences. For basic education, there are a variety of primary and secondary schools, tagged with public (national), private (national and bi-lingual national plus) and international schools. Two of the major international schools located in Jakarta are the Jakarta International School and the British International School (BIS).
The Bung Karno Stadium is capable of hosting 100,000 spectators
Jakarta was host to the Asian Games in 1962, /ref> host of the Asian Cup 2007, /ref> and has hosted the regional-scale Sea Games several times. Jakarta's most popular footbal club is Persija, which plays its matches in the Lebak Bulus Stadium. Another premiere division team is Persitara.
The biggest stadium in Jakarta is the Bung Karno Stadium with a capacity of 100,000 seats Football stadiums of the world - Stadiums in Indonesia . For basketball, the Kelapa Gading Sport Mall in Kelapa Gading, North Jakarta, with a capacity of 7,000 seats, is the home arena of the Indonesian national basketball team. The Senayan sports complex has several sport venues, including the Bung Karno soccer stadium, Madya Stadium, Istora Senayan, a shooting range, a tennis court and a golf driving range. The Senayan complex was built in 1959 to accommodate the Asian Games in 1962.
In 2011, Jakarta, together with Bandung, will again host the Southeast Asian Games.
A trash dump in Bantar Gebang, Bekasi
Surveys show that "less than a quarter of the population is fully served by improved water sources. The rest rely on a variety of sources, including rivers, lakes and private water vendors. Some 7.2 million people are [without clean water]." United Nations Human Development Report 2006, p. 39
Sister relationships with towns and regions worldwide include:
*History of Jakarta
*Port of Jakarta
* Official website
* Jakarta Official Travel Website
*
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Jakarta | Do other landmarks include the Istiqlal Mosque as well as Jakarta Cathedral? | Yes | data/set3/a5 | Jakarta
Jakarta (also DKI Jakarta) is the capital and largest city of Indonesia. Located on the northwest coast of Java, it has an area of and a population of 8,490,000. Jakarta is the country's economic, cultural and political center. It is the most populous city in Indonesia and Southeast Asia, and is the twelfth-largest city in the world. The metropolitan area, Jabodetabek, is the second largest in the world. Jakarta is listed as a global city in the 2008 Globalization and World Cities Study Group and Network (GaWC) research. the city's name is derived from the Sanskrit word "Jayakarta" (à¤à¤¯à¤à¤°à¥) which translates as "victorious deed," "complete act,"or "complete victory."
Established in the fourth century, the city became an important trading port for the Kingdom of Sunda. It grew as the capital of the colonial Dutch East Indies. It was made capital of Indonesia when the country became independent after World War II. It was formerly known as Sunda Kelapa (397â1527), Jayakarta (1527â1619), Batavia (1619â1942), and Djakarta (1942â1972).
Landmarks include the National Monument and Istiqlal Mosque. The city is the seat of the ASEAN Secretariat. Jakarta is served by the Soekarno-Hatta International Airport, Halim Perdanakusuma International Airport, and Tanjung Priok harbour; it is connected by several intercity and commuter railways, and served by several bus lines running on reserved busways.
The former Stadhuis of Batavia, the seat of Governor General of VOC. The building now serves as Jakarta History Museum, Jakarta Old Town area.
Dutch Batavia in the 17th Century, built in what is now North Jakarta
The Jakarta area was part of the fourth century Indianized kingdom of Tarumanagara. In AD 39, King Purnawarman established Sunda Pura as a new capital city for the kingdom, located at the northern coast of Java. Purnawarman left seven memorial stones across the area with inscriptions bearing his name, including the present-day Banten and West Java provinces. After the power of Tarumanagara declined, its territories, including Sunda Pura, became part of the Kingdom of Sunda. The harbour area was renamed Sunda Kalapa as written in a Hindu monk's lontar manuscripts. Bujangga Manik Manuscript which are now located at the Bodleian Library of Oxford University in England, and travel records by Prince Bujangga Manik.( ) By the fourteenth century, Sunda Kelapa became a major trading port for the kingdom. The first European fleet, four Portuguese ships from Malacca, arrived in 1513 when the Portuguese were looking for a route for spices, especially black pepper.
The Kingdom of Sunda made a peace agreement with Portugal by allowing the Portuguese to build a port in 1522 in order to defend against the rising power of the Sultanate of Demak from central Java.
In 1527, Fatahillah, a Sumatran Malay warrior from Demak attacked Kingdom of Sunda and succeeded in conquering the harbour on June 22, 1527, after which Sunda Kelapa was renamed Jayakarta.
The Castle of Batavia, seen from West Kali Besar by Andries Beeckman circa 1656-58
Through the relationship with Prince Jayawikarta from the Sultanate of Banten, Dutch ships arrived in Jayakarta in 1596. In 1602, the British East India Company's first voyage, commanded by Sir James Lancaster, arrived in Aceh and sailed on to Banten where they were allowed to build a trading post. This site became the center of British trade in Indonesia until 1682.
Jayawikarta is thought to have made trading connections with the English merchants, rivals of the Dutch, by allowing them to build houses directly across from the Dutch buildings in 1615. When relations between Prince Jayawikarta and the Dutch deteriorated, Jayawikarta's soldiers attacked the Dutch fortress. Prince Jayakarta's army and the British were defeated by the Dutch, in part owing to the timely arrival of Jan Pieterszoon Coen (J.P. Coen). The Dutch burned the English fort, and forced the English to retreat on their ships. The victory consolidated Dutch power and in 1619 they renamed the city "Batavia."
Batavia c.1870
Commercial opportunities in the capital of the Dutch colony attracted Indonesian and especially Chinese immigrants, the increasing numbers creating burdens on the city. Tensions grew as the colonial government tried to restrict Chinese migration through deportations. On 9 October 1740, 5,000 Chinese were massacred and the following year, Chinese inhabitants were moved to Glodok outside the city walls. The city began to move further south as epidemics in 1835 and 1870 encouraged more people to move far south of the port. The Koningsplein, now Merdeka Square was completed in 1818, the housing park of Menteng was started in 1913, and Kebayoran Baru was the last Dutch-built residential area. By 1930 Batavia had more than 500,000 inhabitants, Colonial Economy and Society, 1870-1940. Source: U.S. Library of Congress. including 37,067 Europeans. Governance Failure: Rethinking the Institutional Dimensions of Urban Water Supply to Poor Households. ScienceDirect.
The Japanese renamed the city "Jakarta" during their World War II occupation of Indonesia. Following World War II, Indonesian Republicans withdrew from allied-occupied Jakarta during their fight for Indonesian independence and established their capital in Yogyakarta. In 1950, once independence was secured, Jakarta was once again made the national capital. Indonesia's founding president, Sukarno, envisaged Jakarta as a great international city. He instigated large government-funded projects undertaken with openly nationalistic and modernist architecture. Projects in Jakarta included a clover-leaf highway, a major boulevard (Jalan MH Thamrin-Sudirman), monuments such as The National Monument, major hotels, shopping centre, and a new parliament building.
In October 1965, Jakarta was the site of an abortive coup attempt which saw 6 top generals killed, and ultimately resulted in the downfall of Sukarno and the start of Suharto's "New Order. A propaganda monument stands at the place where the general's bodies were dumped. In 1966, Jakarta was declared a "special capital city district" (daerah khusus ibukota), thus gaining a status approximately equivalent to that of a state or province. Lieutenant General Ali Sadikin served as Governor from the mid-60's commencement of the "New Order" through to 1977; he rehabilitated roads and bridges, encouraged the arts, built several hospitals, and a large number of new schools. He also cleared out slum dwellers for new development projects some for the benefit of the Suharto family and tried to eliminate rickshaws and ban street vendors. He began control of migration to the city in order to stem the overcrowding and poverty.
Foreign investment contributed to a real estate boom which changed the face of the city.
The boom ended with the 1997/98 East Asian Economic crisis putting Jakarta at the center of violence, protest, and political maneuvering. Long-time president, Suharto, began to lose his grip on power. Tensions reached a peak in the Jakarta riots of May 1998, when four students were shot dead at Trisakti University by security forces; four days of riots and violence ensued that killed an estimated 1,200, and destroyed or damaged 6,000 buildings. The Jakarta riots targeted Chinese Indonesians. Wages of Hatred. Michael Shari. Business Week. Suharto resigned as president, and Jakarta has remained the focal point of democratic change in Indonesia. Jemaah Islamiah-connected bombings have occurred in the city since 2000 on an almost annual basis, although the 2009 bombing of two international hotels was the first since 2005.
Map of the Cities (Kotamadya) of DKI Jakarta. Each Cities are divided into Subdistricts (Kecamatan)
Officially, Jakarta is not a city, but a province with special status as the capital of Indonesia. It has a governor (instead of a mayor), and is divided into several sub-regions with their own administrative systems. As a province, the official name of Jakarta is Daerah Khusus Ibukota Jakarta ("Special Capital City District of Jakarta"), which in Indonesian is abbreviated to DKI Jakarta.
Jakarta is divided into five kota or kotamadya ("cities" - formerly municipalities), each headed by a mayor, and one regency (kabupaten) headed by a regent. In August 2007, Jakarta held its first ever election to choose a governor, whereas previously the city's governors were appointed by local parliament. The poll is part of a country-wide decentralization drive, allowing for direct local elections in several areas.
The Cities/Municipalities of Jakarta are:
* Central Jakarta (Jakarta Pusat) is Jakarta's smallest city and home to most of Jakarta's administrative and political center. It is characterized by large parks and Dutch colonial buildings. Landmarks include the National Monument (Monas), the Istiqlal Mosque, and museums.
* West Jakarta (Jakarta Barat) has the highest concentration of small-scale industries in Jakarta. The area includes Jakarta's Chinatown and landmarks include the Chinese Langgam building and the Toko Merah building. West Jakarta contains part of the Jakarta Old Town.
* South Jakarta (Jakarta Selatan), previously planned as a satellite city, is now the location of large upscale shopping centers and affluent residential areas. Jakarta Selatan functions as Jakarta's ground water buffer, but recently the green belt areas are threatened by new developments. Most CBD area of Jakarta is concentrated in South Jakarta.
* East Jakarta (Jakarta Timur) territory is characterized with several industrial sectors erected in this city. There is also still some area of swamps and rice fields in this city.
* North Jakarta (Jakarta Utara) is the only city in Jakarta that is bounded by the sea (Java Sea). It is the location of the Tanjung Priok Port. Big-scale and medium-scale industries are concentrated in North Jakarta. North Jakarta contains the location of Jakarta Old Town, formerly known as Batavia since the 17 th century, and was a center of VOC trade activity in Dutch East Indies. Also located in North Jakarta is Ancol Dreamland (Taman Impian Jaya Ancol), currently the largest integrated tourism area in South East Asia.
The only Regency (Kabupaten) of Jakarta is:
* Thousand Islands (Kepulauan Seribu), formerly a subdistrict of North Jakarta, is a collection of 105 small islands located on Java Sea. It has a high conservation value because of its unique and special ecosystems. Marine tourism, such as diving, water bicycle, and wind surfing, is the most important touristic activities in this territory. The main transportation between these islands are speed boat or small ferries.
Since September 1945, the governmental of Jakarta City has been changed from the Japanese Djakarta Toku-Betsu Shi into Jakarta National Administration. This first government was held by a Mayor until the end of 1960 when it was changed into a Governor. The last Mayor of Jakarta is Sudiro, until he was replaced by Dr. Sumarno as a Governor.
In 1974, Based on the Act No. 5 of 1974 about Fundamental of Regional Government, Jakarta was stated as the Capital City of Indonesia and part of the 26 Province in Indonesia.
Jakarta is located on the northwest coast of Java, at the mouth of the Ciliwung River on Jakarta Bay, which is an inlet of the Java Sea. The city is a lowland area averaging 7 meters above sea level. Officially, the area of the Jakarta Special District is 662 km 2 of land area and 6,977 km 2 of sea area. Based on Governor Decree in 2007, No. 171. taken from Statistics DKI Jakarta Provincial Office, Jakarta in Figures, 2008, BPS Province of DKI Jakarta Rivers flow from the hilly southern parts of the city northwards towards the Java Sea. The most important river is the Ciliwung River, which divides the city into the western and eastern principalities.
The northern part of Jakarta lies on a plain, approximately eight meters above the sea level. This contributes to the frequent flooding. The coastal area extends around from west to east. The southern parts of the city are hilly. During the wet season, Jakarta suffers from flooding due to clogged sewage pipes and waterways, deforestation near rapidly urbanizing Bogor and Depok, and the fact that 40% of it is below sea level . Major floods occurred in 1996 Asiaviews - Asian News when 5,000 hectares of land were flooded and 2007. Bloomberg.com: Asia Losses from infrastructure damage and state revenue were at least 5.2 trillion rupiah (572 million US dollars) and at least 85 people were killed Three killed, 90,000 evacuated in Jakarta floods: officials - Yahoo! News and about 350,000 people forced from their homes.. Disease fears as floods ravage Jakarta Approximately 70% of Jakarta's total area was flooded with water up to four meters deep in parts of the city. Jakarta Flood Feb 2007 « (Geo) Information for All /ref>
The Thousand Islands, which are administratively a part of Jakarta, are located in Jakarta Bay north of the city.
Jakarta has a hot and humid equatorial/tropical climate (Af) according to the Köppen climate classification system. Located in the western-part of Indonesia, Jakarta's wet season rainfall peak is January with average monthly rainfall of , and its dry season low point is August with a monthly average of .
Average daily temperatures range from 25° to 36°C (77°-97°F).
Tanjidor orchestra celebrating the Chinese New Year.
As the economic and political capital of Indonesia, Jakarta attracts many domestic immigrants who bring their various languages, dialects, foods and customs.
The Betawi (Orang Betawi, or "people of Batavia") is a term used to describe the descendants of the people living in and around Batavia and recognized as an ethnic group from around the 18th-19th century. The Betawi people are mostly descended from various Southeast Asian ethnic groups brought or attracted to Batavia to meet labor needs, and include people from parts of Indonesia. The Betawi - due to their diverse origins - play a major role concerning ethnic and national identity in contemporary Jakarta; see Knörr, Jacqueline: Kreolität und postkoloniale Gesellschaft. Integration und Differenzierung in Jakarta, Campus Verlag: Frankfurt a.M. & New York, 2007, ISBN 978-3-593-38344-6 The language and the culture of these immigrants is distinct from that of the Sundanese or Javanese. The language is more based on the East Malay dialect and enriched by loan words from Sundanese, Javanese, Chinese, and Arabic. Nowadays, the Jakarta-dialects used by people in Jakarta are loosely based on the Betawi language.
The parade of Ondel-ondel, a Betawi large puppet-mask dance.
Betawi arts are rarely found in Jakarta due to their infamous low-profile and most Betawi have moved to the border of Jakarta, displaced by new immigrants. It is easier to find Java or Minang based wedding ceremonial instead of Betawi weddings in Jakarta. It is easier to find Javanese Gamelan instead of Gambang Kromong (a mixture between Betawi and Chinese music) or Tanjidor (a mixture between Betawi and Portuguese music) or Marawis (a mixture between Betawi and Yaman music). However, some festivals such as the Jalan Jaksa Festival or Kemang Festival include efforts to preserve Betawi arts by inviting artists to give performances.
There has also been a Chinese community in Jakarta for many centuries. Officially, they make up 6% of the Jakarta population, though this number may be under-reported.
Jakarta has several performing art centers, such as the Taman Ismail Marzuki (TIM) art center in Cikini, Gedung Kesenian Jakarta near Pasar Baru, Balai Sarbini in Plaza Semanggi area, Bentara Budaya Jakarta in Palmerah area, Pasar Seni (Art Market) in Ancol, and traditional Indonesian art performances at the pavilions of some Provinces in Taman Mini Indonesia Indah. Traditional music is often found at high-class hotels, including Wayang and Gamelan performances. Javanese Wayang Orang performance can be found at Wayang Orang Bharata theater near Senen bus terminal. As the nation's largest city and capital, Jakarta has lured much national and regional talent who hope to find a greater audience and more opportunities for success.
Jakarta is hosting several prestigious art and culture festivals as well as exhibitions, such as the annual Jakarta International Film Festival (JiFFest), Jakarta International Java Jazz Festival, Jakarta Fashion Week, Jakarta Fashion & Food Festival (JFFF), Flona Jakarta (Flora and Fauna exhibition, held annually on August in Lapangan Banteng park featuring flowers, plant nursery, and pets), also Indonesia Creative Products and Jakarta Arts and Crafts exhibition. The Jakarta Fair is held annually from mid June to mid July to celebrate the anniversary of the city. It is largely centered around a trade fair, however this month-long fair also has featured entertainments, arts and music performances by local bands and musicians.
Several foreign art and culture centers also established in Jakarta, mainly serve to promote culture and language through learning centers, libraries, and art galleries. Among these foreign art and cultural centers are Netherlands Erasmus Huis, UK British Council, France Centre Culturel Français, Germany Goethe-Institut, Japan Foundation, and Jawaharlal Nehru Indian Cultural Center.
National Museum of Indonesia in Central Jakarta
The museums in Jakarta cluster around the Central Jakarta Merdeka Square area, Jakarta Old Town, and Taman Mini Indonesia Indah.
The Jakarta Old Town contains museums that are former institution buildings of Batavia. Some of these museums are Jakarta History Museum (former City Hall of Batavia), Wayang Museum, the Fine Art and Ceramic Museum (former Court House of Batavia), Maritime Museum (former Sunda Kelapa warehouse), Bank Indonesia Museum, and Bank Mandiri Museum.
Several museums that are clustered around the Merdeka Square area are National Museum of Indonesia, Monas, Bayt al-Qur'an and Istiqlal Islamic Museum, and Jakarta Cathedral Museum.
The recreational area of Taman Mini Indonesia Indah in East Jakarta contains fourteen museums such as Purna Bhakti Pertiwi Museum, Asmat Museum, and other science-based museum such as Research & Technology Information Centre, Insect Museum, Petrol and Gas Museum.
Other museums are Satria Mandala Military Museum, Museum Sumpah Pemuda, and Lubang Buaya.
Jakarta has a vast range of food available at hundreds of eating complexes located all over the city. There is also international food, especially Indian, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean food because of the cosmopolitan population. /ref> One of the popular local cuisine of Jakarta is Soto betawi, which is a cow milk or coconut milk broth with beef tendons, intestines, tripe. The other popular cuisine are kerak telor, gado-gado, and cucur.
Daily newspapers in Jakarta include Bisnis Indonesia, Investor Daily, Jakarta Globe, The Jakarta Post, Indo Pos, Seputar Indonesia, Kompas, Media Indonesia, Republika, Pos Kota, Warta Kota, Lampu Merah and Suara Pembaruan.
* Government television: TVRI.
* Private national television: TPI, RCTI, Metro TV, Indosiar, StarANTV, SCTV, Trans TV, TV ONE, Trans 7, and Global TV.
* Local television: Jak-TV, O-Channel, and Space-Toon.
* Cable television: First Media, TelkomVision
* Satellite television: Indovision, Astro Nusantara, TelkomVision, Aora TV
The headquarter of Bank Indonesia in Central Jakarta. Financial services, trade and manufacturing are the largest sectors of the city's economy.
Jakarta's economy depends heavily on financial service, trade, and manufacturing. Industry includes electronics, automotive, chemicals, mechanical engineering and biomedical sciences manufacturing. In 2009, 13% of the population had an income per capita in excess of US$ 10,000 (Rp 108,000,000).
The economic growth of Jakarta in 2007 was 6.44% up from 5.95% the previous year, with the growth in the transportation and communication (15.25%), construction (7.81%) and trade, hotel and restaurant sectors (6.88%). In 2007, GRP (Growth Regional Domestic Product) was Rp. 566.45 trillion. The largest contributions to GDRP was by finance, ownership and business services (28.7%); trade, hotel and restaurant sector (20.4%), and manufacturing industry sector (15.97%). In 2007, per capita GRDP of DKI Jakarta inhabitants was an 11.63% compared to previous year
Both GRDP by at current market price and GRDP by at 2000 constant price in 2007 for Municipality of Central Jakarta (Jakarta Pusat) is higher than other municipalities in DKI Jakarta, which is 145.81 million rupiahs and 80.78 million rupiahs.
A new law in 2007 forbids the giving of money to beggars, buskers and hawkers, bans squatter settlements on river banks and highways, and prohibits spitting and smoking on public transportation. Unauthorized people cleaning car windscreens and taking tips for directing traffic at intersections will also be penalized. Critics of the new legislation claim that such laws will be difficult to enforce and it tends to ignore the desperate poverty of many of the capital's inhabitants. "Condemned Communities: Forced Evictions in Jakarta" Human Rights Watch Sep 2006.
In 2005, Jakarta's contribution to the national GDP was 17% up from 15% in 2000. The manufacturing and construction sectors in Jakarta decreased indicating that Jakarta has shifted from industry city to the services city. Most manufacturing plants in Jakarta have been relocated to peripheral areas like Tangerang, Bogor, Depok and Bekasi.
Based on 2007 National Socio-Economic Survey estimates, the population of DKI Jakarta Province was 9.06 million. The area of DKI Jakarta is 662.33 km 2 , suggesting a population density of 137,000 people/km 2 . Population growth between 2000 and 2007 was 1.11 percent compared 0.15 percent during the 1990s. Inwards immigration tended to negate the effect of family planning programs. The population has risen from 1.2 million in 1960 to 8.8 million in 2004, counting only its legal residents. The population of greater Jakarta is estimated at 23 million, making it the second largest urban area in the world. By 2025 the population of Jakarta may reach 24.9 million, not counting millions more in surrounding areas. Far Eastern Economic Review, Asia 1998 Yearbook, p. 63.
Population growth has outgrown the government's ability to provide basic needs for its residents. Jakarta suffers from severe traffic congestion. Air pollution and waste management are also problems.
Jakarta's Central Business District along the Jenderal Sudirman Road, centered at the Wisma 46 building, currently the tallest office building in Indonesia.
West Irian Liberation Statue, one of the many Sukarno era monuments in the city.
The National Monument
The National Monument, stands at the center of Merdeka Square, the central park of the city. Other landmarks include the Istiqlal Mosque and Jakarta Cathedral. The Wisma 46 building in Central Jakarta is currently the highest building in Jakarta and Indonesia. Tourist attractions include Taman Mini Indonesia Indah, Ragunan Zoo, Jakarta Old Town, and Ancol Dreamland complex on Jakarta Bay, include Dunia Fantasi theme park, Sea World, Atlantis Water Adventure, and Gelanggang Samudra.
Jakarta shopping malls with areas in excess of 100,000 metres square, include Grand Indonesia, Plaza Indonesia, Senayan City, Plaza Senayan, Pondok Indah Mall, Mal Taman Anggrek, Mal Kelapa Gading, Mal Artha Gading. /ref> Traditional markets include Blok M, Tanah Abang, Senen, Glodok, Mangga Dua, Cempaka Mas, and Jatinegara.
Taman Suropati is located in Menteng garden city subdistrict, Central Jakarta. The park is surrounded by several Dutch colonial buildings. Taman Suropati was known as Burgemeester Bishopplein during the Dutch colonial time. The park is circular shaped with a surface area of 16,322 m2. There are several modern statues in the park made by artists of the ASEAN countries, which contributes to the other nickname of the park "Taman persahabatan seniman ASEAN" ("Park of the ASEAN artists relationship").
Taman Lapangan Banteng (Banteng Field Park) is located in Central Jakarta. It is about 4,5 hectares. The most notable landmark inside the park is the Monumen Pembebasan Irian Barat (Monument of the Liberation of Irian Barat). During the 1980s, the park is used as a bus terminal. In 1993, the park turned into a public space again and has become a recreation place for people and occasionally also used as an exhibition place or other events.
Taman Monas (Monas Park) or Taman Medan Merdeka (Medan Merdeka Park) is the park where the symbol of Jakarta, Monas or Monumen Nasional (National Monument) is located. The large open space was created by Dutch Governor General Herman Willem Deandels (1870) and was completed in 1910 under the name of Koningsplein. on 10 Januari 1993, President Soeharto initiate the action toward the beautification of the park. Several features in the park is a deer park and 33 trees that represents the 33 provinces of Indonesia.
Jalan Thamrin, the main avenue in Central Jakarta
One of the most populous cities in the world, Jakarta is strained by transportation problems. In Indonesia most communal transport is provided by mikrolets, which are privately run minibuses although these normally stay off the main roads.
Jakarta suffers from traffic congestion. A 'three in one' rule during peak hour was introduced in 1992, prohibiting fewer than three passengers per car on certain roads.
Motorised bajaj
Auto rickshaws, called bajaj, provide local transportation in the back streets of some parts of the city. From the early 1940s to 1991 they were a common form of local transportation in the city. In 1966, an estimated 160,000 rickshaws were operating in the city; as much as fifteen percent of Jakarta's total workforce was engaged in rickshaw driving. In 1971, rickshaws were banned from major roads, and shortly thereafter the government attempted a total ban, which substantially reduced their numbers but did not eliminate them. A campaign to eliminate them succeeded in 1990 and 1991, but during the economic crisis of 1998, some returned amid less effective government attempts to control them. Azuma, Yoshifumi (2003). Urban peasants: beca drivers in Jakarta. Jakarta: Pustaka Sinar Harapan.
TransJakarta bus service in Jakarta
The TransJakarta bus rapid transit service operates on seven reserved busway corridors in the city; connecting seven main points of Jakarta. The first TransJakarta line, from Blok M to Jakarta Kota opened in January 2004.
An outer ring road is under constructed and is partly operational A toll road connects Jakarta to Soekarno-Hatta International Airport in the northwest of Jakarta, as are the port of Merak and Tangerang to the west, and Bogor and Puncak to the south. Bekasi, Cikarang, Karawang, Cikampek, Purwakarta, and Bandung to the east.
A train at Gambir station in Central Jakarta
Railways connect the city to its neighboring regions: Depok and Bogor to the south, Tangerang and Serpong to the west, and Bekasi, Karawang, and Cikampek to the east. The major rail stations are Gambir, Jakarta Kota, Jatinegara, Pasar Senen, Manggarai, and Tanah Abang. During peak hours, the number of passengers greatly exceeds the system's capacity, and crowding is common.
Two lines of the Jakarta Monorail are under construction: the green line serving Semanggi-Casablanca Road-Kuningan-Semanggi and the blue line serving Kampung Melayu-Casablanca Road-Tanah Abang-Roxy. There are plans for a two-line metro (MRT) system, with a north-south line between Kota and Lebak Bulus, with connections to both monorail lines; and an east-west line, which will connect with the north-south line at the Sawah Besar station. The current project, which began in 2005, has been delayed due to a lack of funds, and the project has been abandoned by the developer PT Jakarta Monorail in March 2008.
On 6 June 2007, the city administration started to introduce the Waterway, a new river boat service along the Ciliwung River.
Soekarno-Hatta International Airport (CGK) is Jakarta's major airport. It is Indonesia's busiest airport handling more than 30 million passengers annually. A second airport, Halim Perdanakusuma International Airport (HLP) serves mostly private and VVIP/presidential flights.
The main seaport for this transportation mode is the Tanjung Priok seaport.
The biggest university in Jakarta is the University of Indonesia with campuses in Salemba and Depok. /ref> Others government universities include Jakarta State University, Jakarta State Polytechnic, and Jakarta Islamic State University. Nowadays, the oldest of which is the privately-owned Universitas Nasional (UNAS). Web Universitas Nasional 1949 Private universities in Jakarta include Trisakti University Atma Jaya University, and Tarumanagara University.
STOVIA was the first high school in Jakarta, established in 1851. As the largest city and the capital, Jakarta houses a large number of students from various parts of Indonesia, many of whom reside in dormitories or home-stay residences. For basic education, there are a variety of primary and secondary schools, tagged with public (national), private (national and bi-lingual national plus) and international schools. Two of the major international schools located in Jakarta are the Jakarta International School and the British International School (BIS).
The Bung Karno Stadium is capable of hosting 100,000 spectators
Jakarta was host to the Asian Games in 1962, /ref> host of the Asian Cup 2007, /ref> and has hosted the regional-scale Sea Games several times. Jakarta's most popular footbal club is Persija, which plays its matches in the Lebak Bulus Stadium. Another premiere division team is Persitara.
The biggest stadium in Jakarta is the Bung Karno Stadium with a capacity of 100,000 seats Football stadiums of the world - Stadiums in Indonesia . For basketball, the Kelapa Gading Sport Mall in Kelapa Gading, North Jakarta, with a capacity of 7,000 seats, is the home arena of the Indonesian national basketball team. The Senayan sports complex has several sport venues, including the Bung Karno soccer stadium, Madya Stadium, Istora Senayan, a shooting range, a tennis court and a golf driving range. The Senayan complex was built in 1959 to accommodate the Asian Games in 1962.
In 2011, Jakarta, together with Bandung, will again host the Southeast Asian Games.
A trash dump in Bantar Gebang, Bekasi
Surveys show that "less than a quarter of the population is fully served by improved water sources. The rest rely on a variety of sources, including rivers, lakes and private water vendors. Some 7.2 million people are [without clean water]." United Nations Human Development Report 2006, p. 39
Sister relationships with towns and regions worldwide include:
*History of Jakarta
*Port of Jakarta
* Official website
* Jakarta Official Travel Website
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Jakarta | Give an example of the many Sukarno era monuments in the city. | The West Irian Liberation Statue is one of the many Sukarno era monuments in the city. | data/set3/a5 | Jakarta
Jakarta (also DKI Jakarta) is the capital and largest city of Indonesia. Located on the northwest coast of Java, it has an area of and a population of 8,490,000. Jakarta is the country's economic, cultural and political center. It is the most populous city in Indonesia and Southeast Asia, and is the twelfth-largest city in the world. The metropolitan area, Jabodetabek, is the second largest in the world. Jakarta is listed as a global city in the 2008 Globalization and World Cities Study Group and Network (GaWC) research. the city's name is derived from the Sanskrit word "Jayakarta" (à¤à¤¯à¤à¤°à¥) which translates as "victorious deed," "complete act,"or "complete victory."
Established in the fourth century, the city became an important trading port for the Kingdom of Sunda. It grew as the capital of the colonial Dutch East Indies. It was made capital of Indonesia when the country became independent after World War II. It was formerly known as Sunda Kelapa (397â1527), Jayakarta (1527â1619), Batavia (1619â1942), and Djakarta (1942â1972).
Landmarks include the National Monument and Istiqlal Mosque. The city is the seat of the ASEAN Secretariat. Jakarta is served by the Soekarno-Hatta International Airport, Halim Perdanakusuma International Airport, and Tanjung Priok harbour; it is connected by several intercity and commuter railways, and served by several bus lines running on reserved busways.
The former Stadhuis of Batavia, the seat of Governor General of VOC. The building now serves as Jakarta History Museum, Jakarta Old Town area.
Dutch Batavia in the 17th Century, built in what is now North Jakarta
The Jakarta area was part of the fourth century Indianized kingdom of Tarumanagara. In AD 39, King Purnawarman established Sunda Pura as a new capital city for the kingdom, located at the northern coast of Java. Purnawarman left seven memorial stones across the area with inscriptions bearing his name, including the present-day Banten and West Java provinces. After the power of Tarumanagara declined, its territories, including Sunda Pura, became part of the Kingdom of Sunda. The harbour area was renamed Sunda Kalapa as written in a Hindu monk's lontar manuscripts. Bujangga Manik Manuscript which are now located at the Bodleian Library of Oxford University in England, and travel records by Prince Bujangga Manik.( ) By the fourteenth century, Sunda Kelapa became a major trading port for the kingdom. The first European fleet, four Portuguese ships from Malacca, arrived in 1513 when the Portuguese were looking for a route for spices, especially black pepper.
The Kingdom of Sunda made a peace agreement with Portugal by allowing the Portuguese to build a port in 1522 in order to defend against the rising power of the Sultanate of Demak from central Java.
In 1527, Fatahillah, a Sumatran Malay warrior from Demak attacked Kingdom of Sunda and succeeded in conquering the harbour on June 22, 1527, after which Sunda Kelapa was renamed Jayakarta.
The Castle of Batavia, seen from West Kali Besar by Andries Beeckman circa 1656-58
Through the relationship with Prince Jayawikarta from the Sultanate of Banten, Dutch ships arrived in Jayakarta in 1596. In 1602, the British East India Company's first voyage, commanded by Sir James Lancaster, arrived in Aceh and sailed on to Banten where they were allowed to build a trading post. This site became the center of British trade in Indonesia until 1682.
Jayawikarta is thought to have made trading connections with the English merchants, rivals of the Dutch, by allowing them to build houses directly across from the Dutch buildings in 1615. When relations between Prince Jayawikarta and the Dutch deteriorated, Jayawikarta's soldiers attacked the Dutch fortress. Prince Jayakarta's army and the British were defeated by the Dutch, in part owing to the timely arrival of Jan Pieterszoon Coen (J.P. Coen). The Dutch burned the English fort, and forced the English to retreat on their ships. The victory consolidated Dutch power and in 1619 they renamed the city "Batavia."
Batavia c.1870
Commercial opportunities in the capital of the Dutch colony attracted Indonesian and especially Chinese immigrants, the increasing numbers creating burdens on the city. Tensions grew as the colonial government tried to restrict Chinese migration through deportations. On 9 October 1740, 5,000 Chinese were massacred and the following year, Chinese inhabitants were moved to Glodok outside the city walls. The city began to move further south as epidemics in 1835 and 1870 encouraged more people to move far south of the port. The Koningsplein, now Merdeka Square was completed in 1818, the housing park of Menteng was started in 1913, and Kebayoran Baru was the last Dutch-built residential area. By 1930 Batavia had more than 500,000 inhabitants, Colonial Economy and Society, 1870-1940. Source: U.S. Library of Congress. including 37,067 Europeans. Governance Failure: Rethinking the Institutional Dimensions of Urban Water Supply to Poor Households. ScienceDirect.
The Japanese renamed the city "Jakarta" during their World War II occupation of Indonesia. Following World War II, Indonesian Republicans withdrew from allied-occupied Jakarta during their fight for Indonesian independence and established their capital in Yogyakarta. In 1950, once independence was secured, Jakarta was once again made the national capital. Indonesia's founding president, Sukarno, envisaged Jakarta as a great international city. He instigated large government-funded projects undertaken with openly nationalistic and modernist architecture. Projects in Jakarta included a clover-leaf highway, a major boulevard (Jalan MH Thamrin-Sudirman), monuments such as The National Monument, major hotels, shopping centre, and a new parliament building.
In October 1965, Jakarta was the site of an abortive coup attempt which saw 6 top generals killed, and ultimately resulted in the downfall of Sukarno and the start of Suharto's "New Order. A propaganda monument stands at the place where the general's bodies were dumped. In 1966, Jakarta was declared a "special capital city district" (daerah khusus ibukota), thus gaining a status approximately equivalent to that of a state or province. Lieutenant General Ali Sadikin served as Governor from the mid-60's commencement of the "New Order" through to 1977; he rehabilitated roads and bridges, encouraged the arts, built several hospitals, and a large number of new schools. He also cleared out slum dwellers for new development projects some for the benefit of the Suharto family and tried to eliminate rickshaws and ban street vendors. He began control of migration to the city in order to stem the overcrowding and poverty.
Foreign investment contributed to a real estate boom which changed the face of the city.
The boom ended with the 1997/98 East Asian Economic crisis putting Jakarta at the center of violence, protest, and political maneuvering. Long-time president, Suharto, began to lose his grip on power. Tensions reached a peak in the Jakarta riots of May 1998, when four students were shot dead at Trisakti University by security forces; four days of riots and violence ensued that killed an estimated 1,200, and destroyed or damaged 6,000 buildings. The Jakarta riots targeted Chinese Indonesians. Wages of Hatred. Michael Shari. Business Week. Suharto resigned as president, and Jakarta has remained the focal point of democratic change in Indonesia. Jemaah Islamiah-connected bombings have occurred in the city since 2000 on an almost annual basis, although the 2009 bombing of two international hotels was the first since 2005.
Map of the Cities (Kotamadya) of DKI Jakarta. Each Cities are divided into Subdistricts (Kecamatan)
Officially, Jakarta is not a city, but a province with special status as the capital of Indonesia. It has a governor (instead of a mayor), and is divided into several sub-regions with their own administrative systems. As a province, the official name of Jakarta is Daerah Khusus Ibukota Jakarta ("Special Capital City District of Jakarta"), which in Indonesian is abbreviated to DKI Jakarta.
Jakarta is divided into five kota or kotamadya ("cities" - formerly municipalities), each headed by a mayor, and one regency (kabupaten) headed by a regent. In August 2007, Jakarta held its first ever election to choose a governor, whereas previously the city's governors were appointed by local parliament. The poll is part of a country-wide decentralization drive, allowing for direct local elections in several areas.
The Cities/Municipalities of Jakarta are:
* Central Jakarta (Jakarta Pusat) is Jakarta's smallest city and home to most of Jakarta's administrative and political center. It is characterized by large parks and Dutch colonial buildings. Landmarks include the National Monument (Monas), the Istiqlal Mosque, and museums.
* West Jakarta (Jakarta Barat) has the highest concentration of small-scale industries in Jakarta. The area includes Jakarta's Chinatown and landmarks include the Chinese Langgam building and the Toko Merah building. West Jakarta contains part of the Jakarta Old Town.
* South Jakarta (Jakarta Selatan), previously planned as a satellite city, is now the location of large upscale shopping centers and affluent residential areas. Jakarta Selatan functions as Jakarta's ground water buffer, but recently the green belt areas are threatened by new developments. Most CBD area of Jakarta is concentrated in South Jakarta.
* East Jakarta (Jakarta Timur) territory is characterized with several industrial sectors erected in this city. There is also still some area of swamps and rice fields in this city.
* North Jakarta (Jakarta Utara) is the only city in Jakarta that is bounded by the sea (Java Sea). It is the location of the Tanjung Priok Port. Big-scale and medium-scale industries are concentrated in North Jakarta. North Jakarta contains the location of Jakarta Old Town, formerly known as Batavia since the 17 th century, and was a center of VOC trade activity in Dutch East Indies. Also located in North Jakarta is Ancol Dreamland (Taman Impian Jaya Ancol), currently the largest integrated tourism area in South East Asia.
The only Regency (Kabupaten) of Jakarta is:
* Thousand Islands (Kepulauan Seribu), formerly a subdistrict of North Jakarta, is a collection of 105 small islands located on Java Sea. It has a high conservation value because of its unique and special ecosystems. Marine tourism, such as diving, water bicycle, and wind surfing, is the most important touristic activities in this territory. The main transportation between these islands are speed boat or small ferries.
Since September 1945, the governmental of Jakarta City has been changed from the Japanese Djakarta Toku-Betsu Shi into Jakarta National Administration. This first government was held by a Mayor until the end of 1960 when it was changed into a Governor. The last Mayor of Jakarta is Sudiro, until he was replaced by Dr. Sumarno as a Governor.
In 1974, Based on the Act No. 5 of 1974 about Fundamental of Regional Government, Jakarta was stated as the Capital City of Indonesia and part of the 26 Province in Indonesia.
Jakarta is located on the northwest coast of Java, at the mouth of the Ciliwung River on Jakarta Bay, which is an inlet of the Java Sea. The city is a lowland area averaging 7 meters above sea level. Officially, the area of the Jakarta Special District is 662 km 2 of land area and 6,977 km 2 of sea area. Based on Governor Decree in 2007, No. 171. taken from Statistics DKI Jakarta Provincial Office, Jakarta in Figures, 2008, BPS Province of DKI Jakarta Rivers flow from the hilly southern parts of the city northwards towards the Java Sea. The most important river is the Ciliwung River, which divides the city into the western and eastern principalities.
The northern part of Jakarta lies on a plain, approximately eight meters above the sea level. This contributes to the frequent flooding. The coastal area extends around from west to east. The southern parts of the city are hilly. During the wet season, Jakarta suffers from flooding due to clogged sewage pipes and waterways, deforestation near rapidly urbanizing Bogor and Depok, and the fact that 40% of it is below sea level . Major floods occurred in 1996 Asiaviews - Asian News when 5,000 hectares of land were flooded and 2007. Bloomberg.com: Asia Losses from infrastructure damage and state revenue were at least 5.2 trillion rupiah (572 million US dollars) and at least 85 people were killed Three killed, 90,000 evacuated in Jakarta floods: officials - Yahoo! News and about 350,000 people forced from their homes.. Disease fears as floods ravage Jakarta Approximately 70% of Jakarta's total area was flooded with water up to four meters deep in parts of the city. Jakarta Flood Feb 2007 « (Geo) Information for All /ref>
The Thousand Islands, which are administratively a part of Jakarta, are located in Jakarta Bay north of the city.
Jakarta has a hot and humid equatorial/tropical climate (Af) according to the Köppen climate classification system. Located in the western-part of Indonesia, Jakarta's wet season rainfall peak is January with average monthly rainfall of , and its dry season low point is August with a monthly average of .
Average daily temperatures range from 25° to 36°C (77°-97°F).
Tanjidor orchestra celebrating the Chinese New Year.
As the economic and political capital of Indonesia, Jakarta attracts many domestic immigrants who bring their various languages, dialects, foods and customs.
The Betawi (Orang Betawi, or "people of Batavia") is a term used to describe the descendants of the people living in and around Batavia and recognized as an ethnic group from around the 18th-19th century. The Betawi people are mostly descended from various Southeast Asian ethnic groups brought or attracted to Batavia to meet labor needs, and include people from parts of Indonesia. The Betawi - due to their diverse origins - play a major role concerning ethnic and national identity in contemporary Jakarta; see Knörr, Jacqueline: Kreolität und postkoloniale Gesellschaft. Integration und Differenzierung in Jakarta, Campus Verlag: Frankfurt a.M. & New York, 2007, ISBN 978-3-593-38344-6 The language and the culture of these immigrants is distinct from that of the Sundanese or Javanese. The language is more based on the East Malay dialect and enriched by loan words from Sundanese, Javanese, Chinese, and Arabic. Nowadays, the Jakarta-dialects used by people in Jakarta are loosely based on the Betawi language.
The parade of Ondel-ondel, a Betawi large puppet-mask dance.
Betawi arts are rarely found in Jakarta due to their infamous low-profile and most Betawi have moved to the border of Jakarta, displaced by new immigrants. It is easier to find Java or Minang based wedding ceremonial instead of Betawi weddings in Jakarta. It is easier to find Javanese Gamelan instead of Gambang Kromong (a mixture between Betawi and Chinese music) or Tanjidor (a mixture between Betawi and Portuguese music) or Marawis (a mixture between Betawi and Yaman music). However, some festivals such as the Jalan Jaksa Festival or Kemang Festival include efforts to preserve Betawi arts by inviting artists to give performances.
There has also been a Chinese community in Jakarta for many centuries. Officially, they make up 6% of the Jakarta population, though this number may be under-reported.
Jakarta has several performing art centers, such as the Taman Ismail Marzuki (TIM) art center in Cikini, Gedung Kesenian Jakarta near Pasar Baru, Balai Sarbini in Plaza Semanggi area, Bentara Budaya Jakarta in Palmerah area, Pasar Seni (Art Market) in Ancol, and traditional Indonesian art performances at the pavilions of some Provinces in Taman Mini Indonesia Indah. Traditional music is often found at high-class hotels, including Wayang and Gamelan performances. Javanese Wayang Orang performance can be found at Wayang Orang Bharata theater near Senen bus terminal. As the nation's largest city and capital, Jakarta has lured much national and regional talent who hope to find a greater audience and more opportunities for success.
Jakarta is hosting several prestigious art and culture festivals as well as exhibitions, such as the annual Jakarta International Film Festival (JiFFest), Jakarta International Java Jazz Festival, Jakarta Fashion Week, Jakarta Fashion & Food Festival (JFFF), Flona Jakarta (Flora and Fauna exhibition, held annually on August in Lapangan Banteng park featuring flowers, plant nursery, and pets), also Indonesia Creative Products and Jakarta Arts and Crafts exhibition. The Jakarta Fair is held annually from mid June to mid July to celebrate the anniversary of the city. It is largely centered around a trade fair, however this month-long fair also has featured entertainments, arts and music performances by local bands and musicians.
Several foreign art and culture centers also established in Jakarta, mainly serve to promote culture and language through learning centers, libraries, and art galleries. Among these foreign art and cultural centers are Netherlands Erasmus Huis, UK British Council, France Centre Culturel Français, Germany Goethe-Institut, Japan Foundation, and Jawaharlal Nehru Indian Cultural Center.
National Museum of Indonesia in Central Jakarta
The museums in Jakarta cluster around the Central Jakarta Merdeka Square area, Jakarta Old Town, and Taman Mini Indonesia Indah.
The Jakarta Old Town contains museums that are former institution buildings of Batavia. Some of these museums are Jakarta History Museum (former City Hall of Batavia), Wayang Museum, the Fine Art and Ceramic Museum (former Court House of Batavia), Maritime Museum (former Sunda Kelapa warehouse), Bank Indonesia Museum, and Bank Mandiri Museum.
Several museums that are clustered around the Merdeka Square area are National Museum of Indonesia, Monas, Bayt al-Qur'an and Istiqlal Islamic Museum, and Jakarta Cathedral Museum.
The recreational area of Taman Mini Indonesia Indah in East Jakarta contains fourteen museums such as Purna Bhakti Pertiwi Museum, Asmat Museum, and other science-based museum such as Research & Technology Information Centre, Insect Museum, Petrol and Gas Museum.
Other museums are Satria Mandala Military Museum, Museum Sumpah Pemuda, and Lubang Buaya.
Jakarta has a vast range of food available at hundreds of eating complexes located all over the city. There is also international food, especially Indian, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean food because of the cosmopolitan population. /ref> One of the popular local cuisine of Jakarta is Soto betawi, which is a cow milk or coconut milk broth with beef tendons, intestines, tripe. The other popular cuisine are kerak telor, gado-gado, and cucur.
Daily newspapers in Jakarta include Bisnis Indonesia, Investor Daily, Jakarta Globe, The Jakarta Post, Indo Pos, Seputar Indonesia, Kompas, Media Indonesia, Republika, Pos Kota, Warta Kota, Lampu Merah and Suara Pembaruan.
* Government television: TVRI.
* Private national television: TPI, RCTI, Metro TV, Indosiar, StarANTV, SCTV, Trans TV, TV ONE, Trans 7, and Global TV.
* Local television: Jak-TV, O-Channel, and Space-Toon.
* Cable television: First Media, TelkomVision
* Satellite television: Indovision, Astro Nusantara, TelkomVision, Aora TV
The headquarter of Bank Indonesia in Central Jakarta. Financial services, trade and manufacturing are the largest sectors of the city's economy.
Jakarta's economy depends heavily on financial service, trade, and manufacturing. Industry includes electronics, automotive, chemicals, mechanical engineering and biomedical sciences manufacturing. In 2009, 13% of the population had an income per capita in excess of US$ 10,000 (Rp 108,000,000).
The economic growth of Jakarta in 2007 was 6.44% up from 5.95% the previous year, with the growth in the transportation and communication (15.25%), construction (7.81%) and trade, hotel and restaurant sectors (6.88%). In 2007, GRP (Growth Regional Domestic Product) was Rp. 566.45 trillion. The largest contributions to GDRP was by finance, ownership and business services (28.7%); trade, hotel and restaurant sector (20.4%), and manufacturing industry sector (15.97%). In 2007, per capita GRDP of DKI Jakarta inhabitants was an 11.63% compared to previous year
Both GRDP by at current market price and GRDP by at 2000 constant price in 2007 for Municipality of Central Jakarta (Jakarta Pusat) is higher than other municipalities in DKI Jakarta, which is 145.81 million rupiahs and 80.78 million rupiahs.
A new law in 2007 forbids the giving of money to beggars, buskers and hawkers, bans squatter settlements on river banks and highways, and prohibits spitting and smoking on public transportation. Unauthorized people cleaning car windscreens and taking tips for directing traffic at intersections will also be penalized. Critics of the new legislation claim that such laws will be difficult to enforce and it tends to ignore the desperate poverty of many of the capital's inhabitants. "Condemned Communities: Forced Evictions in Jakarta" Human Rights Watch Sep 2006.
In 2005, Jakarta's contribution to the national GDP was 17% up from 15% in 2000. The manufacturing and construction sectors in Jakarta decreased indicating that Jakarta has shifted from industry city to the services city. Most manufacturing plants in Jakarta have been relocated to peripheral areas like Tangerang, Bogor, Depok and Bekasi.
Based on 2007 National Socio-Economic Survey estimates, the population of DKI Jakarta Province was 9.06 million. The area of DKI Jakarta is 662.33 km 2 , suggesting a population density of 137,000 people/km 2 . Population growth between 2000 and 2007 was 1.11 percent compared 0.15 percent during the 1990s. Inwards immigration tended to negate the effect of family planning programs. The population has risen from 1.2 million in 1960 to 8.8 million in 2004, counting only its legal residents. The population of greater Jakarta is estimated at 23 million, making it the second largest urban area in the world. By 2025 the population of Jakarta may reach 24.9 million, not counting millions more in surrounding areas. Far Eastern Economic Review, Asia 1998 Yearbook, p. 63.
Population growth has outgrown the government's ability to provide basic needs for its residents. Jakarta suffers from severe traffic congestion. Air pollution and waste management are also problems.
Jakarta's Central Business District along the Jenderal Sudirman Road, centered at the Wisma 46 building, currently the tallest office building in Indonesia.
West Irian Liberation Statue, one of the many Sukarno era monuments in the city.
The National Monument
The National Monument, stands at the center of Merdeka Square, the central park of the city. Other landmarks include the Istiqlal Mosque and Jakarta Cathedral. The Wisma 46 building in Central Jakarta is currently the highest building in Jakarta and Indonesia. Tourist attractions include Taman Mini Indonesia Indah, Ragunan Zoo, Jakarta Old Town, and Ancol Dreamland complex on Jakarta Bay, include Dunia Fantasi theme park, Sea World, Atlantis Water Adventure, and Gelanggang Samudra.
Jakarta shopping malls with areas in excess of 100,000 metres square, include Grand Indonesia, Plaza Indonesia, Senayan City, Plaza Senayan, Pondok Indah Mall, Mal Taman Anggrek, Mal Kelapa Gading, Mal Artha Gading. /ref> Traditional markets include Blok M, Tanah Abang, Senen, Glodok, Mangga Dua, Cempaka Mas, and Jatinegara.
Taman Suropati is located in Menteng garden city subdistrict, Central Jakarta. The park is surrounded by several Dutch colonial buildings. Taman Suropati was known as Burgemeester Bishopplein during the Dutch colonial time. The park is circular shaped with a surface area of 16,322 m2. There are several modern statues in the park made by artists of the ASEAN countries, which contributes to the other nickname of the park "Taman persahabatan seniman ASEAN" ("Park of the ASEAN artists relationship").
Taman Lapangan Banteng (Banteng Field Park) is located in Central Jakarta. It is about 4,5 hectares. The most notable landmark inside the park is the Monumen Pembebasan Irian Barat (Monument of the Liberation of Irian Barat). During the 1980s, the park is used as a bus terminal. In 1993, the park turned into a public space again and has become a recreation place for people and occasionally also used as an exhibition place or other events.
Taman Monas (Monas Park) or Taman Medan Merdeka (Medan Merdeka Park) is the park where the symbol of Jakarta, Monas or Monumen Nasional (National Monument) is located. The large open space was created by Dutch Governor General Herman Willem Deandels (1870) and was completed in 1910 under the name of Koningsplein. on 10 Januari 1993, President Soeharto initiate the action toward the beautification of the park. Several features in the park is a deer park and 33 trees that represents the 33 provinces of Indonesia.
Jalan Thamrin, the main avenue in Central Jakarta
One of the most populous cities in the world, Jakarta is strained by transportation problems. In Indonesia most communal transport is provided by mikrolets, which are privately run minibuses although these normally stay off the main roads.
Jakarta suffers from traffic congestion. A 'three in one' rule during peak hour was introduced in 1992, prohibiting fewer than three passengers per car on certain roads.
Motorised bajaj
Auto rickshaws, called bajaj, provide local transportation in the back streets of some parts of the city. From the early 1940s to 1991 they were a common form of local transportation in the city. In 1966, an estimated 160,000 rickshaws were operating in the city; as much as fifteen percent of Jakarta's total workforce was engaged in rickshaw driving. In 1971, rickshaws were banned from major roads, and shortly thereafter the government attempted a total ban, which substantially reduced their numbers but did not eliminate them. A campaign to eliminate them succeeded in 1990 and 1991, but during the economic crisis of 1998, some returned amid less effective government attempts to control them. Azuma, Yoshifumi (2003). Urban peasants: beca drivers in Jakarta. Jakarta: Pustaka Sinar Harapan.
TransJakarta bus service in Jakarta
The TransJakarta bus rapid transit service operates on seven reserved busway corridors in the city; connecting seven main points of Jakarta. The first TransJakarta line, from Blok M to Jakarta Kota opened in January 2004.
An outer ring road is under constructed and is partly operational A toll road connects Jakarta to Soekarno-Hatta International Airport in the northwest of Jakarta, as are the port of Merak and Tangerang to the west, and Bogor and Puncak to the south. Bekasi, Cikarang, Karawang, Cikampek, Purwakarta, and Bandung to the east.
A train at Gambir station in Central Jakarta
Railways connect the city to its neighboring regions: Depok and Bogor to the south, Tangerang and Serpong to the west, and Bekasi, Karawang, and Cikampek to the east. The major rail stations are Gambir, Jakarta Kota, Jatinegara, Pasar Senen, Manggarai, and Tanah Abang. During peak hours, the number of passengers greatly exceeds the system's capacity, and crowding is common.
Two lines of the Jakarta Monorail are under construction: the green line serving Semanggi-Casablanca Road-Kuningan-Semanggi and the blue line serving Kampung Melayu-Casablanca Road-Tanah Abang-Roxy. There are plans for a two-line metro (MRT) system, with a north-south line between Kota and Lebak Bulus, with connections to both monorail lines; and an east-west line, which will connect with the north-south line at the Sawah Besar station. The current project, which began in 2005, has been delayed due to a lack of funds, and the project has been abandoned by the developer PT Jakarta Monorail in March 2008.
On 6 June 2007, the city administration started to introduce the Waterway, a new river boat service along the Ciliwung River.
Soekarno-Hatta International Airport (CGK) is Jakarta's major airport. It is Indonesia's busiest airport handling more than 30 million passengers annually. A second airport, Halim Perdanakusuma International Airport (HLP) serves mostly private and VVIP/presidential flights.
The main seaport for this transportation mode is the Tanjung Priok seaport.
The biggest university in Jakarta is the University of Indonesia with campuses in Salemba and Depok. /ref> Others government universities include Jakarta State University, Jakarta State Polytechnic, and Jakarta Islamic State University. Nowadays, the oldest of which is the privately-owned Universitas Nasional (UNAS). Web Universitas Nasional 1949 Private universities in Jakarta include Trisakti University Atma Jaya University, and Tarumanagara University.
STOVIA was the first high school in Jakarta, established in 1851. As the largest city and the capital, Jakarta houses a large number of students from various parts of Indonesia, many of whom reside in dormitories or home-stay residences. For basic education, there are a variety of primary and secondary schools, tagged with public (national), private (national and bi-lingual national plus) and international schools. Two of the major international schools located in Jakarta are the Jakarta International School and the British International School (BIS).
The Bung Karno Stadium is capable of hosting 100,000 spectators
Jakarta was host to the Asian Games in 1962, /ref> host of the Asian Cup 2007, /ref> and has hosted the regional-scale Sea Games several times. Jakarta's most popular footbal club is Persija, which plays its matches in the Lebak Bulus Stadium. Another premiere division team is Persitara.
The biggest stadium in Jakarta is the Bung Karno Stadium with a capacity of 100,000 seats Football stadiums of the world - Stadiums in Indonesia . For basketball, the Kelapa Gading Sport Mall in Kelapa Gading, North Jakarta, with a capacity of 7,000 seats, is the home arena of the Indonesian national basketball team. The Senayan sports complex has several sport venues, including the Bung Karno soccer stadium, Madya Stadium, Istora Senayan, a shooting range, a tennis court and a golf driving range. The Senayan complex was built in 1959 to accommodate the Asian Games in 1962.
In 2011, Jakarta, together with Bandung, will again host the Southeast Asian Games.
A trash dump in Bantar Gebang, Bekasi
Surveys show that "less than a quarter of the population is fully served by improved water sources. The rest rely on a variety of sources, including rivers, lakes and private water vendors. Some 7.2 million people are [without clean water]." United Nations Human Development Report 2006, p. 39
Sister relationships with towns and regions worldwide include:
*History of Jakarta
*Port of Jakarta
* Official website
* Jakarta Official Travel Website
*
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Jakarta | Is Jakarta the country's economic, cultural and political center? | Yes. | data/set3/a5 | Jakarta
Jakarta (also DKI Jakarta) is the capital and largest city of Indonesia. Located on the northwest coast of Java, it has an area of and a population of 8,490,000. Jakarta is the country's economic, cultural and political center. It is the most populous city in Indonesia and Southeast Asia, and is the twelfth-largest city in the world. The metropolitan area, Jabodetabek, is the second largest in the world. Jakarta is listed as a global city in the 2008 Globalization and World Cities Study Group and Network (GaWC) research. the city's name is derived from the Sanskrit word "Jayakarta" (à¤à¤¯à¤à¤°à¥) which translates as "victorious deed," "complete act,"or "complete victory."
Established in the fourth century, the city became an important trading port for the Kingdom of Sunda. It grew as the capital of the colonial Dutch East Indies. It was made capital of Indonesia when the country became independent after World War II. It was formerly known as Sunda Kelapa (397â1527), Jayakarta (1527â1619), Batavia (1619â1942), and Djakarta (1942â1972).
Landmarks include the National Monument and Istiqlal Mosque. The city is the seat of the ASEAN Secretariat. Jakarta is served by the Soekarno-Hatta International Airport, Halim Perdanakusuma International Airport, and Tanjung Priok harbour; it is connected by several intercity and commuter railways, and served by several bus lines running on reserved busways.
The former Stadhuis of Batavia, the seat of Governor General of VOC. The building now serves as Jakarta History Museum, Jakarta Old Town area.
Dutch Batavia in the 17th Century, built in what is now North Jakarta
The Jakarta area was part of the fourth century Indianized kingdom of Tarumanagara. In AD 39, King Purnawarman established Sunda Pura as a new capital city for the kingdom, located at the northern coast of Java. Purnawarman left seven memorial stones across the area with inscriptions bearing his name, including the present-day Banten and West Java provinces. After the power of Tarumanagara declined, its territories, including Sunda Pura, became part of the Kingdom of Sunda. The harbour area was renamed Sunda Kalapa as written in a Hindu monk's lontar manuscripts. Bujangga Manik Manuscript which are now located at the Bodleian Library of Oxford University in England, and travel records by Prince Bujangga Manik.( ) By the fourteenth century, Sunda Kelapa became a major trading port for the kingdom. The first European fleet, four Portuguese ships from Malacca, arrived in 1513 when the Portuguese were looking for a route for spices, especially black pepper.
The Kingdom of Sunda made a peace agreement with Portugal by allowing the Portuguese to build a port in 1522 in order to defend against the rising power of the Sultanate of Demak from central Java.
In 1527, Fatahillah, a Sumatran Malay warrior from Demak attacked Kingdom of Sunda and succeeded in conquering the harbour on June 22, 1527, after which Sunda Kelapa was renamed Jayakarta.
The Castle of Batavia, seen from West Kali Besar by Andries Beeckman circa 1656-58
Through the relationship with Prince Jayawikarta from the Sultanate of Banten, Dutch ships arrived in Jayakarta in 1596. In 1602, the British East India Company's first voyage, commanded by Sir James Lancaster, arrived in Aceh and sailed on to Banten where they were allowed to build a trading post. This site became the center of British trade in Indonesia until 1682.
Jayawikarta is thought to have made trading connections with the English merchants, rivals of the Dutch, by allowing them to build houses directly across from the Dutch buildings in 1615. When relations between Prince Jayawikarta and the Dutch deteriorated, Jayawikarta's soldiers attacked the Dutch fortress. Prince Jayakarta's army and the British were defeated by the Dutch, in part owing to the timely arrival of Jan Pieterszoon Coen (J.P. Coen). The Dutch burned the English fort, and forced the English to retreat on their ships. The victory consolidated Dutch power and in 1619 they renamed the city "Batavia."
Batavia c.1870
Commercial opportunities in the capital of the Dutch colony attracted Indonesian and especially Chinese immigrants, the increasing numbers creating burdens on the city. Tensions grew as the colonial government tried to restrict Chinese migration through deportations. On 9 October 1740, 5,000 Chinese were massacred and the following year, Chinese inhabitants were moved to Glodok outside the city walls. The city began to move further south as epidemics in 1835 and 1870 encouraged more people to move far south of the port. The Koningsplein, now Merdeka Square was completed in 1818, the housing park of Menteng was started in 1913, and Kebayoran Baru was the last Dutch-built residential area. By 1930 Batavia had more than 500,000 inhabitants, Colonial Economy and Society, 1870-1940. Source: U.S. Library of Congress. including 37,067 Europeans. Governance Failure: Rethinking the Institutional Dimensions of Urban Water Supply to Poor Households. ScienceDirect.
The Japanese renamed the city "Jakarta" during their World War II occupation of Indonesia. Following World War II, Indonesian Republicans withdrew from allied-occupied Jakarta during their fight for Indonesian independence and established their capital in Yogyakarta. In 1950, once independence was secured, Jakarta was once again made the national capital. Indonesia's founding president, Sukarno, envisaged Jakarta as a great international city. He instigated large government-funded projects undertaken with openly nationalistic and modernist architecture. Projects in Jakarta included a clover-leaf highway, a major boulevard (Jalan MH Thamrin-Sudirman), monuments such as The National Monument, major hotels, shopping centre, and a new parliament building.
In October 1965, Jakarta was the site of an abortive coup attempt which saw 6 top generals killed, and ultimately resulted in the downfall of Sukarno and the start of Suharto's "New Order. A propaganda monument stands at the place where the general's bodies were dumped. In 1966, Jakarta was declared a "special capital city district" (daerah khusus ibukota), thus gaining a status approximately equivalent to that of a state or province. Lieutenant General Ali Sadikin served as Governor from the mid-60's commencement of the "New Order" through to 1977; he rehabilitated roads and bridges, encouraged the arts, built several hospitals, and a large number of new schools. He also cleared out slum dwellers for new development projects some for the benefit of the Suharto family and tried to eliminate rickshaws and ban street vendors. He began control of migration to the city in order to stem the overcrowding and poverty.
Foreign investment contributed to a real estate boom which changed the face of the city.
The boom ended with the 1997/98 East Asian Economic crisis putting Jakarta at the center of violence, protest, and political maneuvering. Long-time president, Suharto, began to lose his grip on power. Tensions reached a peak in the Jakarta riots of May 1998, when four students were shot dead at Trisakti University by security forces; four days of riots and violence ensued that killed an estimated 1,200, and destroyed or damaged 6,000 buildings. The Jakarta riots targeted Chinese Indonesians. Wages of Hatred. Michael Shari. Business Week. Suharto resigned as president, and Jakarta has remained the focal point of democratic change in Indonesia. Jemaah Islamiah-connected bombings have occurred in the city since 2000 on an almost annual basis, although the 2009 bombing of two international hotels was the first since 2005.
Map of the Cities (Kotamadya) of DKI Jakarta. Each Cities are divided into Subdistricts (Kecamatan)
Officially, Jakarta is not a city, but a province with special status as the capital of Indonesia. It has a governor (instead of a mayor), and is divided into several sub-regions with their own administrative systems. As a province, the official name of Jakarta is Daerah Khusus Ibukota Jakarta ("Special Capital City District of Jakarta"), which in Indonesian is abbreviated to DKI Jakarta.
Jakarta is divided into five kota or kotamadya ("cities" - formerly municipalities), each headed by a mayor, and one regency (kabupaten) headed by a regent. In August 2007, Jakarta held its first ever election to choose a governor, whereas previously the city's governors were appointed by local parliament. The poll is part of a country-wide decentralization drive, allowing for direct local elections in several areas.
The Cities/Municipalities of Jakarta are:
* Central Jakarta (Jakarta Pusat) is Jakarta's smallest city and home to most of Jakarta's administrative and political center. It is characterized by large parks and Dutch colonial buildings. Landmarks include the National Monument (Monas), the Istiqlal Mosque, and museums.
* West Jakarta (Jakarta Barat) has the highest concentration of small-scale industries in Jakarta. The area includes Jakarta's Chinatown and landmarks include the Chinese Langgam building and the Toko Merah building. West Jakarta contains part of the Jakarta Old Town.
* South Jakarta (Jakarta Selatan), previously planned as a satellite city, is now the location of large upscale shopping centers and affluent residential areas. Jakarta Selatan functions as Jakarta's ground water buffer, but recently the green belt areas are threatened by new developments. Most CBD area of Jakarta is concentrated in South Jakarta.
* East Jakarta (Jakarta Timur) territory is characterized with several industrial sectors erected in this city. There is also still some area of swamps and rice fields in this city.
* North Jakarta (Jakarta Utara) is the only city in Jakarta that is bounded by the sea (Java Sea). It is the location of the Tanjung Priok Port. Big-scale and medium-scale industries are concentrated in North Jakarta. North Jakarta contains the location of Jakarta Old Town, formerly known as Batavia since the 17 th century, and was a center of VOC trade activity in Dutch East Indies. Also located in North Jakarta is Ancol Dreamland (Taman Impian Jaya Ancol), currently the largest integrated tourism area in South East Asia.
The only Regency (Kabupaten) of Jakarta is:
* Thousand Islands (Kepulauan Seribu), formerly a subdistrict of North Jakarta, is a collection of 105 small islands located on Java Sea. It has a high conservation value because of its unique and special ecosystems. Marine tourism, such as diving, water bicycle, and wind surfing, is the most important touristic activities in this territory. The main transportation between these islands are speed boat or small ferries.
Since September 1945, the governmental of Jakarta City has been changed from the Japanese Djakarta Toku-Betsu Shi into Jakarta National Administration. This first government was held by a Mayor until the end of 1960 when it was changed into a Governor. The last Mayor of Jakarta is Sudiro, until he was replaced by Dr. Sumarno as a Governor.
In 1974, Based on the Act No. 5 of 1974 about Fundamental of Regional Government, Jakarta was stated as the Capital City of Indonesia and part of the 26 Province in Indonesia.
Jakarta is located on the northwest coast of Java, at the mouth of the Ciliwung River on Jakarta Bay, which is an inlet of the Java Sea. The city is a lowland area averaging 7 meters above sea level. Officially, the area of the Jakarta Special District is 662 km 2 of land area and 6,977 km 2 of sea area. Based on Governor Decree in 2007, No. 171. taken from Statistics DKI Jakarta Provincial Office, Jakarta in Figures, 2008, BPS Province of DKI Jakarta Rivers flow from the hilly southern parts of the city northwards towards the Java Sea. The most important river is the Ciliwung River, which divides the city into the western and eastern principalities.
The northern part of Jakarta lies on a plain, approximately eight meters above the sea level. This contributes to the frequent flooding. The coastal area extends around from west to east. The southern parts of the city are hilly. During the wet season, Jakarta suffers from flooding due to clogged sewage pipes and waterways, deforestation near rapidly urbanizing Bogor and Depok, and the fact that 40% of it is below sea level . Major floods occurred in 1996 Asiaviews - Asian News when 5,000 hectares of land were flooded and 2007. Bloomberg.com: Asia Losses from infrastructure damage and state revenue were at least 5.2 trillion rupiah (572 million US dollars) and at least 85 people were killed Three killed, 90,000 evacuated in Jakarta floods: officials - Yahoo! News and about 350,000 people forced from their homes.. Disease fears as floods ravage Jakarta Approximately 70% of Jakarta's total area was flooded with water up to four meters deep in parts of the city. Jakarta Flood Feb 2007 « (Geo) Information for All /ref>
The Thousand Islands, which are administratively a part of Jakarta, are located in Jakarta Bay north of the city.
Jakarta has a hot and humid equatorial/tropical climate (Af) according to the Köppen climate classification system. Located in the western-part of Indonesia, Jakarta's wet season rainfall peak is January with average monthly rainfall of , and its dry season low point is August with a monthly average of .
Average daily temperatures range from 25° to 36°C (77°-97°F).
Tanjidor orchestra celebrating the Chinese New Year.
As the economic and political capital of Indonesia, Jakarta attracts many domestic immigrants who bring their various languages, dialects, foods and customs.
The Betawi (Orang Betawi, or "people of Batavia") is a term used to describe the descendants of the people living in and around Batavia and recognized as an ethnic group from around the 18th-19th century. The Betawi people are mostly descended from various Southeast Asian ethnic groups brought or attracted to Batavia to meet labor needs, and include people from parts of Indonesia. The Betawi - due to their diverse origins - play a major role concerning ethnic and national identity in contemporary Jakarta; see Knörr, Jacqueline: Kreolität und postkoloniale Gesellschaft. Integration und Differenzierung in Jakarta, Campus Verlag: Frankfurt a.M. & New York, 2007, ISBN 978-3-593-38344-6 The language and the culture of these immigrants is distinct from that of the Sundanese or Javanese. The language is more based on the East Malay dialect and enriched by loan words from Sundanese, Javanese, Chinese, and Arabic. Nowadays, the Jakarta-dialects used by people in Jakarta are loosely based on the Betawi language.
The parade of Ondel-ondel, a Betawi large puppet-mask dance.
Betawi arts are rarely found in Jakarta due to their infamous low-profile and most Betawi have moved to the border of Jakarta, displaced by new immigrants. It is easier to find Java or Minang based wedding ceremonial instead of Betawi weddings in Jakarta. It is easier to find Javanese Gamelan instead of Gambang Kromong (a mixture between Betawi and Chinese music) or Tanjidor (a mixture between Betawi and Portuguese music) or Marawis (a mixture between Betawi and Yaman music). However, some festivals such as the Jalan Jaksa Festival or Kemang Festival include efforts to preserve Betawi arts by inviting artists to give performances.
There has also been a Chinese community in Jakarta for many centuries. Officially, they make up 6% of the Jakarta population, though this number may be under-reported.
Jakarta has several performing art centers, such as the Taman Ismail Marzuki (TIM) art center in Cikini, Gedung Kesenian Jakarta near Pasar Baru, Balai Sarbini in Plaza Semanggi area, Bentara Budaya Jakarta in Palmerah area, Pasar Seni (Art Market) in Ancol, and traditional Indonesian art performances at the pavilions of some Provinces in Taman Mini Indonesia Indah. Traditional music is often found at high-class hotels, including Wayang and Gamelan performances. Javanese Wayang Orang performance can be found at Wayang Orang Bharata theater near Senen bus terminal. As the nation's largest city and capital, Jakarta has lured much national and regional talent who hope to find a greater audience and more opportunities for success.
Jakarta is hosting several prestigious art and culture festivals as well as exhibitions, such as the annual Jakarta International Film Festival (JiFFest), Jakarta International Java Jazz Festival, Jakarta Fashion Week, Jakarta Fashion & Food Festival (JFFF), Flona Jakarta (Flora and Fauna exhibition, held annually on August in Lapangan Banteng park featuring flowers, plant nursery, and pets), also Indonesia Creative Products and Jakarta Arts and Crafts exhibition. The Jakarta Fair is held annually from mid June to mid July to celebrate the anniversary of the city. It is largely centered around a trade fair, however this month-long fair also has featured entertainments, arts and music performances by local bands and musicians.
Several foreign art and culture centers also established in Jakarta, mainly serve to promote culture and language through learning centers, libraries, and art galleries. Among these foreign art and cultural centers are Netherlands Erasmus Huis, UK British Council, France Centre Culturel Français, Germany Goethe-Institut, Japan Foundation, and Jawaharlal Nehru Indian Cultural Center.
National Museum of Indonesia in Central Jakarta
The museums in Jakarta cluster around the Central Jakarta Merdeka Square area, Jakarta Old Town, and Taman Mini Indonesia Indah.
The Jakarta Old Town contains museums that are former institution buildings of Batavia. Some of these museums are Jakarta History Museum (former City Hall of Batavia), Wayang Museum, the Fine Art and Ceramic Museum (former Court House of Batavia), Maritime Museum (former Sunda Kelapa warehouse), Bank Indonesia Museum, and Bank Mandiri Museum.
Several museums that are clustered around the Merdeka Square area are National Museum of Indonesia, Monas, Bayt al-Qur'an and Istiqlal Islamic Museum, and Jakarta Cathedral Museum.
The recreational area of Taman Mini Indonesia Indah in East Jakarta contains fourteen museums such as Purna Bhakti Pertiwi Museum, Asmat Museum, and other science-based museum such as Research & Technology Information Centre, Insect Museum, Petrol and Gas Museum.
Other museums are Satria Mandala Military Museum, Museum Sumpah Pemuda, and Lubang Buaya.
Jakarta has a vast range of food available at hundreds of eating complexes located all over the city. There is also international food, especially Indian, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean food because of the cosmopolitan population. /ref> One of the popular local cuisine of Jakarta is Soto betawi, which is a cow milk or coconut milk broth with beef tendons, intestines, tripe. The other popular cuisine are kerak telor, gado-gado, and cucur.
Daily newspapers in Jakarta include Bisnis Indonesia, Investor Daily, Jakarta Globe, The Jakarta Post, Indo Pos, Seputar Indonesia, Kompas, Media Indonesia, Republika, Pos Kota, Warta Kota, Lampu Merah and Suara Pembaruan.
* Government television: TVRI.
* Private national television: TPI, RCTI, Metro TV, Indosiar, StarANTV, SCTV, Trans TV, TV ONE, Trans 7, and Global TV.
* Local television: Jak-TV, O-Channel, and Space-Toon.
* Cable television: First Media, TelkomVision
* Satellite television: Indovision, Astro Nusantara, TelkomVision, Aora TV
The headquarter of Bank Indonesia in Central Jakarta. Financial services, trade and manufacturing are the largest sectors of the city's economy.
Jakarta's economy depends heavily on financial service, trade, and manufacturing. Industry includes electronics, automotive, chemicals, mechanical engineering and biomedical sciences manufacturing. In 2009, 13% of the population had an income per capita in excess of US$ 10,000 (Rp 108,000,000).
The economic growth of Jakarta in 2007 was 6.44% up from 5.95% the previous year, with the growth in the transportation and communication (15.25%), construction (7.81%) and trade, hotel and restaurant sectors (6.88%). In 2007, GRP (Growth Regional Domestic Product) was Rp. 566.45 trillion. The largest contributions to GDRP was by finance, ownership and business services (28.7%); trade, hotel and restaurant sector (20.4%), and manufacturing industry sector (15.97%). In 2007, per capita GRDP of DKI Jakarta inhabitants was an 11.63% compared to previous year
Both GRDP by at current market price and GRDP by at 2000 constant price in 2007 for Municipality of Central Jakarta (Jakarta Pusat) is higher than other municipalities in DKI Jakarta, which is 145.81 million rupiahs and 80.78 million rupiahs.
A new law in 2007 forbids the giving of money to beggars, buskers and hawkers, bans squatter settlements on river banks and highways, and prohibits spitting and smoking on public transportation. Unauthorized people cleaning car windscreens and taking tips for directing traffic at intersections will also be penalized. Critics of the new legislation claim that such laws will be difficult to enforce and it tends to ignore the desperate poverty of many of the capital's inhabitants. "Condemned Communities: Forced Evictions in Jakarta" Human Rights Watch Sep 2006.
In 2005, Jakarta's contribution to the national GDP was 17% up from 15% in 2000. The manufacturing and construction sectors in Jakarta decreased indicating that Jakarta has shifted from industry city to the services city. Most manufacturing plants in Jakarta have been relocated to peripheral areas like Tangerang, Bogor, Depok and Bekasi.
Based on 2007 National Socio-Economic Survey estimates, the population of DKI Jakarta Province was 9.06 million. The area of DKI Jakarta is 662.33 km 2 , suggesting a population density of 137,000 people/km 2 . Population growth between 2000 and 2007 was 1.11 percent compared 0.15 percent during the 1990s. Inwards immigration tended to negate the effect of family planning programs. The population has risen from 1.2 million in 1960 to 8.8 million in 2004, counting only its legal residents. The population of greater Jakarta is estimated at 23 million, making it the second largest urban area in the world. By 2025 the population of Jakarta may reach 24.9 million, not counting millions more in surrounding areas. Far Eastern Economic Review, Asia 1998 Yearbook, p. 63.
Population growth has outgrown the government's ability to provide basic needs for its residents. Jakarta suffers from severe traffic congestion. Air pollution and waste management are also problems.
Jakarta's Central Business District along the Jenderal Sudirman Road, centered at the Wisma 46 building, currently the tallest office building in Indonesia.
West Irian Liberation Statue, one of the many Sukarno era monuments in the city.
The National Monument
The National Monument, stands at the center of Merdeka Square, the central park of the city. Other landmarks include the Istiqlal Mosque and Jakarta Cathedral. The Wisma 46 building in Central Jakarta is currently the highest building in Jakarta and Indonesia. Tourist attractions include Taman Mini Indonesia Indah, Ragunan Zoo, Jakarta Old Town, and Ancol Dreamland complex on Jakarta Bay, include Dunia Fantasi theme park, Sea World, Atlantis Water Adventure, and Gelanggang Samudra.
Jakarta shopping malls with areas in excess of 100,000 metres square, include Grand Indonesia, Plaza Indonesia, Senayan City, Plaza Senayan, Pondok Indah Mall, Mal Taman Anggrek, Mal Kelapa Gading, Mal Artha Gading. /ref> Traditional markets include Blok M, Tanah Abang, Senen, Glodok, Mangga Dua, Cempaka Mas, and Jatinegara.
Taman Suropati is located in Menteng garden city subdistrict, Central Jakarta. The park is surrounded by several Dutch colonial buildings. Taman Suropati was known as Burgemeester Bishopplein during the Dutch colonial time. The park is circular shaped with a surface area of 16,322 m2. There are several modern statues in the park made by artists of the ASEAN countries, which contributes to the other nickname of the park "Taman persahabatan seniman ASEAN" ("Park of the ASEAN artists relationship").
Taman Lapangan Banteng (Banteng Field Park) is located in Central Jakarta. It is about 4,5 hectares. The most notable landmark inside the park is the Monumen Pembebasan Irian Barat (Monument of the Liberation of Irian Barat). During the 1980s, the park is used as a bus terminal. In 1993, the park turned into a public space again and has become a recreation place for people and occasionally also used as an exhibition place or other events.
Taman Monas (Monas Park) or Taman Medan Merdeka (Medan Merdeka Park) is the park where the symbol of Jakarta, Monas or Monumen Nasional (National Monument) is located. The large open space was created by Dutch Governor General Herman Willem Deandels (1870) and was completed in 1910 under the name of Koningsplein. on 10 Januari 1993, President Soeharto initiate the action toward the beautification of the park. Several features in the park is a deer park and 33 trees that represents the 33 provinces of Indonesia.
Jalan Thamrin, the main avenue in Central Jakarta
One of the most populous cities in the world, Jakarta is strained by transportation problems. In Indonesia most communal transport is provided by mikrolets, which are privately run minibuses although these normally stay off the main roads.
Jakarta suffers from traffic congestion. A 'three in one' rule during peak hour was introduced in 1992, prohibiting fewer than three passengers per car on certain roads.
Motorised bajaj
Auto rickshaws, called bajaj, provide local transportation in the back streets of some parts of the city. From the early 1940s to 1991 they were a common form of local transportation in the city. In 1966, an estimated 160,000 rickshaws were operating in the city; as much as fifteen percent of Jakarta's total workforce was engaged in rickshaw driving. In 1971, rickshaws were banned from major roads, and shortly thereafter the government attempted a total ban, which substantially reduced their numbers but did not eliminate them. A campaign to eliminate them succeeded in 1990 and 1991, but during the economic crisis of 1998, some returned amid less effective government attempts to control them. Azuma, Yoshifumi (2003). Urban peasants: beca drivers in Jakarta. Jakarta: Pustaka Sinar Harapan.
TransJakarta bus service in Jakarta
The TransJakarta bus rapid transit service operates on seven reserved busway corridors in the city; connecting seven main points of Jakarta. The first TransJakarta line, from Blok M to Jakarta Kota opened in January 2004.
An outer ring road is under constructed and is partly operational A toll road connects Jakarta to Soekarno-Hatta International Airport in the northwest of Jakarta, as are the port of Merak and Tangerang to the west, and Bogor and Puncak to the south. Bekasi, Cikarang, Karawang, Cikampek, Purwakarta, and Bandung to the east.
A train at Gambir station in Central Jakarta
Railways connect the city to its neighboring regions: Depok and Bogor to the south, Tangerang and Serpong to the west, and Bekasi, Karawang, and Cikampek to the east. The major rail stations are Gambir, Jakarta Kota, Jatinegara, Pasar Senen, Manggarai, and Tanah Abang. During peak hours, the number of passengers greatly exceeds the system's capacity, and crowding is common.
Two lines of the Jakarta Monorail are under construction: the green line serving Semanggi-Casablanca Road-Kuningan-Semanggi and the blue line serving Kampung Melayu-Casablanca Road-Tanah Abang-Roxy. There are plans for a two-line metro (MRT) system, with a north-south line between Kota and Lebak Bulus, with connections to both monorail lines; and an east-west line, which will connect with the north-south line at the Sawah Besar station. The current project, which began in 2005, has been delayed due to a lack of funds, and the project has been abandoned by the developer PT Jakarta Monorail in March 2008.
On 6 June 2007, the city administration started to introduce the Waterway, a new river boat service along the Ciliwung River.
Soekarno-Hatta International Airport (CGK) is Jakarta's major airport. It is Indonesia's busiest airport handling more than 30 million passengers annually. A second airport, Halim Perdanakusuma International Airport (HLP) serves mostly private and VVIP/presidential flights.
The main seaport for this transportation mode is the Tanjung Priok seaport.
The biggest university in Jakarta is the University of Indonesia with campuses in Salemba and Depok. /ref> Others government universities include Jakarta State University, Jakarta State Polytechnic, and Jakarta Islamic State University. Nowadays, the oldest of which is the privately-owned Universitas Nasional (UNAS). Web Universitas Nasional 1949 Private universities in Jakarta include Trisakti University Atma Jaya University, and Tarumanagara University.
STOVIA was the first high school in Jakarta, established in 1851. As the largest city and the capital, Jakarta houses a large number of students from various parts of Indonesia, many of whom reside in dormitories or home-stay residences. For basic education, there are a variety of primary and secondary schools, tagged with public (national), private (national and bi-lingual national plus) and international schools. Two of the major international schools located in Jakarta are the Jakarta International School and the British International School (BIS).
The Bung Karno Stadium is capable of hosting 100,000 spectators
Jakarta was host to the Asian Games in 1962, /ref> host of the Asian Cup 2007, /ref> and has hosted the regional-scale Sea Games several times. Jakarta's most popular footbal club is Persija, which plays its matches in the Lebak Bulus Stadium. Another premiere division team is Persitara.
The biggest stadium in Jakarta is the Bung Karno Stadium with a capacity of 100,000 seats Football stadiums of the world - Stadiums in Indonesia . For basketball, the Kelapa Gading Sport Mall in Kelapa Gading, North Jakarta, with a capacity of 7,000 seats, is the home arena of the Indonesian national basketball team. The Senayan sports complex has several sport venues, including the Bung Karno soccer stadium, Madya Stadium, Istora Senayan, a shooting range, a tennis court and a golf driving range. The Senayan complex was built in 1959 to accommodate the Asian Games in 1962.
In 2011, Jakarta, together with Bandung, will again host the Southeast Asian Games.
A trash dump in Bantar Gebang, Bekasi
Surveys show that "less than a quarter of the population is fully served by improved water sources. The rest rely on a variety of sources, including rivers, lakes and private water vendors. Some 7.2 million people are [without clean water]." United Nations Human Development Report 2006, p. 39
Sister relationships with towns and regions worldwide include:
*History of Jakarta
*Port of Jakarta
* Official website
* Jakarta Official Travel Website
*
|
James_Watt | Is James Watt French? | No, he was Scottish. | data/set4/a2 | James_Watt
James Watt, FRS, FRSE (19 January 1736 25 August 1819) was a Scottish inventor and mechanical engineer whose improvements to the Newcomen steam engine were fundamental to the changes brought by the Industrial Revolution in both the Kingdom of Great Britain and the world.
James Watt was born on 19 January 1736 in Greenock, Renfrewshire, a seaport on the Firth of Clyde. His father was a shipwright, ship owner and contractor, and served as the town's chief baillie, while his mother, Agnes Muirhead, came from a distinguished family and was well educated. Both were Presbyterians and strong Covenanters. Watt's grandfather, Thomas Watt, was a mathematics teacher and baillie to the Baron of Cartsburn. Watt did not attend school regularly; initially he was mostly schooled at home by his mother but later he attended Greenock grammar school. He exhibited great manual dexterity and an aptitude for mathematics, although Latin and Greek failed to interest him, and he absorbed the legends and lore of the Scottish people.
When he was 18, his mother died and his father's health had begun to fail. Watt travelled to London to study instrument-making for a year, then returned to Scotland to Glasgow intent on setting up his own instrument-making business. However, because he had not served at least seven years as an apprentice, the Glasgow Guild of Hammermen (any artisans using hammers) blocked his application, despite there being no other mathematical instrument makers in Scotland.
Watt was saved from this impasse by three professors of the University of Glasgow, who offered him the opportunity to set up a small workshop within the university. It was established in 1758 and one of the professors, the physicist and chemist Joseph Black, became Watt's friend.
In 1764, Watt married his cousin Margaret Miller, with whom he had five children, two of whom lived to adulthood. She died in childbirth in 1772. In 1777 he married again, to Ann MacGregor, daughter of a Glasgow dye-maker, who survived him. She died in 1832.
Watt was an enthusiastic inventor, with a fertile imagination that sometimes got in the way of finishing his works, because he could always see "just one more improvement". He was skilled with his hands, and was also able to perform systematic scientific measurements that could quantify the improvements he made and produce a greater understanding of the phenomenon he was working with.
Watt was a gentleman, greatly respected by other prominent men of the Industrial Revolution. He was an important member of the Lunar Society, and was a much sought after conversationalist and companion, always interested in expanding his horizons. He was a rather poor businessman, and especially hated bargaining and negotiating terms with those who sought to utilize the steam engine. Until he retired, he was always much concerned about his financial affairs, and was something of a worrier. His personal relationships with his friends and partners were always congenial and long-lasting.
James Watt's workshop
Watt retired in 1800, the same year that his fundamental patent and partnership with Boulton expired. The famous partnership was transferred to the men's sons, Matthew Boulton and James Watt Jr. Longtime firm engineer William Murdoch was made a partner and the firm prospered.
"Heathfield", Watt's house in Handsworth, BirminghamWatt continued to invent other things before and during his semi-retirement. He invented a new method of measuring distances by telescope, a device for copying letters, improvements in the oil lamp, a steam mangle and a machine for copying sculptures. Within his home in Handsworth Heath, Staffordshire, Watt made use of a garret room as a workshop, and it was here that he worked on many of his inventions.
He and his second wife travelled to France and Germany, and he purchased an estate in Wales at Doldowlod House, one mile south of Llanwrthwl, which he much improved.
He died on 25 August 1819 at his home "Heathfield" in Handsworth, Birmingham, England at the age of 83. He was buried on 2 September.
The garret room workshop that Watt used in his retirement was left locked and untouched until 1853, when it was first viewed by his biographer J. P. Muirhead. Thereafter, it was occasionally visited, but left untouched, as a kind of shrine. A proposal to have it transferred to the Patent Office came to nothing. When the house was due to be demolished in 1924, the room and all its contents were presented to the Science Museum, where it was recreated in its entirety. Garret workshop of James Watt It remained on display for visitors for many years, but was walled-off when the gallery it was housed in closed. The workshop remains intact, and preserved, and there are plans for it to go on display again at some point in the near future.
Original Condenser by James Watt.
As with many major inventions, there is some dispute as to whether Watt was the original sole inventor of some of the numerous inventions he patented. There is no dispute, however, that he was the sole inventor of his most important invention, the separate condenser. It was his practice (from around the 1780s) to pre-empt others' ideas which were known to him by filing patents with the intention of securing credit for the invention for himself, and ensuring that no one else was able to practice it. As he states in a letter to Boulton of 17 August 1784:
:I have given such descriptions of engines for wheel carriages as I could do in the time and space I could allow myself; but it is very defective and can only serve to keep other people from similar patents.
Some argue that his prohibitions on his employee William Murdoch from working with high pressure steam on his steam road locomotive experiments delayed its development. Watt, with his partner Matthew Boulton, battled against rival engineers such as Jonathan Hornblower who tried to develop engines which did not fall foul of his patents.
Watt patented the application of the sun and planet gear to steam in 1781 and a steam locomotive in 1784, both of which have strong claims to have been invented by his employee, William Murdoch. Watt himself described the provenance of the invention of the sun and planet gear in a letter to Boulton from Watt dated 5 January 1782:
:I have tried a model of one of my old plans of rotative engines revived and executed by W. M[urdock] and which merits being included in the specification as a fifth method...
The patent was never contested by Murdoch, who remained an employee of Boulton and Watt for most of his life, and Boulton and Watt's firm continued to use the sun and planet gear in their rotative engines, even long after the patent for the crank expired in 1794.
Watt opposed the use of high-pressure steam, and many inventors such as Richard Trevithick pioneered such engines, although frequently running into patent infringement actions by Watt. Those more efficient steam engines would eventually displace Watt's engines, leading to another industrial revolution with the development of the steam locomotive.
James Watt statue on City Square at Leeds.
Watt celebrated in a statue by Alexander Munro in Chamberlain Square, outside Birmingham Central Library
James Watt's improvements transformed the Newcomen engine, which had hardly changed for fifty years, and initiated changes in generating and applying power, which transformed the world of work, and were a key innovation of the Industrial Revolution. The importance of the invention can hardly be overstatedâit gave us the modern world. A key feature of it was that it brought the engine out of the remote coal fields into factories where many mechanics, engineers, and even tinkerers were exposed to its virtues and limitations. It was a platform for generations of inventors to improve. It was clear to many that higher pressures produced in improved boilers would produce engines having even higher efficiency, and would lead to the revolution in transportation that was soon embodied in the locomotive and steamboat. It made possible the construction of new factories that, since they were not dependent on water power, could work the year round, and could be placed almost anywhere. Work was moved out of the cottages, resulting in economies of scale. Capital could work more efficiently, and manufacturing productivity greatly improved. It made possible the cascade of new sorts of machine tools that could be used to produce better machines, including that most remarkable of all of them, the Watt steam engine.
Of Watt, the English Novelist Aldous Huxley (1894-1963) wrote; "To us, the moment 8:17 A.M. means something - something very important, if it happens to be the starting time of our daily train. To our ancestors, such an odd eccentric instant was without significance - did not even exist. In inventing the locomotive, Watt and Stephenson were part inventors of time."
Watt was a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and the Royal Society of London. He was a member of the Batavian Society, and one of only eight Foreign Associates of the French Academy of Sciences.
The watt is named after James Watt for his contributions to the development of the steam engine, and was adopted by the Second Congress of the British Association for the Advancement of Science in 1889 and by the 11th General Conference on Weights and Measures in 1960 as the unit of power incorporated in the International System of Units (or "SI").
'
The James Watt Memorial College in Greenock.
Watt was buried in the grounds of St. Mary's Church, Handsworth, in Birmingham. Later expansion of the church, over his grave, means that his tomb is now buried inside the church. A statue of him, Boulton and Murdoch is in Birmingham, as are five other statues of him alone, one in Chamberlain Square, the other outside the Law Courts. He is also remembered by the Moonstones and a school is named in his honour, both in Birmingham. An extensive archive of his papers is held at Birmingham Central Library. Matthew Boulton's home, Soho House, is now a museum, commemorating the work of both men. The University of Glasgow's Faculty of Engineering, the oldest in the United Kingdom, (where Watt was a professor) has its headquarters in the James Watt Building, which also houses the department of Mechanical Engineering and the department of Aerospace Engineering.
The location of James Watt's birth in Greenock is commemorated by a statue, close to his birthplace. Several locations and street names in Greenock recall him, most notably the Watt Memorial Library, which was begun in 1816 with Watt's donation of scientific books, and developed as part of the Watt Institution by his son (which ultimately became the James Watt College). Taken over by the local authority in 1974, the library now also houses the local history collection and archives of Inverclyde, and is dominated by a large seated statue in the vestibule. Watt is additionally commemorated by statuary in George Square, Glasgow and Princes Street, Edinburgh.
The James Watt College has expanded from its original location to include campuses in Kilwinning (North Ayrshire), Finnart Street and The Waterfront in Greenock, and the Sports campus in Largs. Heriot-Watt University near Edinburgh was at one time the School of Arts of Edinburgh, founded in 1821 as the worldâs first Mechanics Institute, but to commemorate George Heriot, the 16th century financier to King James, and James Watt, after Royal Charter the name was changed to Heriot-Watt University. Dozens of university and college buildings (chiefly of science and technology) are named after him.
The huge painting James Watt contemplating the steam engine by James Eckford Lauder is now owned by the National Gallery of Scotland.
Watt was ranked first, tying with Edison, among 229 significant figures in the history of technology by Charles Murray's survey of historiometry presented in his book Human Accomplishments.
Over 50 roads or streets in the UK are named after him.
A colossal statue of Watt by Chantrey was placed in Westminster Abbey, and later was moved to St. Paul's Cathedral. On the cenotaph the inscription reads:
Chantrey's statue of James Watt
:NOT TO PERPETUATE A NAME,
:WHICH MUST ENDURE WHILE THE PEACEFUL ARTS FLOURISH,
:BUT TO SHOW
:THAT MANKIND HAVE LEARNED TO HONOUR THOSE
:WHO BEST DESERVE THEIR GRATITUDE,
:THE KING,
:HIS MINISTERS, AND MANY OF THE NOBLES
:AND COMMONERS OF THE REALM
:RAISED THIS MONUMENT TO
:JAMES WATT
:WHO DIRECTING THE FORCE OF AN ORIGINAL GENIUS
:EARLY EXERCISED IN PHILOSOPHIC RESEARCH
:TO THE IMPROVEMENT OF
:THE STEAM-ENGINE
:ENLARGED THE RESOURCES OF HIS COUNTRY
:INCREASED THE POWER OF MAN
:AND ROSE TO AN EMINENT PLACE
:AMONG THE MOST ILLUSTRIOUS FOLLOWERS OF SCIENCE
:AND THE REAL BENEFACTORS OF THE WORLD
:BORN AT GREENOCK MDCCXXXVI
:DIED AT HEATHFIELD IN STAFFORDSHIRE MDCCCXIX
A lecture theatre in the Mechanical & Manufacturing Engineering building at the University of Birmingham is named "G31 - The James Watt Lecture Theatre".
On 29 May 2009, the Bank of England announced that Watt would appear on a new £50 note, alongside Matthew Boulton.
* Watt steam engine
* Centrifugal governor
* Indicator diagram
* Watt's linkage
* Parallel motion
* Sun and planet gear
*"Some Unpublished Letters of James Watt" in Journal of Institution of Mechanical Engineers (London, 1915).
*Carnegie, Andrew, James Watt University Press of the Pacific (2001) (Reprinted from the 1913 ed.), ISBN 0-89875-578-6.
*
* H. W. Dickinson and Hugh Pembroke Vowles James Watt and the Industrial Revolution (published in 1943, new edition 1948 and reprinted in 1949. Also published in Spanish and Portuguese (1944) by the British Council)
*Hills, Rev. Dr. Richard L., James Watt, Vol 1, His time in Scotland, 1736-1774 (2002); Vol 2, The years of toil, 1775-1785; Vol 3 Triumph through adversity 1785-1819. Landmark Publishing Ltd, ISBN 1-84306-045-0.
*
*
*Marsden, Ben. Watt's Perfect Engine Columbia University Press (New York, 2002) ISBN 0-231-13172-0.
*
*
*Samuel Smiles, Lives of the Engineers, (London, 1861-62, new edition, five volumes, 1905).
;Related topics
*
*
* James Watt by Andrew Carnegie (1905)
* James Watt by Thomas H. Marshall (1925)
* Archives of Soho at Birmingham Central Library.
* BBC History: James Watt
* Revolutionary Players website
* Cornwall Record Office Boulton & Watt letters
* Significant Scots - James Watt
*
|
James_Watt | Is James Watt French? | No | data/set4/a2 | James_Watt
James Watt, FRS, FRSE (19 January 1736 25 August 1819) was a Scottish inventor and mechanical engineer whose improvements to the Newcomen steam engine were fundamental to the changes brought by the Industrial Revolution in both the Kingdom of Great Britain and the world.
James Watt was born on 19 January 1736 in Greenock, Renfrewshire, a seaport on the Firth of Clyde. His father was a shipwright, ship owner and contractor, and served as the town's chief baillie, while his mother, Agnes Muirhead, came from a distinguished family and was well educated. Both were Presbyterians and strong Covenanters. Watt's grandfather, Thomas Watt, was a mathematics teacher and baillie to the Baron of Cartsburn. Watt did not attend school regularly; initially he was mostly schooled at home by his mother but later he attended Greenock grammar school. He exhibited great manual dexterity and an aptitude for mathematics, although Latin and Greek failed to interest him, and he absorbed the legends and lore of the Scottish people.
When he was 18, his mother died and his father's health had begun to fail. Watt travelled to London to study instrument-making for a year, then returned to Scotland to Glasgow intent on setting up his own instrument-making business. However, because he had not served at least seven years as an apprentice, the Glasgow Guild of Hammermen (any artisans using hammers) blocked his application, despite there being no other mathematical instrument makers in Scotland.
Watt was saved from this impasse by three professors of the University of Glasgow, who offered him the opportunity to set up a small workshop within the university. It was established in 1758 and one of the professors, the physicist and chemist Joseph Black, became Watt's friend.
In 1764, Watt married his cousin Margaret Miller, with whom he had five children, two of whom lived to adulthood. She died in childbirth in 1772. In 1777 he married again, to Ann MacGregor, daughter of a Glasgow dye-maker, who survived him. She died in 1832.
Watt was an enthusiastic inventor, with a fertile imagination that sometimes got in the way of finishing his works, because he could always see "just one more improvement". He was skilled with his hands, and was also able to perform systematic scientific measurements that could quantify the improvements he made and produce a greater understanding of the phenomenon he was working with.
Watt was a gentleman, greatly respected by other prominent men of the Industrial Revolution. He was an important member of the Lunar Society, and was a much sought after conversationalist and companion, always interested in expanding his horizons. He was a rather poor businessman, and especially hated bargaining and negotiating terms with those who sought to utilize the steam engine. Until he retired, he was always much concerned about his financial affairs, and was something of a worrier. His personal relationships with his friends and partners were always congenial and long-lasting.
James Watt's workshop
Watt retired in 1800, the same year that his fundamental patent and partnership with Boulton expired. The famous partnership was transferred to the men's sons, Matthew Boulton and James Watt Jr. Longtime firm engineer William Murdoch was made a partner and the firm prospered.
"Heathfield", Watt's house in Handsworth, BirminghamWatt continued to invent other things before and during his semi-retirement. He invented a new method of measuring distances by telescope, a device for copying letters, improvements in the oil lamp, a steam mangle and a machine for copying sculptures. Within his home in Handsworth Heath, Staffordshire, Watt made use of a garret room as a workshop, and it was here that he worked on many of his inventions.
He and his second wife travelled to France and Germany, and he purchased an estate in Wales at Doldowlod House, one mile south of Llanwrthwl, which he much improved.
He died on 25 August 1819 at his home "Heathfield" in Handsworth, Birmingham, England at the age of 83. He was buried on 2 September.
The garret room workshop that Watt used in his retirement was left locked and untouched until 1853, when it was first viewed by his biographer J. P. Muirhead. Thereafter, it was occasionally visited, but left untouched, as a kind of shrine. A proposal to have it transferred to the Patent Office came to nothing. When the house was due to be demolished in 1924, the room and all its contents were presented to the Science Museum, where it was recreated in its entirety. Garret workshop of James Watt It remained on display for visitors for many years, but was walled-off when the gallery it was housed in closed. The workshop remains intact, and preserved, and there are plans for it to go on display again at some point in the near future.
Original Condenser by James Watt.
As with many major inventions, there is some dispute as to whether Watt was the original sole inventor of some of the numerous inventions he patented. There is no dispute, however, that he was the sole inventor of his most important invention, the separate condenser. It was his practice (from around the 1780s) to pre-empt others' ideas which were known to him by filing patents with the intention of securing credit for the invention for himself, and ensuring that no one else was able to practice it. As he states in a letter to Boulton of 17 August 1784:
:I have given such descriptions of engines for wheel carriages as I could do in the time and space I could allow myself; but it is very defective and can only serve to keep other people from similar patents.
Some argue that his prohibitions on his employee William Murdoch from working with high pressure steam on his steam road locomotive experiments delayed its development. Watt, with his partner Matthew Boulton, battled against rival engineers such as Jonathan Hornblower who tried to develop engines which did not fall foul of his patents.
Watt patented the application of the sun and planet gear to steam in 1781 and a steam locomotive in 1784, both of which have strong claims to have been invented by his employee, William Murdoch. Watt himself described the provenance of the invention of the sun and planet gear in a letter to Boulton from Watt dated 5 January 1782:
:I have tried a model of one of my old plans of rotative engines revived and executed by W. M[urdock] and which merits being included in the specification as a fifth method...
The patent was never contested by Murdoch, who remained an employee of Boulton and Watt for most of his life, and Boulton and Watt's firm continued to use the sun and planet gear in their rotative engines, even long after the patent for the crank expired in 1794.
Watt opposed the use of high-pressure steam, and many inventors such as Richard Trevithick pioneered such engines, although frequently running into patent infringement actions by Watt. Those more efficient steam engines would eventually displace Watt's engines, leading to another industrial revolution with the development of the steam locomotive.
James Watt statue on City Square at Leeds.
Watt celebrated in a statue by Alexander Munro in Chamberlain Square, outside Birmingham Central Library
James Watt's improvements transformed the Newcomen engine, which had hardly changed for fifty years, and initiated changes in generating and applying power, which transformed the world of work, and were a key innovation of the Industrial Revolution. The importance of the invention can hardly be overstatedâit gave us the modern world. A key feature of it was that it brought the engine out of the remote coal fields into factories where many mechanics, engineers, and even tinkerers were exposed to its virtues and limitations. It was a platform for generations of inventors to improve. It was clear to many that higher pressures produced in improved boilers would produce engines having even higher efficiency, and would lead to the revolution in transportation that was soon embodied in the locomotive and steamboat. It made possible the construction of new factories that, since they were not dependent on water power, could work the year round, and could be placed almost anywhere. Work was moved out of the cottages, resulting in economies of scale. Capital could work more efficiently, and manufacturing productivity greatly improved. It made possible the cascade of new sorts of machine tools that could be used to produce better machines, including that most remarkable of all of them, the Watt steam engine.
Of Watt, the English Novelist Aldous Huxley (1894-1963) wrote; "To us, the moment 8:17 A.M. means something - something very important, if it happens to be the starting time of our daily train. To our ancestors, such an odd eccentric instant was without significance - did not even exist. In inventing the locomotive, Watt and Stephenson were part inventors of time."
Watt was a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and the Royal Society of London. He was a member of the Batavian Society, and one of only eight Foreign Associates of the French Academy of Sciences.
The watt is named after James Watt for his contributions to the development of the steam engine, and was adopted by the Second Congress of the British Association for the Advancement of Science in 1889 and by the 11th General Conference on Weights and Measures in 1960 as the unit of power incorporated in the International System of Units (or "SI").
'
The James Watt Memorial College in Greenock.
Watt was buried in the grounds of St. Mary's Church, Handsworth, in Birmingham. Later expansion of the church, over his grave, means that his tomb is now buried inside the church. A statue of him, Boulton and Murdoch is in Birmingham, as are five other statues of him alone, one in Chamberlain Square, the other outside the Law Courts. He is also remembered by the Moonstones and a school is named in his honour, both in Birmingham. An extensive archive of his papers is held at Birmingham Central Library. Matthew Boulton's home, Soho House, is now a museum, commemorating the work of both men. The University of Glasgow's Faculty of Engineering, the oldest in the United Kingdom, (where Watt was a professor) has its headquarters in the James Watt Building, which also houses the department of Mechanical Engineering and the department of Aerospace Engineering.
The location of James Watt's birth in Greenock is commemorated by a statue, close to his birthplace. Several locations and street names in Greenock recall him, most notably the Watt Memorial Library, which was begun in 1816 with Watt's donation of scientific books, and developed as part of the Watt Institution by his son (which ultimately became the James Watt College). Taken over by the local authority in 1974, the library now also houses the local history collection and archives of Inverclyde, and is dominated by a large seated statue in the vestibule. Watt is additionally commemorated by statuary in George Square, Glasgow and Princes Street, Edinburgh.
The James Watt College has expanded from its original location to include campuses in Kilwinning (North Ayrshire), Finnart Street and The Waterfront in Greenock, and the Sports campus in Largs. Heriot-Watt University near Edinburgh was at one time the School of Arts of Edinburgh, founded in 1821 as the worldâs first Mechanics Institute, but to commemorate George Heriot, the 16th century financier to King James, and James Watt, after Royal Charter the name was changed to Heriot-Watt University. Dozens of university and college buildings (chiefly of science and technology) are named after him.
The huge painting James Watt contemplating the steam engine by James Eckford Lauder is now owned by the National Gallery of Scotland.
Watt was ranked first, tying with Edison, among 229 significant figures in the history of technology by Charles Murray's survey of historiometry presented in his book Human Accomplishments.
Over 50 roads or streets in the UK are named after him.
A colossal statue of Watt by Chantrey was placed in Westminster Abbey, and later was moved to St. Paul's Cathedral. On the cenotaph the inscription reads:
Chantrey's statue of James Watt
:NOT TO PERPETUATE A NAME,
:WHICH MUST ENDURE WHILE THE PEACEFUL ARTS FLOURISH,
:BUT TO SHOW
:THAT MANKIND HAVE LEARNED TO HONOUR THOSE
:WHO BEST DESERVE THEIR GRATITUDE,
:THE KING,
:HIS MINISTERS, AND MANY OF THE NOBLES
:AND COMMONERS OF THE REALM
:RAISED THIS MONUMENT TO
:JAMES WATT
:WHO DIRECTING THE FORCE OF AN ORIGINAL GENIUS
:EARLY EXERCISED IN PHILOSOPHIC RESEARCH
:TO THE IMPROVEMENT OF
:THE STEAM-ENGINE
:ENLARGED THE RESOURCES OF HIS COUNTRY
:INCREASED THE POWER OF MAN
:AND ROSE TO AN EMINENT PLACE
:AMONG THE MOST ILLUSTRIOUS FOLLOWERS OF SCIENCE
:AND THE REAL BENEFACTORS OF THE WORLD
:BORN AT GREENOCK MDCCXXXVI
:DIED AT HEATHFIELD IN STAFFORDSHIRE MDCCCXIX
A lecture theatre in the Mechanical & Manufacturing Engineering building at the University of Birmingham is named "G31 - The James Watt Lecture Theatre".
On 29 May 2009, the Bank of England announced that Watt would appear on a new £50 note, alongside Matthew Boulton.
* Watt steam engine
* Centrifugal governor
* Indicator diagram
* Watt's linkage
* Parallel motion
* Sun and planet gear
*"Some Unpublished Letters of James Watt" in Journal of Institution of Mechanical Engineers (London, 1915).
*Carnegie, Andrew, James Watt University Press of the Pacific (2001) (Reprinted from the 1913 ed.), ISBN 0-89875-578-6.
*
* H. W. Dickinson and Hugh Pembroke Vowles James Watt and the Industrial Revolution (published in 1943, new edition 1948 and reprinted in 1949. Also published in Spanish and Portuguese (1944) by the British Council)
*Hills, Rev. Dr. Richard L., James Watt, Vol 1, His time in Scotland, 1736-1774 (2002); Vol 2, The years of toil, 1775-1785; Vol 3 Triumph through adversity 1785-1819. Landmark Publishing Ltd, ISBN 1-84306-045-0.
*
*
*Marsden, Ben. Watt's Perfect Engine Columbia University Press (New York, 2002) ISBN 0-231-13172-0.
*
*
*Samuel Smiles, Lives of the Engineers, (London, 1861-62, new edition, five volumes, 1905).
;Related topics
*
*
* James Watt by Andrew Carnegie (1905)
* James Watt by Thomas H. Marshall (1925)
* Archives of Soho at Birmingham Central Library.
* BBC History: James Watt
* Revolutionary Players website
* Cornwall Record Office Boulton & Watt letters
* Significant Scots - James Watt
*
|
James_Watt | Did James Watt improve an engine? | Yes, his improvements to the Newcomen steam engine were fundamental to the changes brought by the Industrial Revolution. | data/set4/a2 | James_Watt
James Watt, FRS, FRSE (19 January 1736 25 August 1819) was a Scottish inventor and mechanical engineer whose improvements to the Newcomen steam engine were fundamental to the changes brought by the Industrial Revolution in both the Kingdom of Great Britain and the world.
James Watt was born on 19 January 1736 in Greenock, Renfrewshire, a seaport on the Firth of Clyde. His father was a shipwright, ship owner and contractor, and served as the town's chief baillie, while his mother, Agnes Muirhead, came from a distinguished family and was well educated. Both were Presbyterians and strong Covenanters. Watt's grandfather, Thomas Watt, was a mathematics teacher and baillie to the Baron of Cartsburn. Watt did not attend school regularly; initially he was mostly schooled at home by his mother but later he attended Greenock grammar school. He exhibited great manual dexterity and an aptitude for mathematics, although Latin and Greek failed to interest him, and he absorbed the legends and lore of the Scottish people.
When he was 18, his mother died and his father's health had begun to fail. Watt travelled to London to study instrument-making for a year, then returned to Scotland to Glasgow intent on setting up his own instrument-making business. However, because he had not served at least seven years as an apprentice, the Glasgow Guild of Hammermen (any artisans using hammers) blocked his application, despite there being no other mathematical instrument makers in Scotland.
Watt was saved from this impasse by three professors of the University of Glasgow, who offered him the opportunity to set up a small workshop within the university. It was established in 1758 and one of the professors, the physicist and chemist Joseph Black, became Watt's friend.
In 1764, Watt married his cousin Margaret Miller, with whom he had five children, two of whom lived to adulthood. She died in childbirth in 1772. In 1777 he married again, to Ann MacGregor, daughter of a Glasgow dye-maker, who survived him. She died in 1832.
Watt was an enthusiastic inventor, with a fertile imagination that sometimes got in the way of finishing his works, because he could always see "just one more improvement". He was skilled with his hands, and was also able to perform systematic scientific measurements that could quantify the improvements he made and produce a greater understanding of the phenomenon he was working with.
Watt was a gentleman, greatly respected by other prominent men of the Industrial Revolution. He was an important member of the Lunar Society, and was a much sought after conversationalist and companion, always interested in expanding his horizons. He was a rather poor businessman, and especially hated bargaining and negotiating terms with those who sought to utilize the steam engine. Until he retired, he was always much concerned about his financial affairs, and was something of a worrier. His personal relationships with his friends and partners were always congenial and long-lasting.
James Watt's workshop
Watt retired in 1800, the same year that his fundamental patent and partnership with Boulton expired. The famous partnership was transferred to the men's sons, Matthew Boulton and James Watt Jr. Longtime firm engineer William Murdoch was made a partner and the firm prospered.
"Heathfield", Watt's house in Handsworth, BirminghamWatt continued to invent other things before and during his semi-retirement. He invented a new method of measuring distances by telescope, a device for copying letters, improvements in the oil lamp, a steam mangle and a machine for copying sculptures. Within his home in Handsworth Heath, Staffordshire, Watt made use of a garret room as a workshop, and it was here that he worked on many of his inventions.
He and his second wife travelled to France and Germany, and he purchased an estate in Wales at Doldowlod House, one mile south of Llanwrthwl, which he much improved.
He died on 25 August 1819 at his home "Heathfield" in Handsworth, Birmingham, England at the age of 83. He was buried on 2 September.
The garret room workshop that Watt used in his retirement was left locked and untouched until 1853, when it was first viewed by his biographer J. P. Muirhead. Thereafter, it was occasionally visited, but left untouched, as a kind of shrine. A proposal to have it transferred to the Patent Office came to nothing. When the house was due to be demolished in 1924, the room and all its contents were presented to the Science Museum, where it was recreated in its entirety. Garret workshop of James Watt It remained on display for visitors for many years, but was walled-off when the gallery it was housed in closed. The workshop remains intact, and preserved, and there are plans for it to go on display again at some point in the near future.
Original Condenser by James Watt.
As with many major inventions, there is some dispute as to whether Watt was the original sole inventor of some of the numerous inventions he patented. There is no dispute, however, that he was the sole inventor of his most important invention, the separate condenser. It was his practice (from around the 1780s) to pre-empt others' ideas which were known to him by filing patents with the intention of securing credit for the invention for himself, and ensuring that no one else was able to practice it. As he states in a letter to Boulton of 17 August 1784:
:I have given such descriptions of engines for wheel carriages as I could do in the time and space I could allow myself; but it is very defective and can only serve to keep other people from similar patents.
Some argue that his prohibitions on his employee William Murdoch from working with high pressure steam on his steam road locomotive experiments delayed its development. Watt, with his partner Matthew Boulton, battled against rival engineers such as Jonathan Hornblower who tried to develop engines which did not fall foul of his patents.
Watt patented the application of the sun and planet gear to steam in 1781 and a steam locomotive in 1784, both of which have strong claims to have been invented by his employee, William Murdoch. Watt himself described the provenance of the invention of the sun and planet gear in a letter to Boulton from Watt dated 5 January 1782:
:I have tried a model of one of my old plans of rotative engines revived and executed by W. M[urdock] and which merits being included in the specification as a fifth method...
The patent was never contested by Murdoch, who remained an employee of Boulton and Watt for most of his life, and Boulton and Watt's firm continued to use the sun and planet gear in their rotative engines, even long after the patent for the crank expired in 1794.
Watt opposed the use of high-pressure steam, and many inventors such as Richard Trevithick pioneered such engines, although frequently running into patent infringement actions by Watt. Those more efficient steam engines would eventually displace Watt's engines, leading to another industrial revolution with the development of the steam locomotive.
James Watt statue on City Square at Leeds.
Watt celebrated in a statue by Alexander Munro in Chamberlain Square, outside Birmingham Central Library
James Watt's improvements transformed the Newcomen engine, which had hardly changed for fifty years, and initiated changes in generating and applying power, which transformed the world of work, and were a key innovation of the Industrial Revolution. The importance of the invention can hardly be overstatedâit gave us the modern world. A key feature of it was that it brought the engine out of the remote coal fields into factories where many mechanics, engineers, and even tinkerers were exposed to its virtues and limitations. It was a platform for generations of inventors to improve. It was clear to many that higher pressures produced in improved boilers would produce engines having even higher efficiency, and would lead to the revolution in transportation that was soon embodied in the locomotive and steamboat. It made possible the construction of new factories that, since they were not dependent on water power, could work the year round, and could be placed almost anywhere. Work was moved out of the cottages, resulting in economies of scale. Capital could work more efficiently, and manufacturing productivity greatly improved. It made possible the cascade of new sorts of machine tools that could be used to produce better machines, including that most remarkable of all of them, the Watt steam engine.
Of Watt, the English Novelist Aldous Huxley (1894-1963) wrote; "To us, the moment 8:17 A.M. means something - something very important, if it happens to be the starting time of our daily train. To our ancestors, such an odd eccentric instant was without significance - did not even exist. In inventing the locomotive, Watt and Stephenson were part inventors of time."
Watt was a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and the Royal Society of London. He was a member of the Batavian Society, and one of only eight Foreign Associates of the French Academy of Sciences.
The watt is named after James Watt for his contributions to the development of the steam engine, and was adopted by the Second Congress of the British Association for the Advancement of Science in 1889 and by the 11th General Conference on Weights and Measures in 1960 as the unit of power incorporated in the International System of Units (or "SI").
'
The James Watt Memorial College in Greenock.
Watt was buried in the grounds of St. Mary's Church, Handsworth, in Birmingham. Later expansion of the church, over his grave, means that his tomb is now buried inside the church. A statue of him, Boulton and Murdoch is in Birmingham, as are five other statues of him alone, one in Chamberlain Square, the other outside the Law Courts. He is also remembered by the Moonstones and a school is named in his honour, both in Birmingham. An extensive archive of his papers is held at Birmingham Central Library. Matthew Boulton's home, Soho House, is now a museum, commemorating the work of both men. The University of Glasgow's Faculty of Engineering, the oldest in the United Kingdom, (where Watt was a professor) has its headquarters in the James Watt Building, which also houses the department of Mechanical Engineering and the department of Aerospace Engineering.
The location of James Watt's birth in Greenock is commemorated by a statue, close to his birthplace. Several locations and street names in Greenock recall him, most notably the Watt Memorial Library, which was begun in 1816 with Watt's donation of scientific books, and developed as part of the Watt Institution by his son (which ultimately became the James Watt College). Taken over by the local authority in 1974, the library now also houses the local history collection and archives of Inverclyde, and is dominated by a large seated statue in the vestibule. Watt is additionally commemorated by statuary in George Square, Glasgow and Princes Street, Edinburgh.
The James Watt College has expanded from its original location to include campuses in Kilwinning (North Ayrshire), Finnart Street and The Waterfront in Greenock, and the Sports campus in Largs. Heriot-Watt University near Edinburgh was at one time the School of Arts of Edinburgh, founded in 1821 as the worldâs first Mechanics Institute, but to commemorate George Heriot, the 16th century financier to King James, and James Watt, after Royal Charter the name was changed to Heriot-Watt University. Dozens of university and college buildings (chiefly of science and technology) are named after him.
The huge painting James Watt contemplating the steam engine by James Eckford Lauder is now owned by the National Gallery of Scotland.
Watt was ranked first, tying with Edison, among 229 significant figures in the history of technology by Charles Murray's survey of historiometry presented in his book Human Accomplishments.
Over 50 roads or streets in the UK are named after him.
A colossal statue of Watt by Chantrey was placed in Westminster Abbey, and later was moved to St. Paul's Cathedral. On the cenotaph the inscription reads:
Chantrey's statue of James Watt
:NOT TO PERPETUATE A NAME,
:WHICH MUST ENDURE WHILE THE PEACEFUL ARTS FLOURISH,
:BUT TO SHOW
:THAT MANKIND HAVE LEARNED TO HONOUR THOSE
:WHO BEST DESERVE THEIR GRATITUDE,
:THE KING,
:HIS MINISTERS, AND MANY OF THE NOBLES
:AND COMMONERS OF THE REALM
:RAISED THIS MONUMENT TO
:JAMES WATT
:WHO DIRECTING THE FORCE OF AN ORIGINAL GENIUS
:EARLY EXERCISED IN PHILOSOPHIC RESEARCH
:TO THE IMPROVEMENT OF
:THE STEAM-ENGINE
:ENLARGED THE RESOURCES OF HIS COUNTRY
:INCREASED THE POWER OF MAN
:AND ROSE TO AN EMINENT PLACE
:AMONG THE MOST ILLUSTRIOUS FOLLOWERS OF SCIENCE
:AND THE REAL BENEFACTORS OF THE WORLD
:BORN AT GREENOCK MDCCXXXVI
:DIED AT HEATHFIELD IN STAFFORDSHIRE MDCCCXIX
A lecture theatre in the Mechanical & Manufacturing Engineering building at the University of Birmingham is named "G31 - The James Watt Lecture Theatre".
On 29 May 2009, the Bank of England announced that Watt would appear on a new £50 note, alongside Matthew Boulton.
* Watt steam engine
* Centrifugal governor
* Indicator diagram
* Watt's linkage
* Parallel motion
* Sun and planet gear
*"Some Unpublished Letters of James Watt" in Journal of Institution of Mechanical Engineers (London, 1915).
*Carnegie, Andrew, James Watt University Press of the Pacific (2001) (Reprinted from the 1913 ed.), ISBN 0-89875-578-6.
*
* H. W. Dickinson and Hugh Pembroke Vowles James Watt and the Industrial Revolution (published in 1943, new edition 1948 and reprinted in 1949. Also published in Spanish and Portuguese (1944) by the British Council)
*Hills, Rev. Dr. Richard L., James Watt, Vol 1, His time in Scotland, 1736-1774 (2002); Vol 2, The years of toil, 1775-1785; Vol 3 Triumph through adversity 1785-1819. Landmark Publishing Ltd, ISBN 1-84306-045-0.
*
*
*Marsden, Ben. Watt's Perfect Engine Columbia University Press (New York, 2002) ISBN 0-231-13172-0.
*
*
*Samuel Smiles, Lives of the Engineers, (London, 1861-62, new edition, five volumes, 1905).
;Related topics
*
*
* James Watt by Andrew Carnegie (1905)
* James Watt by Thomas H. Marshall (1925)
* Archives of Soho at Birmingham Central Library.
* BBC History: James Watt
* Revolutionary Players website
* Cornwall Record Office Boulton & Watt letters
* Significant Scots - James Watt
*
|
James_Watt | Did James Watt improve an engine? | Yes | data/set4/a2 | James_Watt
James Watt, FRS, FRSE (19 January 1736 25 August 1819) was a Scottish inventor and mechanical engineer whose improvements to the Newcomen steam engine were fundamental to the changes brought by the Industrial Revolution in both the Kingdom of Great Britain and the world.
James Watt was born on 19 January 1736 in Greenock, Renfrewshire, a seaport on the Firth of Clyde. His father was a shipwright, ship owner and contractor, and served as the town's chief baillie, while his mother, Agnes Muirhead, came from a distinguished family and was well educated. Both were Presbyterians and strong Covenanters. Watt's grandfather, Thomas Watt, was a mathematics teacher and baillie to the Baron of Cartsburn. Watt did not attend school regularly; initially he was mostly schooled at home by his mother but later he attended Greenock grammar school. He exhibited great manual dexterity and an aptitude for mathematics, although Latin and Greek failed to interest him, and he absorbed the legends and lore of the Scottish people.
When he was 18, his mother died and his father's health had begun to fail. Watt travelled to London to study instrument-making for a year, then returned to Scotland to Glasgow intent on setting up his own instrument-making business. However, because he had not served at least seven years as an apprentice, the Glasgow Guild of Hammermen (any artisans using hammers) blocked his application, despite there being no other mathematical instrument makers in Scotland.
Watt was saved from this impasse by three professors of the University of Glasgow, who offered him the opportunity to set up a small workshop within the university. It was established in 1758 and one of the professors, the physicist and chemist Joseph Black, became Watt's friend.
In 1764, Watt married his cousin Margaret Miller, with whom he had five children, two of whom lived to adulthood. She died in childbirth in 1772. In 1777 he married again, to Ann MacGregor, daughter of a Glasgow dye-maker, who survived him. She died in 1832.
Watt was an enthusiastic inventor, with a fertile imagination that sometimes got in the way of finishing his works, because he could always see "just one more improvement". He was skilled with his hands, and was also able to perform systematic scientific measurements that could quantify the improvements he made and produce a greater understanding of the phenomenon he was working with.
Watt was a gentleman, greatly respected by other prominent men of the Industrial Revolution. He was an important member of the Lunar Society, and was a much sought after conversationalist and companion, always interested in expanding his horizons. He was a rather poor businessman, and especially hated bargaining and negotiating terms with those who sought to utilize the steam engine. Until he retired, he was always much concerned about his financial affairs, and was something of a worrier. His personal relationships with his friends and partners were always congenial and long-lasting.
James Watt's workshop
Watt retired in 1800, the same year that his fundamental patent and partnership with Boulton expired. The famous partnership was transferred to the men's sons, Matthew Boulton and James Watt Jr. Longtime firm engineer William Murdoch was made a partner and the firm prospered.
"Heathfield", Watt's house in Handsworth, BirminghamWatt continued to invent other things before and during his semi-retirement. He invented a new method of measuring distances by telescope, a device for copying letters, improvements in the oil lamp, a steam mangle and a machine for copying sculptures. Within his home in Handsworth Heath, Staffordshire, Watt made use of a garret room as a workshop, and it was here that he worked on many of his inventions.
He and his second wife travelled to France and Germany, and he purchased an estate in Wales at Doldowlod House, one mile south of Llanwrthwl, which he much improved.
He died on 25 August 1819 at his home "Heathfield" in Handsworth, Birmingham, England at the age of 83. He was buried on 2 September.
The garret room workshop that Watt used in his retirement was left locked and untouched until 1853, when it was first viewed by his biographer J. P. Muirhead. Thereafter, it was occasionally visited, but left untouched, as a kind of shrine. A proposal to have it transferred to the Patent Office came to nothing. When the house was due to be demolished in 1924, the room and all its contents were presented to the Science Museum, where it was recreated in its entirety. Garret workshop of James Watt It remained on display for visitors for many years, but was walled-off when the gallery it was housed in closed. The workshop remains intact, and preserved, and there are plans for it to go on display again at some point in the near future.
Original Condenser by James Watt.
As with many major inventions, there is some dispute as to whether Watt was the original sole inventor of some of the numerous inventions he patented. There is no dispute, however, that he was the sole inventor of his most important invention, the separate condenser. It was his practice (from around the 1780s) to pre-empt others' ideas which were known to him by filing patents with the intention of securing credit for the invention for himself, and ensuring that no one else was able to practice it. As he states in a letter to Boulton of 17 August 1784:
:I have given such descriptions of engines for wheel carriages as I could do in the time and space I could allow myself; but it is very defective and can only serve to keep other people from similar patents.
Some argue that his prohibitions on his employee William Murdoch from working with high pressure steam on his steam road locomotive experiments delayed its development. Watt, with his partner Matthew Boulton, battled against rival engineers such as Jonathan Hornblower who tried to develop engines which did not fall foul of his patents.
Watt patented the application of the sun and planet gear to steam in 1781 and a steam locomotive in 1784, both of which have strong claims to have been invented by his employee, William Murdoch. Watt himself described the provenance of the invention of the sun and planet gear in a letter to Boulton from Watt dated 5 January 1782:
:I have tried a model of one of my old plans of rotative engines revived and executed by W. M[urdock] and which merits being included in the specification as a fifth method...
The patent was never contested by Murdoch, who remained an employee of Boulton and Watt for most of his life, and Boulton and Watt's firm continued to use the sun and planet gear in their rotative engines, even long after the patent for the crank expired in 1794.
Watt opposed the use of high-pressure steam, and many inventors such as Richard Trevithick pioneered such engines, although frequently running into patent infringement actions by Watt. Those more efficient steam engines would eventually displace Watt's engines, leading to another industrial revolution with the development of the steam locomotive.
James Watt statue on City Square at Leeds.
Watt celebrated in a statue by Alexander Munro in Chamberlain Square, outside Birmingham Central Library
James Watt's improvements transformed the Newcomen engine, which had hardly changed for fifty years, and initiated changes in generating and applying power, which transformed the world of work, and were a key innovation of the Industrial Revolution. The importance of the invention can hardly be overstatedâit gave us the modern world. A key feature of it was that it brought the engine out of the remote coal fields into factories where many mechanics, engineers, and even tinkerers were exposed to its virtues and limitations. It was a platform for generations of inventors to improve. It was clear to many that higher pressures produced in improved boilers would produce engines having even higher efficiency, and would lead to the revolution in transportation that was soon embodied in the locomotive and steamboat. It made possible the construction of new factories that, since they were not dependent on water power, could work the year round, and could be placed almost anywhere. Work was moved out of the cottages, resulting in economies of scale. Capital could work more efficiently, and manufacturing productivity greatly improved. It made possible the cascade of new sorts of machine tools that could be used to produce better machines, including that most remarkable of all of them, the Watt steam engine.
Of Watt, the English Novelist Aldous Huxley (1894-1963) wrote; "To us, the moment 8:17 A.M. means something - something very important, if it happens to be the starting time of our daily train. To our ancestors, such an odd eccentric instant was without significance - did not even exist. In inventing the locomotive, Watt and Stephenson were part inventors of time."
Watt was a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and the Royal Society of London. He was a member of the Batavian Society, and one of only eight Foreign Associates of the French Academy of Sciences.
The watt is named after James Watt for his contributions to the development of the steam engine, and was adopted by the Second Congress of the British Association for the Advancement of Science in 1889 and by the 11th General Conference on Weights and Measures in 1960 as the unit of power incorporated in the International System of Units (or "SI").
'
The James Watt Memorial College in Greenock.
Watt was buried in the grounds of St. Mary's Church, Handsworth, in Birmingham. Later expansion of the church, over his grave, means that his tomb is now buried inside the church. A statue of him, Boulton and Murdoch is in Birmingham, as are five other statues of him alone, one in Chamberlain Square, the other outside the Law Courts. He is also remembered by the Moonstones and a school is named in his honour, both in Birmingham. An extensive archive of his papers is held at Birmingham Central Library. Matthew Boulton's home, Soho House, is now a museum, commemorating the work of both men. The University of Glasgow's Faculty of Engineering, the oldest in the United Kingdom, (where Watt was a professor) has its headquarters in the James Watt Building, which also houses the department of Mechanical Engineering and the department of Aerospace Engineering.
The location of James Watt's birth in Greenock is commemorated by a statue, close to his birthplace. Several locations and street names in Greenock recall him, most notably the Watt Memorial Library, which was begun in 1816 with Watt's donation of scientific books, and developed as part of the Watt Institution by his son (which ultimately became the James Watt College). Taken over by the local authority in 1974, the library now also houses the local history collection and archives of Inverclyde, and is dominated by a large seated statue in the vestibule. Watt is additionally commemorated by statuary in George Square, Glasgow and Princes Street, Edinburgh.
The James Watt College has expanded from its original location to include campuses in Kilwinning (North Ayrshire), Finnart Street and The Waterfront in Greenock, and the Sports campus in Largs. Heriot-Watt University near Edinburgh was at one time the School of Arts of Edinburgh, founded in 1821 as the worldâs first Mechanics Institute, but to commemorate George Heriot, the 16th century financier to King James, and James Watt, after Royal Charter the name was changed to Heriot-Watt University. Dozens of university and college buildings (chiefly of science and technology) are named after him.
The huge painting James Watt contemplating the steam engine by James Eckford Lauder is now owned by the National Gallery of Scotland.
Watt was ranked first, tying with Edison, among 229 significant figures in the history of technology by Charles Murray's survey of historiometry presented in his book Human Accomplishments.
Over 50 roads or streets in the UK are named after him.
A colossal statue of Watt by Chantrey was placed in Westminster Abbey, and later was moved to St. Paul's Cathedral. On the cenotaph the inscription reads:
Chantrey's statue of James Watt
:NOT TO PERPETUATE A NAME,
:WHICH MUST ENDURE WHILE THE PEACEFUL ARTS FLOURISH,
:BUT TO SHOW
:THAT MANKIND HAVE LEARNED TO HONOUR THOSE
:WHO BEST DESERVE THEIR GRATITUDE,
:THE KING,
:HIS MINISTERS, AND MANY OF THE NOBLES
:AND COMMONERS OF THE REALM
:RAISED THIS MONUMENT TO
:JAMES WATT
:WHO DIRECTING THE FORCE OF AN ORIGINAL GENIUS
:EARLY EXERCISED IN PHILOSOPHIC RESEARCH
:TO THE IMPROVEMENT OF
:THE STEAM-ENGINE
:ENLARGED THE RESOURCES OF HIS COUNTRY
:INCREASED THE POWER OF MAN
:AND ROSE TO AN EMINENT PLACE
:AMONG THE MOST ILLUSTRIOUS FOLLOWERS OF SCIENCE
:AND THE REAL BENEFACTORS OF THE WORLD
:BORN AT GREENOCK MDCCXXXVI
:DIED AT HEATHFIELD IN STAFFORDSHIRE MDCCCXIX
A lecture theatre in the Mechanical & Manufacturing Engineering building at the University of Birmingham is named "G31 - The James Watt Lecture Theatre".
On 29 May 2009, the Bank of England announced that Watt would appear on a new £50 note, alongside Matthew Boulton.
* Watt steam engine
* Centrifugal governor
* Indicator diagram
* Watt's linkage
* Parallel motion
* Sun and planet gear
*"Some Unpublished Letters of James Watt" in Journal of Institution of Mechanical Engineers (London, 1915).
*Carnegie, Andrew, James Watt University Press of the Pacific (2001) (Reprinted from the 1913 ed.), ISBN 0-89875-578-6.
*
* H. W. Dickinson and Hugh Pembroke Vowles James Watt and the Industrial Revolution (published in 1943, new edition 1948 and reprinted in 1949. Also published in Spanish and Portuguese (1944) by the British Council)
*Hills, Rev. Dr. Richard L., James Watt, Vol 1, His time in Scotland, 1736-1774 (2002); Vol 2, The years of toil, 1775-1785; Vol 3 Triumph through adversity 1785-1819. Landmark Publishing Ltd, ISBN 1-84306-045-0.
*
*
*Marsden, Ben. Watt's Perfect Engine Columbia University Press (New York, 2002) ISBN 0-231-13172-0.
*
*
*Samuel Smiles, Lives of the Engineers, (London, 1861-62, new edition, five volumes, 1905).
;Related topics
*
*
* James Watt by Andrew Carnegie (1905)
* James Watt by Thomas H. Marshall (1925)
* Archives of Soho at Birmingham Central Library.
* BBC History: James Watt
* Revolutionary Players website
* Cornwall Record Office Boulton & Watt letters
* Significant Scots - James Watt
*
|
James_Watt | Is there a statue of Watt in the White House? | No, a colossal statue of Watt by Chantrey was placed in Westminster Abbey, and later was moved to St. Paul's Cathedral. | data/set4/a2 | James_Watt
James Watt, FRS, FRSE (19 January 1736 25 August 1819) was a Scottish inventor and mechanical engineer whose improvements to the Newcomen steam engine were fundamental to the changes brought by the Industrial Revolution in both the Kingdom of Great Britain and the world.
James Watt was born on 19 January 1736 in Greenock, Renfrewshire, a seaport on the Firth of Clyde. His father was a shipwright, ship owner and contractor, and served as the town's chief baillie, while his mother, Agnes Muirhead, came from a distinguished family and was well educated. Both were Presbyterians and strong Covenanters. Watt's grandfather, Thomas Watt, was a mathematics teacher and baillie to the Baron of Cartsburn. Watt did not attend school regularly; initially he was mostly schooled at home by his mother but later he attended Greenock grammar school. He exhibited great manual dexterity and an aptitude for mathematics, although Latin and Greek failed to interest him, and he absorbed the legends and lore of the Scottish people.
When he was 18, his mother died and his father's health had begun to fail. Watt travelled to London to study instrument-making for a year, then returned to Scotland to Glasgow intent on setting up his own instrument-making business. However, because he had not served at least seven years as an apprentice, the Glasgow Guild of Hammermen (any artisans using hammers) blocked his application, despite there being no other mathematical instrument makers in Scotland.
Watt was saved from this impasse by three professors of the University of Glasgow, who offered him the opportunity to set up a small workshop within the university. It was established in 1758 and one of the professors, the physicist and chemist Joseph Black, became Watt's friend.
In 1764, Watt married his cousin Margaret Miller, with whom he had five children, two of whom lived to adulthood. She died in childbirth in 1772. In 1777 he married again, to Ann MacGregor, daughter of a Glasgow dye-maker, who survived him. She died in 1832.
Watt was an enthusiastic inventor, with a fertile imagination that sometimes got in the way of finishing his works, because he could always see "just one more improvement". He was skilled with his hands, and was also able to perform systematic scientific measurements that could quantify the improvements he made and produce a greater understanding of the phenomenon he was working with.
Watt was a gentleman, greatly respected by other prominent men of the Industrial Revolution. He was an important member of the Lunar Society, and was a much sought after conversationalist and companion, always interested in expanding his horizons. He was a rather poor businessman, and especially hated bargaining and negotiating terms with those who sought to utilize the steam engine. Until he retired, he was always much concerned about his financial affairs, and was something of a worrier. His personal relationships with his friends and partners were always congenial and long-lasting.
James Watt's workshop
Watt retired in 1800, the same year that his fundamental patent and partnership with Boulton expired. The famous partnership was transferred to the men's sons, Matthew Boulton and James Watt Jr. Longtime firm engineer William Murdoch was made a partner and the firm prospered.
"Heathfield", Watt's house in Handsworth, BirminghamWatt continued to invent other things before and during his semi-retirement. He invented a new method of measuring distances by telescope, a device for copying letters, improvements in the oil lamp, a steam mangle and a machine for copying sculptures. Within his home in Handsworth Heath, Staffordshire, Watt made use of a garret room as a workshop, and it was here that he worked on many of his inventions.
He and his second wife travelled to France and Germany, and he purchased an estate in Wales at Doldowlod House, one mile south of Llanwrthwl, which he much improved.
He died on 25 August 1819 at his home "Heathfield" in Handsworth, Birmingham, England at the age of 83. He was buried on 2 September.
The garret room workshop that Watt used in his retirement was left locked and untouched until 1853, when it was first viewed by his biographer J. P. Muirhead. Thereafter, it was occasionally visited, but left untouched, as a kind of shrine. A proposal to have it transferred to the Patent Office came to nothing. When the house was due to be demolished in 1924, the room and all its contents were presented to the Science Museum, where it was recreated in its entirety. Garret workshop of James Watt It remained on display for visitors for many years, but was walled-off when the gallery it was housed in closed. The workshop remains intact, and preserved, and there are plans for it to go on display again at some point in the near future.
Original Condenser by James Watt.
As with many major inventions, there is some dispute as to whether Watt was the original sole inventor of some of the numerous inventions he patented. There is no dispute, however, that he was the sole inventor of his most important invention, the separate condenser. It was his practice (from around the 1780s) to pre-empt others' ideas which were known to him by filing patents with the intention of securing credit for the invention for himself, and ensuring that no one else was able to practice it. As he states in a letter to Boulton of 17 August 1784:
:I have given such descriptions of engines for wheel carriages as I could do in the time and space I could allow myself; but it is very defective and can only serve to keep other people from similar patents.
Some argue that his prohibitions on his employee William Murdoch from working with high pressure steam on his steam road locomotive experiments delayed its development. Watt, with his partner Matthew Boulton, battled against rival engineers such as Jonathan Hornblower who tried to develop engines which did not fall foul of his patents.
Watt patented the application of the sun and planet gear to steam in 1781 and a steam locomotive in 1784, both of which have strong claims to have been invented by his employee, William Murdoch. Watt himself described the provenance of the invention of the sun and planet gear in a letter to Boulton from Watt dated 5 January 1782:
:I have tried a model of one of my old plans of rotative engines revived and executed by W. M[urdock] and which merits being included in the specification as a fifth method...
The patent was never contested by Murdoch, who remained an employee of Boulton and Watt for most of his life, and Boulton and Watt's firm continued to use the sun and planet gear in their rotative engines, even long after the patent for the crank expired in 1794.
Watt opposed the use of high-pressure steam, and many inventors such as Richard Trevithick pioneered such engines, although frequently running into patent infringement actions by Watt. Those more efficient steam engines would eventually displace Watt's engines, leading to another industrial revolution with the development of the steam locomotive.
James Watt statue on City Square at Leeds.
Watt celebrated in a statue by Alexander Munro in Chamberlain Square, outside Birmingham Central Library
James Watt's improvements transformed the Newcomen engine, which had hardly changed for fifty years, and initiated changes in generating and applying power, which transformed the world of work, and were a key innovation of the Industrial Revolution. The importance of the invention can hardly be overstatedâit gave us the modern world. A key feature of it was that it brought the engine out of the remote coal fields into factories where many mechanics, engineers, and even tinkerers were exposed to its virtues and limitations. It was a platform for generations of inventors to improve. It was clear to many that higher pressures produced in improved boilers would produce engines having even higher efficiency, and would lead to the revolution in transportation that was soon embodied in the locomotive and steamboat. It made possible the construction of new factories that, since they were not dependent on water power, could work the year round, and could be placed almost anywhere. Work was moved out of the cottages, resulting in economies of scale. Capital could work more efficiently, and manufacturing productivity greatly improved. It made possible the cascade of new sorts of machine tools that could be used to produce better machines, including that most remarkable of all of them, the Watt steam engine.
Of Watt, the English Novelist Aldous Huxley (1894-1963) wrote; "To us, the moment 8:17 A.M. means something - something very important, if it happens to be the starting time of our daily train. To our ancestors, such an odd eccentric instant was without significance - did not even exist. In inventing the locomotive, Watt and Stephenson were part inventors of time."
Watt was a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and the Royal Society of London. He was a member of the Batavian Society, and one of only eight Foreign Associates of the French Academy of Sciences.
The watt is named after James Watt for his contributions to the development of the steam engine, and was adopted by the Second Congress of the British Association for the Advancement of Science in 1889 and by the 11th General Conference on Weights and Measures in 1960 as the unit of power incorporated in the International System of Units (or "SI").
'
The James Watt Memorial College in Greenock.
Watt was buried in the grounds of St. Mary's Church, Handsworth, in Birmingham. Later expansion of the church, over his grave, means that his tomb is now buried inside the church. A statue of him, Boulton and Murdoch is in Birmingham, as are five other statues of him alone, one in Chamberlain Square, the other outside the Law Courts. He is also remembered by the Moonstones and a school is named in his honour, both in Birmingham. An extensive archive of his papers is held at Birmingham Central Library. Matthew Boulton's home, Soho House, is now a museum, commemorating the work of both men. The University of Glasgow's Faculty of Engineering, the oldest in the United Kingdom, (where Watt was a professor) has its headquarters in the James Watt Building, which also houses the department of Mechanical Engineering and the department of Aerospace Engineering.
The location of James Watt's birth in Greenock is commemorated by a statue, close to his birthplace. Several locations and street names in Greenock recall him, most notably the Watt Memorial Library, which was begun in 1816 with Watt's donation of scientific books, and developed as part of the Watt Institution by his son (which ultimately became the James Watt College). Taken over by the local authority in 1974, the library now also houses the local history collection and archives of Inverclyde, and is dominated by a large seated statue in the vestibule. Watt is additionally commemorated by statuary in George Square, Glasgow and Princes Street, Edinburgh.
The James Watt College has expanded from its original location to include campuses in Kilwinning (North Ayrshire), Finnart Street and The Waterfront in Greenock, and the Sports campus in Largs. Heriot-Watt University near Edinburgh was at one time the School of Arts of Edinburgh, founded in 1821 as the worldâs first Mechanics Institute, but to commemorate George Heriot, the 16th century financier to King James, and James Watt, after Royal Charter the name was changed to Heriot-Watt University. Dozens of university and college buildings (chiefly of science and technology) are named after him.
The huge painting James Watt contemplating the steam engine by James Eckford Lauder is now owned by the National Gallery of Scotland.
Watt was ranked first, tying with Edison, among 229 significant figures in the history of technology by Charles Murray's survey of historiometry presented in his book Human Accomplishments.
Over 50 roads or streets in the UK are named after him.
A colossal statue of Watt by Chantrey was placed in Westminster Abbey, and later was moved to St. Paul's Cathedral. On the cenotaph the inscription reads:
Chantrey's statue of James Watt
:NOT TO PERPETUATE A NAME,
:WHICH MUST ENDURE WHILE THE PEACEFUL ARTS FLOURISH,
:BUT TO SHOW
:THAT MANKIND HAVE LEARNED TO HONOUR THOSE
:WHO BEST DESERVE THEIR GRATITUDE,
:THE KING,
:HIS MINISTERS, AND MANY OF THE NOBLES
:AND COMMONERS OF THE REALM
:RAISED THIS MONUMENT TO
:JAMES WATT
:WHO DIRECTING THE FORCE OF AN ORIGINAL GENIUS
:EARLY EXERCISED IN PHILOSOPHIC RESEARCH
:TO THE IMPROVEMENT OF
:THE STEAM-ENGINE
:ENLARGED THE RESOURCES OF HIS COUNTRY
:INCREASED THE POWER OF MAN
:AND ROSE TO AN EMINENT PLACE
:AMONG THE MOST ILLUSTRIOUS FOLLOWERS OF SCIENCE
:AND THE REAL BENEFACTORS OF THE WORLD
:BORN AT GREENOCK MDCCXXXVI
:DIED AT HEATHFIELD IN STAFFORDSHIRE MDCCCXIX
A lecture theatre in the Mechanical & Manufacturing Engineering building at the University of Birmingham is named "G31 - The James Watt Lecture Theatre".
On 29 May 2009, the Bank of England announced that Watt would appear on a new £50 note, alongside Matthew Boulton.
* Watt steam engine
* Centrifugal governor
* Indicator diagram
* Watt's linkage
* Parallel motion
* Sun and planet gear
*"Some Unpublished Letters of James Watt" in Journal of Institution of Mechanical Engineers (London, 1915).
*Carnegie, Andrew, James Watt University Press of the Pacific (2001) (Reprinted from the 1913 ed.), ISBN 0-89875-578-6.
*
* H. W. Dickinson and Hugh Pembroke Vowles James Watt and the Industrial Revolution (published in 1943, new edition 1948 and reprinted in 1949. Also published in Spanish and Portuguese (1944) by the British Council)
*Hills, Rev. Dr. Richard L., James Watt, Vol 1, His time in Scotland, 1736-1774 (2002); Vol 2, The years of toil, 1775-1785; Vol 3 Triumph through adversity 1785-1819. Landmark Publishing Ltd, ISBN 1-84306-045-0.
*
*
*Marsden, Ben. Watt's Perfect Engine Columbia University Press (New York, 2002) ISBN 0-231-13172-0.
*
*
*Samuel Smiles, Lives of the Engineers, (London, 1861-62, new edition, five volumes, 1905).
;Related topics
*
*
* James Watt by Andrew Carnegie (1905)
* James Watt by Thomas H. Marshall (1925)
* Archives of Soho at Birmingham Central Library.
* BBC History: James Watt
* Revolutionary Players website
* Cornwall Record Office Boulton & Watt letters
* Significant Scots - James Watt
*
|
James_Watt | Is there a statue of Watt in the White House? | No | data/set4/a2 | James_Watt
James Watt, FRS, FRSE (19 January 1736 25 August 1819) was a Scottish inventor and mechanical engineer whose improvements to the Newcomen steam engine were fundamental to the changes brought by the Industrial Revolution in both the Kingdom of Great Britain and the world.
James Watt was born on 19 January 1736 in Greenock, Renfrewshire, a seaport on the Firth of Clyde. His father was a shipwright, ship owner and contractor, and served as the town's chief baillie, while his mother, Agnes Muirhead, came from a distinguished family and was well educated. Both were Presbyterians and strong Covenanters. Watt's grandfather, Thomas Watt, was a mathematics teacher and baillie to the Baron of Cartsburn. Watt did not attend school regularly; initially he was mostly schooled at home by his mother but later he attended Greenock grammar school. He exhibited great manual dexterity and an aptitude for mathematics, although Latin and Greek failed to interest him, and he absorbed the legends and lore of the Scottish people.
When he was 18, his mother died and his father's health had begun to fail. Watt travelled to London to study instrument-making for a year, then returned to Scotland to Glasgow intent on setting up his own instrument-making business. However, because he had not served at least seven years as an apprentice, the Glasgow Guild of Hammermen (any artisans using hammers) blocked his application, despite there being no other mathematical instrument makers in Scotland.
Watt was saved from this impasse by three professors of the University of Glasgow, who offered him the opportunity to set up a small workshop within the university. It was established in 1758 and one of the professors, the physicist and chemist Joseph Black, became Watt's friend.
In 1764, Watt married his cousin Margaret Miller, with whom he had five children, two of whom lived to adulthood. She died in childbirth in 1772. In 1777 he married again, to Ann MacGregor, daughter of a Glasgow dye-maker, who survived him. She died in 1832.
Watt was an enthusiastic inventor, with a fertile imagination that sometimes got in the way of finishing his works, because he could always see "just one more improvement". He was skilled with his hands, and was also able to perform systematic scientific measurements that could quantify the improvements he made and produce a greater understanding of the phenomenon he was working with.
Watt was a gentleman, greatly respected by other prominent men of the Industrial Revolution. He was an important member of the Lunar Society, and was a much sought after conversationalist and companion, always interested in expanding his horizons. He was a rather poor businessman, and especially hated bargaining and negotiating terms with those who sought to utilize the steam engine. Until he retired, he was always much concerned about his financial affairs, and was something of a worrier. His personal relationships with his friends and partners were always congenial and long-lasting.
James Watt's workshop
Watt retired in 1800, the same year that his fundamental patent and partnership with Boulton expired. The famous partnership was transferred to the men's sons, Matthew Boulton and James Watt Jr. Longtime firm engineer William Murdoch was made a partner and the firm prospered.
"Heathfield", Watt's house in Handsworth, BirminghamWatt continued to invent other things before and during his semi-retirement. He invented a new method of measuring distances by telescope, a device for copying letters, improvements in the oil lamp, a steam mangle and a machine for copying sculptures. Within his home in Handsworth Heath, Staffordshire, Watt made use of a garret room as a workshop, and it was here that he worked on many of his inventions.
He and his second wife travelled to France and Germany, and he purchased an estate in Wales at Doldowlod House, one mile south of Llanwrthwl, which he much improved.
He died on 25 August 1819 at his home "Heathfield" in Handsworth, Birmingham, England at the age of 83. He was buried on 2 September.
The garret room workshop that Watt used in his retirement was left locked and untouched until 1853, when it was first viewed by his biographer J. P. Muirhead. Thereafter, it was occasionally visited, but left untouched, as a kind of shrine. A proposal to have it transferred to the Patent Office came to nothing. When the house was due to be demolished in 1924, the room and all its contents were presented to the Science Museum, where it was recreated in its entirety. Garret workshop of James Watt It remained on display for visitors for many years, but was walled-off when the gallery it was housed in closed. The workshop remains intact, and preserved, and there are plans for it to go on display again at some point in the near future.
Original Condenser by James Watt.
As with many major inventions, there is some dispute as to whether Watt was the original sole inventor of some of the numerous inventions he patented. There is no dispute, however, that he was the sole inventor of his most important invention, the separate condenser. It was his practice (from around the 1780s) to pre-empt others' ideas which were known to him by filing patents with the intention of securing credit for the invention for himself, and ensuring that no one else was able to practice it. As he states in a letter to Boulton of 17 August 1784:
:I have given such descriptions of engines for wheel carriages as I could do in the time and space I could allow myself; but it is very defective and can only serve to keep other people from similar patents.
Some argue that his prohibitions on his employee William Murdoch from working with high pressure steam on his steam road locomotive experiments delayed its development. Watt, with his partner Matthew Boulton, battled against rival engineers such as Jonathan Hornblower who tried to develop engines which did not fall foul of his patents.
Watt patented the application of the sun and planet gear to steam in 1781 and a steam locomotive in 1784, both of which have strong claims to have been invented by his employee, William Murdoch. Watt himself described the provenance of the invention of the sun and planet gear in a letter to Boulton from Watt dated 5 January 1782:
:I have tried a model of one of my old plans of rotative engines revived and executed by W. M[urdock] and which merits being included in the specification as a fifth method...
The patent was never contested by Murdoch, who remained an employee of Boulton and Watt for most of his life, and Boulton and Watt's firm continued to use the sun and planet gear in their rotative engines, even long after the patent for the crank expired in 1794.
Watt opposed the use of high-pressure steam, and many inventors such as Richard Trevithick pioneered such engines, although frequently running into patent infringement actions by Watt. Those more efficient steam engines would eventually displace Watt's engines, leading to another industrial revolution with the development of the steam locomotive.
James Watt statue on City Square at Leeds.
Watt celebrated in a statue by Alexander Munro in Chamberlain Square, outside Birmingham Central Library
James Watt's improvements transformed the Newcomen engine, which had hardly changed for fifty years, and initiated changes in generating and applying power, which transformed the world of work, and were a key innovation of the Industrial Revolution. The importance of the invention can hardly be overstatedâit gave us the modern world. A key feature of it was that it brought the engine out of the remote coal fields into factories where many mechanics, engineers, and even tinkerers were exposed to its virtues and limitations. It was a platform for generations of inventors to improve. It was clear to many that higher pressures produced in improved boilers would produce engines having even higher efficiency, and would lead to the revolution in transportation that was soon embodied in the locomotive and steamboat. It made possible the construction of new factories that, since they were not dependent on water power, could work the year round, and could be placed almost anywhere. Work was moved out of the cottages, resulting in economies of scale. Capital could work more efficiently, and manufacturing productivity greatly improved. It made possible the cascade of new sorts of machine tools that could be used to produce better machines, including that most remarkable of all of them, the Watt steam engine.
Of Watt, the English Novelist Aldous Huxley (1894-1963) wrote; "To us, the moment 8:17 A.M. means something - something very important, if it happens to be the starting time of our daily train. To our ancestors, such an odd eccentric instant was without significance - did not even exist. In inventing the locomotive, Watt and Stephenson were part inventors of time."
Watt was a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and the Royal Society of London. He was a member of the Batavian Society, and one of only eight Foreign Associates of the French Academy of Sciences.
The watt is named after James Watt for his contributions to the development of the steam engine, and was adopted by the Second Congress of the British Association for the Advancement of Science in 1889 and by the 11th General Conference on Weights and Measures in 1960 as the unit of power incorporated in the International System of Units (or "SI").
'
The James Watt Memorial College in Greenock.
Watt was buried in the grounds of St. Mary's Church, Handsworth, in Birmingham. Later expansion of the church, over his grave, means that his tomb is now buried inside the church. A statue of him, Boulton and Murdoch is in Birmingham, as are five other statues of him alone, one in Chamberlain Square, the other outside the Law Courts. He is also remembered by the Moonstones and a school is named in his honour, both in Birmingham. An extensive archive of his papers is held at Birmingham Central Library. Matthew Boulton's home, Soho House, is now a museum, commemorating the work of both men. The University of Glasgow's Faculty of Engineering, the oldest in the United Kingdom, (where Watt was a professor) has its headquarters in the James Watt Building, which also houses the department of Mechanical Engineering and the department of Aerospace Engineering.
The location of James Watt's birth in Greenock is commemorated by a statue, close to his birthplace. Several locations and street names in Greenock recall him, most notably the Watt Memorial Library, which was begun in 1816 with Watt's donation of scientific books, and developed as part of the Watt Institution by his son (which ultimately became the James Watt College). Taken over by the local authority in 1974, the library now also houses the local history collection and archives of Inverclyde, and is dominated by a large seated statue in the vestibule. Watt is additionally commemorated by statuary in George Square, Glasgow and Princes Street, Edinburgh.
The James Watt College has expanded from its original location to include campuses in Kilwinning (North Ayrshire), Finnart Street and The Waterfront in Greenock, and the Sports campus in Largs. Heriot-Watt University near Edinburgh was at one time the School of Arts of Edinburgh, founded in 1821 as the worldâs first Mechanics Institute, but to commemorate George Heriot, the 16th century financier to King James, and James Watt, after Royal Charter the name was changed to Heriot-Watt University. Dozens of university and college buildings (chiefly of science and technology) are named after him.
The huge painting James Watt contemplating the steam engine by James Eckford Lauder is now owned by the National Gallery of Scotland.
Watt was ranked first, tying with Edison, among 229 significant figures in the history of technology by Charles Murray's survey of historiometry presented in his book Human Accomplishments.
Over 50 roads or streets in the UK are named after him.
A colossal statue of Watt by Chantrey was placed in Westminster Abbey, and later was moved to St. Paul's Cathedral. On the cenotaph the inscription reads:
Chantrey's statue of James Watt
:NOT TO PERPETUATE A NAME,
:WHICH MUST ENDURE WHILE THE PEACEFUL ARTS FLOURISH,
:BUT TO SHOW
:THAT MANKIND HAVE LEARNED TO HONOUR THOSE
:WHO BEST DESERVE THEIR GRATITUDE,
:THE KING,
:HIS MINISTERS, AND MANY OF THE NOBLES
:AND COMMONERS OF THE REALM
:RAISED THIS MONUMENT TO
:JAMES WATT
:WHO DIRECTING THE FORCE OF AN ORIGINAL GENIUS
:EARLY EXERCISED IN PHILOSOPHIC RESEARCH
:TO THE IMPROVEMENT OF
:THE STEAM-ENGINE
:ENLARGED THE RESOURCES OF HIS COUNTRY
:INCREASED THE POWER OF MAN
:AND ROSE TO AN EMINENT PLACE
:AMONG THE MOST ILLUSTRIOUS FOLLOWERS OF SCIENCE
:AND THE REAL BENEFACTORS OF THE WORLD
:BORN AT GREENOCK MDCCXXXVI
:DIED AT HEATHFIELD IN STAFFORDSHIRE MDCCCXIX
A lecture theatre in the Mechanical & Manufacturing Engineering building at the University of Birmingham is named "G31 - The James Watt Lecture Theatre".
On 29 May 2009, the Bank of England announced that Watt would appear on a new £50 note, alongside Matthew Boulton.
* Watt steam engine
* Centrifugal governor
* Indicator diagram
* Watt's linkage
* Parallel motion
* Sun and planet gear
*"Some Unpublished Letters of James Watt" in Journal of Institution of Mechanical Engineers (London, 1915).
*Carnegie, Andrew, James Watt University Press of the Pacific (2001) (Reprinted from the 1913 ed.), ISBN 0-89875-578-6.
*
* H. W. Dickinson and Hugh Pembroke Vowles James Watt and the Industrial Revolution (published in 1943, new edition 1948 and reprinted in 1949. Also published in Spanish and Portuguese (1944) by the British Council)
*Hills, Rev. Dr. Richard L., James Watt, Vol 1, His time in Scotland, 1736-1774 (2002); Vol 2, The years of toil, 1775-1785; Vol 3 Triumph through adversity 1785-1819. Landmark Publishing Ltd, ISBN 1-84306-045-0.
*
*
*Marsden, Ben. Watt's Perfect Engine Columbia University Press (New York, 2002) ISBN 0-231-13172-0.
*
*
*Samuel Smiles, Lives of the Engineers, (London, 1861-62, new edition, five volumes, 1905).
;Related topics
*
*
* James Watt by Andrew Carnegie (1905)
* James Watt by Thomas H. Marshall (1925)
* Archives of Soho at Birmingham Central Library.
* BBC History: James Watt
* Revolutionary Players website
* Cornwall Record Office Boulton & Watt letters
* Significant Scots - James Watt
*
|
James_Watt | What was James Watt's father's job? | His father was a shipwright, ship owner and contractor, and served as the town's chief baillie. | data/set4/a2 | James_Watt
James Watt, FRS, FRSE (19 January 1736 25 August 1819) was a Scottish inventor and mechanical engineer whose improvements to the Newcomen steam engine were fundamental to the changes brought by the Industrial Revolution in both the Kingdom of Great Britain and the world.
James Watt was born on 19 January 1736 in Greenock, Renfrewshire, a seaport on the Firth of Clyde. His father was a shipwright, ship owner and contractor, and served as the town's chief baillie, while his mother, Agnes Muirhead, came from a distinguished family and was well educated. Both were Presbyterians and strong Covenanters. Watt's grandfather, Thomas Watt, was a mathematics teacher and baillie to the Baron of Cartsburn. Watt did not attend school regularly; initially he was mostly schooled at home by his mother but later he attended Greenock grammar school. He exhibited great manual dexterity and an aptitude for mathematics, although Latin and Greek failed to interest him, and he absorbed the legends and lore of the Scottish people.
When he was 18, his mother died and his father's health had begun to fail. Watt travelled to London to study instrument-making for a year, then returned to Scotland to Glasgow intent on setting up his own instrument-making business. However, because he had not served at least seven years as an apprentice, the Glasgow Guild of Hammermen (any artisans using hammers) blocked his application, despite there being no other mathematical instrument makers in Scotland.
Watt was saved from this impasse by three professors of the University of Glasgow, who offered him the opportunity to set up a small workshop within the university. It was established in 1758 and one of the professors, the physicist and chemist Joseph Black, became Watt's friend.
In 1764, Watt married his cousin Margaret Miller, with whom he had five children, two of whom lived to adulthood. She died in childbirth in 1772. In 1777 he married again, to Ann MacGregor, daughter of a Glasgow dye-maker, who survived him. She died in 1832.
Watt was an enthusiastic inventor, with a fertile imagination that sometimes got in the way of finishing his works, because he could always see "just one more improvement". He was skilled with his hands, and was also able to perform systematic scientific measurements that could quantify the improvements he made and produce a greater understanding of the phenomenon he was working with.
Watt was a gentleman, greatly respected by other prominent men of the Industrial Revolution. He was an important member of the Lunar Society, and was a much sought after conversationalist and companion, always interested in expanding his horizons. He was a rather poor businessman, and especially hated bargaining and negotiating terms with those who sought to utilize the steam engine. Until he retired, he was always much concerned about his financial affairs, and was something of a worrier. His personal relationships with his friends and partners were always congenial and long-lasting.
James Watt's workshop
Watt retired in 1800, the same year that his fundamental patent and partnership with Boulton expired. The famous partnership was transferred to the men's sons, Matthew Boulton and James Watt Jr. Longtime firm engineer William Murdoch was made a partner and the firm prospered.
"Heathfield", Watt's house in Handsworth, BirminghamWatt continued to invent other things before and during his semi-retirement. He invented a new method of measuring distances by telescope, a device for copying letters, improvements in the oil lamp, a steam mangle and a machine for copying sculptures. Within his home in Handsworth Heath, Staffordshire, Watt made use of a garret room as a workshop, and it was here that he worked on many of his inventions.
He and his second wife travelled to France and Germany, and he purchased an estate in Wales at Doldowlod House, one mile south of Llanwrthwl, which he much improved.
He died on 25 August 1819 at his home "Heathfield" in Handsworth, Birmingham, England at the age of 83. He was buried on 2 September.
The garret room workshop that Watt used in his retirement was left locked and untouched until 1853, when it was first viewed by his biographer J. P. Muirhead. Thereafter, it was occasionally visited, but left untouched, as a kind of shrine. A proposal to have it transferred to the Patent Office came to nothing. When the house was due to be demolished in 1924, the room and all its contents were presented to the Science Museum, where it was recreated in its entirety. Garret workshop of James Watt It remained on display for visitors for many years, but was walled-off when the gallery it was housed in closed. The workshop remains intact, and preserved, and there are plans for it to go on display again at some point in the near future.
Original Condenser by James Watt.
As with many major inventions, there is some dispute as to whether Watt was the original sole inventor of some of the numerous inventions he patented. There is no dispute, however, that he was the sole inventor of his most important invention, the separate condenser. It was his practice (from around the 1780s) to pre-empt others' ideas which were known to him by filing patents with the intention of securing credit for the invention for himself, and ensuring that no one else was able to practice it. As he states in a letter to Boulton of 17 August 1784:
:I have given such descriptions of engines for wheel carriages as I could do in the time and space I could allow myself; but it is very defective and can only serve to keep other people from similar patents.
Some argue that his prohibitions on his employee William Murdoch from working with high pressure steam on his steam road locomotive experiments delayed its development. Watt, with his partner Matthew Boulton, battled against rival engineers such as Jonathan Hornblower who tried to develop engines which did not fall foul of his patents.
Watt patented the application of the sun and planet gear to steam in 1781 and a steam locomotive in 1784, both of which have strong claims to have been invented by his employee, William Murdoch. Watt himself described the provenance of the invention of the sun and planet gear in a letter to Boulton from Watt dated 5 January 1782:
:I have tried a model of one of my old plans of rotative engines revived and executed by W. M[urdock] and which merits being included in the specification as a fifth method...
The patent was never contested by Murdoch, who remained an employee of Boulton and Watt for most of his life, and Boulton and Watt's firm continued to use the sun and planet gear in their rotative engines, even long after the patent for the crank expired in 1794.
Watt opposed the use of high-pressure steam, and many inventors such as Richard Trevithick pioneered such engines, although frequently running into patent infringement actions by Watt. Those more efficient steam engines would eventually displace Watt's engines, leading to another industrial revolution with the development of the steam locomotive.
James Watt statue on City Square at Leeds.
Watt celebrated in a statue by Alexander Munro in Chamberlain Square, outside Birmingham Central Library
James Watt's improvements transformed the Newcomen engine, which had hardly changed for fifty years, and initiated changes in generating and applying power, which transformed the world of work, and were a key innovation of the Industrial Revolution. The importance of the invention can hardly be overstatedâit gave us the modern world. A key feature of it was that it brought the engine out of the remote coal fields into factories where many mechanics, engineers, and even tinkerers were exposed to its virtues and limitations. It was a platform for generations of inventors to improve. It was clear to many that higher pressures produced in improved boilers would produce engines having even higher efficiency, and would lead to the revolution in transportation that was soon embodied in the locomotive and steamboat. It made possible the construction of new factories that, since they were not dependent on water power, could work the year round, and could be placed almost anywhere. Work was moved out of the cottages, resulting in economies of scale. Capital could work more efficiently, and manufacturing productivity greatly improved. It made possible the cascade of new sorts of machine tools that could be used to produce better machines, including that most remarkable of all of them, the Watt steam engine.
Of Watt, the English Novelist Aldous Huxley (1894-1963) wrote; "To us, the moment 8:17 A.M. means something - something very important, if it happens to be the starting time of our daily train. To our ancestors, such an odd eccentric instant was without significance - did not even exist. In inventing the locomotive, Watt and Stephenson were part inventors of time."
Watt was a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and the Royal Society of London. He was a member of the Batavian Society, and one of only eight Foreign Associates of the French Academy of Sciences.
The watt is named after James Watt for his contributions to the development of the steam engine, and was adopted by the Second Congress of the British Association for the Advancement of Science in 1889 and by the 11th General Conference on Weights and Measures in 1960 as the unit of power incorporated in the International System of Units (or "SI").
'
The James Watt Memorial College in Greenock.
Watt was buried in the grounds of St. Mary's Church, Handsworth, in Birmingham. Later expansion of the church, over his grave, means that his tomb is now buried inside the church. A statue of him, Boulton and Murdoch is in Birmingham, as are five other statues of him alone, one in Chamberlain Square, the other outside the Law Courts. He is also remembered by the Moonstones and a school is named in his honour, both in Birmingham. An extensive archive of his papers is held at Birmingham Central Library. Matthew Boulton's home, Soho House, is now a museum, commemorating the work of both men. The University of Glasgow's Faculty of Engineering, the oldest in the United Kingdom, (where Watt was a professor) has its headquarters in the James Watt Building, which also houses the department of Mechanical Engineering and the department of Aerospace Engineering.
The location of James Watt's birth in Greenock is commemorated by a statue, close to his birthplace. Several locations and street names in Greenock recall him, most notably the Watt Memorial Library, which was begun in 1816 with Watt's donation of scientific books, and developed as part of the Watt Institution by his son (which ultimately became the James Watt College). Taken over by the local authority in 1974, the library now also houses the local history collection and archives of Inverclyde, and is dominated by a large seated statue in the vestibule. Watt is additionally commemorated by statuary in George Square, Glasgow and Princes Street, Edinburgh.
The James Watt College has expanded from its original location to include campuses in Kilwinning (North Ayrshire), Finnart Street and The Waterfront in Greenock, and the Sports campus in Largs. Heriot-Watt University near Edinburgh was at one time the School of Arts of Edinburgh, founded in 1821 as the worldâs first Mechanics Institute, but to commemorate George Heriot, the 16th century financier to King James, and James Watt, after Royal Charter the name was changed to Heriot-Watt University. Dozens of university and college buildings (chiefly of science and technology) are named after him.
The huge painting James Watt contemplating the steam engine by James Eckford Lauder is now owned by the National Gallery of Scotland.
Watt was ranked first, tying with Edison, among 229 significant figures in the history of technology by Charles Murray's survey of historiometry presented in his book Human Accomplishments.
Over 50 roads or streets in the UK are named after him.
A colossal statue of Watt by Chantrey was placed in Westminster Abbey, and later was moved to St. Paul's Cathedral. On the cenotaph the inscription reads:
Chantrey's statue of James Watt
:NOT TO PERPETUATE A NAME,
:WHICH MUST ENDURE WHILE THE PEACEFUL ARTS FLOURISH,
:BUT TO SHOW
:THAT MANKIND HAVE LEARNED TO HONOUR THOSE
:WHO BEST DESERVE THEIR GRATITUDE,
:THE KING,
:HIS MINISTERS, AND MANY OF THE NOBLES
:AND COMMONERS OF THE REALM
:RAISED THIS MONUMENT TO
:JAMES WATT
:WHO DIRECTING THE FORCE OF AN ORIGINAL GENIUS
:EARLY EXERCISED IN PHILOSOPHIC RESEARCH
:TO THE IMPROVEMENT OF
:THE STEAM-ENGINE
:ENLARGED THE RESOURCES OF HIS COUNTRY
:INCREASED THE POWER OF MAN
:AND ROSE TO AN EMINENT PLACE
:AMONG THE MOST ILLUSTRIOUS FOLLOWERS OF SCIENCE
:AND THE REAL BENEFACTORS OF THE WORLD
:BORN AT GREENOCK MDCCXXXVI
:DIED AT HEATHFIELD IN STAFFORDSHIRE MDCCCXIX
A lecture theatre in the Mechanical & Manufacturing Engineering building at the University of Birmingham is named "G31 - The James Watt Lecture Theatre".
On 29 May 2009, the Bank of England announced that Watt would appear on a new £50 note, alongside Matthew Boulton.
* Watt steam engine
* Centrifugal governor
* Indicator diagram
* Watt's linkage
* Parallel motion
* Sun and planet gear
*"Some Unpublished Letters of James Watt" in Journal of Institution of Mechanical Engineers (London, 1915).
*Carnegie, Andrew, James Watt University Press of the Pacific (2001) (Reprinted from the 1913 ed.), ISBN 0-89875-578-6.
*
* H. W. Dickinson and Hugh Pembroke Vowles James Watt and the Industrial Revolution (published in 1943, new edition 1948 and reprinted in 1949. Also published in Spanish and Portuguese (1944) by the British Council)
*Hills, Rev. Dr. Richard L., James Watt, Vol 1, His time in Scotland, 1736-1774 (2002); Vol 2, The years of toil, 1775-1785; Vol 3 Triumph through adversity 1785-1819. Landmark Publishing Ltd, ISBN 1-84306-045-0.
*
*
*Marsden, Ben. Watt's Perfect Engine Columbia University Press (New York, 2002) ISBN 0-231-13172-0.
*
*
*Samuel Smiles, Lives of the Engineers, (London, 1861-62, new edition, five volumes, 1905).
;Related topics
*
*
* James Watt by Andrew Carnegie (1905)
* James Watt by Thomas H. Marshall (1925)
* Archives of Soho at Birmingham Central Library.
* BBC History: James Watt
* Revolutionary Players website
* Cornwall Record Office Boulton & Watt letters
* Significant Scots - James Watt
*
|
James_Watt | What was James Watt's father's job? | His father was a shipwright, ship owner and contractor, and served as the town's chief baillie. | data/set4/a2 | James_Watt
James Watt, FRS, FRSE (19 January 1736 25 August 1819) was a Scottish inventor and mechanical engineer whose improvements to the Newcomen steam engine were fundamental to the changes brought by the Industrial Revolution in both the Kingdom of Great Britain and the world.
James Watt was born on 19 January 1736 in Greenock, Renfrewshire, a seaport on the Firth of Clyde. His father was a shipwright, ship owner and contractor, and served as the town's chief baillie, while his mother, Agnes Muirhead, came from a distinguished family and was well educated. Both were Presbyterians and strong Covenanters. Watt's grandfather, Thomas Watt, was a mathematics teacher and baillie to the Baron of Cartsburn. Watt did not attend school regularly; initially he was mostly schooled at home by his mother but later he attended Greenock grammar school. He exhibited great manual dexterity and an aptitude for mathematics, although Latin and Greek failed to interest him, and he absorbed the legends and lore of the Scottish people.
When he was 18, his mother died and his father's health had begun to fail. Watt travelled to London to study instrument-making for a year, then returned to Scotland to Glasgow intent on setting up his own instrument-making business. However, because he had not served at least seven years as an apprentice, the Glasgow Guild of Hammermen (any artisans using hammers) blocked his application, despite there being no other mathematical instrument makers in Scotland.
Watt was saved from this impasse by three professors of the University of Glasgow, who offered him the opportunity to set up a small workshop within the university. It was established in 1758 and one of the professors, the physicist and chemist Joseph Black, became Watt's friend.
In 1764, Watt married his cousin Margaret Miller, with whom he had five children, two of whom lived to adulthood. She died in childbirth in 1772. In 1777 he married again, to Ann MacGregor, daughter of a Glasgow dye-maker, who survived him. She died in 1832.
Watt was an enthusiastic inventor, with a fertile imagination that sometimes got in the way of finishing his works, because he could always see "just one more improvement". He was skilled with his hands, and was also able to perform systematic scientific measurements that could quantify the improvements he made and produce a greater understanding of the phenomenon he was working with.
Watt was a gentleman, greatly respected by other prominent men of the Industrial Revolution. He was an important member of the Lunar Society, and was a much sought after conversationalist and companion, always interested in expanding his horizons. He was a rather poor businessman, and especially hated bargaining and negotiating terms with those who sought to utilize the steam engine. Until he retired, he was always much concerned about his financial affairs, and was something of a worrier. His personal relationships with his friends and partners were always congenial and long-lasting.
James Watt's workshop
Watt retired in 1800, the same year that his fundamental patent and partnership with Boulton expired. The famous partnership was transferred to the men's sons, Matthew Boulton and James Watt Jr. Longtime firm engineer William Murdoch was made a partner and the firm prospered.
"Heathfield", Watt's house in Handsworth, BirminghamWatt continued to invent other things before and during his semi-retirement. He invented a new method of measuring distances by telescope, a device for copying letters, improvements in the oil lamp, a steam mangle and a machine for copying sculptures. Within his home in Handsworth Heath, Staffordshire, Watt made use of a garret room as a workshop, and it was here that he worked on many of his inventions.
He and his second wife travelled to France and Germany, and he purchased an estate in Wales at Doldowlod House, one mile south of Llanwrthwl, which he much improved.
He died on 25 August 1819 at his home "Heathfield" in Handsworth, Birmingham, England at the age of 83. He was buried on 2 September.
The garret room workshop that Watt used in his retirement was left locked and untouched until 1853, when it was first viewed by his biographer J. P. Muirhead. Thereafter, it was occasionally visited, but left untouched, as a kind of shrine. A proposal to have it transferred to the Patent Office came to nothing. When the house was due to be demolished in 1924, the room and all its contents were presented to the Science Museum, where it was recreated in its entirety. Garret workshop of James Watt It remained on display for visitors for many years, but was walled-off when the gallery it was housed in closed. The workshop remains intact, and preserved, and there are plans for it to go on display again at some point in the near future.
Original Condenser by James Watt.
As with many major inventions, there is some dispute as to whether Watt was the original sole inventor of some of the numerous inventions he patented. There is no dispute, however, that he was the sole inventor of his most important invention, the separate condenser. It was his practice (from around the 1780s) to pre-empt others' ideas which were known to him by filing patents with the intention of securing credit for the invention for himself, and ensuring that no one else was able to practice it. As he states in a letter to Boulton of 17 August 1784:
:I have given such descriptions of engines for wheel carriages as I could do in the time and space I could allow myself; but it is very defective and can only serve to keep other people from similar patents.
Some argue that his prohibitions on his employee William Murdoch from working with high pressure steam on his steam road locomotive experiments delayed its development. Watt, with his partner Matthew Boulton, battled against rival engineers such as Jonathan Hornblower who tried to develop engines which did not fall foul of his patents.
Watt patented the application of the sun and planet gear to steam in 1781 and a steam locomotive in 1784, both of which have strong claims to have been invented by his employee, William Murdoch. Watt himself described the provenance of the invention of the sun and planet gear in a letter to Boulton from Watt dated 5 January 1782:
:I have tried a model of one of my old plans of rotative engines revived and executed by W. M[urdock] and which merits being included in the specification as a fifth method...
The patent was never contested by Murdoch, who remained an employee of Boulton and Watt for most of his life, and Boulton and Watt's firm continued to use the sun and planet gear in their rotative engines, even long after the patent for the crank expired in 1794.
Watt opposed the use of high-pressure steam, and many inventors such as Richard Trevithick pioneered such engines, although frequently running into patent infringement actions by Watt. Those more efficient steam engines would eventually displace Watt's engines, leading to another industrial revolution with the development of the steam locomotive.
James Watt statue on City Square at Leeds.
Watt celebrated in a statue by Alexander Munro in Chamberlain Square, outside Birmingham Central Library
James Watt's improvements transformed the Newcomen engine, which had hardly changed for fifty years, and initiated changes in generating and applying power, which transformed the world of work, and were a key innovation of the Industrial Revolution. The importance of the invention can hardly be overstatedâit gave us the modern world. A key feature of it was that it brought the engine out of the remote coal fields into factories where many mechanics, engineers, and even tinkerers were exposed to its virtues and limitations. It was a platform for generations of inventors to improve. It was clear to many that higher pressures produced in improved boilers would produce engines having even higher efficiency, and would lead to the revolution in transportation that was soon embodied in the locomotive and steamboat. It made possible the construction of new factories that, since they were not dependent on water power, could work the year round, and could be placed almost anywhere. Work was moved out of the cottages, resulting in economies of scale. Capital could work more efficiently, and manufacturing productivity greatly improved. It made possible the cascade of new sorts of machine tools that could be used to produce better machines, including that most remarkable of all of them, the Watt steam engine.
Of Watt, the English Novelist Aldous Huxley (1894-1963) wrote; "To us, the moment 8:17 A.M. means something - something very important, if it happens to be the starting time of our daily train. To our ancestors, such an odd eccentric instant was without significance - did not even exist. In inventing the locomotive, Watt and Stephenson were part inventors of time."
Watt was a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and the Royal Society of London. He was a member of the Batavian Society, and one of only eight Foreign Associates of the French Academy of Sciences.
The watt is named after James Watt for his contributions to the development of the steam engine, and was adopted by the Second Congress of the British Association for the Advancement of Science in 1889 and by the 11th General Conference on Weights and Measures in 1960 as the unit of power incorporated in the International System of Units (or "SI").
'
The James Watt Memorial College in Greenock.
Watt was buried in the grounds of St. Mary's Church, Handsworth, in Birmingham. Later expansion of the church, over his grave, means that his tomb is now buried inside the church. A statue of him, Boulton and Murdoch is in Birmingham, as are five other statues of him alone, one in Chamberlain Square, the other outside the Law Courts. He is also remembered by the Moonstones and a school is named in his honour, both in Birmingham. An extensive archive of his papers is held at Birmingham Central Library. Matthew Boulton's home, Soho House, is now a museum, commemorating the work of both men. The University of Glasgow's Faculty of Engineering, the oldest in the United Kingdom, (where Watt was a professor) has its headquarters in the James Watt Building, which also houses the department of Mechanical Engineering and the department of Aerospace Engineering.
The location of James Watt's birth in Greenock is commemorated by a statue, close to his birthplace. Several locations and street names in Greenock recall him, most notably the Watt Memorial Library, which was begun in 1816 with Watt's donation of scientific books, and developed as part of the Watt Institution by his son (which ultimately became the James Watt College). Taken over by the local authority in 1974, the library now also houses the local history collection and archives of Inverclyde, and is dominated by a large seated statue in the vestibule. Watt is additionally commemorated by statuary in George Square, Glasgow and Princes Street, Edinburgh.
The James Watt College has expanded from its original location to include campuses in Kilwinning (North Ayrshire), Finnart Street and The Waterfront in Greenock, and the Sports campus in Largs. Heriot-Watt University near Edinburgh was at one time the School of Arts of Edinburgh, founded in 1821 as the worldâs first Mechanics Institute, but to commemorate George Heriot, the 16th century financier to King James, and James Watt, after Royal Charter the name was changed to Heriot-Watt University. Dozens of university and college buildings (chiefly of science and technology) are named after him.
The huge painting James Watt contemplating the steam engine by James Eckford Lauder is now owned by the National Gallery of Scotland.
Watt was ranked first, tying with Edison, among 229 significant figures in the history of technology by Charles Murray's survey of historiometry presented in his book Human Accomplishments.
Over 50 roads or streets in the UK are named after him.
A colossal statue of Watt by Chantrey was placed in Westminster Abbey, and later was moved to St. Paul's Cathedral. On the cenotaph the inscription reads:
Chantrey's statue of James Watt
:NOT TO PERPETUATE A NAME,
:WHICH MUST ENDURE WHILE THE PEACEFUL ARTS FLOURISH,
:BUT TO SHOW
:THAT MANKIND HAVE LEARNED TO HONOUR THOSE
:WHO BEST DESERVE THEIR GRATITUDE,
:THE KING,
:HIS MINISTERS, AND MANY OF THE NOBLES
:AND COMMONERS OF THE REALM
:RAISED THIS MONUMENT TO
:JAMES WATT
:WHO DIRECTING THE FORCE OF AN ORIGINAL GENIUS
:EARLY EXERCISED IN PHILOSOPHIC RESEARCH
:TO THE IMPROVEMENT OF
:THE STEAM-ENGINE
:ENLARGED THE RESOURCES OF HIS COUNTRY
:INCREASED THE POWER OF MAN
:AND ROSE TO AN EMINENT PLACE
:AMONG THE MOST ILLUSTRIOUS FOLLOWERS OF SCIENCE
:AND THE REAL BENEFACTORS OF THE WORLD
:BORN AT GREENOCK MDCCXXXVI
:DIED AT HEATHFIELD IN STAFFORDSHIRE MDCCCXIX
A lecture theatre in the Mechanical & Manufacturing Engineering building at the University of Birmingham is named "G31 - The James Watt Lecture Theatre".
On 29 May 2009, the Bank of England announced that Watt would appear on a new £50 note, alongside Matthew Boulton.
* Watt steam engine
* Centrifugal governor
* Indicator diagram
* Watt's linkage
* Parallel motion
* Sun and planet gear
*"Some Unpublished Letters of James Watt" in Journal of Institution of Mechanical Engineers (London, 1915).
*Carnegie, Andrew, James Watt University Press of the Pacific (2001) (Reprinted from the 1913 ed.), ISBN 0-89875-578-6.
*
* H. W. Dickinson and Hugh Pembroke Vowles James Watt and the Industrial Revolution (published in 1943, new edition 1948 and reprinted in 1949. Also published in Spanish and Portuguese (1944) by the British Council)
*Hills, Rev. Dr. Richard L., James Watt, Vol 1, His time in Scotland, 1736-1774 (2002); Vol 2, The years of toil, 1775-1785; Vol 3 Triumph through adversity 1785-1819. Landmark Publishing Ltd, ISBN 1-84306-045-0.
*
*
*Marsden, Ben. Watt's Perfect Engine Columbia University Press (New York, 2002) ISBN 0-231-13172-0.
*
*
*Samuel Smiles, Lives of the Engineers, (London, 1861-62, new edition, five volumes, 1905).
;Related topics
*
*
* James Watt by Andrew Carnegie (1905)
* James Watt by Thomas H. Marshall (1925)
* Archives of Soho at Birmingham Central Library.
* BBC History: James Watt
* Revolutionary Players website
* Cornwall Record Office Boulton & Watt letters
* Significant Scots - James Watt
*
|
James_Watt | When did Watt retire? | In 1800. | data/set4/a2 | James_Watt
James Watt, FRS, FRSE (19 January 1736 25 August 1819) was a Scottish inventor and mechanical engineer whose improvements to the Newcomen steam engine were fundamental to the changes brought by the Industrial Revolution in both the Kingdom of Great Britain and the world.
James Watt was born on 19 January 1736 in Greenock, Renfrewshire, a seaport on the Firth of Clyde. His father was a shipwright, ship owner and contractor, and served as the town's chief baillie, while his mother, Agnes Muirhead, came from a distinguished family and was well educated. Both were Presbyterians and strong Covenanters. Watt's grandfather, Thomas Watt, was a mathematics teacher and baillie to the Baron of Cartsburn. Watt did not attend school regularly; initially he was mostly schooled at home by his mother but later he attended Greenock grammar school. He exhibited great manual dexterity and an aptitude for mathematics, although Latin and Greek failed to interest him, and he absorbed the legends and lore of the Scottish people.
When he was 18, his mother died and his father's health had begun to fail. Watt travelled to London to study instrument-making for a year, then returned to Scotland to Glasgow intent on setting up his own instrument-making business. However, because he had not served at least seven years as an apprentice, the Glasgow Guild of Hammermen (any artisans using hammers) blocked his application, despite there being no other mathematical instrument makers in Scotland.
Watt was saved from this impasse by three professors of the University of Glasgow, who offered him the opportunity to set up a small workshop within the university. It was established in 1758 and one of the professors, the physicist and chemist Joseph Black, became Watt's friend.
In 1764, Watt married his cousin Margaret Miller, with whom he had five children, two of whom lived to adulthood. She died in childbirth in 1772. In 1777 he married again, to Ann MacGregor, daughter of a Glasgow dye-maker, who survived him. She died in 1832.
Watt was an enthusiastic inventor, with a fertile imagination that sometimes got in the way of finishing his works, because he could always see "just one more improvement". He was skilled with his hands, and was also able to perform systematic scientific measurements that could quantify the improvements he made and produce a greater understanding of the phenomenon he was working with.
Watt was a gentleman, greatly respected by other prominent men of the Industrial Revolution. He was an important member of the Lunar Society, and was a much sought after conversationalist and companion, always interested in expanding his horizons. He was a rather poor businessman, and especially hated bargaining and negotiating terms with those who sought to utilize the steam engine. Until he retired, he was always much concerned about his financial affairs, and was something of a worrier. His personal relationships with his friends and partners were always congenial and long-lasting.
James Watt's workshop
Watt retired in 1800, the same year that his fundamental patent and partnership with Boulton expired. The famous partnership was transferred to the men's sons, Matthew Boulton and James Watt Jr. Longtime firm engineer William Murdoch was made a partner and the firm prospered.
"Heathfield", Watt's house in Handsworth, BirminghamWatt continued to invent other things before and during his semi-retirement. He invented a new method of measuring distances by telescope, a device for copying letters, improvements in the oil lamp, a steam mangle and a machine for copying sculptures. Within his home in Handsworth Heath, Staffordshire, Watt made use of a garret room as a workshop, and it was here that he worked on many of his inventions.
He and his second wife travelled to France and Germany, and he purchased an estate in Wales at Doldowlod House, one mile south of Llanwrthwl, which he much improved.
He died on 25 August 1819 at his home "Heathfield" in Handsworth, Birmingham, England at the age of 83. He was buried on 2 September.
The garret room workshop that Watt used in his retirement was left locked and untouched until 1853, when it was first viewed by his biographer J. P. Muirhead. Thereafter, it was occasionally visited, but left untouched, as a kind of shrine. A proposal to have it transferred to the Patent Office came to nothing. When the house was due to be demolished in 1924, the room and all its contents were presented to the Science Museum, where it was recreated in its entirety. Garret workshop of James Watt It remained on display for visitors for many years, but was walled-off when the gallery it was housed in closed. The workshop remains intact, and preserved, and there are plans for it to go on display again at some point in the near future.
Original Condenser by James Watt.
As with many major inventions, there is some dispute as to whether Watt was the original sole inventor of some of the numerous inventions he patented. There is no dispute, however, that he was the sole inventor of his most important invention, the separate condenser. It was his practice (from around the 1780s) to pre-empt others' ideas which were known to him by filing patents with the intention of securing credit for the invention for himself, and ensuring that no one else was able to practice it. As he states in a letter to Boulton of 17 August 1784:
:I have given such descriptions of engines for wheel carriages as I could do in the time and space I could allow myself; but it is very defective and can only serve to keep other people from similar patents.
Some argue that his prohibitions on his employee William Murdoch from working with high pressure steam on his steam road locomotive experiments delayed its development. Watt, with his partner Matthew Boulton, battled against rival engineers such as Jonathan Hornblower who tried to develop engines which did not fall foul of his patents.
Watt patented the application of the sun and planet gear to steam in 1781 and a steam locomotive in 1784, both of which have strong claims to have been invented by his employee, William Murdoch. Watt himself described the provenance of the invention of the sun and planet gear in a letter to Boulton from Watt dated 5 January 1782:
:I have tried a model of one of my old plans of rotative engines revived and executed by W. M[urdock] and which merits being included in the specification as a fifth method...
The patent was never contested by Murdoch, who remained an employee of Boulton and Watt for most of his life, and Boulton and Watt's firm continued to use the sun and planet gear in their rotative engines, even long after the patent for the crank expired in 1794.
Watt opposed the use of high-pressure steam, and many inventors such as Richard Trevithick pioneered such engines, although frequently running into patent infringement actions by Watt. Those more efficient steam engines would eventually displace Watt's engines, leading to another industrial revolution with the development of the steam locomotive.
James Watt statue on City Square at Leeds.
Watt celebrated in a statue by Alexander Munro in Chamberlain Square, outside Birmingham Central Library
James Watt's improvements transformed the Newcomen engine, which had hardly changed for fifty years, and initiated changes in generating and applying power, which transformed the world of work, and were a key innovation of the Industrial Revolution. The importance of the invention can hardly be overstatedâit gave us the modern world. A key feature of it was that it brought the engine out of the remote coal fields into factories where many mechanics, engineers, and even tinkerers were exposed to its virtues and limitations. It was a platform for generations of inventors to improve. It was clear to many that higher pressures produced in improved boilers would produce engines having even higher efficiency, and would lead to the revolution in transportation that was soon embodied in the locomotive and steamboat. It made possible the construction of new factories that, since they were not dependent on water power, could work the year round, and could be placed almost anywhere. Work was moved out of the cottages, resulting in economies of scale. Capital could work more efficiently, and manufacturing productivity greatly improved. It made possible the cascade of new sorts of machine tools that could be used to produce better machines, including that most remarkable of all of them, the Watt steam engine.
Of Watt, the English Novelist Aldous Huxley (1894-1963) wrote; "To us, the moment 8:17 A.M. means something - something very important, if it happens to be the starting time of our daily train. To our ancestors, such an odd eccentric instant was without significance - did not even exist. In inventing the locomotive, Watt and Stephenson were part inventors of time."
Watt was a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and the Royal Society of London. He was a member of the Batavian Society, and one of only eight Foreign Associates of the French Academy of Sciences.
The watt is named after James Watt for his contributions to the development of the steam engine, and was adopted by the Second Congress of the British Association for the Advancement of Science in 1889 and by the 11th General Conference on Weights and Measures in 1960 as the unit of power incorporated in the International System of Units (or "SI").
'
The James Watt Memorial College in Greenock.
Watt was buried in the grounds of St. Mary's Church, Handsworth, in Birmingham. Later expansion of the church, over his grave, means that his tomb is now buried inside the church. A statue of him, Boulton and Murdoch is in Birmingham, as are five other statues of him alone, one in Chamberlain Square, the other outside the Law Courts. He is also remembered by the Moonstones and a school is named in his honour, both in Birmingham. An extensive archive of his papers is held at Birmingham Central Library. Matthew Boulton's home, Soho House, is now a museum, commemorating the work of both men. The University of Glasgow's Faculty of Engineering, the oldest in the United Kingdom, (where Watt was a professor) has its headquarters in the James Watt Building, which also houses the department of Mechanical Engineering and the department of Aerospace Engineering.
The location of James Watt's birth in Greenock is commemorated by a statue, close to his birthplace. Several locations and street names in Greenock recall him, most notably the Watt Memorial Library, which was begun in 1816 with Watt's donation of scientific books, and developed as part of the Watt Institution by his son (which ultimately became the James Watt College). Taken over by the local authority in 1974, the library now also houses the local history collection and archives of Inverclyde, and is dominated by a large seated statue in the vestibule. Watt is additionally commemorated by statuary in George Square, Glasgow and Princes Street, Edinburgh.
The James Watt College has expanded from its original location to include campuses in Kilwinning (North Ayrshire), Finnart Street and The Waterfront in Greenock, and the Sports campus in Largs. Heriot-Watt University near Edinburgh was at one time the School of Arts of Edinburgh, founded in 1821 as the worldâs first Mechanics Institute, but to commemorate George Heriot, the 16th century financier to King James, and James Watt, after Royal Charter the name was changed to Heriot-Watt University. Dozens of university and college buildings (chiefly of science and technology) are named after him.
The huge painting James Watt contemplating the steam engine by James Eckford Lauder is now owned by the National Gallery of Scotland.
Watt was ranked first, tying with Edison, among 229 significant figures in the history of technology by Charles Murray's survey of historiometry presented in his book Human Accomplishments.
Over 50 roads or streets in the UK are named after him.
A colossal statue of Watt by Chantrey was placed in Westminster Abbey, and later was moved to St. Paul's Cathedral. On the cenotaph the inscription reads:
Chantrey's statue of James Watt
:NOT TO PERPETUATE A NAME,
:WHICH MUST ENDURE WHILE THE PEACEFUL ARTS FLOURISH,
:BUT TO SHOW
:THAT MANKIND HAVE LEARNED TO HONOUR THOSE
:WHO BEST DESERVE THEIR GRATITUDE,
:THE KING,
:HIS MINISTERS, AND MANY OF THE NOBLES
:AND COMMONERS OF THE REALM
:RAISED THIS MONUMENT TO
:JAMES WATT
:WHO DIRECTING THE FORCE OF AN ORIGINAL GENIUS
:EARLY EXERCISED IN PHILOSOPHIC RESEARCH
:TO THE IMPROVEMENT OF
:THE STEAM-ENGINE
:ENLARGED THE RESOURCES OF HIS COUNTRY
:INCREASED THE POWER OF MAN
:AND ROSE TO AN EMINENT PLACE
:AMONG THE MOST ILLUSTRIOUS FOLLOWERS OF SCIENCE
:AND THE REAL BENEFACTORS OF THE WORLD
:BORN AT GREENOCK MDCCXXXVI
:DIED AT HEATHFIELD IN STAFFORDSHIRE MDCCCXIX
A lecture theatre in the Mechanical & Manufacturing Engineering building at the University of Birmingham is named "G31 - The James Watt Lecture Theatre".
On 29 May 2009, the Bank of England announced that Watt would appear on a new £50 note, alongside Matthew Boulton.
* Watt steam engine
* Centrifugal governor
* Indicator diagram
* Watt's linkage
* Parallel motion
* Sun and planet gear
*"Some Unpublished Letters of James Watt" in Journal of Institution of Mechanical Engineers (London, 1915).
*Carnegie, Andrew, James Watt University Press of the Pacific (2001) (Reprinted from the 1913 ed.), ISBN 0-89875-578-6.
*
* H. W. Dickinson and Hugh Pembroke Vowles James Watt and the Industrial Revolution (published in 1943, new edition 1948 and reprinted in 1949. Also published in Spanish and Portuguese (1944) by the British Council)
*Hills, Rev. Dr. Richard L., James Watt, Vol 1, His time in Scotland, 1736-1774 (2002); Vol 2, The years of toil, 1775-1785; Vol 3 Triumph through adversity 1785-1819. Landmark Publishing Ltd, ISBN 1-84306-045-0.
*
*
*Marsden, Ben. Watt's Perfect Engine Columbia University Press (New York, 2002) ISBN 0-231-13172-0.
*
*
*Samuel Smiles, Lives of the Engineers, (London, 1861-62, new edition, five volumes, 1905).
;Related topics
*
*
* James Watt by Andrew Carnegie (1905)
* James Watt by Thomas H. Marshall (1925)
* Archives of Soho at Birmingham Central Library.
* BBC History: James Watt
* Revolutionary Players website
* Cornwall Record Office Boulton & Watt letters
* Significant Scots - James Watt
*
|
James_Watt | When did Watt retire? | Watt retired in 1800. | data/set4/a2 | James_Watt
James Watt, FRS, FRSE (19 January 1736 25 August 1819) was a Scottish inventor and mechanical engineer whose improvements to the Newcomen steam engine were fundamental to the changes brought by the Industrial Revolution in both the Kingdom of Great Britain and the world.
James Watt was born on 19 January 1736 in Greenock, Renfrewshire, a seaport on the Firth of Clyde. His father was a shipwright, ship owner and contractor, and served as the town's chief baillie, while his mother, Agnes Muirhead, came from a distinguished family and was well educated. Both were Presbyterians and strong Covenanters. Watt's grandfather, Thomas Watt, was a mathematics teacher and baillie to the Baron of Cartsburn. Watt did not attend school regularly; initially he was mostly schooled at home by his mother but later he attended Greenock grammar school. He exhibited great manual dexterity and an aptitude for mathematics, although Latin and Greek failed to interest him, and he absorbed the legends and lore of the Scottish people.
When he was 18, his mother died and his father's health had begun to fail. Watt travelled to London to study instrument-making for a year, then returned to Scotland to Glasgow intent on setting up his own instrument-making business. However, because he had not served at least seven years as an apprentice, the Glasgow Guild of Hammermen (any artisans using hammers) blocked his application, despite there being no other mathematical instrument makers in Scotland.
Watt was saved from this impasse by three professors of the University of Glasgow, who offered him the opportunity to set up a small workshop within the university. It was established in 1758 and one of the professors, the physicist and chemist Joseph Black, became Watt's friend.
In 1764, Watt married his cousin Margaret Miller, with whom he had five children, two of whom lived to adulthood. She died in childbirth in 1772. In 1777 he married again, to Ann MacGregor, daughter of a Glasgow dye-maker, who survived him. She died in 1832.
Watt was an enthusiastic inventor, with a fertile imagination that sometimes got in the way of finishing his works, because he could always see "just one more improvement". He was skilled with his hands, and was also able to perform systematic scientific measurements that could quantify the improvements he made and produce a greater understanding of the phenomenon he was working with.
Watt was a gentleman, greatly respected by other prominent men of the Industrial Revolution. He was an important member of the Lunar Society, and was a much sought after conversationalist and companion, always interested in expanding his horizons. He was a rather poor businessman, and especially hated bargaining and negotiating terms with those who sought to utilize the steam engine. Until he retired, he was always much concerned about his financial affairs, and was something of a worrier. His personal relationships with his friends and partners were always congenial and long-lasting.
James Watt's workshop
Watt retired in 1800, the same year that his fundamental patent and partnership with Boulton expired. The famous partnership was transferred to the men's sons, Matthew Boulton and James Watt Jr. Longtime firm engineer William Murdoch was made a partner and the firm prospered.
"Heathfield", Watt's house in Handsworth, BirminghamWatt continued to invent other things before and during his semi-retirement. He invented a new method of measuring distances by telescope, a device for copying letters, improvements in the oil lamp, a steam mangle and a machine for copying sculptures. Within his home in Handsworth Heath, Staffordshire, Watt made use of a garret room as a workshop, and it was here that he worked on many of his inventions.
He and his second wife travelled to France and Germany, and he purchased an estate in Wales at Doldowlod House, one mile south of Llanwrthwl, which he much improved.
He died on 25 August 1819 at his home "Heathfield" in Handsworth, Birmingham, England at the age of 83. He was buried on 2 September.
The garret room workshop that Watt used in his retirement was left locked and untouched until 1853, when it was first viewed by his biographer J. P. Muirhead. Thereafter, it was occasionally visited, but left untouched, as a kind of shrine. A proposal to have it transferred to the Patent Office came to nothing. When the house was due to be demolished in 1924, the room and all its contents were presented to the Science Museum, where it was recreated in its entirety. Garret workshop of James Watt It remained on display for visitors for many years, but was walled-off when the gallery it was housed in closed. The workshop remains intact, and preserved, and there are plans for it to go on display again at some point in the near future.
Original Condenser by James Watt.
As with many major inventions, there is some dispute as to whether Watt was the original sole inventor of some of the numerous inventions he patented. There is no dispute, however, that he was the sole inventor of his most important invention, the separate condenser. It was his practice (from around the 1780s) to pre-empt others' ideas which were known to him by filing patents with the intention of securing credit for the invention for himself, and ensuring that no one else was able to practice it. As he states in a letter to Boulton of 17 August 1784:
:I have given such descriptions of engines for wheel carriages as I could do in the time and space I could allow myself; but it is very defective and can only serve to keep other people from similar patents.
Some argue that his prohibitions on his employee William Murdoch from working with high pressure steam on his steam road locomotive experiments delayed its development. Watt, with his partner Matthew Boulton, battled against rival engineers such as Jonathan Hornblower who tried to develop engines which did not fall foul of his patents.
Watt patented the application of the sun and planet gear to steam in 1781 and a steam locomotive in 1784, both of which have strong claims to have been invented by his employee, William Murdoch. Watt himself described the provenance of the invention of the sun and planet gear in a letter to Boulton from Watt dated 5 January 1782:
:I have tried a model of one of my old plans of rotative engines revived and executed by W. M[urdock] and which merits being included in the specification as a fifth method...
The patent was never contested by Murdoch, who remained an employee of Boulton and Watt for most of his life, and Boulton and Watt's firm continued to use the sun and planet gear in their rotative engines, even long after the patent for the crank expired in 1794.
Watt opposed the use of high-pressure steam, and many inventors such as Richard Trevithick pioneered such engines, although frequently running into patent infringement actions by Watt. Those more efficient steam engines would eventually displace Watt's engines, leading to another industrial revolution with the development of the steam locomotive.
James Watt statue on City Square at Leeds.
Watt celebrated in a statue by Alexander Munro in Chamberlain Square, outside Birmingham Central Library
James Watt's improvements transformed the Newcomen engine, which had hardly changed for fifty years, and initiated changes in generating and applying power, which transformed the world of work, and were a key innovation of the Industrial Revolution. The importance of the invention can hardly be overstatedâit gave us the modern world. A key feature of it was that it brought the engine out of the remote coal fields into factories where many mechanics, engineers, and even tinkerers were exposed to its virtues and limitations. It was a platform for generations of inventors to improve. It was clear to many that higher pressures produced in improved boilers would produce engines having even higher efficiency, and would lead to the revolution in transportation that was soon embodied in the locomotive and steamboat. It made possible the construction of new factories that, since they were not dependent on water power, could work the year round, and could be placed almost anywhere. Work was moved out of the cottages, resulting in economies of scale. Capital could work more efficiently, and manufacturing productivity greatly improved. It made possible the cascade of new sorts of machine tools that could be used to produce better machines, including that most remarkable of all of them, the Watt steam engine.
Of Watt, the English Novelist Aldous Huxley (1894-1963) wrote; "To us, the moment 8:17 A.M. means something - something very important, if it happens to be the starting time of our daily train. To our ancestors, such an odd eccentric instant was without significance - did not even exist. In inventing the locomotive, Watt and Stephenson were part inventors of time."
Watt was a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and the Royal Society of London. He was a member of the Batavian Society, and one of only eight Foreign Associates of the French Academy of Sciences.
The watt is named after James Watt for his contributions to the development of the steam engine, and was adopted by the Second Congress of the British Association for the Advancement of Science in 1889 and by the 11th General Conference on Weights and Measures in 1960 as the unit of power incorporated in the International System of Units (or "SI").
'
The James Watt Memorial College in Greenock.
Watt was buried in the grounds of St. Mary's Church, Handsworth, in Birmingham. Later expansion of the church, over his grave, means that his tomb is now buried inside the church. A statue of him, Boulton and Murdoch is in Birmingham, as are five other statues of him alone, one in Chamberlain Square, the other outside the Law Courts. He is also remembered by the Moonstones and a school is named in his honour, both in Birmingham. An extensive archive of his papers is held at Birmingham Central Library. Matthew Boulton's home, Soho House, is now a museum, commemorating the work of both men. The University of Glasgow's Faculty of Engineering, the oldest in the United Kingdom, (where Watt was a professor) has its headquarters in the James Watt Building, which also houses the department of Mechanical Engineering and the department of Aerospace Engineering.
The location of James Watt's birth in Greenock is commemorated by a statue, close to his birthplace. Several locations and street names in Greenock recall him, most notably the Watt Memorial Library, which was begun in 1816 with Watt's donation of scientific books, and developed as part of the Watt Institution by his son (which ultimately became the James Watt College). Taken over by the local authority in 1974, the library now also houses the local history collection and archives of Inverclyde, and is dominated by a large seated statue in the vestibule. Watt is additionally commemorated by statuary in George Square, Glasgow and Princes Street, Edinburgh.
The James Watt College has expanded from its original location to include campuses in Kilwinning (North Ayrshire), Finnart Street and The Waterfront in Greenock, and the Sports campus in Largs. Heriot-Watt University near Edinburgh was at one time the School of Arts of Edinburgh, founded in 1821 as the worldâs first Mechanics Institute, but to commemorate George Heriot, the 16th century financier to King James, and James Watt, after Royal Charter the name was changed to Heriot-Watt University. Dozens of university and college buildings (chiefly of science and technology) are named after him.
The huge painting James Watt contemplating the steam engine by James Eckford Lauder is now owned by the National Gallery of Scotland.
Watt was ranked first, tying with Edison, among 229 significant figures in the history of technology by Charles Murray's survey of historiometry presented in his book Human Accomplishments.
Over 50 roads or streets in the UK are named after him.
A colossal statue of Watt by Chantrey was placed in Westminster Abbey, and later was moved to St. Paul's Cathedral. On the cenotaph the inscription reads:
Chantrey's statue of James Watt
:NOT TO PERPETUATE A NAME,
:WHICH MUST ENDURE WHILE THE PEACEFUL ARTS FLOURISH,
:BUT TO SHOW
:THAT MANKIND HAVE LEARNED TO HONOUR THOSE
:WHO BEST DESERVE THEIR GRATITUDE,
:THE KING,
:HIS MINISTERS, AND MANY OF THE NOBLES
:AND COMMONERS OF THE REALM
:RAISED THIS MONUMENT TO
:JAMES WATT
:WHO DIRECTING THE FORCE OF AN ORIGINAL GENIUS
:EARLY EXERCISED IN PHILOSOPHIC RESEARCH
:TO THE IMPROVEMENT OF
:THE STEAM-ENGINE
:ENLARGED THE RESOURCES OF HIS COUNTRY
:INCREASED THE POWER OF MAN
:AND ROSE TO AN EMINENT PLACE
:AMONG THE MOST ILLUSTRIOUS FOLLOWERS OF SCIENCE
:AND THE REAL BENEFACTORS OF THE WORLD
:BORN AT GREENOCK MDCCXXXVI
:DIED AT HEATHFIELD IN STAFFORDSHIRE MDCCCXIX
A lecture theatre in the Mechanical & Manufacturing Engineering building at the University of Birmingham is named "G31 - The James Watt Lecture Theatre".
On 29 May 2009, the Bank of England announced that Watt would appear on a new £50 note, alongside Matthew Boulton.
* Watt steam engine
* Centrifugal governor
* Indicator diagram
* Watt's linkage
* Parallel motion
* Sun and planet gear
*"Some Unpublished Letters of James Watt" in Journal of Institution of Mechanical Engineers (London, 1915).
*Carnegie, Andrew, James Watt University Press of the Pacific (2001) (Reprinted from the 1913 ed.), ISBN 0-89875-578-6.
*
* H. W. Dickinson and Hugh Pembroke Vowles James Watt and the Industrial Revolution (published in 1943, new edition 1948 and reprinted in 1949. Also published in Spanish and Portuguese (1944) by the British Council)
*Hills, Rev. Dr. Richard L., James Watt, Vol 1, His time in Scotland, 1736-1774 (2002); Vol 2, The years of toil, 1775-1785; Vol 3 Triumph through adversity 1785-1819. Landmark Publishing Ltd, ISBN 1-84306-045-0.
*
*
*Marsden, Ben. Watt's Perfect Engine Columbia University Press (New York, 2002) ISBN 0-231-13172-0.
*
*
*Samuel Smiles, Lives of the Engineers, (London, 1861-62, new edition, five volumes, 1905).
;Related topics
*
*
* James Watt by Andrew Carnegie (1905)
* James Watt by Thomas H. Marshall (1925)
* Archives of Soho at Birmingham Central Library.
* BBC History: James Watt
* Revolutionary Players website
* Cornwall Record Office Boulton & Watt letters
* Significant Scots - James Watt
*
|
James_Watt | Where is the James Watt Memorial College? | In Greenock. | data/set4/a2 | James_Watt
James Watt, FRS, FRSE (19 January 1736 25 August 1819) was a Scottish inventor and mechanical engineer whose improvements to the Newcomen steam engine were fundamental to the changes brought by the Industrial Revolution in both the Kingdom of Great Britain and the world.
James Watt was born on 19 January 1736 in Greenock, Renfrewshire, a seaport on the Firth of Clyde. His father was a shipwright, ship owner and contractor, and served as the town's chief baillie, while his mother, Agnes Muirhead, came from a distinguished family and was well educated. Both were Presbyterians and strong Covenanters. Watt's grandfather, Thomas Watt, was a mathematics teacher and baillie to the Baron of Cartsburn. Watt did not attend school regularly; initially he was mostly schooled at home by his mother but later he attended Greenock grammar school. He exhibited great manual dexterity and an aptitude for mathematics, although Latin and Greek failed to interest him, and he absorbed the legends and lore of the Scottish people.
When he was 18, his mother died and his father's health had begun to fail. Watt travelled to London to study instrument-making for a year, then returned to Scotland to Glasgow intent on setting up his own instrument-making business. However, because he had not served at least seven years as an apprentice, the Glasgow Guild of Hammermen (any artisans using hammers) blocked his application, despite there being no other mathematical instrument makers in Scotland.
Watt was saved from this impasse by three professors of the University of Glasgow, who offered him the opportunity to set up a small workshop within the university. It was established in 1758 and one of the professors, the physicist and chemist Joseph Black, became Watt's friend.
In 1764, Watt married his cousin Margaret Miller, with whom he had five children, two of whom lived to adulthood. She died in childbirth in 1772. In 1777 he married again, to Ann MacGregor, daughter of a Glasgow dye-maker, who survived him. She died in 1832.
Watt was an enthusiastic inventor, with a fertile imagination that sometimes got in the way of finishing his works, because he could always see "just one more improvement". He was skilled with his hands, and was also able to perform systematic scientific measurements that could quantify the improvements he made and produce a greater understanding of the phenomenon he was working with.
Watt was a gentleman, greatly respected by other prominent men of the Industrial Revolution. He was an important member of the Lunar Society, and was a much sought after conversationalist and companion, always interested in expanding his horizons. He was a rather poor businessman, and especially hated bargaining and negotiating terms with those who sought to utilize the steam engine. Until he retired, he was always much concerned about his financial affairs, and was something of a worrier. His personal relationships with his friends and partners were always congenial and long-lasting.
James Watt's workshop
Watt retired in 1800, the same year that his fundamental patent and partnership with Boulton expired. The famous partnership was transferred to the men's sons, Matthew Boulton and James Watt Jr. Longtime firm engineer William Murdoch was made a partner and the firm prospered.
"Heathfield", Watt's house in Handsworth, BirminghamWatt continued to invent other things before and during his semi-retirement. He invented a new method of measuring distances by telescope, a device for copying letters, improvements in the oil lamp, a steam mangle and a machine for copying sculptures. Within his home in Handsworth Heath, Staffordshire, Watt made use of a garret room as a workshop, and it was here that he worked on many of his inventions.
He and his second wife travelled to France and Germany, and he purchased an estate in Wales at Doldowlod House, one mile south of Llanwrthwl, which he much improved.
He died on 25 August 1819 at his home "Heathfield" in Handsworth, Birmingham, England at the age of 83. He was buried on 2 September.
The garret room workshop that Watt used in his retirement was left locked and untouched until 1853, when it was first viewed by his biographer J. P. Muirhead. Thereafter, it was occasionally visited, but left untouched, as a kind of shrine. A proposal to have it transferred to the Patent Office came to nothing. When the house was due to be demolished in 1924, the room and all its contents were presented to the Science Museum, where it was recreated in its entirety. Garret workshop of James Watt It remained on display for visitors for many years, but was walled-off when the gallery it was housed in closed. The workshop remains intact, and preserved, and there are plans for it to go on display again at some point in the near future.
Original Condenser by James Watt.
As with many major inventions, there is some dispute as to whether Watt was the original sole inventor of some of the numerous inventions he patented. There is no dispute, however, that he was the sole inventor of his most important invention, the separate condenser. It was his practice (from around the 1780s) to pre-empt others' ideas which were known to him by filing patents with the intention of securing credit for the invention for himself, and ensuring that no one else was able to practice it. As he states in a letter to Boulton of 17 August 1784:
:I have given such descriptions of engines for wheel carriages as I could do in the time and space I could allow myself; but it is very defective and can only serve to keep other people from similar patents.
Some argue that his prohibitions on his employee William Murdoch from working with high pressure steam on his steam road locomotive experiments delayed its development. Watt, with his partner Matthew Boulton, battled against rival engineers such as Jonathan Hornblower who tried to develop engines which did not fall foul of his patents.
Watt patented the application of the sun and planet gear to steam in 1781 and a steam locomotive in 1784, both of which have strong claims to have been invented by his employee, William Murdoch. Watt himself described the provenance of the invention of the sun and planet gear in a letter to Boulton from Watt dated 5 January 1782:
:I have tried a model of one of my old plans of rotative engines revived and executed by W. M[urdock] and which merits being included in the specification as a fifth method...
The patent was never contested by Murdoch, who remained an employee of Boulton and Watt for most of his life, and Boulton and Watt's firm continued to use the sun and planet gear in their rotative engines, even long after the patent for the crank expired in 1794.
Watt opposed the use of high-pressure steam, and many inventors such as Richard Trevithick pioneered such engines, although frequently running into patent infringement actions by Watt. Those more efficient steam engines would eventually displace Watt's engines, leading to another industrial revolution with the development of the steam locomotive.
James Watt statue on City Square at Leeds.
Watt celebrated in a statue by Alexander Munro in Chamberlain Square, outside Birmingham Central Library
James Watt's improvements transformed the Newcomen engine, which had hardly changed for fifty years, and initiated changes in generating and applying power, which transformed the world of work, and were a key innovation of the Industrial Revolution. The importance of the invention can hardly be overstatedâit gave us the modern world. A key feature of it was that it brought the engine out of the remote coal fields into factories where many mechanics, engineers, and even tinkerers were exposed to its virtues and limitations. It was a platform for generations of inventors to improve. It was clear to many that higher pressures produced in improved boilers would produce engines having even higher efficiency, and would lead to the revolution in transportation that was soon embodied in the locomotive and steamboat. It made possible the construction of new factories that, since they were not dependent on water power, could work the year round, and could be placed almost anywhere. Work was moved out of the cottages, resulting in economies of scale. Capital could work more efficiently, and manufacturing productivity greatly improved. It made possible the cascade of new sorts of machine tools that could be used to produce better machines, including that most remarkable of all of them, the Watt steam engine.
Of Watt, the English Novelist Aldous Huxley (1894-1963) wrote; "To us, the moment 8:17 A.M. means something - something very important, if it happens to be the starting time of our daily train. To our ancestors, such an odd eccentric instant was without significance - did not even exist. In inventing the locomotive, Watt and Stephenson were part inventors of time."
Watt was a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and the Royal Society of London. He was a member of the Batavian Society, and one of only eight Foreign Associates of the French Academy of Sciences.
The watt is named after James Watt for his contributions to the development of the steam engine, and was adopted by the Second Congress of the British Association for the Advancement of Science in 1889 and by the 11th General Conference on Weights and Measures in 1960 as the unit of power incorporated in the International System of Units (or "SI").
'
The James Watt Memorial College in Greenock.
Watt was buried in the grounds of St. Mary's Church, Handsworth, in Birmingham. Later expansion of the church, over his grave, means that his tomb is now buried inside the church. A statue of him, Boulton and Murdoch is in Birmingham, as are five other statues of him alone, one in Chamberlain Square, the other outside the Law Courts. He is also remembered by the Moonstones and a school is named in his honour, both in Birmingham. An extensive archive of his papers is held at Birmingham Central Library. Matthew Boulton's home, Soho House, is now a museum, commemorating the work of both men. The University of Glasgow's Faculty of Engineering, the oldest in the United Kingdom, (where Watt was a professor) has its headquarters in the James Watt Building, which also houses the department of Mechanical Engineering and the department of Aerospace Engineering.
The location of James Watt's birth in Greenock is commemorated by a statue, close to his birthplace. Several locations and street names in Greenock recall him, most notably the Watt Memorial Library, which was begun in 1816 with Watt's donation of scientific books, and developed as part of the Watt Institution by his son (which ultimately became the James Watt College). Taken over by the local authority in 1974, the library now also houses the local history collection and archives of Inverclyde, and is dominated by a large seated statue in the vestibule. Watt is additionally commemorated by statuary in George Square, Glasgow and Princes Street, Edinburgh.
The James Watt College has expanded from its original location to include campuses in Kilwinning (North Ayrshire), Finnart Street and The Waterfront in Greenock, and the Sports campus in Largs. Heriot-Watt University near Edinburgh was at one time the School of Arts of Edinburgh, founded in 1821 as the worldâs first Mechanics Institute, but to commemorate George Heriot, the 16th century financier to King James, and James Watt, after Royal Charter the name was changed to Heriot-Watt University. Dozens of university and college buildings (chiefly of science and technology) are named after him.
The huge painting James Watt contemplating the steam engine by James Eckford Lauder is now owned by the National Gallery of Scotland.
Watt was ranked first, tying with Edison, among 229 significant figures in the history of technology by Charles Murray's survey of historiometry presented in his book Human Accomplishments.
Over 50 roads or streets in the UK are named after him.
A colossal statue of Watt by Chantrey was placed in Westminster Abbey, and later was moved to St. Paul's Cathedral. On the cenotaph the inscription reads:
Chantrey's statue of James Watt
:NOT TO PERPETUATE A NAME,
:WHICH MUST ENDURE WHILE THE PEACEFUL ARTS FLOURISH,
:BUT TO SHOW
:THAT MANKIND HAVE LEARNED TO HONOUR THOSE
:WHO BEST DESERVE THEIR GRATITUDE,
:THE KING,
:HIS MINISTERS, AND MANY OF THE NOBLES
:AND COMMONERS OF THE REALM
:RAISED THIS MONUMENT TO
:JAMES WATT
:WHO DIRECTING THE FORCE OF AN ORIGINAL GENIUS
:EARLY EXERCISED IN PHILOSOPHIC RESEARCH
:TO THE IMPROVEMENT OF
:THE STEAM-ENGINE
:ENLARGED THE RESOURCES OF HIS COUNTRY
:INCREASED THE POWER OF MAN
:AND ROSE TO AN EMINENT PLACE
:AMONG THE MOST ILLUSTRIOUS FOLLOWERS OF SCIENCE
:AND THE REAL BENEFACTORS OF THE WORLD
:BORN AT GREENOCK MDCCXXXVI
:DIED AT HEATHFIELD IN STAFFORDSHIRE MDCCCXIX
A lecture theatre in the Mechanical & Manufacturing Engineering building at the University of Birmingham is named "G31 - The James Watt Lecture Theatre".
On 29 May 2009, the Bank of England announced that Watt would appear on a new £50 note, alongside Matthew Boulton.
* Watt steam engine
* Centrifugal governor
* Indicator diagram
* Watt's linkage
* Parallel motion
* Sun and planet gear
*"Some Unpublished Letters of James Watt" in Journal of Institution of Mechanical Engineers (London, 1915).
*Carnegie, Andrew, James Watt University Press of the Pacific (2001) (Reprinted from the 1913 ed.), ISBN 0-89875-578-6.
*
* H. W. Dickinson and Hugh Pembroke Vowles James Watt and the Industrial Revolution (published in 1943, new edition 1948 and reprinted in 1949. Also published in Spanish and Portuguese (1944) by the British Council)
*Hills, Rev. Dr. Richard L., James Watt, Vol 1, His time in Scotland, 1736-1774 (2002); Vol 2, The years of toil, 1775-1785; Vol 3 Triumph through adversity 1785-1819. Landmark Publishing Ltd, ISBN 1-84306-045-0.
*
*
*Marsden, Ben. Watt's Perfect Engine Columbia University Press (New York, 2002) ISBN 0-231-13172-0.
*
*
*Samuel Smiles, Lives of the Engineers, (London, 1861-62, new edition, five volumes, 1905).
;Related topics
*
*
* James Watt by Andrew Carnegie (1905)
* James Watt by Thomas H. Marshall (1925)
* Archives of Soho at Birmingham Central Library.
* BBC History: James Watt
* Revolutionary Players website
* Cornwall Record Office Boulton & Watt letters
* Significant Scots - James Watt
*
|
James_Watt | Where is the James Watt Memorial College? | The James Watt Memorial is in Greenock. | data/set4/a2 | James_Watt
James Watt, FRS, FRSE (19 January 1736 25 August 1819) was a Scottish inventor and mechanical engineer whose improvements to the Newcomen steam engine were fundamental to the changes brought by the Industrial Revolution in both the Kingdom of Great Britain and the world.
James Watt was born on 19 January 1736 in Greenock, Renfrewshire, a seaport on the Firth of Clyde. His father was a shipwright, ship owner and contractor, and served as the town's chief baillie, while his mother, Agnes Muirhead, came from a distinguished family and was well educated. Both were Presbyterians and strong Covenanters. Watt's grandfather, Thomas Watt, was a mathematics teacher and baillie to the Baron of Cartsburn. Watt did not attend school regularly; initially he was mostly schooled at home by his mother but later he attended Greenock grammar school. He exhibited great manual dexterity and an aptitude for mathematics, although Latin and Greek failed to interest him, and he absorbed the legends and lore of the Scottish people.
When he was 18, his mother died and his father's health had begun to fail. Watt travelled to London to study instrument-making for a year, then returned to Scotland to Glasgow intent on setting up his own instrument-making business. However, because he had not served at least seven years as an apprentice, the Glasgow Guild of Hammermen (any artisans using hammers) blocked his application, despite there being no other mathematical instrument makers in Scotland.
Watt was saved from this impasse by three professors of the University of Glasgow, who offered him the opportunity to set up a small workshop within the university. It was established in 1758 and one of the professors, the physicist and chemist Joseph Black, became Watt's friend.
In 1764, Watt married his cousin Margaret Miller, with whom he had five children, two of whom lived to adulthood. She died in childbirth in 1772. In 1777 he married again, to Ann MacGregor, daughter of a Glasgow dye-maker, who survived him. She died in 1832.
Watt was an enthusiastic inventor, with a fertile imagination that sometimes got in the way of finishing his works, because he could always see "just one more improvement". He was skilled with his hands, and was also able to perform systematic scientific measurements that could quantify the improvements he made and produce a greater understanding of the phenomenon he was working with.
Watt was a gentleman, greatly respected by other prominent men of the Industrial Revolution. He was an important member of the Lunar Society, and was a much sought after conversationalist and companion, always interested in expanding his horizons. He was a rather poor businessman, and especially hated bargaining and negotiating terms with those who sought to utilize the steam engine. Until he retired, he was always much concerned about his financial affairs, and was something of a worrier. His personal relationships with his friends and partners were always congenial and long-lasting.
James Watt's workshop
Watt retired in 1800, the same year that his fundamental patent and partnership with Boulton expired. The famous partnership was transferred to the men's sons, Matthew Boulton and James Watt Jr. Longtime firm engineer William Murdoch was made a partner and the firm prospered.
"Heathfield", Watt's house in Handsworth, BirminghamWatt continued to invent other things before and during his semi-retirement. He invented a new method of measuring distances by telescope, a device for copying letters, improvements in the oil lamp, a steam mangle and a machine for copying sculptures. Within his home in Handsworth Heath, Staffordshire, Watt made use of a garret room as a workshop, and it was here that he worked on many of his inventions.
He and his second wife travelled to France and Germany, and he purchased an estate in Wales at Doldowlod House, one mile south of Llanwrthwl, which he much improved.
He died on 25 August 1819 at his home "Heathfield" in Handsworth, Birmingham, England at the age of 83. He was buried on 2 September.
The garret room workshop that Watt used in his retirement was left locked and untouched until 1853, when it was first viewed by his biographer J. P. Muirhead. Thereafter, it was occasionally visited, but left untouched, as a kind of shrine. A proposal to have it transferred to the Patent Office came to nothing. When the house was due to be demolished in 1924, the room and all its contents were presented to the Science Museum, where it was recreated in its entirety. Garret workshop of James Watt It remained on display for visitors for many years, but was walled-off when the gallery it was housed in closed. The workshop remains intact, and preserved, and there are plans for it to go on display again at some point in the near future.
Original Condenser by James Watt.
As with many major inventions, there is some dispute as to whether Watt was the original sole inventor of some of the numerous inventions he patented. There is no dispute, however, that he was the sole inventor of his most important invention, the separate condenser. It was his practice (from around the 1780s) to pre-empt others' ideas which were known to him by filing patents with the intention of securing credit for the invention for himself, and ensuring that no one else was able to practice it. As he states in a letter to Boulton of 17 August 1784:
:I have given such descriptions of engines for wheel carriages as I could do in the time and space I could allow myself; but it is very defective and can only serve to keep other people from similar patents.
Some argue that his prohibitions on his employee William Murdoch from working with high pressure steam on his steam road locomotive experiments delayed its development. Watt, with his partner Matthew Boulton, battled against rival engineers such as Jonathan Hornblower who tried to develop engines which did not fall foul of his patents.
Watt patented the application of the sun and planet gear to steam in 1781 and a steam locomotive in 1784, both of which have strong claims to have been invented by his employee, William Murdoch. Watt himself described the provenance of the invention of the sun and planet gear in a letter to Boulton from Watt dated 5 January 1782:
:I have tried a model of one of my old plans of rotative engines revived and executed by W. M[urdock] and which merits being included in the specification as a fifth method...
The patent was never contested by Murdoch, who remained an employee of Boulton and Watt for most of his life, and Boulton and Watt's firm continued to use the sun and planet gear in their rotative engines, even long after the patent for the crank expired in 1794.
Watt opposed the use of high-pressure steam, and many inventors such as Richard Trevithick pioneered such engines, although frequently running into patent infringement actions by Watt. Those more efficient steam engines would eventually displace Watt's engines, leading to another industrial revolution with the development of the steam locomotive.
James Watt statue on City Square at Leeds.
Watt celebrated in a statue by Alexander Munro in Chamberlain Square, outside Birmingham Central Library
James Watt's improvements transformed the Newcomen engine, which had hardly changed for fifty years, and initiated changes in generating and applying power, which transformed the world of work, and were a key innovation of the Industrial Revolution. The importance of the invention can hardly be overstatedâit gave us the modern world. A key feature of it was that it brought the engine out of the remote coal fields into factories where many mechanics, engineers, and even tinkerers were exposed to its virtues and limitations. It was a platform for generations of inventors to improve. It was clear to many that higher pressures produced in improved boilers would produce engines having even higher efficiency, and would lead to the revolution in transportation that was soon embodied in the locomotive and steamboat. It made possible the construction of new factories that, since they were not dependent on water power, could work the year round, and could be placed almost anywhere. Work was moved out of the cottages, resulting in economies of scale. Capital could work more efficiently, and manufacturing productivity greatly improved. It made possible the cascade of new sorts of machine tools that could be used to produce better machines, including that most remarkable of all of them, the Watt steam engine.
Of Watt, the English Novelist Aldous Huxley (1894-1963) wrote; "To us, the moment 8:17 A.M. means something - something very important, if it happens to be the starting time of our daily train. To our ancestors, such an odd eccentric instant was without significance - did not even exist. In inventing the locomotive, Watt and Stephenson were part inventors of time."
Watt was a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and the Royal Society of London. He was a member of the Batavian Society, and one of only eight Foreign Associates of the French Academy of Sciences.
The watt is named after James Watt for his contributions to the development of the steam engine, and was adopted by the Second Congress of the British Association for the Advancement of Science in 1889 and by the 11th General Conference on Weights and Measures in 1960 as the unit of power incorporated in the International System of Units (or "SI").
'
The James Watt Memorial College in Greenock.
Watt was buried in the grounds of St. Mary's Church, Handsworth, in Birmingham. Later expansion of the church, over his grave, means that his tomb is now buried inside the church. A statue of him, Boulton and Murdoch is in Birmingham, as are five other statues of him alone, one in Chamberlain Square, the other outside the Law Courts. He is also remembered by the Moonstones and a school is named in his honour, both in Birmingham. An extensive archive of his papers is held at Birmingham Central Library. Matthew Boulton's home, Soho House, is now a museum, commemorating the work of both men. The University of Glasgow's Faculty of Engineering, the oldest in the United Kingdom, (where Watt was a professor) has its headquarters in the James Watt Building, which also houses the department of Mechanical Engineering and the department of Aerospace Engineering.
The location of James Watt's birth in Greenock is commemorated by a statue, close to his birthplace. Several locations and street names in Greenock recall him, most notably the Watt Memorial Library, which was begun in 1816 with Watt's donation of scientific books, and developed as part of the Watt Institution by his son (which ultimately became the James Watt College). Taken over by the local authority in 1974, the library now also houses the local history collection and archives of Inverclyde, and is dominated by a large seated statue in the vestibule. Watt is additionally commemorated by statuary in George Square, Glasgow and Princes Street, Edinburgh.
The James Watt College has expanded from its original location to include campuses in Kilwinning (North Ayrshire), Finnart Street and The Waterfront in Greenock, and the Sports campus in Largs. Heriot-Watt University near Edinburgh was at one time the School of Arts of Edinburgh, founded in 1821 as the worldâs first Mechanics Institute, but to commemorate George Heriot, the 16th century financier to King James, and James Watt, after Royal Charter the name was changed to Heriot-Watt University. Dozens of university and college buildings (chiefly of science and technology) are named after him.
The huge painting James Watt contemplating the steam engine by James Eckford Lauder is now owned by the National Gallery of Scotland.
Watt was ranked first, tying with Edison, among 229 significant figures in the history of technology by Charles Murray's survey of historiometry presented in his book Human Accomplishments.
Over 50 roads or streets in the UK are named after him.
A colossal statue of Watt by Chantrey was placed in Westminster Abbey, and later was moved to St. Paul's Cathedral. On the cenotaph the inscription reads:
Chantrey's statue of James Watt
:NOT TO PERPETUATE A NAME,
:WHICH MUST ENDURE WHILE THE PEACEFUL ARTS FLOURISH,
:BUT TO SHOW
:THAT MANKIND HAVE LEARNED TO HONOUR THOSE
:WHO BEST DESERVE THEIR GRATITUDE,
:THE KING,
:HIS MINISTERS, AND MANY OF THE NOBLES
:AND COMMONERS OF THE REALM
:RAISED THIS MONUMENT TO
:JAMES WATT
:WHO DIRECTING THE FORCE OF AN ORIGINAL GENIUS
:EARLY EXERCISED IN PHILOSOPHIC RESEARCH
:TO THE IMPROVEMENT OF
:THE STEAM-ENGINE
:ENLARGED THE RESOURCES OF HIS COUNTRY
:INCREASED THE POWER OF MAN
:AND ROSE TO AN EMINENT PLACE
:AMONG THE MOST ILLUSTRIOUS FOLLOWERS OF SCIENCE
:AND THE REAL BENEFACTORS OF THE WORLD
:BORN AT GREENOCK MDCCXXXVI
:DIED AT HEATHFIELD IN STAFFORDSHIRE MDCCCXIX
A lecture theatre in the Mechanical & Manufacturing Engineering building at the University of Birmingham is named "G31 - The James Watt Lecture Theatre".
On 29 May 2009, the Bank of England announced that Watt would appear on a new £50 note, alongside Matthew Boulton.
* Watt steam engine
* Centrifugal governor
* Indicator diagram
* Watt's linkage
* Parallel motion
* Sun and planet gear
*"Some Unpublished Letters of James Watt" in Journal of Institution of Mechanical Engineers (London, 1915).
*Carnegie, Andrew, James Watt University Press of the Pacific (2001) (Reprinted from the 1913 ed.), ISBN 0-89875-578-6.
*
* H. W. Dickinson and Hugh Pembroke Vowles James Watt and the Industrial Revolution (published in 1943, new edition 1948 and reprinted in 1949. Also published in Spanish and Portuguese (1944) by the British Council)
*Hills, Rev. Dr. Richard L., James Watt, Vol 1, His time in Scotland, 1736-1774 (2002); Vol 2, The years of toil, 1775-1785; Vol 3 Triumph through adversity 1785-1819. Landmark Publishing Ltd, ISBN 1-84306-045-0.
*
*
*Marsden, Ben. Watt's Perfect Engine Columbia University Press (New York, 2002) ISBN 0-231-13172-0.
*
*
*Samuel Smiles, Lives of the Engineers, (London, 1861-62, new edition, five volumes, 1905).
;Related topics
*
*
* James Watt by Andrew Carnegie (1905)
* James Watt by Thomas H. Marshall (1925)
* Archives of Soho at Birmingham Central Library.
* BBC History: James Watt
* Revolutionary Players website
* Cornwall Record Office Boulton & Watt letters
* Significant Scots - James Watt
*
|
James_Watt | Why is the watt named after Watt? | The watt is named after him for his contributions to the development of the steam engine. | data/set4/a2 | James_Watt
James Watt, FRS, FRSE (19 January 1736 25 August 1819) was a Scottish inventor and mechanical engineer whose improvements to the Newcomen steam engine were fundamental to the changes brought by the Industrial Revolution in both the Kingdom of Great Britain and the world.
James Watt was born on 19 January 1736 in Greenock, Renfrewshire, a seaport on the Firth of Clyde. His father was a shipwright, ship owner and contractor, and served as the town's chief baillie, while his mother, Agnes Muirhead, came from a distinguished family and was well educated. Both were Presbyterians and strong Covenanters. Watt's grandfather, Thomas Watt, was a mathematics teacher and baillie to the Baron of Cartsburn. Watt did not attend school regularly; initially he was mostly schooled at home by his mother but later he attended Greenock grammar school. He exhibited great manual dexterity and an aptitude for mathematics, although Latin and Greek failed to interest him, and he absorbed the legends and lore of the Scottish people.
When he was 18, his mother died and his father's health had begun to fail. Watt travelled to London to study instrument-making for a year, then returned to Scotland to Glasgow intent on setting up his own instrument-making business. However, because he had not served at least seven years as an apprentice, the Glasgow Guild of Hammermen (any artisans using hammers) blocked his application, despite there being no other mathematical instrument makers in Scotland.
Watt was saved from this impasse by three professors of the University of Glasgow, who offered him the opportunity to set up a small workshop within the university. It was established in 1758 and one of the professors, the physicist and chemist Joseph Black, became Watt's friend.
In 1764, Watt married his cousin Margaret Miller, with whom he had five children, two of whom lived to adulthood. She died in childbirth in 1772. In 1777 he married again, to Ann MacGregor, daughter of a Glasgow dye-maker, who survived him. She died in 1832.
Watt was an enthusiastic inventor, with a fertile imagination that sometimes got in the way of finishing his works, because he could always see "just one more improvement". He was skilled with his hands, and was also able to perform systematic scientific measurements that could quantify the improvements he made and produce a greater understanding of the phenomenon he was working with.
Watt was a gentleman, greatly respected by other prominent men of the Industrial Revolution. He was an important member of the Lunar Society, and was a much sought after conversationalist and companion, always interested in expanding his horizons. He was a rather poor businessman, and especially hated bargaining and negotiating terms with those who sought to utilize the steam engine. Until he retired, he was always much concerned about his financial affairs, and was something of a worrier. His personal relationships with his friends and partners were always congenial and long-lasting.
James Watt's workshop
Watt retired in 1800, the same year that his fundamental patent and partnership with Boulton expired. The famous partnership was transferred to the men's sons, Matthew Boulton and James Watt Jr. Longtime firm engineer William Murdoch was made a partner and the firm prospered.
"Heathfield", Watt's house in Handsworth, BirminghamWatt continued to invent other things before and during his semi-retirement. He invented a new method of measuring distances by telescope, a device for copying letters, improvements in the oil lamp, a steam mangle and a machine for copying sculptures. Within his home in Handsworth Heath, Staffordshire, Watt made use of a garret room as a workshop, and it was here that he worked on many of his inventions.
He and his second wife travelled to France and Germany, and he purchased an estate in Wales at Doldowlod House, one mile south of Llanwrthwl, which he much improved.
He died on 25 August 1819 at his home "Heathfield" in Handsworth, Birmingham, England at the age of 83. He was buried on 2 September.
The garret room workshop that Watt used in his retirement was left locked and untouched until 1853, when it was first viewed by his biographer J. P. Muirhead. Thereafter, it was occasionally visited, but left untouched, as a kind of shrine. A proposal to have it transferred to the Patent Office came to nothing. When the house was due to be demolished in 1924, the room and all its contents were presented to the Science Museum, where it was recreated in its entirety. Garret workshop of James Watt It remained on display for visitors for many years, but was walled-off when the gallery it was housed in closed. The workshop remains intact, and preserved, and there are plans for it to go on display again at some point in the near future.
Original Condenser by James Watt.
As with many major inventions, there is some dispute as to whether Watt was the original sole inventor of some of the numerous inventions he patented. There is no dispute, however, that he was the sole inventor of his most important invention, the separate condenser. It was his practice (from around the 1780s) to pre-empt others' ideas which were known to him by filing patents with the intention of securing credit for the invention for himself, and ensuring that no one else was able to practice it. As he states in a letter to Boulton of 17 August 1784:
:I have given such descriptions of engines for wheel carriages as I could do in the time and space I could allow myself; but it is very defective and can only serve to keep other people from similar patents.
Some argue that his prohibitions on his employee William Murdoch from working with high pressure steam on his steam road locomotive experiments delayed its development. Watt, with his partner Matthew Boulton, battled against rival engineers such as Jonathan Hornblower who tried to develop engines which did not fall foul of his patents.
Watt patented the application of the sun and planet gear to steam in 1781 and a steam locomotive in 1784, both of which have strong claims to have been invented by his employee, William Murdoch. Watt himself described the provenance of the invention of the sun and planet gear in a letter to Boulton from Watt dated 5 January 1782:
:I have tried a model of one of my old plans of rotative engines revived and executed by W. M[urdock] and which merits being included in the specification as a fifth method...
The patent was never contested by Murdoch, who remained an employee of Boulton and Watt for most of his life, and Boulton and Watt's firm continued to use the sun and planet gear in their rotative engines, even long after the patent for the crank expired in 1794.
Watt opposed the use of high-pressure steam, and many inventors such as Richard Trevithick pioneered such engines, although frequently running into patent infringement actions by Watt. Those more efficient steam engines would eventually displace Watt's engines, leading to another industrial revolution with the development of the steam locomotive.
James Watt statue on City Square at Leeds.
Watt celebrated in a statue by Alexander Munro in Chamberlain Square, outside Birmingham Central Library
James Watt's improvements transformed the Newcomen engine, which had hardly changed for fifty years, and initiated changes in generating and applying power, which transformed the world of work, and were a key innovation of the Industrial Revolution. The importance of the invention can hardly be overstatedâit gave us the modern world. A key feature of it was that it brought the engine out of the remote coal fields into factories where many mechanics, engineers, and even tinkerers were exposed to its virtues and limitations. It was a platform for generations of inventors to improve. It was clear to many that higher pressures produced in improved boilers would produce engines having even higher efficiency, and would lead to the revolution in transportation that was soon embodied in the locomotive and steamboat. It made possible the construction of new factories that, since they were not dependent on water power, could work the year round, and could be placed almost anywhere. Work was moved out of the cottages, resulting in economies of scale. Capital could work more efficiently, and manufacturing productivity greatly improved. It made possible the cascade of new sorts of machine tools that could be used to produce better machines, including that most remarkable of all of them, the Watt steam engine.
Of Watt, the English Novelist Aldous Huxley (1894-1963) wrote; "To us, the moment 8:17 A.M. means something - something very important, if it happens to be the starting time of our daily train. To our ancestors, such an odd eccentric instant was without significance - did not even exist. In inventing the locomotive, Watt and Stephenson were part inventors of time."
Watt was a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and the Royal Society of London. He was a member of the Batavian Society, and one of only eight Foreign Associates of the French Academy of Sciences.
The watt is named after James Watt for his contributions to the development of the steam engine, and was adopted by the Second Congress of the British Association for the Advancement of Science in 1889 and by the 11th General Conference on Weights and Measures in 1960 as the unit of power incorporated in the International System of Units (or "SI").
'
The James Watt Memorial College in Greenock.
Watt was buried in the grounds of St. Mary's Church, Handsworth, in Birmingham. Later expansion of the church, over his grave, means that his tomb is now buried inside the church. A statue of him, Boulton and Murdoch is in Birmingham, as are five other statues of him alone, one in Chamberlain Square, the other outside the Law Courts. He is also remembered by the Moonstones and a school is named in his honour, both in Birmingham. An extensive archive of his papers is held at Birmingham Central Library. Matthew Boulton's home, Soho House, is now a museum, commemorating the work of both men. The University of Glasgow's Faculty of Engineering, the oldest in the United Kingdom, (where Watt was a professor) has its headquarters in the James Watt Building, which also houses the department of Mechanical Engineering and the department of Aerospace Engineering.
The location of James Watt's birth in Greenock is commemorated by a statue, close to his birthplace. Several locations and street names in Greenock recall him, most notably the Watt Memorial Library, which was begun in 1816 with Watt's donation of scientific books, and developed as part of the Watt Institution by his son (which ultimately became the James Watt College). Taken over by the local authority in 1974, the library now also houses the local history collection and archives of Inverclyde, and is dominated by a large seated statue in the vestibule. Watt is additionally commemorated by statuary in George Square, Glasgow and Princes Street, Edinburgh.
The James Watt College has expanded from its original location to include campuses in Kilwinning (North Ayrshire), Finnart Street and The Waterfront in Greenock, and the Sports campus in Largs. Heriot-Watt University near Edinburgh was at one time the School of Arts of Edinburgh, founded in 1821 as the worldâs first Mechanics Institute, but to commemorate George Heriot, the 16th century financier to King James, and James Watt, after Royal Charter the name was changed to Heriot-Watt University. Dozens of university and college buildings (chiefly of science and technology) are named after him.
The huge painting James Watt contemplating the steam engine by James Eckford Lauder is now owned by the National Gallery of Scotland.
Watt was ranked first, tying with Edison, among 229 significant figures in the history of technology by Charles Murray's survey of historiometry presented in his book Human Accomplishments.
Over 50 roads or streets in the UK are named after him.
A colossal statue of Watt by Chantrey was placed in Westminster Abbey, and later was moved to St. Paul's Cathedral. On the cenotaph the inscription reads:
Chantrey's statue of James Watt
:NOT TO PERPETUATE A NAME,
:WHICH MUST ENDURE WHILE THE PEACEFUL ARTS FLOURISH,
:BUT TO SHOW
:THAT MANKIND HAVE LEARNED TO HONOUR THOSE
:WHO BEST DESERVE THEIR GRATITUDE,
:THE KING,
:HIS MINISTERS, AND MANY OF THE NOBLES
:AND COMMONERS OF THE REALM
:RAISED THIS MONUMENT TO
:JAMES WATT
:WHO DIRECTING THE FORCE OF AN ORIGINAL GENIUS
:EARLY EXERCISED IN PHILOSOPHIC RESEARCH
:TO THE IMPROVEMENT OF
:THE STEAM-ENGINE
:ENLARGED THE RESOURCES OF HIS COUNTRY
:INCREASED THE POWER OF MAN
:AND ROSE TO AN EMINENT PLACE
:AMONG THE MOST ILLUSTRIOUS FOLLOWERS OF SCIENCE
:AND THE REAL BENEFACTORS OF THE WORLD
:BORN AT GREENOCK MDCCXXXVI
:DIED AT HEATHFIELD IN STAFFORDSHIRE MDCCCXIX
A lecture theatre in the Mechanical & Manufacturing Engineering building at the University of Birmingham is named "G31 - The James Watt Lecture Theatre".
On 29 May 2009, the Bank of England announced that Watt would appear on a new £50 note, alongside Matthew Boulton.
* Watt steam engine
* Centrifugal governor
* Indicator diagram
* Watt's linkage
* Parallel motion
* Sun and planet gear
*"Some Unpublished Letters of James Watt" in Journal of Institution of Mechanical Engineers (London, 1915).
*Carnegie, Andrew, James Watt University Press of the Pacific (2001) (Reprinted from the 1913 ed.), ISBN 0-89875-578-6.
*
* H. W. Dickinson and Hugh Pembroke Vowles James Watt and the Industrial Revolution (published in 1943, new edition 1948 and reprinted in 1949. Also published in Spanish and Portuguese (1944) by the British Council)
*Hills, Rev. Dr. Richard L., James Watt, Vol 1, His time in Scotland, 1736-1774 (2002); Vol 2, The years of toil, 1775-1785; Vol 3 Triumph through adversity 1785-1819. Landmark Publishing Ltd, ISBN 1-84306-045-0.
*
*
*Marsden, Ben. Watt's Perfect Engine Columbia University Press (New York, 2002) ISBN 0-231-13172-0.
*
*
*Samuel Smiles, Lives of the Engineers, (London, 1861-62, new edition, five volumes, 1905).
;Related topics
*
*
* James Watt by Andrew Carnegie (1905)
* James Watt by Thomas H. Marshall (1925)
* Archives of Soho at Birmingham Central Library.
* BBC History: James Watt
* Revolutionary Players website
* Cornwall Record Office Boulton & Watt letters
* Significant Scots - James Watt
*
|
James_Watt | Why is the watt named after Watt? | The watt is named after James Watt for his contributions to the development of the steam engine. | data/set4/a2 | James_Watt
James Watt, FRS, FRSE (19 January 1736 25 August 1819) was a Scottish inventor and mechanical engineer whose improvements to the Newcomen steam engine were fundamental to the changes brought by the Industrial Revolution in both the Kingdom of Great Britain and the world.
James Watt was born on 19 January 1736 in Greenock, Renfrewshire, a seaport on the Firth of Clyde. His father was a shipwright, ship owner and contractor, and served as the town's chief baillie, while his mother, Agnes Muirhead, came from a distinguished family and was well educated. Both were Presbyterians and strong Covenanters. Watt's grandfather, Thomas Watt, was a mathematics teacher and baillie to the Baron of Cartsburn. Watt did not attend school regularly; initially he was mostly schooled at home by his mother but later he attended Greenock grammar school. He exhibited great manual dexterity and an aptitude for mathematics, although Latin and Greek failed to interest him, and he absorbed the legends and lore of the Scottish people.
When he was 18, his mother died and his father's health had begun to fail. Watt travelled to London to study instrument-making for a year, then returned to Scotland to Glasgow intent on setting up his own instrument-making business. However, because he had not served at least seven years as an apprentice, the Glasgow Guild of Hammermen (any artisans using hammers) blocked his application, despite there being no other mathematical instrument makers in Scotland.
Watt was saved from this impasse by three professors of the University of Glasgow, who offered him the opportunity to set up a small workshop within the university. It was established in 1758 and one of the professors, the physicist and chemist Joseph Black, became Watt's friend.
In 1764, Watt married his cousin Margaret Miller, with whom he had five children, two of whom lived to adulthood. She died in childbirth in 1772. In 1777 he married again, to Ann MacGregor, daughter of a Glasgow dye-maker, who survived him. She died in 1832.
Watt was an enthusiastic inventor, with a fertile imagination that sometimes got in the way of finishing his works, because he could always see "just one more improvement". He was skilled with his hands, and was also able to perform systematic scientific measurements that could quantify the improvements he made and produce a greater understanding of the phenomenon he was working with.
Watt was a gentleman, greatly respected by other prominent men of the Industrial Revolution. He was an important member of the Lunar Society, and was a much sought after conversationalist and companion, always interested in expanding his horizons. He was a rather poor businessman, and especially hated bargaining and negotiating terms with those who sought to utilize the steam engine. Until he retired, he was always much concerned about his financial affairs, and was something of a worrier. His personal relationships with his friends and partners were always congenial and long-lasting.
James Watt's workshop
Watt retired in 1800, the same year that his fundamental patent and partnership with Boulton expired. The famous partnership was transferred to the men's sons, Matthew Boulton and James Watt Jr. Longtime firm engineer William Murdoch was made a partner and the firm prospered.
"Heathfield", Watt's house in Handsworth, BirminghamWatt continued to invent other things before and during his semi-retirement. He invented a new method of measuring distances by telescope, a device for copying letters, improvements in the oil lamp, a steam mangle and a machine for copying sculptures. Within his home in Handsworth Heath, Staffordshire, Watt made use of a garret room as a workshop, and it was here that he worked on many of his inventions.
He and his second wife travelled to France and Germany, and he purchased an estate in Wales at Doldowlod House, one mile south of Llanwrthwl, which he much improved.
He died on 25 August 1819 at his home "Heathfield" in Handsworth, Birmingham, England at the age of 83. He was buried on 2 September.
The garret room workshop that Watt used in his retirement was left locked and untouched until 1853, when it was first viewed by his biographer J. P. Muirhead. Thereafter, it was occasionally visited, but left untouched, as a kind of shrine. A proposal to have it transferred to the Patent Office came to nothing. When the house was due to be demolished in 1924, the room and all its contents were presented to the Science Museum, where it was recreated in its entirety. Garret workshop of James Watt It remained on display for visitors for many years, but was walled-off when the gallery it was housed in closed. The workshop remains intact, and preserved, and there are plans for it to go on display again at some point in the near future.
Original Condenser by James Watt.
As with many major inventions, there is some dispute as to whether Watt was the original sole inventor of some of the numerous inventions he patented. There is no dispute, however, that he was the sole inventor of his most important invention, the separate condenser. It was his practice (from around the 1780s) to pre-empt others' ideas which were known to him by filing patents with the intention of securing credit for the invention for himself, and ensuring that no one else was able to practice it. As he states in a letter to Boulton of 17 August 1784:
:I have given such descriptions of engines for wheel carriages as I could do in the time and space I could allow myself; but it is very defective and can only serve to keep other people from similar patents.
Some argue that his prohibitions on his employee William Murdoch from working with high pressure steam on his steam road locomotive experiments delayed its development. Watt, with his partner Matthew Boulton, battled against rival engineers such as Jonathan Hornblower who tried to develop engines which did not fall foul of his patents.
Watt patented the application of the sun and planet gear to steam in 1781 and a steam locomotive in 1784, both of which have strong claims to have been invented by his employee, William Murdoch. Watt himself described the provenance of the invention of the sun and planet gear in a letter to Boulton from Watt dated 5 January 1782:
:I have tried a model of one of my old plans of rotative engines revived and executed by W. M[urdock] and which merits being included in the specification as a fifth method...
The patent was never contested by Murdoch, who remained an employee of Boulton and Watt for most of his life, and Boulton and Watt's firm continued to use the sun and planet gear in their rotative engines, even long after the patent for the crank expired in 1794.
Watt opposed the use of high-pressure steam, and many inventors such as Richard Trevithick pioneered such engines, although frequently running into patent infringement actions by Watt. Those more efficient steam engines would eventually displace Watt's engines, leading to another industrial revolution with the development of the steam locomotive.
James Watt statue on City Square at Leeds.
Watt celebrated in a statue by Alexander Munro in Chamberlain Square, outside Birmingham Central Library
James Watt's improvements transformed the Newcomen engine, which had hardly changed for fifty years, and initiated changes in generating and applying power, which transformed the world of work, and were a key innovation of the Industrial Revolution. The importance of the invention can hardly be overstatedâit gave us the modern world. A key feature of it was that it brought the engine out of the remote coal fields into factories where many mechanics, engineers, and even tinkerers were exposed to its virtues and limitations. It was a platform for generations of inventors to improve. It was clear to many that higher pressures produced in improved boilers would produce engines having even higher efficiency, and would lead to the revolution in transportation that was soon embodied in the locomotive and steamboat. It made possible the construction of new factories that, since they were not dependent on water power, could work the year round, and could be placed almost anywhere. Work was moved out of the cottages, resulting in economies of scale. Capital could work more efficiently, and manufacturing productivity greatly improved. It made possible the cascade of new sorts of machine tools that could be used to produce better machines, including that most remarkable of all of them, the Watt steam engine.
Of Watt, the English Novelist Aldous Huxley (1894-1963) wrote; "To us, the moment 8:17 A.M. means something - something very important, if it happens to be the starting time of our daily train. To our ancestors, such an odd eccentric instant was without significance - did not even exist. In inventing the locomotive, Watt and Stephenson were part inventors of time."
Watt was a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and the Royal Society of London. He was a member of the Batavian Society, and one of only eight Foreign Associates of the French Academy of Sciences.
The watt is named after James Watt for his contributions to the development of the steam engine, and was adopted by the Second Congress of the British Association for the Advancement of Science in 1889 and by the 11th General Conference on Weights and Measures in 1960 as the unit of power incorporated in the International System of Units (or "SI").
'
The James Watt Memorial College in Greenock.
Watt was buried in the grounds of St. Mary's Church, Handsworth, in Birmingham. Later expansion of the church, over his grave, means that his tomb is now buried inside the church. A statue of him, Boulton and Murdoch is in Birmingham, as are five other statues of him alone, one in Chamberlain Square, the other outside the Law Courts. He is also remembered by the Moonstones and a school is named in his honour, both in Birmingham. An extensive archive of his papers is held at Birmingham Central Library. Matthew Boulton's home, Soho House, is now a museum, commemorating the work of both men. The University of Glasgow's Faculty of Engineering, the oldest in the United Kingdom, (where Watt was a professor) has its headquarters in the James Watt Building, which also houses the department of Mechanical Engineering and the department of Aerospace Engineering.
The location of James Watt's birth in Greenock is commemorated by a statue, close to his birthplace. Several locations and street names in Greenock recall him, most notably the Watt Memorial Library, which was begun in 1816 with Watt's donation of scientific books, and developed as part of the Watt Institution by his son (which ultimately became the James Watt College). Taken over by the local authority in 1974, the library now also houses the local history collection and archives of Inverclyde, and is dominated by a large seated statue in the vestibule. Watt is additionally commemorated by statuary in George Square, Glasgow and Princes Street, Edinburgh.
The James Watt College has expanded from its original location to include campuses in Kilwinning (North Ayrshire), Finnart Street and The Waterfront in Greenock, and the Sports campus in Largs. Heriot-Watt University near Edinburgh was at one time the School of Arts of Edinburgh, founded in 1821 as the worldâs first Mechanics Institute, but to commemorate George Heriot, the 16th century financier to King James, and James Watt, after Royal Charter the name was changed to Heriot-Watt University. Dozens of university and college buildings (chiefly of science and technology) are named after him.
The huge painting James Watt contemplating the steam engine by James Eckford Lauder is now owned by the National Gallery of Scotland.
Watt was ranked first, tying with Edison, among 229 significant figures in the history of technology by Charles Murray's survey of historiometry presented in his book Human Accomplishments.
Over 50 roads or streets in the UK are named after him.
A colossal statue of Watt by Chantrey was placed in Westminster Abbey, and later was moved to St. Paul's Cathedral. On the cenotaph the inscription reads:
Chantrey's statue of James Watt
:NOT TO PERPETUATE A NAME,
:WHICH MUST ENDURE WHILE THE PEACEFUL ARTS FLOURISH,
:BUT TO SHOW
:THAT MANKIND HAVE LEARNED TO HONOUR THOSE
:WHO BEST DESERVE THEIR GRATITUDE,
:THE KING,
:HIS MINISTERS, AND MANY OF THE NOBLES
:AND COMMONERS OF THE REALM
:RAISED THIS MONUMENT TO
:JAMES WATT
:WHO DIRECTING THE FORCE OF AN ORIGINAL GENIUS
:EARLY EXERCISED IN PHILOSOPHIC RESEARCH
:TO THE IMPROVEMENT OF
:THE STEAM-ENGINE
:ENLARGED THE RESOURCES OF HIS COUNTRY
:INCREASED THE POWER OF MAN
:AND ROSE TO AN EMINENT PLACE
:AMONG THE MOST ILLUSTRIOUS FOLLOWERS OF SCIENCE
:AND THE REAL BENEFACTORS OF THE WORLD
:BORN AT GREENOCK MDCCXXXVI
:DIED AT HEATHFIELD IN STAFFORDSHIRE MDCCCXIX
A lecture theatre in the Mechanical & Manufacturing Engineering building at the University of Birmingham is named "G31 - The James Watt Lecture Theatre".
On 29 May 2009, the Bank of England announced that Watt would appear on a new £50 note, alongside Matthew Boulton.
* Watt steam engine
* Centrifugal governor
* Indicator diagram
* Watt's linkage
* Parallel motion
* Sun and planet gear
*"Some Unpublished Letters of James Watt" in Journal of Institution of Mechanical Engineers (London, 1915).
*Carnegie, Andrew, James Watt University Press of the Pacific (2001) (Reprinted from the 1913 ed.), ISBN 0-89875-578-6.
*
* H. W. Dickinson and Hugh Pembroke Vowles James Watt and the Industrial Revolution (published in 1943, new edition 1948 and reprinted in 1949. Also published in Spanish and Portuguese (1944) by the British Council)
*Hills, Rev. Dr. Richard L., James Watt, Vol 1, His time in Scotland, 1736-1774 (2002); Vol 2, The years of toil, 1775-1785; Vol 3 Triumph through adversity 1785-1819. Landmark Publishing Ltd, ISBN 1-84306-045-0.
*
*
*Marsden, Ben. Watt's Perfect Engine Columbia University Press (New York, 2002) ISBN 0-231-13172-0.
*
*
*Samuel Smiles, Lives of the Engineers, (London, 1861-62, new edition, five volumes, 1905).
;Related topics
*
*
* James Watt by Andrew Carnegie (1905)
* James Watt by Thomas H. Marshall (1925)
* Archives of Soho at Birmingham Central Library.
* BBC History: James Watt
* Revolutionary Players website
* Cornwall Record Office Boulton & Watt letters
* Significant Scots - James Watt
*
|
James_Watt | Where did Watt attend university? | Watt did not attend school regularly. | data/set4/a2 | James_Watt
James Watt, FRS, FRSE (19 January 1736 25 August 1819) was a Scottish inventor and mechanical engineer whose improvements to the Newcomen steam engine were fundamental to the changes brought by the Industrial Revolution in both the Kingdom of Great Britain and the world.
James Watt was born on 19 January 1736 in Greenock, Renfrewshire, a seaport on the Firth of Clyde. His father was a shipwright, ship owner and contractor, and served as the town's chief baillie, while his mother, Agnes Muirhead, came from a distinguished family and was well educated. Both were Presbyterians and strong Covenanters. Watt's grandfather, Thomas Watt, was a mathematics teacher and baillie to the Baron of Cartsburn. Watt did not attend school regularly; initially he was mostly schooled at home by his mother but later he attended Greenock grammar school. He exhibited great manual dexterity and an aptitude for mathematics, although Latin and Greek failed to interest him, and he absorbed the legends and lore of the Scottish people.
When he was 18, his mother died and his father's health had begun to fail. Watt travelled to London to study instrument-making for a year, then returned to Scotland to Glasgow intent on setting up his own instrument-making business. However, because he had not served at least seven years as an apprentice, the Glasgow Guild of Hammermen (any artisans using hammers) blocked his application, despite there being no other mathematical instrument makers in Scotland.
Watt was saved from this impasse by three professors of the University of Glasgow, who offered him the opportunity to set up a small workshop within the university. It was established in 1758 and one of the professors, the physicist and chemist Joseph Black, became Watt's friend.
In 1764, Watt married his cousin Margaret Miller, with whom he had five children, two of whom lived to adulthood. She died in childbirth in 1772. In 1777 he married again, to Ann MacGregor, daughter of a Glasgow dye-maker, who survived him. She died in 1832.
Watt was an enthusiastic inventor, with a fertile imagination that sometimes got in the way of finishing his works, because he could always see "just one more improvement". He was skilled with his hands, and was also able to perform systematic scientific measurements that could quantify the improvements he made and produce a greater understanding of the phenomenon he was working with.
Watt was a gentleman, greatly respected by other prominent men of the Industrial Revolution. He was an important member of the Lunar Society, and was a much sought after conversationalist and companion, always interested in expanding his horizons. He was a rather poor businessman, and especially hated bargaining and negotiating terms with those who sought to utilize the steam engine. Until he retired, he was always much concerned about his financial affairs, and was something of a worrier. His personal relationships with his friends and partners were always congenial and long-lasting.
James Watt's workshop
Watt retired in 1800, the same year that his fundamental patent and partnership with Boulton expired. The famous partnership was transferred to the men's sons, Matthew Boulton and James Watt Jr. Longtime firm engineer William Murdoch was made a partner and the firm prospered.
"Heathfield", Watt's house in Handsworth, BirminghamWatt continued to invent other things before and during his semi-retirement. He invented a new method of measuring distances by telescope, a device for copying letters, improvements in the oil lamp, a steam mangle and a machine for copying sculptures. Within his home in Handsworth Heath, Staffordshire, Watt made use of a garret room as a workshop, and it was here that he worked on many of his inventions.
He and his second wife travelled to France and Germany, and he purchased an estate in Wales at Doldowlod House, one mile south of Llanwrthwl, which he much improved.
He died on 25 August 1819 at his home "Heathfield" in Handsworth, Birmingham, England at the age of 83. He was buried on 2 September.
The garret room workshop that Watt used in his retirement was left locked and untouched until 1853, when it was first viewed by his biographer J. P. Muirhead. Thereafter, it was occasionally visited, but left untouched, as a kind of shrine. A proposal to have it transferred to the Patent Office came to nothing. When the house was due to be demolished in 1924, the room and all its contents were presented to the Science Museum, where it was recreated in its entirety. Garret workshop of James Watt It remained on display for visitors for many years, but was walled-off when the gallery it was housed in closed. The workshop remains intact, and preserved, and there are plans for it to go on display again at some point in the near future.
Original Condenser by James Watt.
As with many major inventions, there is some dispute as to whether Watt was the original sole inventor of some of the numerous inventions he patented. There is no dispute, however, that he was the sole inventor of his most important invention, the separate condenser. It was his practice (from around the 1780s) to pre-empt others' ideas which were known to him by filing patents with the intention of securing credit for the invention for himself, and ensuring that no one else was able to practice it. As he states in a letter to Boulton of 17 August 1784:
:I have given such descriptions of engines for wheel carriages as I could do in the time and space I could allow myself; but it is very defective and can only serve to keep other people from similar patents.
Some argue that his prohibitions on his employee William Murdoch from working with high pressure steam on his steam road locomotive experiments delayed its development. Watt, with his partner Matthew Boulton, battled against rival engineers such as Jonathan Hornblower who tried to develop engines which did not fall foul of his patents.
Watt patented the application of the sun and planet gear to steam in 1781 and a steam locomotive in 1784, both of which have strong claims to have been invented by his employee, William Murdoch. Watt himself described the provenance of the invention of the sun and planet gear in a letter to Boulton from Watt dated 5 January 1782:
:I have tried a model of one of my old plans of rotative engines revived and executed by W. M[urdock] and which merits being included in the specification as a fifth method...
The patent was never contested by Murdoch, who remained an employee of Boulton and Watt for most of his life, and Boulton and Watt's firm continued to use the sun and planet gear in their rotative engines, even long after the patent for the crank expired in 1794.
Watt opposed the use of high-pressure steam, and many inventors such as Richard Trevithick pioneered such engines, although frequently running into patent infringement actions by Watt. Those more efficient steam engines would eventually displace Watt's engines, leading to another industrial revolution with the development of the steam locomotive.
James Watt statue on City Square at Leeds.
Watt celebrated in a statue by Alexander Munro in Chamberlain Square, outside Birmingham Central Library
James Watt's improvements transformed the Newcomen engine, which had hardly changed for fifty years, and initiated changes in generating and applying power, which transformed the world of work, and were a key innovation of the Industrial Revolution. The importance of the invention can hardly be overstatedâit gave us the modern world. A key feature of it was that it brought the engine out of the remote coal fields into factories where many mechanics, engineers, and even tinkerers were exposed to its virtues and limitations. It was a platform for generations of inventors to improve. It was clear to many that higher pressures produced in improved boilers would produce engines having even higher efficiency, and would lead to the revolution in transportation that was soon embodied in the locomotive and steamboat. It made possible the construction of new factories that, since they were not dependent on water power, could work the year round, and could be placed almost anywhere. Work was moved out of the cottages, resulting in economies of scale. Capital could work more efficiently, and manufacturing productivity greatly improved. It made possible the cascade of new sorts of machine tools that could be used to produce better machines, including that most remarkable of all of them, the Watt steam engine.
Of Watt, the English Novelist Aldous Huxley (1894-1963) wrote; "To us, the moment 8:17 A.M. means something - something very important, if it happens to be the starting time of our daily train. To our ancestors, such an odd eccentric instant was without significance - did not even exist. In inventing the locomotive, Watt and Stephenson were part inventors of time."
Watt was a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and the Royal Society of London. He was a member of the Batavian Society, and one of only eight Foreign Associates of the French Academy of Sciences.
The watt is named after James Watt for his contributions to the development of the steam engine, and was adopted by the Second Congress of the British Association for the Advancement of Science in 1889 and by the 11th General Conference on Weights and Measures in 1960 as the unit of power incorporated in the International System of Units (or "SI").
'
The James Watt Memorial College in Greenock.
Watt was buried in the grounds of St. Mary's Church, Handsworth, in Birmingham. Later expansion of the church, over his grave, means that his tomb is now buried inside the church. A statue of him, Boulton and Murdoch is in Birmingham, as are five other statues of him alone, one in Chamberlain Square, the other outside the Law Courts. He is also remembered by the Moonstones and a school is named in his honour, both in Birmingham. An extensive archive of his papers is held at Birmingham Central Library. Matthew Boulton's home, Soho House, is now a museum, commemorating the work of both men. The University of Glasgow's Faculty of Engineering, the oldest in the United Kingdom, (where Watt was a professor) has its headquarters in the James Watt Building, which also houses the department of Mechanical Engineering and the department of Aerospace Engineering.
The location of James Watt's birth in Greenock is commemorated by a statue, close to his birthplace. Several locations and street names in Greenock recall him, most notably the Watt Memorial Library, which was begun in 1816 with Watt's donation of scientific books, and developed as part of the Watt Institution by his son (which ultimately became the James Watt College). Taken over by the local authority in 1974, the library now also houses the local history collection and archives of Inverclyde, and is dominated by a large seated statue in the vestibule. Watt is additionally commemorated by statuary in George Square, Glasgow and Princes Street, Edinburgh.
The James Watt College has expanded from its original location to include campuses in Kilwinning (North Ayrshire), Finnart Street and The Waterfront in Greenock, and the Sports campus in Largs. Heriot-Watt University near Edinburgh was at one time the School of Arts of Edinburgh, founded in 1821 as the worldâs first Mechanics Institute, but to commemorate George Heriot, the 16th century financier to King James, and James Watt, after Royal Charter the name was changed to Heriot-Watt University. Dozens of university and college buildings (chiefly of science and technology) are named after him.
The huge painting James Watt contemplating the steam engine by James Eckford Lauder is now owned by the National Gallery of Scotland.
Watt was ranked first, tying with Edison, among 229 significant figures in the history of technology by Charles Murray's survey of historiometry presented in his book Human Accomplishments.
Over 50 roads or streets in the UK are named after him.
A colossal statue of Watt by Chantrey was placed in Westminster Abbey, and later was moved to St. Paul's Cathedral. On the cenotaph the inscription reads:
Chantrey's statue of James Watt
:NOT TO PERPETUATE A NAME,
:WHICH MUST ENDURE WHILE THE PEACEFUL ARTS FLOURISH,
:BUT TO SHOW
:THAT MANKIND HAVE LEARNED TO HONOUR THOSE
:WHO BEST DESERVE THEIR GRATITUDE,
:THE KING,
:HIS MINISTERS, AND MANY OF THE NOBLES
:AND COMMONERS OF THE REALM
:RAISED THIS MONUMENT TO
:JAMES WATT
:WHO DIRECTING THE FORCE OF AN ORIGINAL GENIUS
:EARLY EXERCISED IN PHILOSOPHIC RESEARCH
:TO THE IMPROVEMENT OF
:THE STEAM-ENGINE
:ENLARGED THE RESOURCES OF HIS COUNTRY
:INCREASED THE POWER OF MAN
:AND ROSE TO AN EMINENT PLACE
:AMONG THE MOST ILLUSTRIOUS FOLLOWERS OF SCIENCE
:AND THE REAL BENEFACTORS OF THE WORLD
:BORN AT GREENOCK MDCCXXXVI
:DIED AT HEATHFIELD IN STAFFORDSHIRE MDCCCXIX
A lecture theatre in the Mechanical & Manufacturing Engineering building at the University of Birmingham is named "G31 - The James Watt Lecture Theatre".
On 29 May 2009, the Bank of England announced that Watt would appear on a new £50 note, alongside Matthew Boulton.
* Watt steam engine
* Centrifugal governor
* Indicator diagram
* Watt's linkage
* Parallel motion
* Sun and planet gear
*"Some Unpublished Letters of James Watt" in Journal of Institution of Mechanical Engineers (London, 1915).
*Carnegie, Andrew, James Watt University Press of the Pacific (2001) (Reprinted from the 1913 ed.), ISBN 0-89875-578-6.
*
* H. W. Dickinson and Hugh Pembroke Vowles James Watt and the Industrial Revolution (published in 1943, new edition 1948 and reprinted in 1949. Also published in Spanish and Portuguese (1944) by the British Council)
*Hills, Rev. Dr. Richard L., James Watt, Vol 1, His time in Scotland, 1736-1774 (2002); Vol 2, The years of toil, 1775-1785; Vol 3 Triumph through adversity 1785-1819. Landmark Publishing Ltd, ISBN 1-84306-045-0.
*
*
*Marsden, Ben. Watt's Perfect Engine Columbia University Press (New York, 2002) ISBN 0-231-13172-0.
*
*
*Samuel Smiles, Lives of the Engineers, (London, 1861-62, new edition, five volumes, 1905).
;Related topics
*
*
* James Watt by Andrew Carnegie (1905)
* James Watt by Thomas H. Marshall (1925)
* Archives of Soho at Birmingham Central Library.
* BBC History: James Watt
* Revolutionary Players website
* Cornwall Record Office Boulton & Watt letters
* Significant Scots - James Watt
*
|
James_Watt | Where did Watt attend university? | He did not attend a university. | data/set4/a2 | James_Watt
James Watt, FRS, FRSE (19 January 1736 25 August 1819) was a Scottish inventor and mechanical engineer whose improvements to the Newcomen steam engine were fundamental to the changes brought by the Industrial Revolution in both the Kingdom of Great Britain and the world.
James Watt was born on 19 January 1736 in Greenock, Renfrewshire, a seaport on the Firth of Clyde. His father was a shipwright, ship owner and contractor, and served as the town's chief baillie, while his mother, Agnes Muirhead, came from a distinguished family and was well educated. Both were Presbyterians and strong Covenanters. Watt's grandfather, Thomas Watt, was a mathematics teacher and baillie to the Baron of Cartsburn. Watt did not attend school regularly; initially he was mostly schooled at home by his mother but later he attended Greenock grammar school. He exhibited great manual dexterity and an aptitude for mathematics, although Latin and Greek failed to interest him, and he absorbed the legends and lore of the Scottish people.
When he was 18, his mother died and his father's health had begun to fail. Watt travelled to London to study instrument-making for a year, then returned to Scotland to Glasgow intent on setting up his own instrument-making business. However, because he had not served at least seven years as an apprentice, the Glasgow Guild of Hammermen (any artisans using hammers) blocked his application, despite there being no other mathematical instrument makers in Scotland.
Watt was saved from this impasse by three professors of the University of Glasgow, who offered him the opportunity to set up a small workshop within the university. It was established in 1758 and one of the professors, the physicist and chemist Joseph Black, became Watt's friend.
In 1764, Watt married his cousin Margaret Miller, with whom he had five children, two of whom lived to adulthood. She died in childbirth in 1772. In 1777 he married again, to Ann MacGregor, daughter of a Glasgow dye-maker, who survived him. She died in 1832.
Watt was an enthusiastic inventor, with a fertile imagination that sometimes got in the way of finishing his works, because he could always see "just one more improvement". He was skilled with his hands, and was also able to perform systematic scientific measurements that could quantify the improvements he made and produce a greater understanding of the phenomenon he was working with.
Watt was a gentleman, greatly respected by other prominent men of the Industrial Revolution. He was an important member of the Lunar Society, and was a much sought after conversationalist and companion, always interested in expanding his horizons. He was a rather poor businessman, and especially hated bargaining and negotiating terms with those who sought to utilize the steam engine. Until he retired, he was always much concerned about his financial affairs, and was something of a worrier. His personal relationships with his friends and partners were always congenial and long-lasting.
James Watt's workshop
Watt retired in 1800, the same year that his fundamental patent and partnership with Boulton expired. The famous partnership was transferred to the men's sons, Matthew Boulton and James Watt Jr. Longtime firm engineer William Murdoch was made a partner and the firm prospered.
"Heathfield", Watt's house in Handsworth, BirminghamWatt continued to invent other things before and during his semi-retirement. He invented a new method of measuring distances by telescope, a device for copying letters, improvements in the oil lamp, a steam mangle and a machine for copying sculptures. Within his home in Handsworth Heath, Staffordshire, Watt made use of a garret room as a workshop, and it was here that he worked on many of his inventions.
He and his second wife travelled to France and Germany, and he purchased an estate in Wales at Doldowlod House, one mile south of Llanwrthwl, which he much improved.
He died on 25 August 1819 at his home "Heathfield" in Handsworth, Birmingham, England at the age of 83. He was buried on 2 September.
The garret room workshop that Watt used in his retirement was left locked and untouched until 1853, when it was first viewed by his biographer J. P. Muirhead. Thereafter, it was occasionally visited, but left untouched, as a kind of shrine. A proposal to have it transferred to the Patent Office came to nothing. When the house was due to be demolished in 1924, the room and all its contents were presented to the Science Museum, where it was recreated in its entirety. Garret workshop of James Watt It remained on display for visitors for many years, but was walled-off when the gallery it was housed in closed. The workshop remains intact, and preserved, and there are plans for it to go on display again at some point in the near future.
Original Condenser by James Watt.
As with many major inventions, there is some dispute as to whether Watt was the original sole inventor of some of the numerous inventions he patented. There is no dispute, however, that he was the sole inventor of his most important invention, the separate condenser. It was his practice (from around the 1780s) to pre-empt others' ideas which were known to him by filing patents with the intention of securing credit for the invention for himself, and ensuring that no one else was able to practice it. As he states in a letter to Boulton of 17 August 1784:
:I have given such descriptions of engines for wheel carriages as I could do in the time and space I could allow myself; but it is very defective and can only serve to keep other people from similar patents.
Some argue that his prohibitions on his employee William Murdoch from working with high pressure steam on his steam road locomotive experiments delayed its development. Watt, with his partner Matthew Boulton, battled against rival engineers such as Jonathan Hornblower who tried to develop engines which did not fall foul of his patents.
Watt patented the application of the sun and planet gear to steam in 1781 and a steam locomotive in 1784, both of which have strong claims to have been invented by his employee, William Murdoch. Watt himself described the provenance of the invention of the sun and planet gear in a letter to Boulton from Watt dated 5 January 1782:
:I have tried a model of one of my old plans of rotative engines revived and executed by W. M[urdock] and which merits being included in the specification as a fifth method...
The patent was never contested by Murdoch, who remained an employee of Boulton and Watt for most of his life, and Boulton and Watt's firm continued to use the sun and planet gear in their rotative engines, even long after the patent for the crank expired in 1794.
Watt opposed the use of high-pressure steam, and many inventors such as Richard Trevithick pioneered such engines, although frequently running into patent infringement actions by Watt. Those more efficient steam engines would eventually displace Watt's engines, leading to another industrial revolution with the development of the steam locomotive.
James Watt statue on City Square at Leeds.
Watt celebrated in a statue by Alexander Munro in Chamberlain Square, outside Birmingham Central Library
James Watt's improvements transformed the Newcomen engine, which had hardly changed for fifty years, and initiated changes in generating and applying power, which transformed the world of work, and were a key innovation of the Industrial Revolution. The importance of the invention can hardly be overstatedâit gave us the modern world. A key feature of it was that it brought the engine out of the remote coal fields into factories where many mechanics, engineers, and even tinkerers were exposed to its virtues and limitations. It was a platform for generations of inventors to improve. It was clear to many that higher pressures produced in improved boilers would produce engines having even higher efficiency, and would lead to the revolution in transportation that was soon embodied in the locomotive and steamboat. It made possible the construction of new factories that, since they were not dependent on water power, could work the year round, and could be placed almost anywhere. Work was moved out of the cottages, resulting in economies of scale. Capital could work more efficiently, and manufacturing productivity greatly improved. It made possible the cascade of new sorts of machine tools that could be used to produce better machines, including that most remarkable of all of them, the Watt steam engine.
Of Watt, the English Novelist Aldous Huxley (1894-1963) wrote; "To us, the moment 8:17 A.M. means something - something very important, if it happens to be the starting time of our daily train. To our ancestors, such an odd eccentric instant was without significance - did not even exist. In inventing the locomotive, Watt and Stephenson were part inventors of time."
Watt was a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and the Royal Society of London. He was a member of the Batavian Society, and one of only eight Foreign Associates of the French Academy of Sciences.
The watt is named after James Watt for his contributions to the development of the steam engine, and was adopted by the Second Congress of the British Association for the Advancement of Science in 1889 and by the 11th General Conference on Weights and Measures in 1960 as the unit of power incorporated in the International System of Units (or "SI").
'
The James Watt Memorial College in Greenock.
Watt was buried in the grounds of St. Mary's Church, Handsworth, in Birmingham. Later expansion of the church, over his grave, means that his tomb is now buried inside the church. A statue of him, Boulton and Murdoch is in Birmingham, as are five other statues of him alone, one in Chamberlain Square, the other outside the Law Courts. He is also remembered by the Moonstones and a school is named in his honour, both in Birmingham. An extensive archive of his papers is held at Birmingham Central Library. Matthew Boulton's home, Soho House, is now a museum, commemorating the work of both men. The University of Glasgow's Faculty of Engineering, the oldest in the United Kingdom, (where Watt was a professor) has its headquarters in the James Watt Building, which also houses the department of Mechanical Engineering and the department of Aerospace Engineering.
The location of James Watt's birth in Greenock is commemorated by a statue, close to his birthplace. Several locations and street names in Greenock recall him, most notably the Watt Memorial Library, which was begun in 1816 with Watt's donation of scientific books, and developed as part of the Watt Institution by his son (which ultimately became the James Watt College). Taken over by the local authority in 1974, the library now also houses the local history collection and archives of Inverclyde, and is dominated by a large seated statue in the vestibule. Watt is additionally commemorated by statuary in George Square, Glasgow and Princes Street, Edinburgh.
The James Watt College has expanded from its original location to include campuses in Kilwinning (North Ayrshire), Finnart Street and The Waterfront in Greenock, and the Sports campus in Largs. Heriot-Watt University near Edinburgh was at one time the School of Arts of Edinburgh, founded in 1821 as the worldâs first Mechanics Institute, but to commemorate George Heriot, the 16th century financier to King James, and James Watt, after Royal Charter the name was changed to Heriot-Watt University. Dozens of university and college buildings (chiefly of science and technology) are named after him.
The huge painting James Watt contemplating the steam engine by James Eckford Lauder is now owned by the National Gallery of Scotland.
Watt was ranked first, tying with Edison, among 229 significant figures in the history of technology by Charles Murray's survey of historiometry presented in his book Human Accomplishments.
Over 50 roads or streets in the UK are named after him.
A colossal statue of Watt by Chantrey was placed in Westminster Abbey, and later was moved to St. Paul's Cathedral. On the cenotaph the inscription reads:
Chantrey's statue of James Watt
:NOT TO PERPETUATE A NAME,
:WHICH MUST ENDURE WHILE THE PEACEFUL ARTS FLOURISH,
:BUT TO SHOW
:THAT MANKIND HAVE LEARNED TO HONOUR THOSE
:WHO BEST DESERVE THEIR GRATITUDE,
:THE KING,
:HIS MINISTERS, AND MANY OF THE NOBLES
:AND COMMONERS OF THE REALM
:RAISED THIS MONUMENT TO
:JAMES WATT
:WHO DIRECTING THE FORCE OF AN ORIGINAL GENIUS
:EARLY EXERCISED IN PHILOSOPHIC RESEARCH
:TO THE IMPROVEMENT OF
:THE STEAM-ENGINE
:ENLARGED THE RESOURCES OF HIS COUNTRY
:INCREASED THE POWER OF MAN
:AND ROSE TO AN EMINENT PLACE
:AMONG THE MOST ILLUSTRIOUS FOLLOWERS OF SCIENCE
:AND THE REAL BENEFACTORS OF THE WORLD
:BORN AT GREENOCK MDCCXXXVI
:DIED AT HEATHFIELD IN STAFFORDSHIRE MDCCCXIX
A lecture theatre in the Mechanical & Manufacturing Engineering building at the University of Birmingham is named "G31 - The James Watt Lecture Theatre".
On 29 May 2009, the Bank of England announced that Watt would appear on a new £50 note, alongside Matthew Boulton.
* Watt steam engine
* Centrifugal governor
* Indicator diagram
* Watt's linkage
* Parallel motion
* Sun and planet gear
*"Some Unpublished Letters of James Watt" in Journal of Institution of Mechanical Engineers (London, 1915).
*Carnegie, Andrew, James Watt University Press of the Pacific (2001) (Reprinted from the 1913 ed.), ISBN 0-89875-578-6.
*
* H. W. Dickinson and Hugh Pembroke Vowles James Watt and the Industrial Revolution (published in 1943, new edition 1948 and reprinted in 1949. Also published in Spanish and Portuguese (1944) by the British Council)
*Hills, Rev. Dr. Richard L., James Watt, Vol 1, His time in Scotland, 1736-1774 (2002); Vol 2, The years of toil, 1775-1785; Vol 3 Triumph through adversity 1785-1819. Landmark Publishing Ltd, ISBN 1-84306-045-0.
*
*
*Marsden, Ben. Watt's Perfect Engine Columbia University Press (New York, 2002) ISBN 0-231-13172-0.
*
*
*Samuel Smiles, Lives of the Engineers, (London, 1861-62, new edition, five volumes, 1905).
;Related topics
*
*
* James Watt by Andrew Carnegie (1905)
* James Watt by Thomas H. Marshall (1925)
* Archives of Soho at Birmingham Central Library.
* BBC History: James Watt
* Revolutionary Players website
* Cornwall Record Office Boulton & Watt letters
* Significant Scots - James Watt
*
|
James_Watt | What did he invent? | He invented a new method of measuring distances by telescope, a device for copying letters, improvements in the oil lamp, a steam mangle and a machine for copying sculptures. | data/set4/a2 | James_Watt
James Watt, FRS, FRSE (19 January 1736 25 August 1819) was a Scottish inventor and mechanical engineer whose improvements to the Newcomen steam engine were fundamental to the changes brought by the Industrial Revolution in both the Kingdom of Great Britain and the world.
James Watt was born on 19 January 1736 in Greenock, Renfrewshire, a seaport on the Firth of Clyde. His father was a shipwright, ship owner and contractor, and served as the town's chief baillie, while his mother, Agnes Muirhead, came from a distinguished family and was well educated. Both were Presbyterians and strong Covenanters. Watt's grandfather, Thomas Watt, was a mathematics teacher and baillie to the Baron of Cartsburn. Watt did not attend school regularly; initially he was mostly schooled at home by his mother but later he attended Greenock grammar school. He exhibited great manual dexterity and an aptitude for mathematics, although Latin and Greek failed to interest him, and he absorbed the legends and lore of the Scottish people.
When he was 18, his mother died and his father's health had begun to fail. Watt travelled to London to study instrument-making for a year, then returned to Scotland to Glasgow intent on setting up his own instrument-making business. However, because he had not served at least seven years as an apprentice, the Glasgow Guild of Hammermen (any artisans using hammers) blocked his application, despite there being no other mathematical instrument makers in Scotland.
Watt was saved from this impasse by three professors of the University of Glasgow, who offered him the opportunity to set up a small workshop within the university. It was established in 1758 and one of the professors, the physicist and chemist Joseph Black, became Watt's friend.
In 1764, Watt married his cousin Margaret Miller, with whom he had five children, two of whom lived to adulthood. She died in childbirth in 1772. In 1777 he married again, to Ann MacGregor, daughter of a Glasgow dye-maker, who survived him. She died in 1832.
Watt was an enthusiastic inventor, with a fertile imagination that sometimes got in the way of finishing his works, because he could always see "just one more improvement". He was skilled with his hands, and was also able to perform systematic scientific measurements that could quantify the improvements he made and produce a greater understanding of the phenomenon he was working with.
Watt was a gentleman, greatly respected by other prominent men of the Industrial Revolution. He was an important member of the Lunar Society, and was a much sought after conversationalist and companion, always interested in expanding his horizons. He was a rather poor businessman, and especially hated bargaining and negotiating terms with those who sought to utilize the steam engine. Until he retired, he was always much concerned about his financial affairs, and was something of a worrier. His personal relationships with his friends and partners were always congenial and long-lasting.
James Watt's workshop
Watt retired in 1800, the same year that his fundamental patent and partnership with Boulton expired. The famous partnership was transferred to the men's sons, Matthew Boulton and James Watt Jr. Longtime firm engineer William Murdoch was made a partner and the firm prospered.
"Heathfield", Watt's house in Handsworth, BirminghamWatt continued to invent other things before and during his semi-retirement. He invented a new method of measuring distances by telescope, a device for copying letters, improvements in the oil lamp, a steam mangle and a machine for copying sculptures. Within his home in Handsworth Heath, Staffordshire, Watt made use of a garret room as a workshop, and it was here that he worked on many of his inventions.
He and his second wife travelled to France and Germany, and he purchased an estate in Wales at Doldowlod House, one mile south of Llanwrthwl, which he much improved.
He died on 25 August 1819 at his home "Heathfield" in Handsworth, Birmingham, England at the age of 83. He was buried on 2 September.
The garret room workshop that Watt used in his retirement was left locked and untouched until 1853, when it was first viewed by his biographer J. P. Muirhead. Thereafter, it was occasionally visited, but left untouched, as a kind of shrine. A proposal to have it transferred to the Patent Office came to nothing. When the house was due to be demolished in 1924, the room and all its contents were presented to the Science Museum, where it was recreated in its entirety. Garret workshop of James Watt It remained on display for visitors for many years, but was walled-off when the gallery it was housed in closed. The workshop remains intact, and preserved, and there are plans for it to go on display again at some point in the near future.
Original Condenser by James Watt.
As with many major inventions, there is some dispute as to whether Watt was the original sole inventor of some of the numerous inventions he patented. There is no dispute, however, that he was the sole inventor of his most important invention, the separate condenser. It was his practice (from around the 1780s) to pre-empt others' ideas which were known to him by filing patents with the intention of securing credit for the invention for himself, and ensuring that no one else was able to practice it. As he states in a letter to Boulton of 17 August 1784:
:I have given such descriptions of engines for wheel carriages as I could do in the time and space I could allow myself; but it is very defective and can only serve to keep other people from similar patents.
Some argue that his prohibitions on his employee William Murdoch from working with high pressure steam on his steam road locomotive experiments delayed its development. Watt, with his partner Matthew Boulton, battled against rival engineers such as Jonathan Hornblower who tried to develop engines which did not fall foul of his patents.
Watt patented the application of the sun and planet gear to steam in 1781 and a steam locomotive in 1784, both of which have strong claims to have been invented by his employee, William Murdoch. Watt himself described the provenance of the invention of the sun and planet gear in a letter to Boulton from Watt dated 5 January 1782:
:I have tried a model of one of my old plans of rotative engines revived and executed by W. M[urdock] and which merits being included in the specification as a fifth method...
The patent was never contested by Murdoch, who remained an employee of Boulton and Watt for most of his life, and Boulton and Watt's firm continued to use the sun and planet gear in their rotative engines, even long after the patent for the crank expired in 1794.
Watt opposed the use of high-pressure steam, and many inventors such as Richard Trevithick pioneered such engines, although frequently running into patent infringement actions by Watt. Those more efficient steam engines would eventually displace Watt's engines, leading to another industrial revolution with the development of the steam locomotive.
James Watt statue on City Square at Leeds.
Watt celebrated in a statue by Alexander Munro in Chamberlain Square, outside Birmingham Central Library
James Watt's improvements transformed the Newcomen engine, which had hardly changed for fifty years, and initiated changes in generating and applying power, which transformed the world of work, and were a key innovation of the Industrial Revolution. The importance of the invention can hardly be overstatedâit gave us the modern world. A key feature of it was that it brought the engine out of the remote coal fields into factories where many mechanics, engineers, and even tinkerers were exposed to its virtues and limitations. It was a platform for generations of inventors to improve. It was clear to many that higher pressures produced in improved boilers would produce engines having even higher efficiency, and would lead to the revolution in transportation that was soon embodied in the locomotive and steamboat. It made possible the construction of new factories that, since they were not dependent on water power, could work the year round, and could be placed almost anywhere. Work was moved out of the cottages, resulting in economies of scale. Capital could work more efficiently, and manufacturing productivity greatly improved. It made possible the cascade of new sorts of machine tools that could be used to produce better machines, including that most remarkable of all of them, the Watt steam engine.
Of Watt, the English Novelist Aldous Huxley (1894-1963) wrote; "To us, the moment 8:17 A.M. means something - something very important, if it happens to be the starting time of our daily train. To our ancestors, such an odd eccentric instant was without significance - did not even exist. In inventing the locomotive, Watt and Stephenson were part inventors of time."
Watt was a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and the Royal Society of London. He was a member of the Batavian Society, and one of only eight Foreign Associates of the French Academy of Sciences.
The watt is named after James Watt for his contributions to the development of the steam engine, and was adopted by the Second Congress of the British Association for the Advancement of Science in 1889 and by the 11th General Conference on Weights and Measures in 1960 as the unit of power incorporated in the International System of Units (or "SI").
'
The James Watt Memorial College in Greenock.
Watt was buried in the grounds of St. Mary's Church, Handsworth, in Birmingham. Later expansion of the church, over his grave, means that his tomb is now buried inside the church. A statue of him, Boulton and Murdoch is in Birmingham, as are five other statues of him alone, one in Chamberlain Square, the other outside the Law Courts. He is also remembered by the Moonstones and a school is named in his honour, both in Birmingham. An extensive archive of his papers is held at Birmingham Central Library. Matthew Boulton's home, Soho House, is now a museum, commemorating the work of both men. The University of Glasgow's Faculty of Engineering, the oldest in the United Kingdom, (where Watt was a professor) has its headquarters in the James Watt Building, which also houses the department of Mechanical Engineering and the department of Aerospace Engineering.
The location of James Watt's birth in Greenock is commemorated by a statue, close to his birthplace. Several locations and street names in Greenock recall him, most notably the Watt Memorial Library, which was begun in 1816 with Watt's donation of scientific books, and developed as part of the Watt Institution by his son (which ultimately became the James Watt College). Taken over by the local authority in 1974, the library now also houses the local history collection and archives of Inverclyde, and is dominated by a large seated statue in the vestibule. Watt is additionally commemorated by statuary in George Square, Glasgow and Princes Street, Edinburgh.
The James Watt College has expanded from its original location to include campuses in Kilwinning (North Ayrshire), Finnart Street and The Waterfront in Greenock, and the Sports campus in Largs. Heriot-Watt University near Edinburgh was at one time the School of Arts of Edinburgh, founded in 1821 as the worldâs first Mechanics Institute, but to commemorate George Heriot, the 16th century financier to King James, and James Watt, after Royal Charter the name was changed to Heriot-Watt University. Dozens of university and college buildings (chiefly of science and technology) are named after him.
The huge painting James Watt contemplating the steam engine by James Eckford Lauder is now owned by the National Gallery of Scotland.
Watt was ranked first, tying with Edison, among 229 significant figures in the history of technology by Charles Murray's survey of historiometry presented in his book Human Accomplishments.
Over 50 roads or streets in the UK are named after him.
A colossal statue of Watt by Chantrey was placed in Westminster Abbey, and later was moved to St. Paul's Cathedral. On the cenotaph the inscription reads:
Chantrey's statue of James Watt
:NOT TO PERPETUATE A NAME,
:WHICH MUST ENDURE WHILE THE PEACEFUL ARTS FLOURISH,
:BUT TO SHOW
:THAT MANKIND HAVE LEARNED TO HONOUR THOSE
:WHO BEST DESERVE THEIR GRATITUDE,
:THE KING,
:HIS MINISTERS, AND MANY OF THE NOBLES
:AND COMMONERS OF THE REALM
:RAISED THIS MONUMENT TO
:JAMES WATT
:WHO DIRECTING THE FORCE OF AN ORIGINAL GENIUS
:EARLY EXERCISED IN PHILOSOPHIC RESEARCH
:TO THE IMPROVEMENT OF
:THE STEAM-ENGINE
:ENLARGED THE RESOURCES OF HIS COUNTRY
:INCREASED THE POWER OF MAN
:AND ROSE TO AN EMINENT PLACE
:AMONG THE MOST ILLUSTRIOUS FOLLOWERS OF SCIENCE
:AND THE REAL BENEFACTORS OF THE WORLD
:BORN AT GREENOCK MDCCXXXVI
:DIED AT HEATHFIELD IN STAFFORDSHIRE MDCCCXIX
A lecture theatre in the Mechanical & Manufacturing Engineering building at the University of Birmingham is named "G31 - The James Watt Lecture Theatre".
On 29 May 2009, the Bank of England announced that Watt would appear on a new £50 note, alongside Matthew Boulton.
* Watt steam engine
* Centrifugal governor
* Indicator diagram
* Watt's linkage
* Parallel motion
* Sun and planet gear
*"Some Unpublished Letters of James Watt" in Journal of Institution of Mechanical Engineers (London, 1915).
*Carnegie, Andrew, James Watt University Press of the Pacific (2001) (Reprinted from the 1913 ed.), ISBN 0-89875-578-6.
*
* H. W. Dickinson and Hugh Pembroke Vowles James Watt and the Industrial Revolution (published in 1943, new edition 1948 and reprinted in 1949. Also published in Spanish and Portuguese (1944) by the British Council)
*Hills, Rev. Dr. Richard L., James Watt, Vol 1, His time in Scotland, 1736-1774 (2002); Vol 2, The years of toil, 1775-1785; Vol 3 Triumph through adversity 1785-1819. Landmark Publishing Ltd, ISBN 1-84306-045-0.
*
*
*Marsden, Ben. Watt's Perfect Engine Columbia University Press (New York, 2002) ISBN 0-231-13172-0.
*
*
*Samuel Smiles, Lives of the Engineers, (London, 1861-62, new edition, five volumes, 1905).
;Related topics
*
*
* James Watt by Andrew Carnegie (1905)
* James Watt by Thomas H. Marshall (1925)
* Archives of Soho at Birmingham Central Library.
* BBC History: James Watt
* Revolutionary Players website
* Cornwall Record Office Boulton & Watt letters
* Significant Scots - James Watt
*
|
James_Watt | What did he invent? | He invented a new method of measuring distances by telescope, a device for copying letters, improvements in the oil lamp, a steam mangle and a machine for copying sculptures. | data/set4/a2 | James_Watt
James Watt, FRS, FRSE (19 January 1736 25 August 1819) was a Scottish inventor and mechanical engineer whose improvements to the Newcomen steam engine were fundamental to the changes brought by the Industrial Revolution in both the Kingdom of Great Britain and the world.
James Watt was born on 19 January 1736 in Greenock, Renfrewshire, a seaport on the Firth of Clyde. His father was a shipwright, ship owner and contractor, and served as the town's chief baillie, while his mother, Agnes Muirhead, came from a distinguished family and was well educated. Both were Presbyterians and strong Covenanters. Watt's grandfather, Thomas Watt, was a mathematics teacher and baillie to the Baron of Cartsburn. Watt did not attend school regularly; initially he was mostly schooled at home by his mother but later he attended Greenock grammar school. He exhibited great manual dexterity and an aptitude for mathematics, although Latin and Greek failed to interest him, and he absorbed the legends and lore of the Scottish people.
When he was 18, his mother died and his father's health had begun to fail. Watt travelled to London to study instrument-making for a year, then returned to Scotland to Glasgow intent on setting up his own instrument-making business. However, because he had not served at least seven years as an apprentice, the Glasgow Guild of Hammermen (any artisans using hammers) blocked his application, despite there being no other mathematical instrument makers in Scotland.
Watt was saved from this impasse by three professors of the University of Glasgow, who offered him the opportunity to set up a small workshop within the university. It was established in 1758 and one of the professors, the physicist and chemist Joseph Black, became Watt's friend.
In 1764, Watt married his cousin Margaret Miller, with whom he had five children, two of whom lived to adulthood. She died in childbirth in 1772. In 1777 he married again, to Ann MacGregor, daughter of a Glasgow dye-maker, who survived him. She died in 1832.
Watt was an enthusiastic inventor, with a fertile imagination that sometimes got in the way of finishing his works, because he could always see "just one more improvement". He was skilled with his hands, and was also able to perform systematic scientific measurements that could quantify the improvements he made and produce a greater understanding of the phenomenon he was working with.
Watt was a gentleman, greatly respected by other prominent men of the Industrial Revolution. He was an important member of the Lunar Society, and was a much sought after conversationalist and companion, always interested in expanding his horizons. He was a rather poor businessman, and especially hated bargaining and negotiating terms with those who sought to utilize the steam engine. Until he retired, he was always much concerned about his financial affairs, and was something of a worrier. His personal relationships with his friends and partners were always congenial and long-lasting.
James Watt's workshop
Watt retired in 1800, the same year that his fundamental patent and partnership with Boulton expired. The famous partnership was transferred to the men's sons, Matthew Boulton and James Watt Jr. Longtime firm engineer William Murdoch was made a partner and the firm prospered.
"Heathfield", Watt's house in Handsworth, BirminghamWatt continued to invent other things before and during his semi-retirement. He invented a new method of measuring distances by telescope, a device for copying letters, improvements in the oil lamp, a steam mangle and a machine for copying sculptures. Within his home in Handsworth Heath, Staffordshire, Watt made use of a garret room as a workshop, and it was here that he worked on many of his inventions.
He and his second wife travelled to France and Germany, and he purchased an estate in Wales at Doldowlod House, one mile south of Llanwrthwl, which he much improved.
He died on 25 August 1819 at his home "Heathfield" in Handsworth, Birmingham, England at the age of 83. He was buried on 2 September.
The garret room workshop that Watt used in his retirement was left locked and untouched until 1853, when it was first viewed by his biographer J. P. Muirhead. Thereafter, it was occasionally visited, but left untouched, as a kind of shrine. A proposal to have it transferred to the Patent Office came to nothing. When the house was due to be demolished in 1924, the room and all its contents were presented to the Science Museum, where it was recreated in its entirety. Garret workshop of James Watt It remained on display for visitors for many years, but was walled-off when the gallery it was housed in closed. The workshop remains intact, and preserved, and there are plans for it to go on display again at some point in the near future.
Original Condenser by James Watt.
As with many major inventions, there is some dispute as to whether Watt was the original sole inventor of some of the numerous inventions he patented. There is no dispute, however, that he was the sole inventor of his most important invention, the separate condenser. It was his practice (from around the 1780s) to pre-empt others' ideas which were known to him by filing patents with the intention of securing credit for the invention for himself, and ensuring that no one else was able to practice it. As he states in a letter to Boulton of 17 August 1784:
:I have given such descriptions of engines for wheel carriages as I could do in the time and space I could allow myself; but it is very defective and can only serve to keep other people from similar patents.
Some argue that his prohibitions on his employee William Murdoch from working with high pressure steam on his steam road locomotive experiments delayed its development. Watt, with his partner Matthew Boulton, battled against rival engineers such as Jonathan Hornblower who tried to develop engines which did not fall foul of his patents.
Watt patented the application of the sun and planet gear to steam in 1781 and a steam locomotive in 1784, both of which have strong claims to have been invented by his employee, William Murdoch. Watt himself described the provenance of the invention of the sun and planet gear in a letter to Boulton from Watt dated 5 January 1782:
:I have tried a model of one of my old plans of rotative engines revived and executed by W. M[urdock] and which merits being included in the specification as a fifth method...
The patent was never contested by Murdoch, who remained an employee of Boulton and Watt for most of his life, and Boulton and Watt's firm continued to use the sun and planet gear in their rotative engines, even long after the patent for the crank expired in 1794.
Watt opposed the use of high-pressure steam, and many inventors such as Richard Trevithick pioneered such engines, although frequently running into patent infringement actions by Watt. Those more efficient steam engines would eventually displace Watt's engines, leading to another industrial revolution with the development of the steam locomotive.
James Watt statue on City Square at Leeds.
Watt celebrated in a statue by Alexander Munro in Chamberlain Square, outside Birmingham Central Library
James Watt's improvements transformed the Newcomen engine, which had hardly changed for fifty years, and initiated changes in generating and applying power, which transformed the world of work, and were a key innovation of the Industrial Revolution. The importance of the invention can hardly be overstatedâit gave us the modern world. A key feature of it was that it brought the engine out of the remote coal fields into factories where many mechanics, engineers, and even tinkerers were exposed to its virtues and limitations. It was a platform for generations of inventors to improve. It was clear to many that higher pressures produced in improved boilers would produce engines having even higher efficiency, and would lead to the revolution in transportation that was soon embodied in the locomotive and steamboat. It made possible the construction of new factories that, since they were not dependent on water power, could work the year round, and could be placed almost anywhere. Work was moved out of the cottages, resulting in economies of scale. Capital could work more efficiently, and manufacturing productivity greatly improved. It made possible the cascade of new sorts of machine tools that could be used to produce better machines, including that most remarkable of all of them, the Watt steam engine.
Of Watt, the English Novelist Aldous Huxley (1894-1963) wrote; "To us, the moment 8:17 A.M. means something - something very important, if it happens to be the starting time of our daily train. To our ancestors, such an odd eccentric instant was without significance - did not even exist. In inventing the locomotive, Watt and Stephenson were part inventors of time."
Watt was a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and the Royal Society of London. He was a member of the Batavian Society, and one of only eight Foreign Associates of the French Academy of Sciences.
The watt is named after James Watt for his contributions to the development of the steam engine, and was adopted by the Second Congress of the British Association for the Advancement of Science in 1889 and by the 11th General Conference on Weights and Measures in 1960 as the unit of power incorporated in the International System of Units (or "SI").
'
The James Watt Memorial College in Greenock.
Watt was buried in the grounds of St. Mary's Church, Handsworth, in Birmingham. Later expansion of the church, over his grave, means that his tomb is now buried inside the church. A statue of him, Boulton and Murdoch is in Birmingham, as are five other statues of him alone, one in Chamberlain Square, the other outside the Law Courts. He is also remembered by the Moonstones and a school is named in his honour, both in Birmingham. An extensive archive of his papers is held at Birmingham Central Library. Matthew Boulton's home, Soho House, is now a museum, commemorating the work of both men. The University of Glasgow's Faculty of Engineering, the oldest in the United Kingdom, (where Watt was a professor) has its headquarters in the James Watt Building, which also houses the department of Mechanical Engineering and the department of Aerospace Engineering.
The location of James Watt's birth in Greenock is commemorated by a statue, close to his birthplace. Several locations and street names in Greenock recall him, most notably the Watt Memorial Library, which was begun in 1816 with Watt's donation of scientific books, and developed as part of the Watt Institution by his son (which ultimately became the James Watt College). Taken over by the local authority in 1974, the library now also houses the local history collection and archives of Inverclyde, and is dominated by a large seated statue in the vestibule. Watt is additionally commemorated by statuary in George Square, Glasgow and Princes Street, Edinburgh.
The James Watt College has expanded from its original location to include campuses in Kilwinning (North Ayrshire), Finnart Street and The Waterfront in Greenock, and the Sports campus in Largs. Heriot-Watt University near Edinburgh was at one time the School of Arts of Edinburgh, founded in 1821 as the worldâs first Mechanics Institute, but to commemorate George Heriot, the 16th century financier to King James, and James Watt, after Royal Charter the name was changed to Heriot-Watt University. Dozens of university and college buildings (chiefly of science and technology) are named after him.
The huge painting James Watt contemplating the steam engine by James Eckford Lauder is now owned by the National Gallery of Scotland.
Watt was ranked first, tying with Edison, among 229 significant figures in the history of technology by Charles Murray's survey of historiometry presented in his book Human Accomplishments.
Over 50 roads or streets in the UK are named after him.
A colossal statue of Watt by Chantrey was placed in Westminster Abbey, and later was moved to St. Paul's Cathedral. On the cenotaph the inscription reads:
Chantrey's statue of James Watt
:NOT TO PERPETUATE A NAME,
:WHICH MUST ENDURE WHILE THE PEACEFUL ARTS FLOURISH,
:BUT TO SHOW
:THAT MANKIND HAVE LEARNED TO HONOUR THOSE
:WHO BEST DESERVE THEIR GRATITUDE,
:THE KING,
:HIS MINISTERS, AND MANY OF THE NOBLES
:AND COMMONERS OF THE REALM
:RAISED THIS MONUMENT TO
:JAMES WATT
:WHO DIRECTING THE FORCE OF AN ORIGINAL GENIUS
:EARLY EXERCISED IN PHILOSOPHIC RESEARCH
:TO THE IMPROVEMENT OF
:THE STEAM-ENGINE
:ENLARGED THE RESOURCES OF HIS COUNTRY
:INCREASED THE POWER OF MAN
:AND ROSE TO AN EMINENT PLACE
:AMONG THE MOST ILLUSTRIOUS FOLLOWERS OF SCIENCE
:AND THE REAL BENEFACTORS OF THE WORLD
:BORN AT GREENOCK MDCCXXXVI
:DIED AT HEATHFIELD IN STAFFORDSHIRE MDCCCXIX
A lecture theatre in the Mechanical & Manufacturing Engineering building at the University of Birmingham is named "G31 - The James Watt Lecture Theatre".
On 29 May 2009, the Bank of England announced that Watt would appear on a new £50 note, alongside Matthew Boulton.
* Watt steam engine
* Centrifugal governor
* Indicator diagram
* Watt's linkage
* Parallel motion
* Sun and planet gear
*"Some Unpublished Letters of James Watt" in Journal of Institution of Mechanical Engineers (London, 1915).
*Carnegie, Andrew, James Watt University Press of the Pacific (2001) (Reprinted from the 1913 ed.), ISBN 0-89875-578-6.
*
* H. W. Dickinson and Hugh Pembroke Vowles James Watt and the Industrial Revolution (published in 1943, new edition 1948 and reprinted in 1949. Also published in Spanish and Portuguese (1944) by the British Council)
*Hills, Rev. Dr. Richard L., James Watt, Vol 1, His time in Scotland, 1736-1774 (2002); Vol 2, The years of toil, 1775-1785; Vol 3 Triumph through adversity 1785-1819. Landmark Publishing Ltd, ISBN 1-84306-045-0.
*
*
*Marsden, Ben. Watt's Perfect Engine Columbia University Press (New York, 2002) ISBN 0-231-13172-0.
*
*
*Samuel Smiles, Lives of the Engineers, (London, 1861-62, new edition, five volumes, 1905).
;Related topics
*
*
* James Watt by Andrew Carnegie (1905)
* James Watt by Thomas H. Marshall (1925)
* Archives of Soho at Birmingham Central Library.
* BBC History: James Watt
* Revolutionary Players website
* Cornwall Record Office Boulton & Watt letters
* Significant Scots - James Watt
*
|
James_Watt | Was James Watt a member of the Lunar Society? | null | data/set4/a2 | James_Watt
James Watt, FRS, FRSE (19 January 1736 25 August 1819) was a Scottish inventor and mechanical engineer whose improvements to the Newcomen steam engine were fundamental to the changes brought by the Industrial Revolution in both the Kingdom of Great Britain and the world.
James Watt was born on 19 January 1736 in Greenock, Renfrewshire, a seaport on the Firth of Clyde. His father was a shipwright, ship owner and contractor, and served as the town's chief baillie, while his mother, Agnes Muirhead, came from a distinguished family and was well educated. Both were Presbyterians and strong Covenanters. Watt's grandfather, Thomas Watt, was a mathematics teacher and baillie to the Baron of Cartsburn. Watt did not attend school regularly; initially he was mostly schooled at home by his mother but later he attended Greenock grammar school. He exhibited great manual dexterity and an aptitude for mathematics, although Latin and Greek failed to interest him, and he absorbed the legends and lore of the Scottish people.
When he was 18, his mother died and his father's health had begun to fail. Watt travelled to London to study instrument-making for a year, then returned to Scotland to Glasgow intent on setting up his own instrument-making business. However, because he had not served at least seven years as an apprentice, the Glasgow Guild of Hammermen (any artisans using hammers) blocked his application, despite there being no other mathematical instrument makers in Scotland.
Watt was saved from this impasse by three professors of the University of Glasgow, who offered him the opportunity to set up a small workshop within the university. It was established in 1758 and one of the professors, the physicist and chemist Joseph Black, became Watt's friend.
In 1764, Watt married his cousin Margaret Miller, with whom he had five children, two of whom lived to adulthood. She died in childbirth in 1772. In 1777 he married again, to Ann MacGregor, daughter of a Glasgow dye-maker, who survived him. She died in 1832.
Watt was an enthusiastic inventor, with a fertile imagination that sometimes got in the way of finishing his works, because he could always see "just one more improvement". He was skilled with his hands, and was also able to perform systematic scientific measurements that could quantify the improvements he made and produce a greater understanding of the phenomenon he was working with.
Watt was a gentleman, greatly respected by other prominent men of the Industrial Revolution. He was an important member of the Lunar Society, and was a much sought after conversationalist and companion, always interested in expanding his horizons. He was a rather poor businessman, and especially hated bargaining and negotiating terms with those who sought to utilize the steam engine. Until he retired, he was always much concerned about his financial affairs, and was something of a worrier. His personal relationships with his friends and partners were always congenial and long-lasting.
James Watt's workshop
Watt retired in 1800, the same year that his fundamental patent and partnership with Boulton expired. The famous partnership was transferred to the men's sons, Matthew Boulton and James Watt Jr. Longtime firm engineer William Murdoch was made a partner and the firm prospered.
"Heathfield", Watt's house in Handsworth, BirminghamWatt continued to invent other things before and during his semi-retirement. He invented a new method of measuring distances by telescope, a device for copying letters, improvements in the oil lamp, a steam mangle and a machine for copying sculptures. Within his home in Handsworth Heath, Staffordshire, Watt made use of a garret room as a workshop, and it was here that he worked on many of his inventions.
He and his second wife travelled to France and Germany, and he purchased an estate in Wales at Doldowlod House, one mile south of Llanwrthwl, which he much improved.
He died on 25 August 1819 at his home "Heathfield" in Handsworth, Birmingham, England at the age of 83. He was buried on 2 September.
The garret room workshop that Watt used in his retirement was left locked and untouched until 1853, when it was first viewed by his biographer J. P. Muirhead. Thereafter, it was occasionally visited, but left untouched, as a kind of shrine. A proposal to have it transferred to the Patent Office came to nothing. When the house was due to be demolished in 1924, the room and all its contents were presented to the Science Museum, where it was recreated in its entirety. Garret workshop of James Watt It remained on display for visitors for many years, but was walled-off when the gallery it was housed in closed. The workshop remains intact, and preserved, and there are plans for it to go on display again at some point in the near future.
Original Condenser by James Watt.
As with many major inventions, there is some dispute as to whether Watt was the original sole inventor of some of the numerous inventions he patented. There is no dispute, however, that he was the sole inventor of his most important invention, the separate condenser. It was his practice (from around the 1780s) to pre-empt others' ideas which were known to him by filing patents with the intention of securing credit for the invention for himself, and ensuring that no one else was able to practice it. As he states in a letter to Boulton of 17 August 1784:
:I have given such descriptions of engines for wheel carriages as I could do in the time and space I could allow myself; but it is very defective and can only serve to keep other people from similar patents.
Some argue that his prohibitions on his employee William Murdoch from working with high pressure steam on his steam road locomotive experiments delayed its development. Watt, with his partner Matthew Boulton, battled against rival engineers such as Jonathan Hornblower who tried to develop engines which did not fall foul of his patents.
Watt patented the application of the sun and planet gear to steam in 1781 and a steam locomotive in 1784, both of which have strong claims to have been invented by his employee, William Murdoch. Watt himself described the provenance of the invention of the sun and planet gear in a letter to Boulton from Watt dated 5 January 1782:
:I have tried a model of one of my old plans of rotative engines revived and executed by W. M[urdock] and which merits being included in the specification as a fifth method...
The patent was never contested by Murdoch, who remained an employee of Boulton and Watt for most of his life, and Boulton and Watt's firm continued to use the sun and planet gear in their rotative engines, even long after the patent for the crank expired in 1794.
Watt opposed the use of high-pressure steam, and many inventors such as Richard Trevithick pioneered such engines, although frequently running into patent infringement actions by Watt. Those more efficient steam engines would eventually displace Watt's engines, leading to another industrial revolution with the development of the steam locomotive.
James Watt statue on City Square at Leeds.
Watt celebrated in a statue by Alexander Munro in Chamberlain Square, outside Birmingham Central Library
James Watt's improvements transformed the Newcomen engine, which had hardly changed for fifty years, and initiated changes in generating and applying power, which transformed the world of work, and were a key innovation of the Industrial Revolution. The importance of the invention can hardly be overstatedâit gave us the modern world. A key feature of it was that it brought the engine out of the remote coal fields into factories where many mechanics, engineers, and even tinkerers were exposed to its virtues and limitations. It was a platform for generations of inventors to improve. It was clear to many that higher pressures produced in improved boilers would produce engines having even higher efficiency, and would lead to the revolution in transportation that was soon embodied in the locomotive and steamboat. It made possible the construction of new factories that, since they were not dependent on water power, could work the year round, and could be placed almost anywhere. Work was moved out of the cottages, resulting in economies of scale. Capital could work more efficiently, and manufacturing productivity greatly improved. It made possible the cascade of new sorts of machine tools that could be used to produce better machines, including that most remarkable of all of them, the Watt steam engine.
Of Watt, the English Novelist Aldous Huxley (1894-1963) wrote; "To us, the moment 8:17 A.M. means something - something very important, if it happens to be the starting time of our daily train. To our ancestors, such an odd eccentric instant was without significance - did not even exist. In inventing the locomotive, Watt and Stephenson were part inventors of time."
Watt was a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and the Royal Society of London. He was a member of the Batavian Society, and one of only eight Foreign Associates of the French Academy of Sciences.
The watt is named after James Watt for his contributions to the development of the steam engine, and was adopted by the Second Congress of the British Association for the Advancement of Science in 1889 and by the 11th General Conference on Weights and Measures in 1960 as the unit of power incorporated in the International System of Units (or "SI").
'
The James Watt Memorial College in Greenock.
Watt was buried in the grounds of St. Mary's Church, Handsworth, in Birmingham. Later expansion of the church, over his grave, means that his tomb is now buried inside the church. A statue of him, Boulton and Murdoch is in Birmingham, as are five other statues of him alone, one in Chamberlain Square, the other outside the Law Courts. He is also remembered by the Moonstones and a school is named in his honour, both in Birmingham. An extensive archive of his papers is held at Birmingham Central Library. Matthew Boulton's home, Soho House, is now a museum, commemorating the work of both men. The University of Glasgow's Faculty of Engineering, the oldest in the United Kingdom, (where Watt was a professor) has its headquarters in the James Watt Building, which also houses the department of Mechanical Engineering and the department of Aerospace Engineering.
The location of James Watt's birth in Greenock is commemorated by a statue, close to his birthplace. Several locations and street names in Greenock recall him, most notably the Watt Memorial Library, which was begun in 1816 with Watt's donation of scientific books, and developed as part of the Watt Institution by his son (which ultimately became the James Watt College). Taken over by the local authority in 1974, the library now also houses the local history collection and archives of Inverclyde, and is dominated by a large seated statue in the vestibule. Watt is additionally commemorated by statuary in George Square, Glasgow and Princes Street, Edinburgh.
The James Watt College has expanded from its original location to include campuses in Kilwinning (North Ayrshire), Finnart Street and The Waterfront in Greenock, and the Sports campus in Largs. Heriot-Watt University near Edinburgh was at one time the School of Arts of Edinburgh, founded in 1821 as the worldâs first Mechanics Institute, but to commemorate George Heriot, the 16th century financier to King James, and James Watt, after Royal Charter the name was changed to Heriot-Watt University. Dozens of university and college buildings (chiefly of science and technology) are named after him.
The huge painting James Watt contemplating the steam engine by James Eckford Lauder is now owned by the National Gallery of Scotland.
Watt was ranked first, tying with Edison, among 229 significant figures in the history of technology by Charles Murray's survey of historiometry presented in his book Human Accomplishments.
Over 50 roads or streets in the UK are named after him.
A colossal statue of Watt by Chantrey was placed in Westminster Abbey, and later was moved to St. Paul's Cathedral. On the cenotaph the inscription reads:
Chantrey's statue of James Watt
:NOT TO PERPETUATE A NAME,
:WHICH MUST ENDURE WHILE THE PEACEFUL ARTS FLOURISH,
:BUT TO SHOW
:THAT MANKIND HAVE LEARNED TO HONOUR THOSE
:WHO BEST DESERVE THEIR GRATITUDE,
:THE KING,
:HIS MINISTERS, AND MANY OF THE NOBLES
:AND COMMONERS OF THE REALM
:RAISED THIS MONUMENT TO
:JAMES WATT
:WHO DIRECTING THE FORCE OF AN ORIGINAL GENIUS
:EARLY EXERCISED IN PHILOSOPHIC RESEARCH
:TO THE IMPROVEMENT OF
:THE STEAM-ENGINE
:ENLARGED THE RESOURCES OF HIS COUNTRY
:INCREASED THE POWER OF MAN
:AND ROSE TO AN EMINENT PLACE
:AMONG THE MOST ILLUSTRIOUS FOLLOWERS OF SCIENCE
:AND THE REAL BENEFACTORS OF THE WORLD
:BORN AT GREENOCK MDCCXXXVI
:DIED AT HEATHFIELD IN STAFFORDSHIRE MDCCCXIX
A lecture theatre in the Mechanical & Manufacturing Engineering building at the University of Birmingham is named "G31 - The James Watt Lecture Theatre".
On 29 May 2009, the Bank of England announced that Watt would appear on a new £50 note, alongside Matthew Boulton.
* Watt steam engine
* Centrifugal governor
* Indicator diagram
* Watt's linkage
* Parallel motion
* Sun and planet gear
*"Some Unpublished Letters of James Watt" in Journal of Institution of Mechanical Engineers (London, 1915).
*Carnegie, Andrew, James Watt University Press of the Pacific (2001) (Reprinted from the 1913 ed.), ISBN 0-89875-578-6.
*
* H. W. Dickinson and Hugh Pembroke Vowles James Watt and the Industrial Revolution (published in 1943, new edition 1948 and reprinted in 1949. Also published in Spanish and Portuguese (1944) by the British Council)
*Hills, Rev. Dr. Richard L., James Watt, Vol 1, His time in Scotland, 1736-1774 (2002); Vol 2, The years of toil, 1775-1785; Vol 3 Triumph through adversity 1785-1819. Landmark Publishing Ltd, ISBN 1-84306-045-0.
*
*
*Marsden, Ben. Watt's Perfect Engine Columbia University Press (New York, 2002) ISBN 0-231-13172-0.
*
*
*Samuel Smiles, Lives of the Engineers, (London, 1861-62, new edition, five volumes, 1905).
;Related topics
*
*
* James Watt by Andrew Carnegie (1905)
* James Watt by Thomas H. Marshall (1925)
* Archives of Soho at Birmingham Central Library.
* BBC History: James Watt
* Revolutionary Players website
* Cornwall Record Office Boulton & Watt letters
* Significant Scots - James Watt
*
|
James_Watt | Was James Watt a member of the Lunar Society? | null | data/set4/a2 | James_Watt
James Watt, FRS, FRSE (19 January 1736 25 August 1819) was a Scottish inventor and mechanical engineer whose improvements to the Newcomen steam engine were fundamental to the changes brought by the Industrial Revolution in both the Kingdom of Great Britain and the world.
James Watt was born on 19 January 1736 in Greenock, Renfrewshire, a seaport on the Firth of Clyde. His father was a shipwright, ship owner and contractor, and served as the town's chief baillie, while his mother, Agnes Muirhead, came from a distinguished family and was well educated. Both were Presbyterians and strong Covenanters. Watt's grandfather, Thomas Watt, was a mathematics teacher and baillie to the Baron of Cartsburn. Watt did not attend school regularly; initially he was mostly schooled at home by his mother but later he attended Greenock grammar school. He exhibited great manual dexterity and an aptitude for mathematics, although Latin and Greek failed to interest him, and he absorbed the legends and lore of the Scottish people.
When he was 18, his mother died and his father's health had begun to fail. Watt travelled to London to study instrument-making for a year, then returned to Scotland to Glasgow intent on setting up his own instrument-making business. However, because he had not served at least seven years as an apprentice, the Glasgow Guild of Hammermen (any artisans using hammers) blocked his application, despite there being no other mathematical instrument makers in Scotland.
Watt was saved from this impasse by three professors of the University of Glasgow, who offered him the opportunity to set up a small workshop within the university. It was established in 1758 and one of the professors, the physicist and chemist Joseph Black, became Watt's friend.
In 1764, Watt married his cousin Margaret Miller, with whom he had five children, two of whom lived to adulthood. She died in childbirth in 1772. In 1777 he married again, to Ann MacGregor, daughter of a Glasgow dye-maker, who survived him. She died in 1832.
Watt was an enthusiastic inventor, with a fertile imagination that sometimes got in the way of finishing his works, because he could always see "just one more improvement". He was skilled with his hands, and was also able to perform systematic scientific measurements that could quantify the improvements he made and produce a greater understanding of the phenomenon he was working with.
Watt was a gentleman, greatly respected by other prominent men of the Industrial Revolution. He was an important member of the Lunar Society, and was a much sought after conversationalist and companion, always interested in expanding his horizons. He was a rather poor businessman, and especially hated bargaining and negotiating terms with those who sought to utilize the steam engine. Until he retired, he was always much concerned about his financial affairs, and was something of a worrier. His personal relationships with his friends and partners were always congenial and long-lasting.
James Watt's workshop
Watt retired in 1800, the same year that his fundamental patent and partnership with Boulton expired. The famous partnership was transferred to the men's sons, Matthew Boulton and James Watt Jr. Longtime firm engineer William Murdoch was made a partner and the firm prospered.
"Heathfield", Watt's house in Handsworth, BirminghamWatt continued to invent other things before and during his semi-retirement. He invented a new method of measuring distances by telescope, a device for copying letters, improvements in the oil lamp, a steam mangle and a machine for copying sculptures. Within his home in Handsworth Heath, Staffordshire, Watt made use of a garret room as a workshop, and it was here that he worked on many of his inventions.
He and his second wife travelled to France and Germany, and he purchased an estate in Wales at Doldowlod House, one mile south of Llanwrthwl, which he much improved.
He died on 25 August 1819 at his home "Heathfield" in Handsworth, Birmingham, England at the age of 83. He was buried on 2 September.
The garret room workshop that Watt used in his retirement was left locked and untouched until 1853, when it was first viewed by his biographer J. P. Muirhead. Thereafter, it was occasionally visited, but left untouched, as a kind of shrine. A proposal to have it transferred to the Patent Office came to nothing. When the house was due to be demolished in 1924, the room and all its contents were presented to the Science Museum, where it was recreated in its entirety. Garret workshop of James Watt It remained on display for visitors for many years, but was walled-off when the gallery it was housed in closed. The workshop remains intact, and preserved, and there are plans for it to go on display again at some point in the near future.
Original Condenser by James Watt.
As with many major inventions, there is some dispute as to whether Watt was the original sole inventor of some of the numerous inventions he patented. There is no dispute, however, that he was the sole inventor of his most important invention, the separate condenser. It was his practice (from around the 1780s) to pre-empt others' ideas which were known to him by filing patents with the intention of securing credit for the invention for himself, and ensuring that no one else was able to practice it. As he states in a letter to Boulton of 17 August 1784:
:I have given such descriptions of engines for wheel carriages as I could do in the time and space I could allow myself; but it is very defective and can only serve to keep other people from similar patents.
Some argue that his prohibitions on his employee William Murdoch from working with high pressure steam on his steam road locomotive experiments delayed its development. Watt, with his partner Matthew Boulton, battled against rival engineers such as Jonathan Hornblower who tried to develop engines which did not fall foul of his patents.
Watt patented the application of the sun and planet gear to steam in 1781 and a steam locomotive in 1784, both of which have strong claims to have been invented by his employee, William Murdoch. Watt himself described the provenance of the invention of the sun and planet gear in a letter to Boulton from Watt dated 5 January 1782:
:I have tried a model of one of my old plans of rotative engines revived and executed by W. M[urdock] and which merits being included in the specification as a fifth method...
The patent was never contested by Murdoch, who remained an employee of Boulton and Watt for most of his life, and Boulton and Watt's firm continued to use the sun and planet gear in their rotative engines, even long after the patent for the crank expired in 1794.
Watt opposed the use of high-pressure steam, and many inventors such as Richard Trevithick pioneered such engines, although frequently running into patent infringement actions by Watt. Those more efficient steam engines would eventually displace Watt's engines, leading to another industrial revolution with the development of the steam locomotive.
James Watt statue on City Square at Leeds.
Watt celebrated in a statue by Alexander Munro in Chamberlain Square, outside Birmingham Central Library
James Watt's improvements transformed the Newcomen engine, which had hardly changed for fifty years, and initiated changes in generating and applying power, which transformed the world of work, and were a key innovation of the Industrial Revolution. The importance of the invention can hardly be overstatedâit gave us the modern world. A key feature of it was that it brought the engine out of the remote coal fields into factories where many mechanics, engineers, and even tinkerers were exposed to its virtues and limitations. It was a platform for generations of inventors to improve. It was clear to many that higher pressures produced in improved boilers would produce engines having even higher efficiency, and would lead to the revolution in transportation that was soon embodied in the locomotive and steamboat. It made possible the construction of new factories that, since they were not dependent on water power, could work the year round, and could be placed almost anywhere. Work was moved out of the cottages, resulting in economies of scale. Capital could work more efficiently, and manufacturing productivity greatly improved. It made possible the cascade of new sorts of machine tools that could be used to produce better machines, including that most remarkable of all of them, the Watt steam engine.
Of Watt, the English Novelist Aldous Huxley (1894-1963) wrote; "To us, the moment 8:17 A.M. means something - something very important, if it happens to be the starting time of our daily train. To our ancestors, such an odd eccentric instant was without significance - did not even exist. In inventing the locomotive, Watt and Stephenson were part inventors of time."
Watt was a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and the Royal Society of London. He was a member of the Batavian Society, and one of only eight Foreign Associates of the French Academy of Sciences.
The watt is named after James Watt for his contributions to the development of the steam engine, and was adopted by the Second Congress of the British Association for the Advancement of Science in 1889 and by the 11th General Conference on Weights and Measures in 1960 as the unit of power incorporated in the International System of Units (or "SI").
'
The James Watt Memorial College in Greenock.
Watt was buried in the grounds of St. Mary's Church, Handsworth, in Birmingham. Later expansion of the church, over his grave, means that his tomb is now buried inside the church. A statue of him, Boulton and Murdoch is in Birmingham, as are five other statues of him alone, one in Chamberlain Square, the other outside the Law Courts. He is also remembered by the Moonstones and a school is named in his honour, both in Birmingham. An extensive archive of his papers is held at Birmingham Central Library. Matthew Boulton's home, Soho House, is now a museum, commemorating the work of both men. The University of Glasgow's Faculty of Engineering, the oldest in the United Kingdom, (where Watt was a professor) has its headquarters in the James Watt Building, which also houses the department of Mechanical Engineering and the department of Aerospace Engineering.
The location of James Watt's birth in Greenock is commemorated by a statue, close to his birthplace. Several locations and street names in Greenock recall him, most notably the Watt Memorial Library, which was begun in 1816 with Watt's donation of scientific books, and developed as part of the Watt Institution by his son (which ultimately became the James Watt College). Taken over by the local authority in 1974, the library now also houses the local history collection and archives of Inverclyde, and is dominated by a large seated statue in the vestibule. Watt is additionally commemorated by statuary in George Square, Glasgow and Princes Street, Edinburgh.
The James Watt College has expanded from its original location to include campuses in Kilwinning (North Ayrshire), Finnart Street and The Waterfront in Greenock, and the Sports campus in Largs. Heriot-Watt University near Edinburgh was at one time the School of Arts of Edinburgh, founded in 1821 as the worldâs first Mechanics Institute, but to commemorate George Heriot, the 16th century financier to King James, and James Watt, after Royal Charter the name was changed to Heriot-Watt University. Dozens of university and college buildings (chiefly of science and technology) are named after him.
The huge painting James Watt contemplating the steam engine by James Eckford Lauder is now owned by the National Gallery of Scotland.
Watt was ranked first, tying with Edison, among 229 significant figures in the history of technology by Charles Murray's survey of historiometry presented in his book Human Accomplishments.
Over 50 roads or streets in the UK are named after him.
A colossal statue of Watt by Chantrey was placed in Westminster Abbey, and later was moved to St. Paul's Cathedral. On the cenotaph the inscription reads:
Chantrey's statue of James Watt
:NOT TO PERPETUATE A NAME,
:WHICH MUST ENDURE WHILE THE PEACEFUL ARTS FLOURISH,
:BUT TO SHOW
:THAT MANKIND HAVE LEARNED TO HONOUR THOSE
:WHO BEST DESERVE THEIR GRATITUDE,
:THE KING,
:HIS MINISTERS, AND MANY OF THE NOBLES
:AND COMMONERS OF THE REALM
:RAISED THIS MONUMENT TO
:JAMES WATT
:WHO DIRECTING THE FORCE OF AN ORIGINAL GENIUS
:EARLY EXERCISED IN PHILOSOPHIC RESEARCH
:TO THE IMPROVEMENT OF
:THE STEAM-ENGINE
:ENLARGED THE RESOURCES OF HIS COUNTRY
:INCREASED THE POWER OF MAN
:AND ROSE TO AN EMINENT PLACE
:AMONG THE MOST ILLUSTRIOUS FOLLOWERS OF SCIENCE
:AND THE REAL BENEFACTORS OF THE WORLD
:BORN AT GREENOCK MDCCXXXVI
:DIED AT HEATHFIELD IN STAFFORDSHIRE MDCCCXIX
A lecture theatre in the Mechanical & Manufacturing Engineering building at the University of Birmingham is named "G31 - The James Watt Lecture Theatre".
On 29 May 2009, the Bank of England announced that Watt would appear on a new £50 note, alongside Matthew Boulton.
* Watt steam engine
* Centrifugal governor
* Indicator diagram
* Watt's linkage
* Parallel motion
* Sun and planet gear
*"Some Unpublished Letters of James Watt" in Journal of Institution of Mechanical Engineers (London, 1915).
*Carnegie, Andrew, James Watt University Press of the Pacific (2001) (Reprinted from the 1913 ed.), ISBN 0-89875-578-6.
*
* H. W. Dickinson and Hugh Pembroke Vowles James Watt and the Industrial Revolution (published in 1943, new edition 1948 and reprinted in 1949. Also published in Spanish and Portuguese (1944) by the British Council)
*Hills, Rev. Dr. Richard L., James Watt, Vol 1, His time in Scotland, 1736-1774 (2002); Vol 2, The years of toil, 1775-1785; Vol 3 Triumph through adversity 1785-1819. Landmark Publishing Ltd, ISBN 1-84306-045-0.
*
*
*Marsden, Ben. Watt's Perfect Engine Columbia University Press (New York, 2002) ISBN 0-231-13172-0.
*
*
*Samuel Smiles, Lives of the Engineers, (London, 1861-62, new edition, five volumes, 1905).
;Related topics
*
*
* James Watt by Andrew Carnegie (1905)
* James Watt by Thomas H. Marshall (1925)
* Archives of Soho at Birmingham Central Library.
* BBC History: James Watt
* Revolutionary Players website
* Cornwall Record Office Boulton & Watt letters
* Significant Scots - James Watt
*
|
James_Watt | Did James Watt marry his cousin? | null | data/set4/a2 | James_Watt
James Watt, FRS, FRSE (19 January 1736 25 August 1819) was a Scottish inventor and mechanical engineer whose improvements to the Newcomen steam engine were fundamental to the changes brought by the Industrial Revolution in both the Kingdom of Great Britain and the world.
James Watt was born on 19 January 1736 in Greenock, Renfrewshire, a seaport on the Firth of Clyde. His father was a shipwright, ship owner and contractor, and served as the town's chief baillie, while his mother, Agnes Muirhead, came from a distinguished family and was well educated. Both were Presbyterians and strong Covenanters. Watt's grandfather, Thomas Watt, was a mathematics teacher and baillie to the Baron of Cartsburn. Watt did not attend school regularly; initially he was mostly schooled at home by his mother but later he attended Greenock grammar school. He exhibited great manual dexterity and an aptitude for mathematics, although Latin and Greek failed to interest him, and he absorbed the legends and lore of the Scottish people.
When he was 18, his mother died and his father's health had begun to fail. Watt travelled to London to study instrument-making for a year, then returned to Scotland to Glasgow intent on setting up his own instrument-making business. However, because he had not served at least seven years as an apprentice, the Glasgow Guild of Hammermen (any artisans using hammers) blocked his application, despite there being no other mathematical instrument makers in Scotland.
Watt was saved from this impasse by three professors of the University of Glasgow, who offered him the opportunity to set up a small workshop within the university. It was established in 1758 and one of the professors, the physicist and chemist Joseph Black, became Watt's friend.
In 1764, Watt married his cousin Margaret Miller, with whom he had five children, two of whom lived to adulthood. She died in childbirth in 1772. In 1777 he married again, to Ann MacGregor, daughter of a Glasgow dye-maker, who survived him. She died in 1832.
Watt was an enthusiastic inventor, with a fertile imagination that sometimes got in the way of finishing his works, because he could always see "just one more improvement". He was skilled with his hands, and was also able to perform systematic scientific measurements that could quantify the improvements he made and produce a greater understanding of the phenomenon he was working with.
Watt was a gentleman, greatly respected by other prominent men of the Industrial Revolution. He was an important member of the Lunar Society, and was a much sought after conversationalist and companion, always interested in expanding his horizons. He was a rather poor businessman, and especially hated bargaining and negotiating terms with those who sought to utilize the steam engine. Until he retired, he was always much concerned about his financial affairs, and was something of a worrier. His personal relationships with his friends and partners were always congenial and long-lasting.
James Watt's workshop
Watt retired in 1800, the same year that his fundamental patent and partnership with Boulton expired. The famous partnership was transferred to the men's sons, Matthew Boulton and James Watt Jr. Longtime firm engineer William Murdoch was made a partner and the firm prospered.
"Heathfield", Watt's house in Handsworth, BirminghamWatt continued to invent other things before and during his semi-retirement. He invented a new method of measuring distances by telescope, a device for copying letters, improvements in the oil lamp, a steam mangle and a machine for copying sculptures. Within his home in Handsworth Heath, Staffordshire, Watt made use of a garret room as a workshop, and it was here that he worked on many of his inventions.
He and his second wife travelled to France and Germany, and he purchased an estate in Wales at Doldowlod House, one mile south of Llanwrthwl, which he much improved.
He died on 25 August 1819 at his home "Heathfield" in Handsworth, Birmingham, England at the age of 83. He was buried on 2 September.
The garret room workshop that Watt used in his retirement was left locked and untouched until 1853, when it was first viewed by his biographer J. P. Muirhead. Thereafter, it was occasionally visited, but left untouched, as a kind of shrine. A proposal to have it transferred to the Patent Office came to nothing. When the house was due to be demolished in 1924, the room and all its contents were presented to the Science Museum, where it was recreated in its entirety. Garret workshop of James Watt It remained on display for visitors for many years, but was walled-off when the gallery it was housed in closed. The workshop remains intact, and preserved, and there are plans for it to go on display again at some point in the near future.
Original Condenser by James Watt.
As with many major inventions, there is some dispute as to whether Watt was the original sole inventor of some of the numerous inventions he patented. There is no dispute, however, that he was the sole inventor of his most important invention, the separate condenser. It was his practice (from around the 1780s) to pre-empt others' ideas which were known to him by filing patents with the intention of securing credit for the invention for himself, and ensuring that no one else was able to practice it. As he states in a letter to Boulton of 17 August 1784:
:I have given such descriptions of engines for wheel carriages as I could do in the time and space I could allow myself; but it is very defective and can only serve to keep other people from similar patents.
Some argue that his prohibitions on his employee William Murdoch from working with high pressure steam on his steam road locomotive experiments delayed its development. Watt, with his partner Matthew Boulton, battled against rival engineers such as Jonathan Hornblower who tried to develop engines which did not fall foul of his patents.
Watt patented the application of the sun and planet gear to steam in 1781 and a steam locomotive in 1784, both of which have strong claims to have been invented by his employee, William Murdoch. Watt himself described the provenance of the invention of the sun and planet gear in a letter to Boulton from Watt dated 5 January 1782:
:I have tried a model of one of my old plans of rotative engines revived and executed by W. M[urdock] and which merits being included in the specification as a fifth method...
The patent was never contested by Murdoch, who remained an employee of Boulton and Watt for most of his life, and Boulton and Watt's firm continued to use the sun and planet gear in their rotative engines, even long after the patent for the crank expired in 1794.
Watt opposed the use of high-pressure steam, and many inventors such as Richard Trevithick pioneered such engines, although frequently running into patent infringement actions by Watt. Those more efficient steam engines would eventually displace Watt's engines, leading to another industrial revolution with the development of the steam locomotive.
James Watt statue on City Square at Leeds.
Watt celebrated in a statue by Alexander Munro in Chamberlain Square, outside Birmingham Central Library
James Watt's improvements transformed the Newcomen engine, which had hardly changed for fifty years, and initiated changes in generating and applying power, which transformed the world of work, and were a key innovation of the Industrial Revolution. The importance of the invention can hardly be overstatedâit gave us the modern world. A key feature of it was that it brought the engine out of the remote coal fields into factories where many mechanics, engineers, and even tinkerers were exposed to its virtues and limitations. It was a platform for generations of inventors to improve. It was clear to many that higher pressures produced in improved boilers would produce engines having even higher efficiency, and would lead to the revolution in transportation that was soon embodied in the locomotive and steamboat. It made possible the construction of new factories that, since they were not dependent on water power, could work the year round, and could be placed almost anywhere. Work was moved out of the cottages, resulting in economies of scale. Capital could work more efficiently, and manufacturing productivity greatly improved. It made possible the cascade of new sorts of machine tools that could be used to produce better machines, including that most remarkable of all of them, the Watt steam engine.
Of Watt, the English Novelist Aldous Huxley (1894-1963) wrote; "To us, the moment 8:17 A.M. means something - something very important, if it happens to be the starting time of our daily train. To our ancestors, such an odd eccentric instant was without significance - did not even exist. In inventing the locomotive, Watt and Stephenson were part inventors of time."
Watt was a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and the Royal Society of London. He was a member of the Batavian Society, and one of only eight Foreign Associates of the French Academy of Sciences.
The watt is named after James Watt for his contributions to the development of the steam engine, and was adopted by the Second Congress of the British Association for the Advancement of Science in 1889 and by the 11th General Conference on Weights and Measures in 1960 as the unit of power incorporated in the International System of Units (or "SI").
'
The James Watt Memorial College in Greenock.
Watt was buried in the grounds of St. Mary's Church, Handsworth, in Birmingham. Later expansion of the church, over his grave, means that his tomb is now buried inside the church. A statue of him, Boulton and Murdoch is in Birmingham, as are five other statues of him alone, one in Chamberlain Square, the other outside the Law Courts. He is also remembered by the Moonstones and a school is named in his honour, both in Birmingham. An extensive archive of his papers is held at Birmingham Central Library. Matthew Boulton's home, Soho House, is now a museum, commemorating the work of both men. The University of Glasgow's Faculty of Engineering, the oldest in the United Kingdom, (where Watt was a professor) has its headquarters in the James Watt Building, which also houses the department of Mechanical Engineering and the department of Aerospace Engineering.
The location of James Watt's birth in Greenock is commemorated by a statue, close to his birthplace. Several locations and street names in Greenock recall him, most notably the Watt Memorial Library, which was begun in 1816 with Watt's donation of scientific books, and developed as part of the Watt Institution by his son (which ultimately became the James Watt College). Taken over by the local authority in 1974, the library now also houses the local history collection and archives of Inverclyde, and is dominated by a large seated statue in the vestibule. Watt is additionally commemorated by statuary in George Square, Glasgow and Princes Street, Edinburgh.
The James Watt College has expanded from its original location to include campuses in Kilwinning (North Ayrshire), Finnart Street and The Waterfront in Greenock, and the Sports campus in Largs. Heriot-Watt University near Edinburgh was at one time the School of Arts of Edinburgh, founded in 1821 as the worldâs first Mechanics Institute, but to commemorate George Heriot, the 16th century financier to King James, and James Watt, after Royal Charter the name was changed to Heriot-Watt University. Dozens of university and college buildings (chiefly of science and technology) are named after him.
The huge painting James Watt contemplating the steam engine by James Eckford Lauder is now owned by the National Gallery of Scotland.
Watt was ranked first, tying with Edison, among 229 significant figures in the history of technology by Charles Murray's survey of historiometry presented in his book Human Accomplishments.
Over 50 roads or streets in the UK are named after him.
A colossal statue of Watt by Chantrey was placed in Westminster Abbey, and later was moved to St. Paul's Cathedral. On the cenotaph the inscription reads:
Chantrey's statue of James Watt
:NOT TO PERPETUATE A NAME,
:WHICH MUST ENDURE WHILE THE PEACEFUL ARTS FLOURISH,
:BUT TO SHOW
:THAT MANKIND HAVE LEARNED TO HONOUR THOSE
:WHO BEST DESERVE THEIR GRATITUDE,
:THE KING,
:HIS MINISTERS, AND MANY OF THE NOBLES
:AND COMMONERS OF THE REALM
:RAISED THIS MONUMENT TO
:JAMES WATT
:WHO DIRECTING THE FORCE OF AN ORIGINAL GENIUS
:EARLY EXERCISED IN PHILOSOPHIC RESEARCH
:TO THE IMPROVEMENT OF
:THE STEAM-ENGINE
:ENLARGED THE RESOURCES OF HIS COUNTRY
:INCREASED THE POWER OF MAN
:AND ROSE TO AN EMINENT PLACE
:AMONG THE MOST ILLUSTRIOUS FOLLOWERS OF SCIENCE
:AND THE REAL BENEFACTORS OF THE WORLD
:BORN AT GREENOCK MDCCXXXVI
:DIED AT HEATHFIELD IN STAFFORDSHIRE MDCCCXIX
A lecture theatre in the Mechanical & Manufacturing Engineering building at the University of Birmingham is named "G31 - The James Watt Lecture Theatre".
On 29 May 2009, the Bank of England announced that Watt would appear on a new £50 note, alongside Matthew Boulton.
* Watt steam engine
* Centrifugal governor
* Indicator diagram
* Watt's linkage
* Parallel motion
* Sun and planet gear
*"Some Unpublished Letters of James Watt" in Journal of Institution of Mechanical Engineers (London, 1915).
*Carnegie, Andrew, James Watt University Press of the Pacific (2001) (Reprinted from the 1913 ed.), ISBN 0-89875-578-6.
*
* H. W. Dickinson and Hugh Pembroke Vowles James Watt and the Industrial Revolution (published in 1943, new edition 1948 and reprinted in 1949. Also published in Spanish and Portuguese (1944) by the British Council)
*Hills, Rev. Dr. Richard L., James Watt, Vol 1, His time in Scotland, 1736-1774 (2002); Vol 2, The years of toil, 1775-1785; Vol 3 Triumph through adversity 1785-1819. Landmark Publishing Ltd, ISBN 1-84306-045-0.
*
*
*Marsden, Ben. Watt's Perfect Engine Columbia University Press (New York, 2002) ISBN 0-231-13172-0.
*
*
*Samuel Smiles, Lives of the Engineers, (London, 1861-62, new edition, five volumes, 1905).
;Related topics
*
*
* James Watt by Andrew Carnegie (1905)
* James Watt by Thomas H. Marshall (1925)
* Archives of Soho at Birmingham Central Library.
* BBC History: James Watt
* Revolutionary Players website
* Cornwall Record Office Boulton & Watt letters
* Significant Scots - James Watt
*
|
James_Watt | Did James Watt marry his cousin? | null | data/set4/a2 | James_Watt
James Watt, FRS, FRSE (19 January 1736 25 August 1819) was a Scottish inventor and mechanical engineer whose improvements to the Newcomen steam engine were fundamental to the changes brought by the Industrial Revolution in both the Kingdom of Great Britain and the world.
James Watt was born on 19 January 1736 in Greenock, Renfrewshire, a seaport on the Firth of Clyde. His father was a shipwright, ship owner and contractor, and served as the town's chief baillie, while his mother, Agnes Muirhead, came from a distinguished family and was well educated. Both were Presbyterians and strong Covenanters. Watt's grandfather, Thomas Watt, was a mathematics teacher and baillie to the Baron of Cartsburn. Watt did not attend school regularly; initially he was mostly schooled at home by his mother but later he attended Greenock grammar school. He exhibited great manual dexterity and an aptitude for mathematics, although Latin and Greek failed to interest him, and he absorbed the legends and lore of the Scottish people.
When he was 18, his mother died and his father's health had begun to fail. Watt travelled to London to study instrument-making for a year, then returned to Scotland to Glasgow intent on setting up his own instrument-making business. However, because he had not served at least seven years as an apprentice, the Glasgow Guild of Hammermen (any artisans using hammers) blocked his application, despite there being no other mathematical instrument makers in Scotland.
Watt was saved from this impasse by three professors of the University of Glasgow, who offered him the opportunity to set up a small workshop within the university. It was established in 1758 and one of the professors, the physicist and chemist Joseph Black, became Watt's friend.
In 1764, Watt married his cousin Margaret Miller, with whom he had five children, two of whom lived to adulthood. She died in childbirth in 1772. In 1777 he married again, to Ann MacGregor, daughter of a Glasgow dye-maker, who survived him. She died in 1832.
Watt was an enthusiastic inventor, with a fertile imagination that sometimes got in the way of finishing his works, because he could always see "just one more improvement". He was skilled with his hands, and was also able to perform systematic scientific measurements that could quantify the improvements he made and produce a greater understanding of the phenomenon he was working with.
Watt was a gentleman, greatly respected by other prominent men of the Industrial Revolution. He was an important member of the Lunar Society, and was a much sought after conversationalist and companion, always interested in expanding his horizons. He was a rather poor businessman, and especially hated bargaining and negotiating terms with those who sought to utilize the steam engine. Until he retired, he was always much concerned about his financial affairs, and was something of a worrier. His personal relationships with his friends and partners were always congenial and long-lasting.
James Watt's workshop
Watt retired in 1800, the same year that his fundamental patent and partnership with Boulton expired. The famous partnership was transferred to the men's sons, Matthew Boulton and James Watt Jr. Longtime firm engineer William Murdoch was made a partner and the firm prospered.
"Heathfield", Watt's house in Handsworth, BirminghamWatt continued to invent other things before and during his semi-retirement. He invented a new method of measuring distances by telescope, a device for copying letters, improvements in the oil lamp, a steam mangle and a machine for copying sculptures. Within his home in Handsworth Heath, Staffordshire, Watt made use of a garret room as a workshop, and it was here that he worked on many of his inventions.
He and his second wife travelled to France and Germany, and he purchased an estate in Wales at Doldowlod House, one mile south of Llanwrthwl, which he much improved.
He died on 25 August 1819 at his home "Heathfield" in Handsworth, Birmingham, England at the age of 83. He was buried on 2 September.
The garret room workshop that Watt used in his retirement was left locked and untouched until 1853, when it was first viewed by his biographer J. P. Muirhead. Thereafter, it was occasionally visited, but left untouched, as a kind of shrine. A proposal to have it transferred to the Patent Office came to nothing. When the house was due to be demolished in 1924, the room and all its contents were presented to the Science Museum, where it was recreated in its entirety. Garret workshop of James Watt It remained on display for visitors for many years, but was walled-off when the gallery it was housed in closed. The workshop remains intact, and preserved, and there are plans for it to go on display again at some point in the near future.
Original Condenser by James Watt.
As with many major inventions, there is some dispute as to whether Watt was the original sole inventor of some of the numerous inventions he patented. There is no dispute, however, that he was the sole inventor of his most important invention, the separate condenser. It was his practice (from around the 1780s) to pre-empt others' ideas which were known to him by filing patents with the intention of securing credit for the invention for himself, and ensuring that no one else was able to practice it. As he states in a letter to Boulton of 17 August 1784:
:I have given such descriptions of engines for wheel carriages as I could do in the time and space I could allow myself; but it is very defective and can only serve to keep other people from similar patents.
Some argue that his prohibitions on his employee William Murdoch from working with high pressure steam on his steam road locomotive experiments delayed its development. Watt, with his partner Matthew Boulton, battled against rival engineers such as Jonathan Hornblower who tried to develop engines which did not fall foul of his patents.
Watt patented the application of the sun and planet gear to steam in 1781 and a steam locomotive in 1784, both of which have strong claims to have been invented by his employee, William Murdoch. Watt himself described the provenance of the invention of the sun and planet gear in a letter to Boulton from Watt dated 5 January 1782:
:I have tried a model of one of my old plans of rotative engines revived and executed by W. M[urdock] and which merits being included in the specification as a fifth method...
The patent was never contested by Murdoch, who remained an employee of Boulton and Watt for most of his life, and Boulton and Watt's firm continued to use the sun and planet gear in their rotative engines, even long after the patent for the crank expired in 1794.
Watt opposed the use of high-pressure steam, and many inventors such as Richard Trevithick pioneered such engines, although frequently running into patent infringement actions by Watt. Those more efficient steam engines would eventually displace Watt's engines, leading to another industrial revolution with the development of the steam locomotive.
James Watt statue on City Square at Leeds.
Watt celebrated in a statue by Alexander Munro in Chamberlain Square, outside Birmingham Central Library
James Watt's improvements transformed the Newcomen engine, which had hardly changed for fifty years, and initiated changes in generating and applying power, which transformed the world of work, and were a key innovation of the Industrial Revolution. The importance of the invention can hardly be overstatedâit gave us the modern world. A key feature of it was that it brought the engine out of the remote coal fields into factories where many mechanics, engineers, and even tinkerers were exposed to its virtues and limitations. It was a platform for generations of inventors to improve. It was clear to many that higher pressures produced in improved boilers would produce engines having even higher efficiency, and would lead to the revolution in transportation that was soon embodied in the locomotive and steamboat. It made possible the construction of new factories that, since they were not dependent on water power, could work the year round, and could be placed almost anywhere. Work was moved out of the cottages, resulting in economies of scale. Capital could work more efficiently, and manufacturing productivity greatly improved. It made possible the cascade of new sorts of machine tools that could be used to produce better machines, including that most remarkable of all of them, the Watt steam engine.
Of Watt, the English Novelist Aldous Huxley (1894-1963) wrote; "To us, the moment 8:17 A.M. means something - something very important, if it happens to be the starting time of our daily train. To our ancestors, such an odd eccentric instant was without significance - did not even exist. In inventing the locomotive, Watt and Stephenson were part inventors of time."
Watt was a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and the Royal Society of London. He was a member of the Batavian Society, and one of only eight Foreign Associates of the French Academy of Sciences.
The watt is named after James Watt for his contributions to the development of the steam engine, and was adopted by the Second Congress of the British Association for the Advancement of Science in 1889 and by the 11th General Conference on Weights and Measures in 1960 as the unit of power incorporated in the International System of Units (or "SI").
'
The James Watt Memorial College in Greenock.
Watt was buried in the grounds of St. Mary's Church, Handsworth, in Birmingham. Later expansion of the church, over his grave, means that his tomb is now buried inside the church. A statue of him, Boulton and Murdoch is in Birmingham, as are five other statues of him alone, one in Chamberlain Square, the other outside the Law Courts. He is also remembered by the Moonstones and a school is named in his honour, both in Birmingham. An extensive archive of his papers is held at Birmingham Central Library. Matthew Boulton's home, Soho House, is now a museum, commemorating the work of both men. The University of Glasgow's Faculty of Engineering, the oldest in the United Kingdom, (where Watt was a professor) has its headquarters in the James Watt Building, which also houses the department of Mechanical Engineering and the department of Aerospace Engineering.
The location of James Watt's birth in Greenock is commemorated by a statue, close to his birthplace. Several locations and street names in Greenock recall him, most notably the Watt Memorial Library, which was begun in 1816 with Watt's donation of scientific books, and developed as part of the Watt Institution by his son (which ultimately became the James Watt College). Taken over by the local authority in 1974, the library now also houses the local history collection and archives of Inverclyde, and is dominated by a large seated statue in the vestibule. Watt is additionally commemorated by statuary in George Square, Glasgow and Princes Street, Edinburgh.
The James Watt College has expanded from its original location to include campuses in Kilwinning (North Ayrshire), Finnart Street and The Waterfront in Greenock, and the Sports campus in Largs. Heriot-Watt University near Edinburgh was at one time the School of Arts of Edinburgh, founded in 1821 as the worldâs first Mechanics Institute, but to commemorate George Heriot, the 16th century financier to King James, and James Watt, after Royal Charter the name was changed to Heriot-Watt University. Dozens of university and college buildings (chiefly of science and technology) are named after him.
The huge painting James Watt contemplating the steam engine by James Eckford Lauder is now owned by the National Gallery of Scotland.
Watt was ranked first, tying with Edison, among 229 significant figures in the history of technology by Charles Murray's survey of historiometry presented in his book Human Accomplishments.
Over 50 roads or streets in the UK are named after him.
A colossal statue of Watt by Chantrey was placed in Westminster Abbey, and later was moved to St. Paul's Cathedral. On the cenotaph the inscription reads:
Chantrey's statue of James Watt
:NOT TO PERPETUATE A NAME,
:WHICH MUST ENDURE WHILE THE PEACEFUL ARTS FLOURISH,
:BUT TO SHOW
:THAT MANKIND HAVE LEARNED TO HONOUR THOSE
:WHO BEST DESERVE THEIR GRATITUDE,
:THE KING,
:HIS MINISTERS, AND MANY OF THE NOBLES
:AND COMMONERS OF THE REALM
:RAISED THIS MONUMENT TO
:JAMES WATT
:WHO DIRECTING THE FORCE OF AN ORIGINAL GENIUS
:EARLY EXERCISED IN PHILOSOPHIC RESEARCH
:TO THE IMPROVEMENT OF
:THE STEAM-ENGINE
:ENLARGED THE RESOURCES OF HIS COUNTRY
:INCREASED THE POWER OF MAN
:AND ROSE TO AN EMINENT PLACE
:AMONG THE MOST ILLUSTRIOUS FOLLOWERS OF SCIENCE
:AND THE REAL BENEFACTORS OF THE WORLD
:BORN AT GREENOCK MDCCXXXVI
:DIED AT HEATHFIELD IN STAFFORDSHIRE MDCCCXIX
A lecture theatre in the Mechanical & Manufacturing Engineering building at the University of Birmingham is named "G31 - The James Watt Lecture Theatre".
On 29 May 2009, the Bank of England announced that Watt would appear on a new £50 note, alongside Matthew Boulton.
* Watt steam engine
* Centrifugal governor
* Indicator diagram
* Watt's linkage
* Parallel motion
* Sun and planet gear
*"Some Unpublished Letters of James Watt" in Journal of Institution of Mechanical Engineers (London, 1915).
*Carnegie, Andrew, James Watt University Press of the Pacific (2001) (Reprinted from the 1913 ed.), ISBN 0-89875-578-6.
*
* H. W. Dickinson and Hugh Pembroke Vowles James Watt and the Industrial Revolution (published in 1943, new edition 1948 and reprinted in 1949. Also published in Spanish and Portuguese (1944) by the British Council)
*Hills, Rev. Dr. Richard L., James Watt, Vol 1, His time in Scotland, 1736-1774 (2002); Vol 2, The years of toil, 1775-1785; Vol 3 Triumph through adversity 1785-1819. Landmark Publishing Ltd, ISBN 1-84306-045-0.
*
*
*Marsden, Ben. Watt's Perfect Engine Columbia University Press (New York, 2002) ISBN 0-231-13172-0.
*
*
*Samuel Smiles, Lives of the Engineers, (London, 1861-62, new edition, five volumes, 1905).
;Related topics
*
*
* James Watt by Andrew Carnegie (1905)
* James Watt by Thomas H. Marshall (1925)
* Archives of Soho at Birmingham Central Library.
* BBC History: James Watt
* Revolutionary Players website
* Cornwall Record Office Boulton & Watt letters
* Significant Scots - James Watt
*
|
James_Watt | Was Watt married to Agnes Muirhead? | null | data/set4/a2 | James_Watt
James Watt, FRS, FRSE (19 January 1736 25 August 1819) was a Scottish inventor and mechanical engineer whose improvements to the Newcomen steam engine were fundamental to the changes brought by the Industrial Revolution in both the Kingdom of Great Britain and the world.
James Watt was born on 19 January 1736 in Greenock, Renfrewshire, a seaport on the Firth of Clyde. His father was a shipwright, ship owner and contractor, and served as the town's chief baillie, while his mother, Agnes Muirhead, came from a distinguished family and was well educated. Both were Presbyterians and strong Covenanters. Watt's grandfather, Thomas Watt, was a mathematics teacher and baillie to the Baron of Cartsburn. Watt did not attend school regularly; initially he was mostly schooled at home by his mother but later he attended Greenock grammar school. He exhibited great manual dexterity and an aptitude for mathematics, although Latin and Greek failed to interest him, and he absorbed the legends and lore of the Scottish people.
When he was 18, his mother died and his father's health had begun to fail. Watt travelled to London to study instrument-making for a year, then returned to Scotland to Glasgow intent on setting up his own instrument-making business. However, because he had not served at least seven years as an apprentice, the Glasgow Guild of Hammermen (any artisans using hammers) blocked his application, despite there being no other mathematical instrument makers in Scotland.
Watt was saved from this impasse by three professors of the University of Glasgow, who offered him the opportunity to set up a small workshop within the university. It was established in 1758 and one of the professors, the physicist and chemist Joseph Black, became Watt's friend.
In 1764, Watt married his cousin Margaret Miller, with whom he had five children, two of whom lived to adulthood. She died in childbirth in 1772. In 1777 he married again, to Ann MacGregor, daughter of a Glasgow dye-maker, who survived him. She died in 1832.
Watt was an enthusiastic inventor, with a fertile imagination that sometimes got in the way of finishing his works, because he could always see "just one more improvement". He was skilled with his hands, and was also able to perform systematic scientific measurements that could quantify the improvements he made and produce a greater understanding of the phenomenon he was working with.
Watt was a gentleman, greatly respected by other prominent men of the Industrial Revolution. He was an important member of the Lunar Society, and was a much sought after conversationalist and companion, always interested in expanding his horizons. He was a rather poor businessman, and especially hated bargaining and negotiating terms with those who sought to utilize the steam engine. Until he retired, he was always much concerned about his financial affairs, and was something of a worrier. His personal relationships with his friends and partners were always congenial and long-lasting.
James Watt's workshop
Watt retired in 1800, the same year that his fundamental patent and partnership with Boulton expired. The famous partnership was transferred to the men's sons, Matthew Boulton and James Watt Jr. Longtime firm engineer William Murdoch was made a partner and the firm prospered.
"Heathfield", Watt's house in Handsworth, BirminghamWatt continued to invent other things before and during his semi-retirement. He invented a new method of measuring distances by telescope, a device for copying letters, improvements in the oil lamp, a steam mangle and a machine for copying sculptures. Within his home in Handsworth Heath, Staffordshire, Watt made use of a garret room as a workshop, and it was here that he worked on many of his inventions.
He and his second wife travelled to France and Germany, and he purchased an estate in Wales at Doldowlod House, one mile south of Llanwrthwl, which he much improved.
He died on 25 August 1819 at his home "Heathfield" in Handsworth, Birmingham, England at the age of 83. He was buried on 2 September.
The garret room workshop that Watt used in his retirement was left locked and untouched until 1853, when it was first viewed by his biographer J. P. Muirhead. Thereafter, it was occasionally visited, but left untouched, as a kind of shrine. A proposal to have it transferred to the Patent Office came to nothing. When the house was due to be demolished in 1924, the room and all its contents were presented to the Science Museum, where it was recreated in its entirety. Garret workshop of James Watt It remained on display for visitors for many years, but was walled-off when the gallery it was housed in closed. The workshop remains intact, and preserved, and there are plans for it to go on display again at some point in the near future.
Original Condenser by James Watt.
As with many major inventions, there is some dispute as to whether Watt was the original sole inventor of some of the numerous inventions he patented. There is no dispute, however, that he was the sole inventor of his most important invention, the separate condenser. It was his practice (from around the 1780s) to pre-empt others' ideas which were known to him by filing patents with the intention of securing credit for the invention for himself, and ensuring that no one else was able to practice it. As he states in a letter to Boulton of 17 August 1784:
:I have given such descriptions of engines for wheel carriages as I could do in the time and space I could allow myself; but it is very defective and can only serve to keep other people from similar patents.
Some argue that his prohibitions on his employee William Murdoch from working with high pressure steam on his steam road locomotive experiments delayed its development. Watt, with his partner Matthew Boulton, battled against rival engineers such as Jonathan Hornblower who tried to develop engines which did not fall foul of his patents.
Watt patented the application of the sun and planet gear to steam in 1781 and a steam locomotive in 1784, both of which have strong claims to have been invented by his employee, William Murdoch. Watt himself described the provenance of the invention of the sun and planet gear in a letter to Boulton from Watt dated 5 January 1782:
:I have tried a model of one of my old plans of rotative engines revived and executed by W. M[urdock] and which merits being included in the specification as a fifth method...
The patent was never contested by Murdoch, who remained an employee of Boulton and Watt for most of his life, and Boulton and Watt's firm continued to use the sun and planet gear in their rotative engines, even long after the patent for the crank expired in 1794.
Watt opposed the use of high-pressure steam, and many inventors such as Richard Trevithick pioneered such engines, although frequently running into patent infringement actions by Watt. Those more efficient steam engines would eventually displace Watt's engines, leading to another industrial revolution with the development of the steam locomotive.
James Watt statue on City Square at Leeds.
Watt celebrated in a statue by Alexander Munro in Chamberlain Square, outside Birmingham Central Library
James Watt's improvements transformed the Newcomen engine, which had hardly changed for fifty years, and initiated changes in generating and applying power, which transformed the world of work, and were a key innovation of the Industrial Revolution. The importance of the invention can hardly be overstatedâit gave us the modern world. A key feature of it was that it brought the engine out of the remote coal fields into factories where many mechanics, engineers, and even tinkerers were exposed to its virtues and limitations. It was a platform for generations of inventors to improve. It was clear to many that higher pressures produced in improved boilers would produce engines having even higher efficiency, and would lead to the revolution in transportation that was soon embodied in the locomotive and steamboat. It made possible the construction of new factories that, since they were not dependent on water power, could work the year round, and could be placed almost anywhere. Work was moved out of the cottages, resulting in economies of scale. Capital could work more efficiently, and manufacturing productivity greatly improved. It made possible the cascade of new sorts of machine tools that could be used to produce better machines, including that most remarkable of all of them, the Watt steam engine.
Of Watt, the English Novelist Aldous Huxley (1894-1963) wrote; "To us, the moment 8:17 A.M. means something - something very important, if it happens to be the starting time of our daily train. To our ancestors, such an odd eccentric instant was without significance - did not even exist. In inventing the locomotive, Watt and Stephenson were part inventors of time."
Watt was a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and the Royal Society of London. He was a member of the Batavian Society, and one of only eight Foreign Associates of the French Academy of Sciences.
The watt is named after James Watt for his contributions to the development of the steam engine, and was adopted by the Second Congress of the British Association for the Advancement of Science in 1889 and by the 11th General Conference on Weights and Measures in 1960 as the unit of power incorporated in the International System of Units (or "SI").
'
The James Watt Memorial College in Greenock.
Watt was buried in the grounds of St. Mary's Church, Handsworth, in Birmingham. Later expansion of the church, over his grave, means that his tomb is now buried inside the church. A statue of him, Boulton and Murdoch is in Birmingham, as are five other statues of him alone, one in Chamberlain Square, the other outside the Law Courts. He is also remembered by the Moonstones and a school is named in his honour, both in Birmingham. An extensive archive of his papers is held at Birmingham Central Library. Matthew Boulton's home, Soho House, is now a museum, commemorating the work of both men. The University of Glasgow's Faculty of Engineering, the oldest in the United Kingdom, (where Watt was a professor) has its headquarters in the James Watt Building, which also houses the department of Mechanical Engineering and the department of Aerospace Engineering.
The location of James Watt's birth in Greenock is commemorated by a statue, close to his birthplace. Several locations and street names in Greenock recall him, most notably the Watt Memorial Library, which was begun in 1816 with Watt's donation of scientific books, and developed as part of the Watt Institution by his son (which ultimately became the James Watt College). Taken over by the local authority in 1974, the library now also houses the local history collection and archives of Inverclyde, and is dominated by a large seated statue in the vestibule. Watt is additionally commemorated by statuary in George Square, Glasgow and Princes Street, Edinburgh.
The James Watt College has expanded from its original location to include campuses in Kilwinning (North Ayrshire), Finnart Street and The Waterfront in Greenock, and the Sports campus in Largs. Heriot-Watt University near Edinburgh was at one time the School of Arts of Edinburgh, founded in 1821 as the worldâs first Mechanics Institute, but to commemorate George Heriot, the 16th century financier to King James, and James Watt, after Royal Charter the name was changed to Heriot-Watt University. Dozens of university and college buildings (chiefly of science and technology) are named after him.
The huge painting James Watt contemplating the steam engine by James Eckford Lauder is now owned by the National Gallery of Scotland.
Watt was ranked first, tying with Edison, among 229 significant figures in the history of technology by Charles Murray's survey of historiometry presented in his book Human Accomplishments.
Over 50 roads or streets in the UK are named after him.
A colossal statue of Watt by Chantrey was placed in Westminster Abbey, and later was moved to St. Paul's Cathedral. On the cenotaph the inscription reads:
Chantrey's statue of James Watt
:NOT TO PERPETUATE A NAME,
:WHICH MUST ENDURE WHILE THE PEACEFUL ARTS FLOURISH,
:BUT TO SHOW
:THAT MANKIND HAVE LEARNED TO HONOUR THOSE
:WHO BEST DESERVE THEIR GRATITUDE,
:THE KING,
:HIS MINISTERS, AND MANY OF THE NOBLES
:AND COMMONERS OF THE REALM
:RAISED THIS MONUMENT TO
:JAMES WATT
:WHO DIRECTING THE FORCE OF AN ORIGINAL GENIUS
:EARLY EXERCISED IN PHILOSOPHIC RESEARCH
:TO THE IMPROVEMENT OF
:THE STEAM-ENGINE
:ENLARGED THE RESOURCES OF HIS COUNTRY
:INCREASED THE POWER OF MAN
:AND ROSE TO AN EMINENT PLACE
:AMONG THE MOST ILLUSTRIOUS FOLLOWERS OF SCIENCE
:AND THE REAL BENEFACTORS OF THE WORLD
:BORN AT GREENOCK MDCCXXXVI
:DIED AT HEATHFIELD IN STAFFORDSHIRE MDCCCXIX
A lecture theatre in the Mechanical & Manufacturing Engineering building at the University of Birmingham is named "G31 - The James Watt Lecture Theatre".
On 29 May 2009, the Bank of England announced that Watt would appear on a new £50 note, alongside Matthew Boulton.
* Watt steam engine
* Centrifugal governor
* Indicator diagram
* Watt's linkage
* Parallel motion
* Sun and planet gear
*"Some Unpublished Letters of James Watt" in Journal of Institution of Mechanical Engineers (London, 1915).
*Carnegie, Andrew, James Watt University Press of the Pacific (2001) (Reprinted from the 1913 ed.), ISBN 0-89875-578-6.
*
* H. W. Dickinson and Hugh Pembroke Vowles James Watt and the Industrial Revolution (published in 1943, new edition 1948 and reprinted in 1949. Also published in Spanish and Portuguese (1944) by the British Council)
*Hills, Rev. Dr. Richard L., James Watt, Vol 1, His time in Scotland, 1736-1774 (2002); Vol 2, The years of toil, 1775-1785; Vol 3 Triumph through adversity 1785-1819. Landmark Publishing Ltd, ISBN 1-84306-045-0.
*
*
*Marsden, Ben. Watt's Perfect Engine Columbia University Press (New York, 2002) ISBN 0-231-13172-0.
*
*
*Samuel Smiles, Lives of the Engineers, (London, 1861-62, new edition, five volumes, 1905).
;Related topics
*
*
* James Watt by Andrew Carnegie (1905)
* James Watt by Thomas H. Marshall (1925)
* Archives of Soho at Birmingham Central Library.
* BBC History: James Watt
* Revolutionary Players website
* Cornwall Record Office Boulton & Watt letters
* Significant Scots - James Watt
*
|
James_Watt | Was Watt married to Agnes Muirhead? | null | data/set4/a2 | James_Watt
James Watt, FRS, FRSE (19 January 1736 25 August 1819) was a Scottish inventor and mechanical engineer whose improvements to the Newcomen steam engine were fundamental to the changes brought by the Industrial Revolution in both the Kingdom of Great Britain and the world.
James Watt was born on 19 January 1736 in Greenock, Renfrewshire, a seaport on the Firth of Clyde. His father was a shipwright, ship owner and contractor, and served as the town's chief baillie, while his mother, Agnes Muirhead, came from a distinguished family and was well educated. Both were Presbyterians and strong Covenanters. Watt's grandfather, Thomas Watt, was a mathematics teacher and baillie to the Baron of Cartsburn. Watt did not attend school regularly; initially he was mostly schooled at home by his mother but later he attended Greenock grammar school. He exhibited great manual dexterity and an aptitude for mathematics, although Latin and Greek failed to interest him, and he absorbed the legends and lore of the Scottish people.
When he was 18, his mother died and his father's health had begun to fail. Watt travelled to London to study instrument-making for a year, then returned to Scotland to Glasgow intent on setting up his own instrument-making business. However, because he had not served at least seven years as an apprentice, the Glasgow Guild of Hammermen (any artisans using hammers) blocked his application, despite there being no other mathematical instrument makers in Scotland.
Watt was saved from this impasse by three professors of the University of Glasgow, who offered him the opportunity to set up a small workshop within the university. It was established in 1758 and one of the professors, the physicist and chemist Joseph Black, became Watt's friend.
In 1764, Watt married his cousin Margaret Miller, with whom he had five children, two of whom lived to adulthood. She died in childbirth in 1772. In 1777 he married again, to Ann MacGregor, daughter of a Glasgow dye-maker, who survived him. She died in 1832.
Watt was an enthusiastic inventor, with a fertile imagination that sometimes got in the way of finishing his works, because he could always see "just one more improvement". He was skilled with his hands, and was also able to perform systematic scientific measurements that could quantify the improvements he made and produce a greater understanding of the phenomenon he was working with.
Watt was a gentleman, greatly respected by other prominent men of the Industrial Revolution. He was an important member of the Lunar Society, and was a much sought after conversationalist and companion, always interested in expanding his horizons. He was a rather poor businessman, and especially hated bargaining and negotiating terms with those who sought to utilize the steam engine. Until he retired, he was always much concerned about his financial affairs, and was something of a worrier. His personal relationships with his friends and partners were always congenial and long-lasting.
James Watt's workshop
Watt retired in 1800, the same year that his fundamental patent and partnership with Boulton expired. The famous partnership was transferred to the men's sons, Matthew Boulton and James Watt Jr. Longtime firm engineer William Murdoch was made a partner and the firm prospered.
"Heathfield", Watt's house in Handsworth, BirminghamWatt continued to invent other things before and during his semi-retirement. He invented a new method of measuring distances by telescope, a device for copying letters, improvements in the oil lamp, a steam mangle and a machine for copying sculptures. Within his home in Handsworth Heath, Staffordshire, Watt made use of a garret room as a workshop, and it was here that he worked on many of his inventions.
He and his second wife travelled to France and Germany, and he purchased an estate in Wales at Doldowlod House, one mile south of Llanwrthwl, which he much improved.
He died on 25 August 1819 at his home "Heathfield" in Handsworth, Birmingham, England at the age of 83. He was buried on 2 September.
The garret room workshop that Watt used in his retirement was left locked and untouched until 1853, when it was first viewed by his biographer J. P. Muirhead. Thereafter, it was occasionally visited, but left untouched, as a kind of shrine. A proposal to have it transferred to the Patent Office came to nothing. When the house was due to be demolished in 1924, the room and all its contents were presented to the Science Museum, where it was recreated in its entirety. Garret workshop of James Watt It remained on display for visitors for many years, but was walled-off when the gallery it was housed in closed. The workshop remains intact, and preserved, and there are plans for it to go on display again at some point in the near future.
Original Condenser by James Watt.
As with many major inventions, there is some dispute as to whether Watt was the original sole inventor of some of the numerous inventions he patented. There is no dispute, however, that he was the sole inventor of his most important invention, the separate condenser. It was his practice (from around the 1780s) to pre-empt others' ideas which were known to him by filing patents with the intention of securing credit for the invention for himself, and ensuring that no one else was able to practice it. As he states in a letter to Boulton of 17 August 1784:
:I have given such descriptions of engines for wheel carriages as I could do in the time and space I could allow myself; but it is very defective and can only serve to keep other people from similar patents.
Some argue that his prohibitions on his employee William Murdoch from working with high pressure steam on his steam road locomotive experiments delayed its development. Watt, with his partner Matthew Boulton, battled against rival engineers such as Jonathan Hornblower who tried to develop engines which did not fall foul of his patents.
Watt patented the application of the sun and planet gear to steam in 1781 and a steam locomotive in 1784, both of which have strong claims to have been invented by his employee, William Murdoch. Watt himself described the provenance of the invention of the sun and planet gear in a letter to Boulton from Watt dated 5 January 1782:
:I have tried a model of one of my old plans of rotative engines revived and executed by W. M[urdock] and which merits being included in the specification as a fifth method...
The patent was never contested by Murdoch, who remained an employee of Boulton and Watt for most of his life, and Boulton and Watt's firm continued to use the sun and planet gear in their rotative engines, even long after the patent for the crank expired in 1794.
Watt opposed the use of high-pressure steam, and many inventors such as Richard Trevithick pioneered such engines, although frequently running into patent infringement actions by Watt. Those more efficient steam engines would eventually displace Watt's engines, leading to another industrial revolution with the development of the steam locomotive.
James Watt statue on City Square at Leeds.
Watt celebrated in a statue by Alexander Munro in Chamberlain Square, outside Birmingham Central Library
James Watt's improvements transformed the Newcomen engine, which had hardly changed for fifty years, and initiated changes in generating and applying power, which transformed the world of work, and were a key innovation of the Industrial Revolution. The importance of the invention can hardly be overstatedâit gave us the modern world. A key feature of it was that it brought the engine out of the remote coal fields into factories where many mechanics, engineers, and even tinkerers were exposed to its virtues and limitations. It was a platform for generations of inventors to improve. It was clear to many that higher pressures produced in improved boilers would produce engines having even higher efficiency, and would lead to the revolution in transportation that was soon embodied in the locomotive and steamboat. It made possible the construction of new factories that, since they were not dependent on water power, could work the year round, and could be placed almost anywhere. Work was moved out of the cottages, resulting in economies of scale. Capital could work more efficiently, and manufacturing productivity greatly improved. It made possible the cascade of new sorts of machine tools that could be used to produce better machines, including that most remarkable of all of them, the Watt steam engine.
Of Watt, the English Novelist Aldous Huxley (1894-1963) wrote; "To us, the moment 8:17 A.M. means something - something very important, if it happens to be the starting time of our daily train. To our ancestors, such an odd eccentric instant was without significance - did not even exist. In inventing the locomotive, Watt and Stephenson were part inventors of time."
Watt was a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and the Royal Society of London. He was a member of the Batavian Society, and one of only eight Foreign Associates of the French Academy of Sciences.
The watt is named after James Watt for his contributions to the development of the steam engine, and was adopted by the Second Congress of the British Association for the Advancement of Science in 1889 and by the 11th General Conference on Weights and Measures in 1960 as the unit of power incorporated in the International System of Units (or "SI").
'
The James Watt Memorial College in Greenock.
Watt was buried in the grounds of St. Mary's Church, Handsworth, in Birmingham. Later expansion of the church, over his grave, means that his tomb is now buried inside the church. A statue of him, Boulton and Murdoch is in Birmingham, as are five other statues of him alone, one in Chamberlain Square, the other outside the Law Courts. He is also remembered by the Moonstones and a school is named in his honour, both in Birmingham. An extensive archive of his papers is held at Birmingham Central Library. Matthew Boulton's home, Soho House, is now a museum, commemorating the work of both men. The University of Glasgow's Faculty of Engineering, the oldest in the United Kingdom, (where Watt was a professor) has its headquarters in the James Watt Building, which also houses the department of Mechanical Engineering and the department of Aerospace Engineering.
The location of James Watt's birth in Greenock is commemorated by a statue, close to his birthplace. Several locations and street names in Greenock recall him, most notably the Watt Memorial Library, which was begun in 1816 with Watt's donation of scientific books, and developed as part of the Watt Institution by his son (which ultimately became the James Watt College). Taken over by the local authority in 1974, the library now also houses the local history collection and archives of Inverclyde, and is dominated by a large seated statue in the vestibule. Watt is additionally commemorated by statuary in George Square, Glasgow and Princes Street, Edinburgh.
The James Watt College has expanded from its original location to include campuses in Kilwinning (North Ayrshire), Finnart Street and The Waterfront in Greenock, and the Sports campus in Largs. Heriot-Watt University near Edinburgh was at one time the School of Arts of Edinburgh, founded in 1821 as the worldâs first Mechanics Institute, but to commemorate George Heriot, the 16th century financier to King James, and James Watt, after Royal Charter the name was changed to Heriot-Watt University. Dozens of university and college buildings (chiefly of science and technology) are named after him.
The huge painting James Watt contemplating the steam engine by James Eckford Lauder is now owned by the National Gallery of Scotland.
Watt was ranked first, tying with Edison, among 229 significant figures in the history of technology by Charles Murray's survey of historiometry presented in his book Human Accomplishments.
Over 50 roads or streets in the UK are named after him.
A colossal statue of Watt by Chantrey was placed in Westminster Abbey, and later was moved to St. Paul's Cathedral. On the cenotaph the inscription reads:
Chantrey's statue of James Watt
:NOT TO PERPETUATE A NAME,
:WHICH MUST ENDURE WHILE THE PEACEFUL ARTS FLOURISH,
:BUT TO SHOW
:THAT MANKIND HAVE LEARNED TO HONOUR THOSE
:WHO BEST DESERVE THEIR GRATITUDE,
:THE KING,
:HIS MINISTERS, AND MANY OF THE NOBLES
:AND COMMONERS OF THE REALM
:RAISED THIS MONUMENT TO
:JAMES WATT
:WHO DIRECTING THE FORCE OF AN ORIGINAL GENIUS
:EARLY EXERCISED IN PHILOSOPHIC RESEARCH
:TO THE IMPROVEMENT OF
:THE STEAM-ENGINE
:ENLARGED THE RESOURCES OF HIS COUNTRY
:INCREASED THE POWER OF MAN
:AND ROSE TO AN EMINENT PLACE
:AMONG THE MOST ILLUSTRIOUS FOLLOWERS OF SCIENCE
:AND THE REAL BENEFACTORS OF THE WORLD
:BORN AT GREENOCK MDCCXXXVI
:DIED AT HEATHFIELD IN STAFFORDSHIRE MDCCCXIX
A lecture theatre in the Mechanical & Manufacturing Engineering building at the University of Birmingham is named "G31 - The James Watt Lecture Theatre".
On 29 May 2009, the Bank of England announced that Watt would appear on a new £50 note, alongside Matthew Boulton.
* Watt steam engine
* Centrifugal governor
* Indicator diagram
* Watt's linkage
* Parallel motion
* Sun and planet gear
*"Some Unpublished Letters of James Watt" in Journal of Institution of Mechanical Engineers (London, 1915).
*Carnegie, Andrew, James Watt University Press of the Pacific (2001) (Reprinted from the 1913 ed.), ISBN 0-89875-578-6.
*
* H. W. Dickinson and Hugh Pembroke Vowles James Watt and the Industrial Revolution (published in 1943, new edition 1948 and reprinted in 1949. Also published in Spanish and Portuguese (1944) by the British Council)
*Hills, Rev. Dr. Richard L., James Watt, Vol 1, His time in Scotland, 1736-1774 (2002); Vol 2, The years of toil, 1775-1785; Vol 3 Triumph through adversity 1785-1819. Landmark Publishing Ltd, ISBN 1-84306-045-0.
*
*
*Marsden, Ben. Watt's Perfect Engine Columbia University Press (New York, 2002) ISBN 0-231-13172-0.
*
*
*Samuel Smiles, Lives of the Engineers, (London, 1861-62, new edition, five volumes, 1905).
;Related topics
*
*
* James Watt by Andrew Carnegie (1905)
* James Watt by Thomas H. Marshall (1925)
* Archives of Soho at Birmingham Central Library.
* BBC History: James Watt
* Revolutionary Players website
* Cornwall Record Office Boulton & Watt letters
* Significant Scots - James Watt
*
|
James_Watt | How old was James Watt when his mother died? | null | data/set4/a2 | James_Watt
James Watt, FRS, FRSE (19 January 1736 25 August 1819) was a Scottish inventor and mechanical engineer whose improvements to the Newcomen steam engine were fundamental to the changes brought by the Industrial Revolution in both the Kingdom of Great Britain and the world.
James Watt was born on 19 January 1736 in Greenock, Renfrewshire, a seaport on the Firth of Clyde. His father was a shipwright, ship owner and contractor, and served as the town's chief baillie, while his mother, Agnes Muirhead, came from a distinguished family and was well educated. Both were Presbyterians and strong Covenanters. Watt's grandfather, Thomas Watt, was a mathematics teacher and baillie to the Baron of Cartsburn. Watt did not attend school regularly; initially he was mostly schooled at home by his mother but later he attended Greenock grammar school. He exhibited great manual dexterity and an aptitude for mathematics, although Latin and Greek failed to interest him, and he absorbed the legends and lore of the Scottish people.
When he was 18, his mother died and his father's health had begun to fail. Watt travelled to London to study instrument-making for a year, then returned to Scotland to Glasgow intent on setting up his own instrument-making business. However, because he had not served at least seven years as an apprentice, the Glasgow Guild of Hammermen (any artisans using hammers) blocked his application, despite there being no other mathematical instrument makers in Scotland.
Watt was saved from this impasse by three professors of the University of Glasgow, who offered him the opportunity to set up a small workshop within the university. It was established in 1758 and one of the professors, the physicist and chemist Joseph Black, became Watt's friend.
In 1764, Watt married his cousin Margaret Miller, with whom he had five children, two of whom lived to adulthood. She died in childbirth in 1772. In 1777 he married again, to Ann MacGregor, daughter of a Glasgow dye-maker, who survived him. She died in 1832.
Watt was an enthusiastic inventor, with a fertile imagination that sometimes got in the way of finishing his works, because he could always see "just one more improvement". He was skilled with his hands, and was also able to perform systematic scientific measurements that could quantify the improvements he made and produce a greater understanding of the phenomenon he was working with.
Watt was a gentleman, greatly respected by other prominent men of the Industrial Revolution. He was an important member of the Lunar Society, and was a much sought after conversationalist and companion, always interested in expanding his horizons. He was a rather poor businessman, and especially hated bargaining and negotiating terms with those who sought to utilize the steam engine. Until he retired, he was always much concerned about his financial affairs, and was something of a worrier. His personal relationships with his friends and partners were always congenial and long-lasting.
James Watt's workshop
Watt retired in 1800, the same year that his fundamental patent and partnership with Boulton expired. The famous partnership was transferred to the men's sons, Matthew Boulton and James Watt Jr. Longtime firm engineer William Murdoch was made a partner and the firm prospered.
"Heathfield", Watt's house in Handsworth, BirminghamWatt continued to invent other things before and during his semi-retirement. He invented a new method of measuring distances by telescope, a device for copying letters, improvements in the oil lamp, a steam mangle and a machine for copying sculptures. Within his home in Handsworth Heath, Staffordshire, Watt made use of a garret room as a workshop, and it was here that he worked on many of his inventions.
He and his second wife travelled to France and Germany, and he purchased an estate in Wales at Doldowlod House, one mile south of Llanwrthwl, which he much improved.
He died on 25 August 1819 at his home "Heathfield" in Handsworth, Birmingham, England at the age of 83. He was buried on 2 September.
The garret room workshop that Watt used in his retirement was left locked and untouched until 1853, when it was first viewed by his biographer J. P. Muirhead. Thereafter, it was occasionally visited, but left untouched, as a kind of shrine. A proposal to have it transferred to the Patent Office came to nothing. When the house was due to be demolished in 1924, the room and all its contents were presented to the Science Museum, where it was recreated in its entirety. Garret workshop of James Watt It remained on display for visitors for many years, but was walled-off when the gallery it was housed in closed. The workshop remains intact, and preserved, and there are plans for it to go on display again at some point in the near future.
Original Condenser by James Watt.
As with many major inventions, there is some dispute as to whether Watt was the original sole inventor of some of the numerous inventions he patented. There is no dispute, however, that he was the sole inventor of his most important invention, the separate condenser. It was his practice (from around the 1780s) to pre-empt others' ideas which were known to him by filing patents with the intention of securing credit for the invention for himself, and ensuring that no one else was able to practice it. As he states in a letter to Boulton of 17 August 1784:
:I have given such descriptions of engines for wheel carriages as I could do in the time and space I could allow myself; but it is very defective and can only serve to keep other people from similar patents.
Some argue that his prohibitions on his employee William Murdoch from working with high pressure steam on his steam road locomotive experiments delayed its development. Watt, with his partner Matthew Boulton, battled against rival engineers such as Jonathan Hornblower who tried to develop engines which did not fall foul of his patents.
Watt patented the application of the sun and planet gear to steam in 1781 and a steam locomotive in 1784, both of which have strong claims to have been invented by his employee, William Murdoch. Watt himself described the provenance of the invention of the sun and planet gear in a letter to Boulton from Watt dated 5 January 1782:
:I have tried a model of one of my old plans of rotative engines revived and executed by W. M[urdock] and which merits being included in the specification as a fifth method...
The patent was never contested by Murdoch, who remained an employee of Boulton and Watt for most of his life, and Boulton and Watt's firm continued to use the sun and planet gear in their rotative engines, even long after the patent for the crank expired in 1794.
Watt opposed the use of high-pressure steam, and many inventors such as Richard Trevithick pioneered such engines, although frequently running into patent infringement actions by Watt. Those more efficient steam engines would eventually displace Watt's engines, leading to another industrial revolution with the development of the steam locomotive.
James Watt statue on City Square at Leeds.
Watt celebrated in a statue by Alexander Munro in Chamberlain Square, outside Birmingham Central Library
James Watt's improvements transformed the Newcomen engine, which had hardly changed for fifty years, and initiated changes in generating and applying power, which transformed the world of work, and were a key innovation of the Industrial Revolution. The importance of the invention can hardly be overstatedâit gave us the modern world. A key feature of it was that it brought the engine out of the remote coal fields into factories where many mechanics, engineers, and even tinkerers were exposed to its virtues and limitations. It was a platform for generations of inventors to improve. It was clear to many that higher pressures produced in improved boilers would produce engines having even higher efficiency, and would lead to the revolution in transportation that was soon embodied in the locomotive and steamboat. It made possible the construction of new factories that, since they were not dependent on water power, could work the year round, and could be placed almost anywhere. Work was moved out of the cottages, resulting in economies of scale. Capital could work more efficiently, and manufacturing productivity greatly improved. It made possible the cascade of new sorts of machine tools that could be used to produce better machines, including that most remarkable of all of them, the Watt steam engine.
Of Watt, the English Novelist Aldous Huxley (1894-1963) wrote; "To us, the moment 8:17 A.M. means something - something very important, if it happens to be the starting time of our daily train. To our ancestors, such an odd eccentric instant was without significance - did not even exist. In inventing the locomotive, Watt and Stephenson were part inventors of time."
Watt was a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and the Royal Society of London. He was a member of the Batavian Society, and one of only eight Foreign Associates of the French Academy of Sciences.
The watt is named after James Watt for his contributions to the development of the steam engine, and was adopted by the Second Congress of the British Association for the Advancement of Science in 1889 and by the 11th General Conference on Weights and Measures in 1960 as the unit of power incorporated in the International System of Units (or "SI").
'
The James Watt Memorial College in Greenock.
Watt was buried in the grounds of St. Mary's Church, Handsworth, in Birmingham. Later expansion of the church, over his grave, means that his tomb is now buried inside the church. A statue of him, Boulton and Murdoch is in Birmingham, as are five other statues of him alone, one in Chamberlain Square, the other outside the Law Courts. He is also remembered by the Moonstones and a school is named in his honour, both in Birmingham. An extensive archive of his papers is held at Birmingham Central Library. Matthew Boulton's home, Soho House, is now a museum, commemorating the work of both men. The University of Glasgow's Faculty of Engineering, the oldest in the United Kingdom, (where Watt was a professor) has its headquarters in the James Watt Building, which also houses the department of Mechanical Engineering and the department of Aerospace Engineering.
The location of James Watt's birth in Greenock is commemorated by a statue, close to his birthplace. Several locations and street names in Greenock recall him, most notably the Watt Memorial Library, which was begun in 1816 with Watt's donation of scientific books, and developed as part of the Watt Institution by his son (which ultimately became the James Watt College). Taken over by the local authority in 1974, the library now also houses the local history collection and archives of Inverclyde, and is dominated by a large seated statue in the vestibule. Watt is additionally commemorated by statuary in George Square, Glasgow and Princes Street, Edinburgh.
The James Watt College has expanded from its original location to include campuses in Kilwinning (North Ayrshire), Finnart Street and The Waterfront in Greenock, and the Sports campus in Largs. Heriot-Watt University near Edinburgh was at one time the School of Arts of Edinburgh, founded in 1821 as the worldâs first Mechanics Institute, but to commemorate George Heriot, the 16th century financier to King James, and James Watt, after Royal Charter the name was changed to Heriot-Watt University. Dozens of university and college buildings (chiefly of science and technology) are named after him.
The huge painting James Watt contemplating the steam engine by James Eckford Lauder is now owned by the National Gallery of Scotland.
Watt was ranked first, tying with Edison, among 229 significant figures in the history of technology by Charles Murray's survey of historiometry presented in his book Human Accomplishments.
Over 50 roads or streets in the UK are named after him.
A colossal statue of Watt by Chantrey was placed in Westminster Abbey, and later was moved to St. Paul's Cathedral. On the cenotaph the inscription reads:
Chantrey's statue of James Watt
:NOT TO PERPETUATE A NAME,
:WHICH MUST ENDURE WHILE THE PEACEFUL ARTS FLOURISH,
:BUT TO SHOW
:THAT MANKIND HAVE LEARNED TO HONOUR THOSE
:WHO BEST DESERVE THEIR GRATITUDE,
:THE KING,
:HIS MINISTERS, AND MANY OF THE NOBLES
:AND COMMONERS OF THE REALM
:RAISED THIS MONUMENT TO
:JAMES WATT
:WHO DIRECTING THE FORCE OF AN ORIGINAL GENIUS
:EARLY EXERCISED IN PHILOSOPHIC RESEARCH
:TO THE IMPROVEMENT OF
:THE STEAM-ENGINE
:ENLARGED THE RESOURCES OF HIS COUNTRY
:INCREASED THE POWER OF MAN
:AND ROSE TO AN EMINENT PLACE
:AMONG THE MOST ILLUSTRIOUS FOLLOWERS OF SCIENCE
:AND THE REAL BENEFACTORS OF THE WORLD
:BORN AT GREENOCK MDCCXXXVI
:DIED AT HEATHFIELD IN STAFFORDSHIRE MDCCCXIX
A lecture theatre in the Mechanical & Manufacturing Engineering building at the University of Birmingham is named "G31 - The James Watt Lecture Theatre".
On 29 May 2009, the Bank of England announced that Watt would appear on a new £50 note, alongside Matthew Boulton.
* Watt steam engine
* Centrifugal governor
* Indicator diagram
* Watt's linkage
* Parallel motion
* Sun and planet gear
*"Some Unpublished Letters of James Watt" in Journal of Institution of Mechanical Engineers (London, 1915).
*Carnegie, Andrew, James Watt University Press of the Pacific (2001) (Reprinted from the 1913 ed.), ISBN 0-89875-578-6.
*
* H. W. Dickinson and Hugh Pembroke Vowles James Watt and the Industrial Revolution (published in 1943, new edition 1948 and reprinted in 1949. Also published in Spanish and Portuguese (1944) by the British Council)
*Hills, Rev. Dr. Richard L., James Watt, Vol 1, His time in Scotland, 1736-1774 (2002); Vol 2, The years of toil, 1775-1785; Vol 3 Triumph through adversity 1785-1819. Landmark Publishing Ltd, ISBN 1-84306-045-0.
*
*
*Marsden, Ben. Watt's Perfect Engine Columbia University Press (New York, 2002) ISBN 0-231-13172-0.
*
*
*Samuel Smiles, Lives of the Engineers, (London, 1861-62, new edition, five volumes, 1905).
;Related topics
*
*
* James Watt by Andrew Carnegie (1905)
* James Watt by Thomas H. Marshall (1925)
* Archives of Soho at Birmingham Central Library.
* BBC History: James Watt
* Revolutionary Players website
* Cornwall Record Office Boulton & Watt letters
* Significant Scots - James Watt
*
|
James_Watt | How old was James Watt when his mother died? | null | data/set4/a2 | James_Watt
James Watt, FRS, FRSE (19 January 1736 25 August 1819) was a Scottish inventor and mechanical engineer whose improvements to the Newcomen steam engine were fundamental to the changes brought by the Industrial Revolution in both the Kingdom of Great Britain and the world.
James Watt was born on 19 January 1736 in Greenock, Renfrewshire, a seaport on the Firth of Clyde. His father was a shipwright, ship owner and contractor, and served as the town's chief baillie, while his mother, Agnes Muirhead, came from a distinguished family and was well educated. Both were Presbyterians and strong Covenanters. Watt's grandfather, Thomas Watt, was a mathematics teacher and baillie to the Baron of Cartsburn. Watt did not attend school regularly; initially he was mostly schooled at home by his mother but later he attended Greenock grammar school. He exhibited great manual dexterity and an aptitude for mathematics, although Latin and Greek failed to interest him, and he absorbed the legends and lore of the Scottish people.
When he was 18, his mother died and his father's health had begun to fail. Watt travelled to London to study instrument-making for a year, then returned to Scotland to Glasgow intent on setting up his own instrument-making business. However, because he had not served at least seven years as an apprentice, the Glasgow Guild of Hammermen (any artisans using hammers) blocked his application, despite there being no other mathematical instrument makers in Scotland.
Watt was saved from this impasse by three professors of the University of Glasgow, who offered him the opportunity to set up a small workshop within the university. It was established in 1758 and one of the professors, the physicist and chemist Joseph Black, became Watt's friend.
In 1764, Watt married his cousin Margaret Miller, with whom he had five children, two of whom lived to adulthood. She died in childbirth in 1772. In 1777 he married again, to Ann MacGregor, daughter of a Glasgow dye-maker, who survived him. She died in 1832.
Watt was an enthusiastic inventor, with a fertile imagination that sometimes got in the way of finishing his works, because he could always see "just one more improvement". He was skilled with his hands, and was also able to perform systematic scientific measurements that could quantify the improvements he made and produce a greater understanding of the phenomenon he was working with.
Watt was a gentleman, greatly respected by other prominent men of the Industrial Revolution. He was an important member of the Lunar Society, and was a much sought after conversationalist and companion, always interested in expanding his horizons. He was a rather poor businessman, and especially hated bargaining and negotiating terms with those who sought to utilize the steam engine. Until he retired, he was always much concerned about his financial affairs, and was something of a worrier. His personal relationships with his friends and partners were always congenial and long-lasting.
James Watt's workshop
Watt retired in 1800, the same year that his fundamental patent and partnership with Boulton expired. The famous partnership was transferred to the men's sons, Matthew Boulton and James Watt Jr. Longtime firm engineer William Murdoch was made a partner and the firm prospered.
"Heathfield", Watt's house in Handsworth, BirminghamWatt continued to invent other things before and during his semi-retirement. He invented a new method of measuring distances by telescope, a device for copying letters, improvements in the oil lamp, a steam mangle and a machine for copying sculptures. Within his home in Handsworth Heath, Staffordshire, Watt made use of a garret room as a workshop, and it was here that he worked on many of his inventions.
He and his second wife travelled to France and Germany, and he purchased an estate in Wales at Doldowlod House, one mile south of Llanwrthwl, which he much improved.
He died on 25 August 1819 at his home "Heathfield" in Handsworth, Birmingham, England at the age of 83. He was buried on 2 September.
The garret room workshop that Watt used in his retirement was left locked and untouched until 1853, when it was first viewed by his biographer J. P. Muirhead. Thereafter, it was occasionally visited, but left untouched, as a kind of shrine. A proposal to have it transferred to the Patent Office came to nothing. When the house was due to be demolished in 1924, the room and all its contents were presented to the Science Museum, where it was recreated in its entirety. Garret workshop of James Watt It remained on display for visitors for many years, but was walled-off when the gallery it was housed in closed. The workshop remains intact, and preserved, and there are plans for it to go on display again at some point in the near future.
Original Condenser by James Watt.
As with many major inventions, there is some dispute as to whether Watt was the original sole inventor of some of the numerous inventions he patented. There is no dispute, however, that he was the sole inventor of his most important invention, the separate condenser. It was his practice (from around the 1780s) to pre-empt others' ideas which were known to him by filing patents with the intention of securing credit for the invention for himself, and ensuring that no one else was able to practice it. As he states in a letter to Boulton of 17 August 1784:
:I have given such descriptions of engines for wheel carriages as I could do in the time and space I could allow myself; but it is very defective and can only serve to keep other people from similar patents.
Some argue that his prohibitions on his employee William Murdoch from working with high pressure steam on his steam road locomotive experiments delayed its development. Watt, with his partner Matthew Boulton, battled against rival engineers such as Jonathan Hornblower who tried to develop engines which did not fall foul of his patents.
Watt patented the application of the sun and planet gear to steam in 1781 and a steam locomotive in 1784, both of which have strong claims to have been invented by his employee, William Murdoch. Watt himself described the provenance of the invention of the sun and planet gear in a letter to Boulton from Watt dated 5 January 1782:
:I have tried a model of one of my old plans of rotative engines revived and executed by W. M[urdock] and which merits being included in the specification as a fifth method...
The patent was never contested by Murdoch, who remained an employee of Boulton and Watt for most of his life, and Boulton and Watt's firm continued to use the sun and planet gear in their rotative engines, even long after the patent for the crank expired in 1794.
Watt opposed the use of high-pressure steam, and many inventors such as Richard Trevithick pioneered such engines, although frequently running into patent infringement actions by Watt. Those more efficient steam engines would eventually displace Watt's engines, leading to another industrial revolution with the development of the steam locomotive.
James Watt statue on City Square at Leeds.
Watt celebrated in a statue by Alexander Munro in Chamberlain Square, outside Birmingham Central Library
James Watt's improvements transformed the Newcomen engine, which had hardly changed for fifty years, and initiated changes in generating and applying power, which transformed the world of work, and were a key innovation of the Industrial Revolution. The importance of the invention can hardly be overstatedâit gave us the modern world. A key feature of it was that it brought the engine out of the remote coal fields into factories where many mechanics, engineers, and even tinkerers were exposed to its virtues and limitations. It was a platform for generations of inventors to improve. It was clear to many that higher pressures produced in improved boilers would produce engines having even higher efficiency, and would lead to the revolution in transportation that was soon embodied in the locomotive and steamboat. It made possible the construction of new factories that, since they were not dependent on water power, could work the year round, and could be placed almost anywhere. Work was moved out of the cottages, resulting in economies of scale. Capital could work more efficiently, and manufacturing productivity greatly improved. It made possible the cascade of new sorts of machine tools that could be used to produce better machines, including that most remarkable of all of them, the Watt steam engine.
Of Watt, the English Novelist Aldous Huxley (1894-1963) wrote; "To us, the moment 8:17 A.M. means something - something very important, if it happens to be the starting time of our daily train. To our ancestors, such an odd eccentric instant was without significance - did not even exist. In inventing the locomotive, Watt and Stephenson were part inventors of time."
Watt was a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and the Royal Society of London. He was a member of the Batavian Society, and one of only eight Foreign Associates of the French Academy of Sciences.
The watt is named after James Watt for his contributions to the development of the steam engine, and was adopted by the Second Congress of the British Association for the Advancement of Science in 1889 and by the 11th General Conference on Weights and Measures in 1960 as the unit of power incorporated in the International System of Units (or "SI").
'
The James Watt Memorial College in Greenock.
Watt was buried in the grounds of St. Mary's Church, Handsworth, in Birmingham. Later expansion of the church, over his grave, means that his tomb is now buried inside the church. A statue of him, Boulton and Murdoch is in Birmingham, as are five other statues of him alone, one in Chamberlain Square, the other outside the Law Courts. He is also remembered by the Moonstones and a school is named in his honour, both in Birmingham. An extensive archive of his papers is held at Birmingham Central Library. Matthew Boulton's home, Soho House, is now a museum, commemorating the work of both men. The University of Glasgow's Faculty of Engineering, the oldest in the United Kingdom, (where Watt was a professor) has its headquarters in the James Watt Building, which also houses the department of Mechanical Engineering and the department of Aerospace Engineering.
The location of James Watt's birth in Greenock is commemorated by a statue, close to his birthplace. Several locations and street names in Greenock recall him, most notably the Watt Memorial Library, which was begun in 1816 with Watt's donation of scientific books, and developed as part of the Watt Institution by his son (which ultimately became the James Watt College). Taken over by the local authority in 1974, the library now also houses the local history collection and archives of Inverclyde, and is dominated by a large seated statue in the vestibule. Watt is additionally commemorated by statuary in George Square, Glasgow and Princes Street, Edinburgh.
The James Watt College has expanded from its original location to include campuses in Kilwinning (North Ayrshire), Finnart Street and The Waterfront in Greenock, and the Sports campus in Largs. Heriot-Watt University near Edinburgh was at one time the School of Arts of Edinburgh, founded in 1821 as the worldâs first Mechanics Institute, but to commemorate George Heriot, the 16th century financier to King James, and James Watt, after Royal Charter the name was changed to Heriot-Watt University. Dozens of university and college buildings (chiefly of science and technology) are named after him.
The huge painting James Watt contemplating the steam engine by James Eckford Lauder is now owned by the National Gallery of Scotland.
Watt was ranked first, tying with Edison, among 229 significant figures in the history of technology by Charles Murray's survey of historiometry presented in his book Human Accomplishments.
Over 50 roads or streets in the UK are named after him.
A colossal statue of Watt by Chantrey was placed in Westminster Abbey, and later was moved to St. Paul's Cathedral. On the cenotaph the inscription reads:
Chantrey's statue of James Watt
:NOT TO PERPETUATE A NAME,
:WHICH MUST ENDURE WHILE THE PEACEFUL ARTS FLOURISH,
:BUT TO SHOW
:THAT MANKIND HAVE LEARNED TO HONOUR THOSE
:WHO BEST DESERVE THEIR GRATITUDE,
:THE KING,
:HIS MINISTERS, AND MANY OF THE NOBLES
:AND COMMONERS OF THE REALM
:RAISED THIS MONUMENT TO
:JAMES WATT
:WHO DIRECTING THE FORCE OF AN ORIGINAL GENIUS
:EARLY EXERCISED IN PHILOSOPHIC RESEARCH
:TO THE IMPROVEMENT OF
:THE STEAM-ENGINE
:ENLARGED THE RESOURCES OF HIS COUNTRY
:INCREASED THE POWER OF MAN
:AND ROSE TO AN EMINENT PLACE
:AMONG THE MOST ILLUSTRIOUS FOLLOWERS OF SCIENCE
:AND THE REAL BENEFACTORS OF THE WORLD
:BORN AT GREENOCK MDCCXXXVI
:DIED AT HEATHFIELD IN STAFFORDSHIRE MDCCCXIX
A lecture theatre in the Mechanical & Manufacturing Engineering building at the University of Birmingham is named "G31 - The James Watt Lecture Theatre".
On 29 May 2009, the Bank of England announced that Watt would appear on a new £50 note, alongside Matthew Boulton.
* Watt steam engine
* Centrifugal governor
* Indicator diagram
* Watt's linkage
* Parallel motion
* Sun and planet gear
*"Some Unpublished Letters of James Watt" in Journal of Institution of Mechanical Engineers (London, 1915).
*Carnegie, Andrew, James Watt University Press of the Pacific (2001) (Reprinted from the 1913 ed.), ISBN 0-89875-578-6.
*
* H. W. Dickinson and Hugh Pembroke Vowles James Watt and the Industrial Revolution (published in 1943, new edition 1948 and reprinted in 1949. Also published in Spanish and Portuguese (1944) by the British Council)
*Hills, Rev. Dr. Richard L., James Watt, Vol 1, His time in Scotland, 1736-1774 (2002); Vol 2, The years of toil, 1775-1785; Vol 3 Triumph through adversity 1785-1819. Landmark Publishing Ltd, ISBN 1-84306-045-0.
*
*
*Marsden, Ben. Watt's Perfect Engine Columbia University Press (New York, 2002) ISBN 0-231-13172-0.
*
*
*Samuel Smiles, Lives of the Engineers, (London, 1861-62, new edition, five volumes, 1905).
;Related topics
*
*
* James Watt by Andrew Carnegie (1905)
* James Watt by Thomas H. Marshall (1925)
* Archives of Soho at Birmingham Central Library.
* BBC History: James Watt
* Revolutionary Players website
* Cornwall Record Office Boulton & Watt letters
* Significant Scots - James Watt
*
|
James_Watt | In what year did Watt retire? | null | data/set4/a2 | James_Watt
James Watt, FRS, FRSE (19 January 1736 25 August 1819) was a Scottish inventor and mechanical engineer whose improvements to the Newcomen steam engine were fundamental to the changes brought by the Industrial Revolution in both the Kingdom of Great Britain and the world.
James Watt was born on 19 January 1736 in Greenock, Renfrewshire, a seaport on the Firth of Clyde. His father was a shipwright, ship owner and contractor, and served as the town's chief baillie, while his mother, Agnes Muirhead, came from a distinguished family and was well educated. Both were Presbyterians and strong Covenanters. Watt's grandfather, Thomas Watt, was a mathematics teacher and baillie to the Baron of Cartsburn. Watt did not attend school regularly; initially he was mostly schooled at home by his mother but later he attended Greenock grammar school. He exhibited great manual dexterity and an aptitude for mathematics, although Latin and Greek failed to interest him, and he absorbed the legends and lore of the Scottish people.
When he was 18, his mother died and his father's health had begun to fail. Watt travelled to London to study instrument-making for a year, then returned to Scotland to Glasgow intent on setting up his own instrument-making business. However, because he had not served at least seven years as an apprentice, the Glasgow Guild of Hammermen (any artisans using hammers) blocked his application, despite there being no other mathematical instrument makers in Scotland.
Watt was saved from this impasse by three professors of the University of Glasgow, who offered him the opportunity to set up a small workshop within the university. It was established in 1758 and one of the professors, the physicist and chemist Joseph Black, became Watt's friend.
In 1764, Watt married his cousin Margaret Miller, with whom he had five children, two of whom lived to adulthood. She died in childbirth in 1772. In 1777 he married again, to Ann MacGregor, daughter of a Glasgow dye-maker, who survived him. She died in 1832.
Watt was an enthusiastic inventor, with a fertile imagination that sometimes got in the way of finishing his works, because he could always see "just one more improvement". He was skilled with his hands, and was also able to perform systematic scientific measurements that could quantify the improvements he made and produce a greater understanding of the phenomenon he was working with.
Watt was a gentleman, greatly respected by other prominent men of the Industrial Revolution. He was an important member of the Lunar Society, and was a much sought after conversationalist and companion, always interested in expanding his horizons. He was a rather poor businessman, and especially hated bargaining and negotiating terms with those who sought to utilize the steam engine. Until he retired, he was always much concerned about his financial affairs, and was something of a worrier. His personal relationships with his friends and partners were always congenial and long-lasting.
James Watt's workshop
Watt retired in 1800, the same year that his fundamental patent and partnership with Boulton expired. The famous partnership was transferred to the men's sons, Matthew Boulton and James Watt Jr. Longtime firm engineer William Murdoch was made a partner and the firm prospered.
"Heathfield", Watt's house in Handsworth, BirminghamWatt continued to invent other things before and during his semi-retirement. He invented a new method of measuring distances by telescope, a device for copying letters, improvements in the oil lamp, a steam mangle and a machine for copying sculptures. Within his home in Handsworth Heath, Staffordshire, Watt made use of a garret room as a workshop, and it was here that he worked on many of his inventions.
He and his second wife travelled to France and Germany, and he purchased an estate in Wales at Doldowlod House, one mile south of Llanwrthwl, which he much improved.
He died on 25 August 1819 at his home "Heathfield" in Handsworth, Birmingham, England at the age of 83. He was buried on 2 September.
The garret room workshop that Watt used in his retirement was left locked and untouched until 1853, when it was first viewed by his biographer J. P. Muirhead. Thereafter, it was occasionally visited, but left untouched, as a kind of shrine. A proposal to have it transferred to the Patent Office came to nothing. When the house was due to be demolished in 1924, the room and all its contents were presented to the Science Museum, where it was recreated in its entirety. Garret workshop of James Watt It remained on display for visitors for many years, but was walled-off when the gallery it was housed in closed. The workshop remains intact, and preserved, and there are plans for it to go on display again at some point in the near future.
Original Condenser by James Watt.
As with many major inventions, there is some dispute as to whether Watt was the original sole inventor of some of the numerous inventions he patented. There is no dispute, however, that he was the sole inventor of his most important invention, the separate condenser. It was his practice (from around the 1780s) to pre-empt others' ideas which were known to him by filing patents with the intention of securing credit for the invention for himself, and ensuring that no one else was able to practice it. As he states in a letter to Boulton of 17 August 1784:
:I have given such descriptions of engines for wheel carriages as I could do in the time and space I could allow myself; but it is very defective and can only serve to keep other people from similar patents.
Some argue that his prohibitions on his employee William Murdoch from working with high pressure steam on his steam road locomotive experiments delayed its development. Watt, with his partner Matthew Boulton, battled against rival engineers such as Jonathan Hornblower who tried to develop engines which did not fall foul of his patents.
Watt patented the application of the sun and planet gear to steam in 1781 and a steam locomotive in 1784, both of which have strong claims to have been invented by his employee, William Murdoch. Watt himself described the provenance of the invention of the sun and planet gear in a letter to Boulton from Watt dated 5 January 1782:
:I have tried a model of one of my old plans of rotative engines revived and executed by W. M[urdock] and which merits being included in the specification as a fifth method...
The patent was never contested by Murdoch, who remained an employee of Boulton and Watt for most of his life, and Boulton and Watt's firm continued to use the sun and planet gear in their rotative engines, even long after the patent for the crank expired in 1794.
Watt opposed the use of high-pressure steam, and many inventors such as Richard Trevithick pioneered such engines, although frequently running into patent infringement actions by Watt. Those more efficient steam engines would eventually displace Watt's engines, leading to another industrial revolution with the development of the steam locomotive.
James Watt statue on City Square at Leeds.
Watt celebrated in a statue by Alexander Munro in Chamberlain Square, outside Birmingham Central Library
James Watt's improvements transformed the Newcomen engine, which had hardly changed for fifty years, and initiated changes in generating and applying power, which transformed the world of work, and were a key innovation of the Industrial Revolution. The importance of the invention can hardly be overstatedâit gave us the modern world. A key feature of it was that it brought the engine out of the remote coal fields into factories where many mechanics, engineers, and even tinkerers were exposed to its virtues and limitations. It was a platform for generations of inventors to improve. It was clear to many that higher pressures produced in improved boilers would produce engines having even higher efficiency, and would lead to the revolution in transportation that was soon embodied in the locomotive and steamboat. It made possible the construction of new factories that, since they were not dependent on water power, could work the year round, and could be placed almost anywhere. Work was moved out of the cottages, resulting in economies of scale. Capital could work more efficiently, and manufacturing productivity greatly improved. It made possible the cascade of new sorts of machine tools that could be used to produce better machines, including that most remarkable of all of them, the Watt steam engine.
Of Watt, the English Novelist Aldous Huxley (1894-1963) wrote; "To us, the moment 8:17 A.M. means something - something very important, if it happens to be the starting time of our daily train. To our ancestors, such an odd eccentric instant was without significance - did not even exist. In inventing the locomotive, Watt and Stephenson were part inventors of time."
Watt was a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and the Royal Society of London. He was a member of the Batavian Society, and one of only eight Foreign Associates of the French Academy of Sciences.
The watt is named after James Watt for his contributions to the development of the steam engine, and was adopted by the Second Congress of the British Association for the Advancement of Science in 1889 and by the 11th General Conference on Weights and Measures in 1960 as the unit of power incorporated in the International System of Units (or "SI").
'
The James Watt Memorial College in Greenock.
Watt was buried in the grounds of St. Mary's Church, Handsworth, in Birmingham. Later expansion of the church, over his grave, means that his tomb is now buried inside the church. A statue of him, Boulton and Murdoch is in Birmingham, as are five other statues of him alone, one in Chamberlain Square, the other outside the Law Courts. He is also remembered by the Moonstones and a school is named in his honour, both in Birmingham. An extensive archive of his papers is held at Birmingham Central Library. Matthew Boulton's home, Soho House, is now a museum, commemorating the work of both men. The University of Glasgow's Faculty of Engineering, the oldest in the United Kingdom, (where Watt was a professor) has its headquarters in the James Watt Building, which also houses the department of Mechanical Engineering and the department of Aerospace Engineering.
The location of James Watt's birth in Greenock is commemorated by a statue, close to his birthplace. Several locations and street names in Greenock recall him, most notably the Watt Memorial Library, which was begun in 1816 with Watt's donation of scientific books, and developed as part of the Watt Institution by his son (which ultimately became the James Watt College). Taken over by the local authority in 1974, the library now also houses the local history collection and archives of Inverclyde, and is dominated by a large seated statue in the vestibule. Watt is additionally commemorated by statuary in George Square, Glasgow and Princes Street, Edinburgh.
The James Watt College has expanded from its original location to include campuses in Kilwinning (North Ayrshire), Finnart Street and The Waterfront in Greenock, and the Sports campus in Largs. Heriot-Watt University near Edinburgh was at one time the School of Arts of Edinburgh, founded in 1821 as the worldâs first Mechanics Institute, but to commemorate George Heriot, the 16th century financier to King James, and James Watt, after Royal Charter the name was changed to Heriot-Watt University. Dozens of university and college buildings (chiefly of science and technology) are named after him.
The huge painting James Watt contemplating the steam engine by James Eckford Lauder is now owned by the National Gallery of Scotland.
Watt was ranked first, tying with Edison, among 229 significant figures in the history of technology by Charles Murray's survey of historiometry presented in his book Human Accomplishments.
Over 50 roads or streets in the UK are named after him.
A colossal statue of Watt by Chantrey was placed in Westminster Abbey, and later was moved to St. Paul's Cathedral. On the cenotaph the inscription reads:
Chantrey's statue of James Watt
:NOT TO PERPETUATE A NAME,
:WHICH MUST ENDURE WHILE THE PEACEFUL ARTS FLOURISH,
:BUT TO SHOW
:THAT MANKIND HAVE LEARNED TO HONOUR THOSE
:WHO BEST DESERVE THEIR GRATITUDE,
:THE KING,
:HIS MINISTERS, AND MANY OF THE NOBLES
:AND COMMONERS OF THE REALM
:RAISED THIS MONUMENT TO
:JAMES WATT
:WHO DIRECTING THE FORCE OF AN ORIGINAL GENIUS
:EARLY EXERCISED IN PHILOSOPHIC RESEARCH
:TO THE IMPROVEMENT OF
:THE STEAM-ENGINE
:ENLARGED THE RESOURCES OF HIS COUNTRY
:INCREASED THE POWER OF MAN
:AND ROSE TO AN EMINENT PLACE
:AMONG THE MOST ILLUSTRIOUS FOLLOWERS OF SCIENCE
:AND THE REAL BENEFACTORS OF THE WORLD
:BORN AT GREENOCK MDCCXXXVI
:DIED AT HEATHFIELD IN STAFFORDSHIRE MDCCCXIX
A lecture theatre in the Mechanical & Manufacturing Engineering building at the University of Birmingham is named "G31 - The James Watt Lecture Theatre".
On 29 May 2009, the Bank of England announced that Watt would appear on a new £50 note, alongside Matthew Boulton.
* Watt steam engine
* Centrifugal governor
* Indicator diagram
* Watt's linkage
* Parallel motion
* Sun and planet gear
*"Some Unpublished Letters of James Watt" in Journal of Institution of Mechanical Engineers (London, 1915).
*Carnegie, Andrew, James Watt University Press of the Pacific (2001) (Reprinted from the 1913 ed.), ISBN 0-89875-578-6.
*
* H. W. Dickinson and Hugh Pembroke Vowles James Watt and the Industrial Revolution (published in 1943, new edition 1948 and reprinted in 1949. Also published in Spanish and Portuguese (1944) by the British Council)
*Hills, Rev. Dr. Richard L., James Watt, Vol 1, His time in Scotland, 1736-1774 (2002); Vol 2, The years of toil, 1775-1785; Vol 3 Triumph through adversity 1785-1819. Landmark Publishing Ltd, ISBN 1-84306-045-0.
*
*
*Marsden, Ben. Watt's Perfect Engine Columbia University Press (New York, 2002) ISBN 0-231-13172-0.
*
*
*Samuel Smiles, Lives of the Engineers, (London, 1861-62, new edition, five volumes, 1905).
;Related topics
*
*
* James Watt by Andrew Carnegie (1905)
* James Watt by Thomas H. Marshall (1925)
* Archives of Soho at Birmingham Central Library.
* BBC History: James Watt
* Revolutionary Players website
* Cornwall Record Office Boulton & Watt letters
* Significant Scots - James Watt
*
|
James_Watt | In what year did Watt retire? | null | data/set4/a2 | James_Watt
James Watt, FRS, FRSE (19 January 1736 25 August 1819) was a Scottish inventor and mechanical engineer whose improvements to the Newcomen steam engine were fundamental to the changes brought by the Industrial Revolution in both the Kingdom of Great Britain and the world.
James Watt was born on 19 January 1736 in Greenock, Renfrewshire, a seaport on the Firth of Clyde. His father was a shipwright, ship owner and contractor, and served as the town's chief baillie, while his mother, Agnes Muirhead, came from a distinguished family and was well educated. Both were Presbyterians and strong Covenanters. Watt's grandfather, Thomas Watt, was a mathematics teacher and baillie to the Baron of Cartsburn. Watt did not attend school regularly; initially he was mostly schooled at home by his mother but later he attended Greenock grammar school. He exhibited great manual dexterity and an aptitude for mathematics, although Latin and Greek failed to interest him, and he absorbed the legends and lore of the Scottish people.
When he was 18, his mother died and his father's health had begun to fail. Watt travelled to London to study instrument-making for a year, then returned to Scotland to Glasgow intent on setting up his own instrument-making business. However, because he had not served at least seven years as an apprentice, the Glasgow Guild of Hammermen (any artisans using hammers) blocked his application, despite there being no other mathematical instrument makers in Scotland.
Watt was saved from this impasse by three professors of the University of Glasgow, who offered him the opportunity to set up a small workshop within the university. It was established in 1758 and one of the professors, the physicist and chemist Joseph Black, became Watt's friend.
In 1764, Watt married his cousin Margaret Miller, with whom he had five children, two of whom lived to adulthood. She died in childbirth in 1772. In 1777 he married again, to Ann MacGregor, daughter of a Glasgow dye-maker, who survived him. She died in 1832.
Watt was an enthusiastic inventor, with a fertile imagination that sometimes got in the way of finishing his works, because he could always see "just one more improvement". He was skilled with his hands, and was also able to perform systematic scientific measurements that could quantify the improvements he made and produce a greater understanding of the phenomenon he was working with.
Watt was a gentleman, greatly respected by other prominent men of the Industrial Revolution. He was an important member of the Lunar Society, and was a much sought after conversationalist and companion, always interested in expanding his horizons. He was a rather poor businessman, and especially hated bargaining and negotiating terms with those who sought to utilize the steam engine. Until he retired, he was always much concerned about his financial affairs, and was something of a worrier. His personal relationships with his friends and partners were always congenial and long-lasting.
James Watt's workshop
Watt retired in 1800, the same year that his fundamental patent and partnership with Boulton expired. The famous partnership was transferred to the men's sons, Matthew Boulton and James Watt Jr. Longtime firm engineer William Murdoch was made a partner and the firm prospered.
"Heathfield", Watt's house in Handsworth, BirminghamWatt continued to invent other things before and during his semi-retirement. He invented a new method of measuring distances by telescope, a device for copying letters, improvements in the oil lamp, a steam mangle and a machine for copying sculptures. Within his home in Handsworth Heath, Staffordshire, Watt made use of a garret room as a workshop, and it was here that he worked on many of his inventions.
He and his second wife travelled to France and Germany, and he purchased an estate in Wales at Doldowlod House, one mile south of Llanwrthwl, which he much improved.
He died on 25 August 1819 at his home "Heathfield" in Handsworth, Birmingham, England at the age of 83. He was buried on 2 September.
The garret room workshop that Watt used in his retirement was left locked and untouched until 1853, when it was first viewed by his biographer J. P. Muirhead. Thereafter, it was occasionally visited, but left untouched, as a kind of shrine. A proposal to have it transferred to the Patent Office came to nothing. When the house was due to be demolished in 1924, the room and all its contents were presented to the Science Museum, where it was recreated in its entirety. Garret workshop of James Watt It remained on display for visitors for many years, but was walled-off when the gallery it was housed in closed. The workshop remains intact, and preserved, and there are plans for it to go on display again at some point in the near future.
Original Condenser by James Watt.
As with many major inventions, there is some dispute as to whether Watt was the original sole inventor of some of the numerous inventions he patented. There is no dispute, however, that he was the sole inventor of his most important invention, the separate condenser. It was his practice (from around the 1780s) to pre-empt others' ideas which were known to him by filing patents with the intention of securing credit for the invention for himself, and ensuring that no one else was able to practice it. As he states in a letter to Boulton of 17 August 1784:
:I have given such descriptions of engines for wheel carriages as I could do in the time and space I could allow myself; but it is very defective and can only serve to keep other people from similar patents.
Some argue that his prohibitions on his employee William Murdoch from working with high pressure steam on his steam road locomotive experiments delayed its development. Watt, with his partner Matthew Boulton, battled against rival engineers such as Jonathan Hornblower who tried to develop engines which did not fall foul of his patents.
Watt patented the application of the sun and planet gear to steam in 1781 and a steam locomotive in 1784, both of which have strong claims to have been invented by his employee, William Murdoch. Watt himself described the provenance of the invention of the sun and planet gear in a letter to Boulton from Watt dated 5 January 1782:
:I have tried a model of one of my old plans of rotative engines revived and executed by W. M[urdock] and which merits being included in the specification as a fifth method...
The patent was never contested by Murdoch, who remained an employee of Boulton and Watt for most of his life, and Boulton and Watt's firm continued to use the sun and planet gear in their rotative engines, even long after the patent for the crank expired in 1794.
Watt opposed the use of high-pressure steam, and many inventors such as Richard Trevithick pioneered such engines, although frequently running into patent infringement actions by Watt. Those more efficient steam engines would eventually displace Watt's engines, leading to another industrial revolution with the development of the steam locomotive.
James Watt statue on City Square at Leeds.
Watt celebrated in a statue by Alexander Munro in Chamberlain Square, outside Birmingham Central Library
James Watt's improvements transformed the Newcomen engine, which had hardly changed for fifty years, and initiated changes in generating and applying power, which transformed the world of work, and were a key innovation of the Industrial Revolution. The importance of the invention can hardly be overstatedâit gave us the modern world. A key feature of it was that it brought the engine out of the remote coal fields into factories where many mechanics, engineers, and even tinkerers were exposed to its virtues and limitations. It was a platform for generations of inventors to improve. It was clear to many that higher pressures produced in improved boilers would produce engines having even higher efficiency, and would lead to the revolution in transportation that was soon embodied in the locomotive and steamboat. It made possible the construction of new factories that, since they were not dependent on water power, could work the year round, and could be placed almost anywhere. Work was moved out of the cottages, resulting in economies of scale. Capital could work more efficiently, and manufacturing productivity greatly improved. It made possible the cascade of new sorts of machine tools that could be used to produce better machines, including that most remarkable of all of them, the Watt steam engine.
Of Watt, the English Novelist Aldous Huxley (1894-1963) wrote; "To us, the moment 8:17 A.M. means something - something very important, if it happens to be the starting time of our daily train. To our ancestors, such an odd eccentric instant was without significance - did not even exist. In inventing the locomotive, Watt and Stephenson were part inventors of time."
Watt was a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and the Royal Society of London. He was a member of the Batavian Society, and one of only eight Foreign Associates of the French Academy of Sciences.
The watt is named after James Watt for his contributions to the development of the steam engine, and was adopted by the Second Congress of the British Association for the Advancement of Science in 1889 and by the 11th General Conference on Weights and Measures in 1960 as the unit of power incorporated in the International System of Units (or "SI").
'
The James Watt Memorial College in Greenock.
Watt was buried in the grounds of St. Mary's Church, Handsworth, in Birmingham. Later expansion of the church, over his grave, means that his tomb is now buried inside the church. A statue of him, Boulton and Murdoch is in Birmingham, as are five other statues of him alone, one in Chamberlain Square, the other outside the Law Courts. He is also remembered by the Moonstones and a school is named in his honour, both in Birmingham. An extensive archive of his papers is held at Birmingham Central Library. Matthew Boulton's home, Soho House, is now a museum, commemorating the work of both men. The University of Glasgow's Faculty of Engineering, the oldest in the United Kingdom, (where Watt was a professor) has its headquarters in the James Watt Building, which also houses the department of Mechanical Engineering and the department of Aerospace Engineering.
The location of James Watt's birth in Greenock is commemorated by a statue, close to his birthplace. Several locations and street names in Greenock recall him, most notably the Watt Memorial Library, which was begun in 1816 with Watt's donation of scientific books, and developed as part of the Watt Institution by his son (which ultimately became the James Watt College). Taken over by the local authority in 1974, the library now also houses the local history collection and archives of Inverclyde, and is dominated by a large seated statue in the vestibule. Watt is additionally commemorated by statuary in George Square, Glasgow and Princes Street, Edinburgh.
The James Watt College has expanded from its original location to include campuses in Kilwinning (North Ayrshire), Finnart Street and The Waterfront in Greenock, and the Sports campus in Largs. Heriot-Watt University near Edinburgh was at one time the School of Arts of Edinburgh, founded in 1821 as the worldâs first Mechanics Institute, but to commemorate George Heriot, the 16th century financier to King James, and James Watt, after Royal Charter the name was changed to Heriot-Watt University. Dozens of university and college buildings (chiefly of science and technology) are named after him.
The huge painting James Watt contemplating the steam engine by James Eckford Lauder is now owned by the National Gallery of Scotland.
Watt was ranked first, tying with Edison, among 229 significant figures in the history of technology by Charles Murray's survey of historiometry presented in his book Human Accomplishments.
Over 50 roads or streets in the UK are named after him.
A colossal statue of Watt by Chantrey was placed in Westminster Abbey, and later was moved to St. Paul's Cathedral. On the cenotaph the inscription reads:
Chantrey's statue of James Watt
:NOT TO PERPETUATE A NAME,
:WHICH MUST ENDURE WHILE THE PEACEFUL ARTS FLOURISH,
:BUT TO SHOW
:THAT MANKIND HAVE LEARNED TO HONOUR THOSE
:WHO BEST DESERVE THEIR GRATITUDE,
:THE KING,
:HIS MINISTERS, AND MANY OF THE NOBLES
:AND COMMONERS OF THE REALM
:RAISED THIS MONUMENT TO
:JAMES WATT
:WHO DIRECTING THE FORCE OF AN ORIGINAL GENIUS
:EARLY EXERCISED IN PHILOSOPHIC RESEARCH
:TO THE IMPROVEMENT OF
:THE STEAM-ENGINE
:ENLARGED THE RESOURCES OF HIS COUNTRY
:INCREASED THE POWER OF MAN
:AND ROSE TO AN EMINENT PLACE
:AMONG THE MOST ILLUSTRIOUS FOLLOWERS OF SCIENCE
:AND THE REAL BENEFACTORS OF THE WORLD
:BORN AT GREENOCK MDCCXXXVI
:DIED AT HEATHFIELD IN STAFFORDSHIRE MDCCCXIX
A lecture theatre in the Mechanical & Manufacturing Engineering building at the University of Birmingham is named "G31 - The James Watt Lecture Theatre".
On 29 May 2009, the Bank of England announced that Watt would appear on a new £50 note, alongside Matthew Boulton.
* Watt steam engine
* Centrifugal governor
* Indicator diagram
* Watt's linkage
* Parallel motion
* Sun and planet gear
*"Some Unpublished Letters of James Watt" in Journal of Institution of Mechanical Engineers (London, 1915).
*Carnegie, Andrew, James Watt University Press of the Pacific (2001) (Reprinted from the 1913 ed.), ISBN 0-89875-578-6.
*
* H. W. Dickinson and Hugh Pembroke Vowles James Watt and the Industrial Revolution (published in 1943, new edition 1948 and reprinted in 1949. Also published in Spanish and Portuguese (1944) by the British Council)
*Hills, Rev. Dr. Richard L., James Watt, Vol 1, His time in Scotland, 1736-1774 (2002); Vol 2, The years of toil, 1775-1785; Vol 3 Triumph through adversity 1785-1819. Landmark Publishing Ltd, ISBN 1-84306-045-0.
*
*
*Marsden, Ben. Watt's Perfect Engine Columbia University Press (New York, 2002) ISBN 0-231-13172-0.
*
*
*Samuel Smiles, Lives of the Engineers, (London, 1861-62, new edition, five volumes, 1905).
;Related topics
*
*
* James Watt by Andrew Carnegie (1905)
* James Watt by Thomas H. Marshall (1925)
* Archives of Soho at Birmingham Central Library.
* BBC History: James Watt
* Revolutionary Players website
* Cornwall Record Office Boulton & Watt letters
* Significant Scots - James Watt
*
|
James_Watt | Where was Watt buried? | null | data/set4/a2 | James_Watt
James Watt, FRS, FRSE (19 January 1736 25 August 1819) was a Scottish inventor and mechanical engineer whose improvements to the Newcomen steam engine were fundamental to the changes brought by the Industrial Revolution in both the Kingdom of Great Britain and the world.
James Watt was born on 19 January 1736 in Greenock, Renfrewshire, a seaport on the Firth of Clyde. His father was a shipwright, ship owner and contractor, and served as the town's chief baillie, while his mother, Agnes Muirhead, came from a distinguished family and was well educated. Both were Presbyterians and strong Covenanters. Watt's grandfather, Thomas Watt, was a mathematics teacher and baillie to the Baron of Cartsburn. Watt did not attend school regularly; initially he was mostly schooled at home by his mother but later he attended Greenock grammar school. He exhibited great manual dexterity and an aptitude for mathematics, although Latin and Greek failed to interest him, and he absorbed the legends and lore of the Scottish people.
When he was 18, his mother died and his father's health had begun to fail. Watt travelled to London to study instrument-making for a year, then returned to Scotland to Glasgow intent on setting up his own instrument-making business. However, because he had not served at least seven years as an apprentice, the Glasgow Guild of Hammermen (any artisans using hammers) blocked his application, despite there being no other mathematical instrument makers in Scotland.
Watt was saved from this impasse by three professors of the University of Glasgow, who offered him the opportunity to set up a small workshop within the university. It was established in 1758 and one of the professors, the physicist and chemist Joseph Black, became Watt's friend.
In 1764, Watt married his cousin Margaret Miller, with whom he had five children, two of whom lived to adulthood. She died in childbirth in 1772. In 1777 he married again, to Ann MacGregor, daughter of a Glasgow dye-maker, who survived him. She died in 1832.
Watt was an enthusiastic inventor, with a fertile imagination that sometimes got in the way of finishing his works, because he could always see "just one more improvement". He was skilled with his hands, and was also able to perform systematic scientific measurements that could quantify the improvements he made and produce a greater understanding of the phenomenon he was working with.
Watt was a gentleman, greatly respected by other prominent men of the Industrial Revolution. He was an important member of the Lunar Society, and was a much sought after conversationalist and companion, always interested in expanding his horizons. He was a rather poor businessman, and especially hated bargaining and negotiating terms with those who sought to utilize the steam engine. Until he retired, he was always much concerned about his financial affairs, and was something of a worrier. His personal relationships with his friends and partners were always congenial and long-lasting.
James Watt's workshop
Watt retired in 1800, the same year that his fundamental patent and partnership with Boulton expired. The famous partnership was transferred to the men's sons, Matthew Boulton and James Watt Jr. Longtime firm engineer William Murdoch was made a partner and the firm prospered.
"Heathfield", Watt's house in Handsworth, BirminghamWatt continued to invent other things before and during his semi-retirement. He invented a new method of measuring distances by telescope, a device for copying letters, improvements in the oil lamp, a steam mangle and a machine for copying sculptures. Within his home in Handsworth Heath, Staffordshire, Watt made use of a garret room as a workshop, and it was here that he worked on many of his inventions.
He and his second wife travelled to France and Germany, and he purchased an estate in Wales at Doldowlod House, one mile south of Llanwrthwl, which he much improved.
He died on 25 August 1819 at his home "Heathfield" in Handsworth, Birmingham, England at the age of 83. He was buried on 2 September.
The garret room workshop that Watt used in his retirement was left locked and untouched until 1853, when it was first viewed by his biographer J. P. Muirhead. Thereafter, it was occasionally visited, but left untouched, as a kind of shrine. A proposal to have it transferred to the Patent Office came to nothing. When the house was due to be demolished in 1924, the room and all its contents were presented to the Science Museum, where it was recreated in its entirety. Garret workshop of James Watt It remained on display for visitors for many years, but was walled-off when the gallery it was housed in closed. The workshop remains intact, and preserved, and there are plans for it to go on display again at some point in the near future.
Original Condenser by James Watt.
As with many major inventions, there is some dispute as to whether Watt was the original sole inventor of some of the numerous inventions he patented. There is no dispute, however, that he was the sole inventor of his most important invention, the separate condenser. It was his practice (from around the 1780s) to pre-empt others' ideas which were known to him by filing patents with the intention of securing credit for the invention for himself, and ensuring that no one else was able to practice it. As he states in a letter to Boulton of 17 August 1784:
:I have given such descriptions of engines for wheel carriages as I could do in the time and space I could allow myself; but it is very defective and can only serve to keep other people from similar patents.
Some argue that his prohibitions on his employee William Murdoch from working with high pressure steam on his steam road locomotive experiments delayed its development. Watt, with his partner Matthew Boulton, battled against rival engineers such as Jonathan Hornblower who tried to develop engines which did not fall foul of his patents.
Watt patented the application of the sun and planet gear to steam in 1781 and a steam locomotive in 1784, both of which have strong claims to have been invented by his employee, William Murdoch. Watt himself described the provenance of the invention of the sun and planet gear in a letter to Boulton from Watt dated 5 January 1782:
:I have tried a model of one of my old plans of rotative engines revived and executed by W. M[urdock] and which merits being included in the specification as a fifth method...
The patent was never contested by Murdoch, who remained an employee of Boulton and Watt for most of his life, and Boulton and Watt's firm continued to use the sun and planet gear in their rotative engines, even long after the patent for the crank expired in 1794.
Watt opposed the use of high-pressure steam, and many inventors such as Richard Trevithick pioneered such engines, although frequently running into patent infringement actions by Watt. Those more efficient steam engines would eventually displace Watt's engines, leading to another industrial revolution with the development of the steam locomotive.
James Watt statue on City Square at Leeds.
Watt celebrated in a statue by Alexander Munro in Chamberlain Square, outside Birmingham Central Library
James Watt's improvements transformed the Newcomen engine, which had hardly changed for fifty years, and initiated changes in generating and applying power, which transformed the world of work, and were a key innovation of the Industrial Revolution. The importance of the invention can hardly be overstatedâit gave us the modern world. A key feature of it was that it brought the engine out of the remote coal fields into factories where many mechanics, engineers, and even tinkerers were exposed to its virtues and limitations. It was a platform for generations of inventors to improve. It was clear to many that higher pressures produced in improved boilers would produce engines having even higher efficiency, and would lead to the revolution in transportation that was soon embodied in the locomotive and steamboat. It made possible the construction of new factories that, since they were not dependent on water power, could work the year round, and could be placed almost anywhere. Work was moved out of the cottages, resulting in economies of scale. Capital could work more efficiently, and manufacturing productivity greatly improved. It made possible the cascade of new sorts of machine tools that could be used to produce better machines, including that most remarkable of all of them, the Watt steam engine.
Of Watt, the English Novelist Aldous Huxley (1894-1963) wrote; "To us, the moment 8:17 A.M. means something - something very important, if it happens to be the starting time of our daily train. To our ancestors, such an odd eccentric instant was without significance - did not even exist. In inventing the locomotive, Watt and Stephenson were part inventors of time."
Watt was a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and the Royal Society of London. He was a member of the Batavian Society, and one of only eight Foreign Associates of the French Academy of Sciences.
The watt is named after James Watt for his contributions to the development of the steam engine, and was adopted by the Second Congress of the British Association for the Advancement of Science in 1889 and by the 11th General Conference on Weights and Measures in 1960 as the unit of power incorporated in the International System of Units (or "SI").
'
The James Watt Memorial College in Greenock.
Watt was buried in the grounds of St. Mary's Church, Handsworth, in Birmingham. Later expansion of the church, over his grave, means that his tomb is now buried inside the church. A statue of him, Boulton and Murdoch is in Birmingham, as are five other statues of him alone, one in Chamberlain Square, the other outside the Law Courts. He is also remembered by the Moonstones and a school is named in his honour, both in Birmingham. An extensive archive of his papers is held at Birmingham Central Library. Matthew Boulton's home, Soho House, is now a museum, commemorating the work of both men. The University of Glasgow's Faculty of Engineering, the oldest in the United Kingdom, (where Watt was a professor) has its headquarters in the James Watt Building, which also houses the department of Mechanical Engineering and the department of Aerospace Engineering.
The location of James Watt's birth in Greenock is commemorated by a statue, close to his birthplace. Several locations and street names in Greenock recall him, most notably the Watt Memorial Library, which was begun in 1816 with Watt's donation of scientific books, and developed as part of the Watt Institution by his son (which ultimately became the James Watt College). Taken over by the local authority in 1974, the library now also houses the local history collection and archives of Inverclyde, and is dominated by a large seated statue in the vestibule. Watt is additionally commemorated by statuary in George Square, Glasgow and Princes Street, Edinburgh.
The James Watt College has expanded from its original location to include campuses in Kilwinning (North Ayrshire), Finnart Street and The Waterfront in Greenock, and the Sports campus in Largs. Heriot-Watt University near Edinburgh was at one time the School of Arts of Edinburgh, founded in 1821 as the worldâs first Mechanics Institute, but to commemorate George Heriot, the 16th century financier to King James, and James Watt, after Royal Charter the name was changed to Heriot-Watt University. Dozens of university and college buildings (chiefly of science and technology) are named after him.
The huge painting James Watt contemplating the steam engine by James Eckford Lauder is now owned by the National Gallery of Scotland.
Watt was ranked first, tying with Edison, among 229 significant figures in the history of technology by Charles Murray's survey of historiometry presented in his book Human Accomplishments.
Over 50 roads or streets in the UK are named after him.
A colossal statue of Watt by Chantrey was placed in Westminster Abbey, and later was moved to St. Paul's Cathedral. On the cenotaph the inscription reads:
Chantrey's statue of James Watt
:NOT TO PERPETUATE A NAME,
:WHICH MUST ENDURE WHILE THE PEACEFUL ARTS FLOURISH,
:BUT TO SHOW
:THAT MANKIND HAVE LEARNED TO HONOUR THOSE
:WHO BEST DESERVE THEIR GRATITUDE,
:THE KING,
:HIS MINISTERS, AND MANY OF THE NOBLES
:AND COMMONERS OF THE REALM
:RAISED THIS MONUMENT TO
:JAMES WATT
:WHO DIRECTING THE FORCE OF AN ORIGINAL GENIUS
:EARLY EXERCISED IN PHILOSOPHIC RESEARCH
:TO THE IMPROVEMENT OF
:THE STEAM-ENGINE
:ENLARGED THE RESOURCES OF HIS COUNTRY
:INCREASED THE POWER OF MAN
:AND ROSE TO AN EMINENT PLACE
:AMONG THE MOST ILLUSTRIOUS FOLLOWERS OF SCIENCE
:AND THE REAL BENEFACTORS OF THE WORLD
:BORN AT GREENOCK MDCCXXXVI
:DIED AT HEATHFIELD IN STAFFORDSHIRE MDCCCXIX
A lecture theatre in the Mechanical & Manufacturing Engineering building at the University of Birmingham is named "G31 - The James Watt Lecture Theatre".
On 29 May 2009, the Bank of England announced that Watt would appear on a new £50 note, alongside Matthew Boulton.
* Watt steam engine
* Centrifugal governor
* Indicator diagram
* Watt's linkage
* Parallel motion
* Sun and planet gear
*"Some Unpublished Letters of James Watt" in Journal of Institution of Mechanical Engineers (London, 1915).
*Carnegie, Andrew, James Watt University Press of the Pacific (2001) (Reprinted from the 1913 ed.), ISBN 0-89875-578-6.
*
* H. W. Dickinson and Hugh Pembroke Vowles James Watt and the Industrial Revolution (published in 1943, new edition 1948 and reprinted in 1949. Also published in Spanish and Portuguese (1944) by the British Council)
*Hills, Rev. Dr. Richard L., James Watt, Vol 1, His time in Scotland, 1736-1774 (2002); Vol 2, The years of toil, 1775-1785; Vol 3 Triumph through adversity 1785-1819. Landmark Publishing Ltd, ISBN 1-84306-045-0.
*
*
*Marsden, Ben. Watt's Perfect Engine Columbia University Press (New York, 2002) ISBN 0-231-13172-0.
*
*
*Samuel Smiles, Lives of the Engineers, (London, 1861-62, new edition, five volumes, 1905).
;Related topics
*
*
* James Watt by Andrew Carnegie (1905)
* James Watt by Thomas H. Marshall (1925)
* Archives of Soho at Birmingham Central Library.
* BBC History: James Watt
* Revolutionary Players website
* Cornwall Record Office Boulton & Watt letters
* Significant Scots - James Watt
*
|
James_Watt | Where was Watt buried? | null | data/set4/a2 | James_Watt
James Watt, FRS, FRSE (19 January 1736 25 August 1819) was a Scottish inventor and mechanical engineer whose improvements to the Newcomen steam engine were fundamental to the changes brought by the Industrial Revolution in both the Kingdom of Great Britain and the world.
James Watt was born on 19 January 1736 in Greenock, Renfrewshire, a seaport on the Firth of Clyde. His father was a shipwright, ship owner and contractor, and served as the town's chief baillie, while his mother, Agnes Muirhead, came from a distinguished family and was well educated. Both were Presbyterians and strong Covenanters. Watt's grandfather, Thomas Watt, was a mathematics teacher and baillie to the Baron of Cartsburn. Watt did not attend school regularly; initially he was mostly schooled at home by his mother but later he attended Greenock grammar school. He exhibited great manual dexterity and an aptitude for mathematics, although Latin and Greek failed to interest him, and he absorbed the legends and lore of the Scottish people.
When he was 18, his mother died and his father's health had begun to fail. Watt travelled to London to study instrument-making for a year, then returned to Scotland to Glasgow intent on setting up his own instrument-making business. However, because he had not served at least seven years as an apprentice, the Glasgow Guild of Hammermen (any artisans using hammers) blocked his application, despite there being no other mathematical instrument makers in Scotland.
Watt was saved from this impasse by three professors of the University of Glasgow, who offered him the opportunity to set up a small workshop within the university. It was established in 1758 and one of the professors, the physicist and chemist Joseph Black, became Watt's friend.
In 1764, Watt married his cousin Margaret Miller, with whom he had five children, two of whom lived to adulthood. She died in childbirth in 1772. In 1777 he married again, to Ann MacGregor, daughter of a Glasgow dye-maker, who survived him. She died in 1832.
Watt was an enthusiastic inventor, with a fertile imagination that sometimes got in the way of finishing his works, because he could always see "just one more improvement". He was skilled with his hands, and was also able to perform systematic scientific measurements that could quantify the improvements he made and produce a greater understanding of the phenomenon he was working with.
Watt was a gentleman, greatly respected by other prominent men of the Industrial Revolution. He was an important member of the Lunar Society, and was a much sought after conversationalist and companion, always interested in expanding his horizons. He was a rather poor businessman, and especially hated bargaining and negotiating terms with those who sought to utilize the steam engine. Until he retired, he was always much concerned about his financial affairs, and was something of a worrier. His personal relationships with his friends and partners were always congenial and long-lasting.
James Watt's workshop
Watt retired in 1800, the same year that his fundamental patent and partnership with Boulton expired. The famous partnership was transferred to the men's sons, Matthew Boulton and James Watt Jr. Longtime firm engineer William Murdoch was made a partner and the firm prospered.
"Heathfield", Watt's house in Handsworth, BirminghamWatt continued to invent other things before and during his semi-retirement. He invented a new method of measuring distances by telescope, a device for copying letters, improvements in the oil lamp, a steam mangle and a machine for copying sculptures. Within his home in Handsworth Heath, Staffordshire, Watt made use of a garret room as a workshop, and it was here that he worked on many of his inventions.
He and his second wife travelled to France and Germany, and he purchased an estate in Wales at Doldowlod House, one mile south of Llanwrthwl, which he much improved.
He died on 25 August 1819 at his home "Heathfield" in Handsworth, Birmingham, England at the age of 83. He was buried on 2 September.
The garret room workshop that Watt used in his retirement was left locked and untouched until 1853, when it was first viewed by his biographer J. P. Muirhead. Thereafter, it was occasionally visited, but left untouched, as a kind of shrine. A proposal to have it transferred to the Patent Office came to nothing. When the house was due to be demolished in 1924, the room and all its contents were presented to the Science Museum, where it was recreated in its entirety. Garret workshop of James Watt It remained on display for visitors for many years, but was walled-off when the gallery it was housed in closed. The workshop remains intact, and preserved, and there are plans for it to go on display again at some point in the near future.
Original Condenser by James Watt.
As with many major inventions, there is some dispute as to whether Watt was the original sole inventor of some of the numerous inventions he patented. There is no dispute, however, that he was the sole inventor of his most important invention, the separate condenser. It was his practice (from around the 1780s) to pre-empt others' ideas which were known to him by filing patents with the intention of securing credit for the invention for himself, and ensuring that no one else was able to practice it. As he states in a letter to Boulton of 17 August 1784:
:I have given such descriptions of engines for wheel carriages as I could do in the time and space I could allow myself; but it is very defective and can only serve to keep other people from similar patents.
Some argue that his prohibitions on his employee William Murdoch from working with high pressure steam on his steam road locomotive experiments delayed its development. Watt, with his partner Matthew Boulton, battled against rival engineers such as Jonathan Hornblower who tried to develop engines which did not fall foul of his patents.
Watt patented the application of the sun and planet gear to steam in 1781 and a steam locomotive in 1784, both of which have strong claims to have been invented by his employee, William Murdoch. Watt himself described the provenance of the invention of the sun and planet gear in a letter to Boulton from Watt dated 5 January 1782:
:I have tried a model of one of my old plans of rotative engines revived and executed by W. M[urdock] and which merits being included in the specification as a fifth method...
The patent was never contested by Murdoch, who remained an employee of Boulton and Watt for most of his life, and Boulton and Watt's firm continued to use the sun and planet gear in their rotative engines, even long after the patent for the crank expired in 1794.
Watt opposed the use of high-pressure steam, and many inventors such as Richard Trevithick pioneered such engines, although frequently running into patent infringement actions by Watt. Those more efficient steam engines would eventually displace Watt's engines, leading to another industrial revolution with the development of the steam locomotive.
James Watt statue on City Square at Leeds.
Watt celebrated in a statue by Alexander Munro in Chamberlain Square, outside Birmingham Central Library
James Watt's improvements transformed the Newcomen engine, which had hardly changed for fifty years, and initiated changes in generating and applying power, which transformed the world of work, and were a key innovation of the Industrial Revolution. The importance of the invention can hardly be overstatedâit gave us the modern world. A key feature of it was that it brought the engine out of the remote coal fields into factories where many mechanics, engineers, and even tinkerers were exposed to its virtues and limitations. It was a platform for generations of inventors to improve. It was clear to many that higher pressures produced in improved boilers would produce engines having even higher efficiency, and would lead to the revolution in transportation that was soon embodied in the locomotive and steamboat. It made possible the construction of new factories that, since they were not dependent on water power, could work the year round, and could be placed almost anywhere. Work was moved out of the cottages, resulting in economies of scale. Capital could work more efficiently, and manufacturing productivity greatly improved. It made possible the cascade of new sorts of machine tools that could be used to produce better machines, including that most remarkable of all of them, the Watt steam engine.
Of Watt, the English Novelist Aldous Huxley (1894-1963) wrote; "To us, the moment 8:17 A.M. means something - something very important, if it happens to be the starting time of our daily train. To our ancestors, such an odd eccentric instant was without significance - did not even exist. In inventing the locomotive, Watt and Stephenson were part inventors of time."
Watt was a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and the Royal Society of London. He was a member of the Batavian Society, and one of only eight Foreign Associates of the French Academy of Sciences.
The watt is named after James Watt for his contributions to the development of the steam engine, and was adopted by the Second Congress of the British Association for the Advancement of Science in 1889 and by the 11th General Conference on Weights and Measures in 1960 as the unit of power incorporated in the International System of Units (or "SI").
'
The James Watt Memorial College in Greenock.
Watt was buried in the grounds of St. Mary's Church, Handsworth, in Birmingham. Later expansion of the church, over his grave, means that his tomb is now buried inside the church. A statue of him, Boulton and Murdoch is in Birmingham, as are five other statues of him alone, one in Chamberlain Square, the other outside the Law Courts. He is also remembered by the Moonstones and a school is named in his honour, both in Birmingham. An extensive archive of his papers is held at Birmingham Central Library. Matthew Boulton's home, Soho House, is now a museum, commemorating the work of both men. The University of Glasgow's Faculty of Engineering, the oldest in the United Kingdom, (where Watt was a professor) has its headquarters in the James Watt Building, which also houses the department of Mechanical Engineering and the department of Aerospace Engineering.
The location of James Watt's birth in Greenock is commemorated by a statue, close to his birthplace. Several locations and street names in Greenock recall him, most notably the Watt Memorial Library, which was begun in 1816 with Watt's donation of scientific books, and developed as part of the Watt Institution by his son (which ultimately became the James Watt College). Taken over by the local authority in 1974, the library now also houses the local history collection and archives of Inverclyde, and is dominated by a large seated statue in the vestibule. Watt is additionally commemorated by statuary in George Square, Glasgow and Princes Street, Edinburgh.
The James Watt College has expanded from its original location to include campuses in Kilwinning (North Ayrshire), Finnart Street and The Waterfront in Greenock, and the Sports campus in Largs. Heriot-Watt University near Edinburgh was at one time the School of Arts of Edinburgh, founded in 1821 as the worldâs first Mechanics Institute, but to commemorate George Heriot, the 16th century financier to King James, and James Watt, after Royal Charter the name was changed to Heriot-Watt University. Dozens of university and college buildings (chiefly of science and technology) are named after him.
The huge painting James Watt contemplating the steam engine by James Eckford Lauder is now owned by the National Gallery of Scotland.
Watt was ranked first, tying with Edison, among 229 significant figures in the history of technology by Charles Murray's survey of historiometry presented in his book Human Accomplishments.
Over 50 roads or streets in the UK are named after him.
A colossal statue of Watt by Chantrey was placed in Westminster Abbey, and later was moved to St. Paul's Cathedral. On the cenotaph the inscription reads:
Chantrey's statue of James Watt
:NOT TO PERPETUATE A NAME,
:WHICH MUST ENDURE WHILE THE PEACEFUL ARTS FLOURISH,
:BUT TO SHOW
:THAT MANKIND HAVE LEARNED TO HONOUR THOSE
:WHO BEST DESERVE THEIR GRATITUDE,
:THE KING,
:HIS MINISTERS, AND MANY OF THE NOBLES
:AND COMMONERS OF THE REALM
:RAISED THIS MONUMENT TO
:JAMES WATT
:WHO DIRECTING THE FORCE OF AN ORIGINAL GENIUS
:EARLY EXERCISED IN PHILOSOPHIC RESEARCH
:TO THE IMPROVEMENT OF
:THE STEAM-ENGINE
:ENLARGED THE RESOURCES OF HIS COUNTRY
:INCREASED THE POWER OF MAN
:AND ROSE TO AN EMINENT PLACE
:AMONG THE MOST ILLUSTRIOUS FOLLOWERS OF SCIENCE
:AND THE REAL BENEFACTORS OF THE WORLD
:BORN AT GREENOCK MDCCXXXVI
:DIED AT HEATHFIELD IN STAFFORDSHIRE MDCCCXIX
A lecture theatre in the Mechanical & Manufacturing Engineering building at the University of Birmingham is named "G31 - The James Watt Lecture Theatre".
On 29 May 2009, the Bank of England announced that Watt would appear on a new £50 note, alongside Matthew Boulton.
* Watt steam engine
* Centrifugal governor
* Indicator diagram
* Watt's linkage
* Parallel motion
* Sun and planet gear
*"Some Unpublished Letters of James Watt" in Journal of Institution of Mechanical Engineers (London, 1915).
*Carnegie, Andrew, James Watt University Press of the Pacific (2001) (Reprinted from the 1913 ed.), ISBN 0-89875-578-6.
*
* H. W. Dickinson and Hugh Pembroke Vowles James Watt and the Industrial Revolution (published in 1943, new edition 1948 and reprinted in 1949. Also published in Spanish and Portuguese (1944) by the British Council)
*Hills, Rev. Dr. Richard L., James Watt, Vol 1, His time in Scotland, 1736-1774 (2002); Vol 2, The years of toil, 1775-1785; Vol 3 Triumph through adversity 1785-1819. Landmark Publishing Ltd, ISBN 1-84306-045-0.
*
*
*Marsden, Ben. Watt's Perfect Engine Columbia University Press (New York, 2002) ISBN 0-231-13172-0.
*
*
*Samuel Smiles, Lives of the Engineers, (London, 1861-62, new edition, five volumes, 1905).
;Related topics
*
*
* James Watt by Andrew Carnegie (1905)
* James Watt by Thomas H. Marshall (1925)
* Archives of Soho at Birmingham Central Library.
* BBC History: James Watt
* Revolutionary Players website
* Cornwall Record Office Boulton & Watt letters
* Significant Scots - James Watt
*
|
James_Watt | When did Watt set up his workshop at the University of Glasgow? | null | data/set4/a2 | James_Watt
James Watt, FRS, FRSE (19 January 1736 25 August 1819) was a Scottish inventor and mechanical engineer whose improvements to the Newcomen steam engine were fundamental to the changes brought by the Industrial Revolution in both the Kingdom of Great Britain and the world.
James Watt was born on 19 January 1736 in Greenock, Renfrewshire, a seaport on the Firth of Clyde. His father was a shipwright, ship owner and contractor, and served as the town's chief baillie, while his mother, Agnes Muirhead, came from a distinguished family and was well educated. Both were Presbyterians and strong Covenanters. Watt's grandfather, Thomas Watt, was a mathematics teacher and baillie to the Baron of Cartsburn. Watt did not attend school regularly; initially he was mostly schooled at home by his mother but later he attended Greenock grammar school. He exhibited great manual dexterity and an aptitude for mathematics, although Latin and Greek failed to interest him, and he absorbed the legends and lore of the Scottish people.
When he was 18, his mother died and his father's health had begun to fail. Watt travelled to London to study instrument-making for a year, then returned to Scotland to Glasgow intent on setting up his own instrument-making business. However, because he had not served at least seven years as an apprentice, the Glasgow Guild of Hammermen (any artisans using hammers) blocked his application, despite there being no other mathematical instrument makers in Scotland.
Watt was saved from this impasse by three professors of the University of Glasgow, who offered him the opportunity to set up a small workshop within the university. It was established in 1758 and one of the professors, the physicist and chemist Joseph Black, became Watt's friend.
In 1764, Watt married his cousin Margaret Miller, with whom he had five children, two of whom lived to adulthood. She died in childbirth in 1772. In 1777 he married again, to Ann MacGregor, daughter of a Glasgow dye-maker, who survived him. She died in 1832.
Watt was an enthusiastic inventor, with a fertile imagination that sometimes got in the way of finishing his works, because he could always see "just one more improvement". He was skilled with his hands, and was also able to perform systematic scientific measurements that could quantify the improvements he made and produce a greater understanding of the phenomenon he was working with.
Watt was a gentleman, greatly respected by other prominent men of the Industrial Revolution. He was an important member of the Lunar Society, and was a much sought after conversationalist and companion, always interested in expanding his horizons. He was a rather poor businessman, and especially hated bargaining and negotiating terms with those who sought to utilize the steam engine. Until he retired, he was always much concerned about his financial affairs, and was something of a worrier. His personal relationships with his friends and partners were always congenial and long-lasting.
James Watt's workshop
Watt retired in 1800, the same year that his fundamental patent and partnership with Boulton expired. The famous partnership was transferred to the men's sons, Matthew Boulton and James Watt Jr. Longtime firm engineer William Murdoch was made a partner and the firm prospered.
"Heathfield", Watt's house in Handsworth, BirminghamWatt continued to invent other things before and during his semi-retirement. He invented a new method of measuring distances by telescope, a device for copying letters, improvements in the oil lamp, a steam mangle and a machine for copying sculptures. Within his home in Handsworth Heath, Staffordshire, Watt made use of a garret room as a workshop, and it was here that he worked on many of his inventions.
He and his second wife travelled to France and Germany, and he purchased an estate in Wales at Doldowlod House, one mile south of Llanwrthwl, which he much improved.
He died on 25 August 1819 at his home "Heathfield" in Handsworth, Birmingham, England at the age of 83. He was buried on 2 September.
The garret room workshop that Watt used in his retirement was left locked and untouched until 1853, when it was first viewed by his biographer J. P. Muirhead. Thereafter, it was occasionally visited, but left untouched, as a kind of shrine. A proposal to have it transferred to the Patent Office came to nothing. When the house was due to be demolished in 1924, the room and all its contents were presented to the Science Museum, where it was recreated in its entirety. Garret workshop of James Watt It remained on display for visitors for many years, but was walled-off when the gallery it was housed in closed. The workshop remains intact, and preserved, and there are plans for it to go on display again at some point in the near future.
Original Condenser by James Watt.
As with many major inventions, there is some dispute as to whether Watt was the original sole inventor of some of the numerous inventions he patented. There is no dispute, however, that he was the sole inventor of his most important invention, the separate condenser. It was his practice (from around the 1780s) to pre-empt others' ideas which were known to him by filing patents with the intention of securing credit for the invention for himself, and ensuring that no one else was able to practice it. As he states in a letter to Boulton of 17 August 1784:
:I have given such descriptions of engines for wheel carriages as I could do in the time and space I could allow myself; but it is very defective and can only serve to keep other people from similar patents.
Some argue that his prohibitions on his employee William Murdoch from working with high pressure steam on his steam road locomotive experiments delayed its development. Watt, with his partner Matthew Boulton, battled against rival engineers such as Jonathan Hornblower who tried to develop engines which did not fall foul of his patents.
Watt patented the application of the sun and planet gear to steam in 1781 and a steam locomotive in 1784, both of which have strong claims to have been invented by his employee, William Murdoch. Watt himself described the provenance of the invention of the sun and planet gear in a letter to Boulton from Watt dated 5 January 1782:
:I have tried a model of one of my old plans of rotative engines revived and executed by W. M[urdock] and which merits being included in the specification as a fifth method...
The patent was never contested by Murdoch, who remained an employee of Boulton and Watt for most of his life, and Boulton and Watt's firm continued to use the sun and planet gear in their rotative engines, even long after the patent for the crank expired in 1794.
Watt opposed the use of high-pressure steam, and many inventors such as Richard Trevithick pioneered such engines, although frequently running into patent infringement actions by Watt. Those more efficient steam engines would eventually displace Watt's engines, leading to another industrial revolution with the development of the steam locomotive.
James Watt statue on City Square at Leeds.
Watt celebrated in a statue by Alexander Munro in Chamberlain Square, outside Birmingham Central Library
James Watt's improvements transformed the Newcomen engine, which had hardly changed for fifty years, and initiated changes in generating and applying power, which transformed the world of work, and were a key innovation of the Industrial Revolution. The importance of the invention can hardly be overstatedâit gave us the modern world. A key feature of it was that it brought the engine out of the remote coal fields into factories where many mechanics, engineers, and even tinkerers were exposed to its virtues and limitations. It was a platform for generations of inventors to improve. It was clear to many that higher pressures produced in improved boilers would produce engines having even higher efficiency, and would lead to the revolution in transportation that was soon embodied in the locomotive and steamboat. It made possible the construction of new factories that, since they were not dependent on water power, could work the year round, and could be placed almost anywhere. Work was moved out of the cottages, resulting in economies of scale. Capital could work more efficiently, and manufacturing productivity greatly improved. It made possible the cascade of new sorts of machine tools that could be used to produce better machines, including that most remarkable of all of them, the Watt steam engine.
Of Watt, the English Novelist Aldous Huxley (1894-1963) wrote; "To us, the moment 8:17 A.M. means something - something very important, if it happens to be the starting time of our daily train. To our ancestors, such an odd eccentric instant was without significance - did not even exist. In inventing the locomotive, Watt and Stephenson were part inventors of time."
Watt was a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and the Royal Society of London. He was a member of the Batavian Society, and one of only eight Foreign Associates of the French Academy of Sciences.
The watt is named after James Watt for his contributions to the development of the steam engine, and was adopted by the Second Congress of the British Association for the Advancement of Science in 1889 and by the 11th General Conference on Weights and Measures in 1960 as the unit of power incorporated in the International System of Units (or "SI").
'
The James Watt Memorial College in Greenock.
Watt was buried in the grounds of St. Mary's Church, Handsworth, in Birmingham. Later expansion of the church, over his grave, means that his tomb is now buried inside the church. A statue of him, Boulton and Murdoch is in Birmingham, as are five other statues of him alone, one in Chamberlain Square, the other outside the Law Courts. He is also remembered by the Moonstones and a school is named in his honour, both in Birmingham. An extensive archive of his papers is held at Birmingham Central Library. Matthew Boulton's home, Soho House, is now a museum, commemorating the work of both men. The University of Glasgow's Faculty of Engineering, the oldest in the United Kingdom, (where Watt was a professor) has its headquarters in the James Watt Building, which also houses the department of Mechanical Engineering and the department of Aerospace Engineering.
The location of James Watt's birth in Greenock is commemorated by a statue, close to his birthplace. Several locations and street names in Greenock recall him, most notably the Watt Memorial Library, which was begun in 1816 with Watt's donation of scientific books, and developed as part of the Watt Institution by his son (which ultimately became the James Watt College). Taken over by the local authority in 1974, the library now also houses the local history collection and archives of Inverclyde, and is dominated by a large seated statue in the vestibule. Watt is additionally commemorated by statuary in George Square, Glasgow and Princes Street, Edinburgh.
The James Watt College has expanded from its original location to include campuses in Kilwinning (North Ayrshire), Finnart Street and The Waterfront in Greenock, and the Sports campus in Largs. Heriot-Watt University near Edinburgh was at one time the School of Arts of Edinburgh, founded in 1821 as the worldâs first Mechanics Institute, but to commemorate George Heriot, the 16th century financier to King James, and James Watt, after Royal Charter the name was changed to Heriot-Watt University. Dozens of university and college buildings (chiefly of science and technology) are named after him.
The huge painting James Watt contemplating the steam engine by James Eckford Lauder is now owned by the National Gallery of Scotland.
Watt was ranked first, tying with Edison, among 229 significant figures in the history of technology by Charles Murray's survey of historiometry presented in his book Human Accomplishments.
Over 50 roads or streets in the UK are named after him.
A colossal statue of Watt by Chantrey was placed in Westminster Abbey, and later was moved to St. Paul's Cathedral. On the cenotaph the inscription reads:
Chantrey's statue of James Watt
:NOT TO PERPETUATE A NAME,
:WHICH MUST ENDURE WHILE THE PEACEFUL ARTS FLOURISH,
:BUT TO SHOW
:THAT MANKIND HAVE LEARNED TO HONOUR THOSE
:WHO BEST DESERVE THEIR GRATITUDE,
:THE KING,
:HIS MINISTERS, AND MANY OF THE NOBLES
:AND COMMONERS OF THE REALM
:RAISED THIS MONUMENT TO
:JAMES WATT
:WHO DIRECTING THE FORCE OF AN ORIGINAL GENIUS
:EARLY EXERCISED IN PHILOSOPHIC RESEARCH
:TO THE IMPROVEMENT OF
:THE STEAM-ENGINE
:ENLARGED THE RESOURCES OF HIS COUNTRY
:INCREASED THE POWER OF MAN
:AND ROSE TO AN EMINENT PLACE
:AMONG THE MOST ILLUSTRIOUS FOLLOWERS OF SCIENCE
:AND THE REAL BENEFACTORS OF THE WORLD
:BORN AT GREENOCK MDCCXXXVI
:DIED AT HEATHFIELD IN STAFFORDSHIRE MDCCCXIX
A lecture theatre in the Mechanical & Manufacturing Engineering building at the University of Birmingham is named "G31 - The James Watt Lecture Theatre".
On 29 May 2009, the Bank of England announced that Watt would appear on a new £50 note, alongside Matthew Boulton.
* Watt steam engine
* Centrifugal governor
* Indicator diagram
* Watt's linkage
* Parallel motion
* Sun and planet gear
*"Some Unpublished Letters of James Watt" in Journal of Institution of Mechanical Engineers (London, 1915).
*Carnegie, Andrew, James Watt University Press of the Pacific (2001) (Reprinted from the 1913 ed.), ISBN 0-89875-578-6.
*
* H. W. Dickinson and Hugh Pembroke Vowles James Watt and the Industrial Revolution (published in 1943, new edition 1948 and reprinted in 1949. Also published in Spanish and Portuguese (1944) by the British Council)
*Hills, Rev. Dr. Richard L., James Watt, Vol 1, His time in Scotland, 1736-1774 (2002); Vol 2, The years of toil, 1775-1785; Vol 3 Triumph through adversity 1785-1819. Landmark Publishing Ltd, ISBN 1-84306-045-0.
*
*
*Marsden, Ben. Watt's Perfect Engine Columbia University Press (New York, 2002) ISBN 0-231-13172-0.
*
*
*Samuel Smiles, Lives of the Engineers, (London, 1861-62, new edition, five volumes, 1905).
;Related topics
*
*
* James Watt by Andrew Carnegie (1905)
* James Watt by Thomas H. Marshall (1925)
* Archives of Soho at Birmingham Central Library.
* BBC History: James Watt
* Revolutionary Players website
* Cornwall Record Office Boulton & Watt letters
* Significant Scots - James Watt
*
|
James_Watt | When did Watt set up his workshop at the University of Glasgow? | null | data/set4/a2 | James_Watt
James Watt, FRS, FRSE (19 January 1736 25 August 1819) was a Scottish inventor and mechanical engineer whose improvements to the Newcomen steam engine were fundamental to the changes brought by the Industrial Revolution in both the Kingdom of Great Britain and the world.
James Watt was born on 19 January 1736 in Greenock, Renfrewshire, a seaport on the Firth of Clyde. His father was a shipwright, ship owner and contractor, and served as the town's chief baillie, while his mother, Agnes Muirhead, came from a distinguished family and was well educated. Both were Presbyterians and strong Covenanters. Watt's grandfather, Thomas Watt, was a mathematics teacher and baillie to the Baron of Cartsburn. Watt did not attend school regularly; initially he was mostly schooled at home by his mother but later he attended Greenock grammar school. He exhibited great manual dexterity and an aptitude for mathematics, although Latin and Greek failed to interest him, and he absorbed the legends and lore of the Scottish people.
When he was 18, his mother died and his father's health had begun to fail. Watt travelled to London to study instrument-making for a year, then returned to Scotland to Glasgow intent on setting up his own instrument-making business. However, because he had not served at least seven years as an apprentice, the Glasgow Guild of Hammermen (any artisans using hammers) blocked his application, despite there being no other mathematical instrument makers in Scotland.
Watt was saved from this impasse by three professors of the University of Glasgow, who offered him the opportunity to set up a small workshop within the university. It was established in 1758 and one of the professors, the physicist and chemist Joseph Black, became Watt's friend.
In 1764, Watt married his cousin Margaret Miller, with whom he had five children, two of whom lived to adulthood. She died in childbirth in 1772. In 1777 he married again, to Ann MacGregor, daughter of a Glasgow dye-maker, who survived him. She died in 1832.
Watt was an enthusiastic inventor, with a fertile imagination that sometimes got in the way of finishing his works, because he could always see "just one more improvement". He was skilled with his hands, and was also able to perform systematic scientific measurements that could quantify the improvements he made and produce a greater understanding of the phenomenon he was working with.
Watt was a gentleman, greatly respected by other prominent men of the Industrial Revolution. He was an important member of the Lunar Society, and was a much sought after conversationalist and companion, always interested in expanding his horizons. He was a rather poor businessman, and especially hated bargaining and negotiating terms with those who sought to utilize the steam engine. Until he retired, he was always much concerned about his financial affairs, and was something of a worrier. His personal relationships with his friends and partners were always congenial and long-lasting.
James Watt's workshop
Watt retired in 1800, the same year that his fundamental patent and partnership with Boulton expired. The famous partnership was transferred to the men's sons, Matthew Boulton and James Watt Jr. Longtime firm engineer William Murdoch was made a partner and the firm prospered.
"Heathfield", Watt's house in Handsworth, BirminghamWatt continued to invent other things before and during his semi-retirement. He invented a new method of measuring distances by telescope, a device for copying letters, improvements in the oil lamp, a steam mangle and a machine for copying sculptures. Within his home in Handsworth Heath, Staffordshire, Watt made use of a garret room as a workshop, and it was here that he worked on many of his inventions.
He and his second wife travelled to France and Germany, and he purchased an estate in Wales at Doldowlod House, one mile south of Llanwrthwl, which he much improved.
He died on 25 August 1819 at his home "Heathfield" in Handsworth, Birmingham, England at the age of 83. He was buried on 2 September.
The garret room workshop that Watt used in his retirement was left locked and untouched until 1853, when it was first viewed by his biographer J. P. Muirhead. Thereafter, it was occasionally visited, but left untouched, as a kind of shrine. A proposal to have it transferred to the Patent Office came to nothing. When the house was due to be demolished in 1924, the room and all its contents were presented to the Science Museum, where it was recreated in its entirety. Garret workshop of James Watt It remained on display for visitors for many years, but was walled-off when the gallery it was housed in closed. The workshop remains intact, and preserved, and there are plans for it to go on display again at some point in the near future.
Original Condenser by James Watt.
As with many major inventions, there is some dispute as to whether Watt was the original sole inventor of some of the numerous inventions he patented. There is no dispute, however, that he was the sole inventor of his most important invention, the separate condenser. It was his practice (from around the 1780s) to pre-empt others' ideas which were known to him by filing patents with the intention of securing credit for the invention for himself, and ensuring that no one else was able to practice it. As he states in a letter to Boulton of 17 August 1784:
:I have given such descriptions of engines for wheel carriages as I could do in the time and space I could allow myself; but it is very defective and can only serve to keep other people from similar patents.
Some argue that his prohibitions on his employee William Murdoch from working with high pressure steam on his steam road locomotive experiments delayed its development. Watt, with his partner Matthew Boulton, battled against rival engineers such as Jonathan Hornblower who tried to develop engines which did not fall foul of his patents.
Watt patented the application of the sun and planet gear to steam in 1781 and a steam locomotive in 1784, both of which have strong claims to have been invented by his employee, William Murdoch. Watt himself described the provenance of the invention of the sun and planet gear in a letter to Boulton from Watt dated 5 January 1782:
:I have tried a model of one of my old plans of rotative engines revived and executed by W. M[urdock] and which merits being included in the specification as a fifth method...
The patent was never contested by Murdoch, who remained an employee of Boulton and Watt for most of his life, and Boulton and Watt's firm continued to use the sun and planet gear in their rotative engines, even long after the patent for the crank expired in 1794.
Watt opposed the use of high-pressure steam, and many inventors such as Richard Trevithick pioneered such engines, although frequently running into patent infringement actions by Watt. Those more efficient steam engines would eventually displace Watt's engines, leading to another industrial revolution with the development of the steam locomotive.
James Watt statue on City Square at Leeds.
Watt celebrated in a statue by Alexander Munro in Chamberlain Square, outside Birmingham Central Library
James Watt's improvements transformed the Newcomen engine, which had hardly changed for fifty years, and initiated changes in generating and applying power, which transformed the world of work, and were a key innovation of the Industrial Revolution. The importance of the invention can hardly be overstatedâit gave us the modern world. A key feature of it was that it brought the engine out of the remote coal fields into factories where many mechanics, engineers, and even tinkerers were exposed to its virtues and limitations. It was a platform for generations of inventors to improve. It was clear to many that higher pressures produced in improved boilers would produce engines having even higher efficiency, and would lead to the revolution in transportation that was soon embodied in the locomotive and steamboat. It made possible the construction of new factories that, since they were not dependent on water power, could work the year round, and could be placed almost anywhere. Work was moved out of the cottages, resulting in economies of scale. Capital could work more efficiently, and manufacturing productivity greatly improved. It made possible the cascade of new sorts of machine tools that could be used to produce better machines, including that most remarkable of all of them, the Watt steam engine.
Of Watt, the English Novelist Aldous Huxley (1894-1963) wrote; "To us, the moment 8:17 A.M. means something - something very important, if it happens to be the starting time of our daily train. To our ancestors, such an odd eccentric instant was without significance - did not even exist. In inventing the locomotive, Watt and Stephenson were part inventors of time."
Watt was a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and the Royal Society of London. He was a member of the Batavian Society, and one of only eight Foreign Associates of the French Academy of Sciences.
The watt is named after James Watt for his contributions to the development of the steam engine, and was adopted by the Second Congress of the British Association for the Advancement of Science in 1889 and by the 11th General Conference on Weights and Measures in 1960 as the unit of power incorporated in the International System of Units (or "SI").
'
The James Watt Memorial College in Greenock.
Watt was buried in the grounds of St. Mary's Church, Handsworth, in Birmingham. Later expansion of the church, over his grave, means that his tomb is now buried inside the church. A statue of him, Boulton and Murdoch is in Birmingham, as are five other statues of him alone, one in Chamberlain Square, the other outside the Law Courts. He is also remembered by the Moonstones and a school is named in his honour, both in Birmingham. An extensive archive of his papers is held at Birmingham Central Library. Matthew Boulton's home, Soho House, is now a museum, commemorating the work of both men. The University of Glasgow's Faculty of Engineering, the oldest in the United Kingdom, (where Watt was a professor) has its headquarters in the James Watt Building, which also houses the department of Mechanical Engineering and the department of Aerospace Engineering.
The location of James Watt's birth in Greenock is commemorated by a statue, close to his birthplace. Several locations and street names in Greenock recall him, most notably the Watt Memorial Library, which was begun in 1816 with Watt's donation of scientific books, and developed as part of the Watt Institution by his son (which ultimately became the James Watt College). Taken over by the local authority in 1974, the library now also houses the local history collection and archives of Inverclyde, and is dominated by a large seated statue in the vestibule. Watt is additionally commemorated by statuary in George Square, Glasgow and Princes Street, Edinburgh.
The James Watt College has expanded from its original location to include campuses in Kilwinning (North Ayrshire), Finnart Street and The Waterfront in Greenock, and the Sports campus in Largs. Heriot-Watt University near Edinburgh was at one time the School of Arts of Edinburgh, founded in 1821 as the worldâs first Mechanics Institute, but to commemorate George Heriot, the 16th century financier to King James, and James Watt, after Royal Charter the name was changed to Heriot-Watt University. Dozens of university and college buildings (chiefly of science and technology) are named after him.
The huge painting James Watt contemplating the steam engine by James Eckford Lauder is now owned by the National Gallery of Scotland.
Watt was ranked first, tying with Edison, among 229 significant figures in the history of technology by Charles Murray's survey of historiometry presented in his book Human Accomplishments.
Over 50 roads or streets in the UK are named after him.
A colossal statue of Watt by Chantrey was placed in Westminster Abbey, and later was moved to St. Paul's Cathedral. On the cenotaph the inscription reads:
Chantrey's statue of James Watt
:NOT TO PERPETUATE A NAME,
:WHICH MUST ENDURE WHILE THE PEACEFUL ARTS FLOURISH,
:BUT TO SHOW
:THAT MANKIND HAVE LEARNED TO HONOUR THOSE
:WHO BEST DESERVE THEIR GRATITUDE,
:THE KING,
:HIS MINISTERS, AND MANY OF THE NOBLES
:AND COMMONERS OF THE REALM
:RAISED THIS MONUMENT TO
:JAMES WATT
:WHO DIRECTING THE FORCE OF AN ORIGINAL GENIUS
:EARLY EXERCISED IN PHILOSOPHIC RESEARCH
:TO THE IMPROVEMENT OF
:THE STEAM-ENGINE
:ENLARGED THE RESOURCES OF HIS COUNTRY
:INCREASED THE POWER OF MAN
:AND ROSE TO AN EMINENT PLACE
:AMONG THE MOST ILLUSTRIOUS FOLLOWERS OF SCIENCE
:AND THE REAL BENEFACTORS OF THE WORLD
:BORN AT GREENOCK MDCCXXXVI
:DIED AT HEATHFIELD IN STAFFORDSHIRE MDCCCXIX
A lecture theatre in the Mechanical & Manufacturing Engineering building at the University of Birmingham is named "G31 - The James Watt Lecture Theatre".
On 29 May 2009, the Bank of England announced that Watt would appear on a new £50 note, alongside Matthew Boulton.
* Watt steam engine
* Centrifugal governor
* Indicator diagram
* Watt's linkage
* Parallel motion
* Sun and planet gear
*"Some Unpublished Letters of James Watt" in Journal of Institution of Mechanical Engineers (London, 1915).
*Carnegie, Andrew, James Watt University Press of the Pacific (2001) (Reprinted from the 1913 ed.), ISBN 0-89875-578-6.
*
* H. W. Dickinson and Hugh Pembroke Vowles James Watt and the Industrial Revolution (published in 1943, new edition 1948 and reprinted in 1949. Also published in Spanish and Portuguese (1944) by the British Council)
*Hills, Rev. Dr. Richard L., James Watt, Vol 1, His time in Scotland, 1736-1774 (2002); Vol 2, The years of toil, 1775-1785; Vol 3 Triumph through adversity 1785-1819. Landmark Publishing Ltd, ISBN 1-84306-045-0.
*
*
*Marsden, Ben. Watt's Perfect Engine Columbia University Press (New York, 2002) ISBN 0-231-13172-0.
*
*
*Samuel Smiles, Lives of the Engineers, (London, 1861-62, new edition, five volumes, 1905).
;Related topics
*
*
* James Watt by Andrew Carnegie (1905)
* James Watt by Thomas H. Marshall (1925)
* Archives of Soho at Birmingham Central Library.
* BBC History: James Watt
* Revolutionary Players website
* Cornwall Record Office Boulton & Watt letters
* Significant Scots - James Watt
*
|
James_Watt | Why did the Glasgow Guild of Hammermen reject Watt's application to become a mathematical instrument maker? | null | data/set4/a2 | James_Watt
James Watt, FRS, FRSE (19 January 1736 25 August 1819) was a Scottish inventor and mechanical engineer whose improvements to the Newcomen steam engine were fundamental to the changes brought by the Industrial Revolution in both the Kingdom of Great Britain and the world.
James Watt was born on 19 January 1736 in Greenock, Renfrewshire, a seaport on the Firth of Clyde. His father was a shipwright, ship owner and contractor, and served as the town's chief baillie, while his mother, Agnes Muirhead, came from a distinguished family and was well educated. Both were Presbyterians and strong Covenanters. Watt's grandfather, Thomas Watt, was a mathematics teacher and baillie to the Baron of Cartsburn. Watt did not attend school regularly; initially he was mostly schooled at home by his mother but later he attended Greenock grammar school. He exhibited great manual dexterity and an aptitude for mathematics, although Latin and Greek failed to interest him, and he absorbed the legends and lore of the Scottish people.
When he was 18, his mother died and his father's health had begun to fail. Watt travelled to London to study instrument-making for a year, then returned to Scotland to Glasgow intent on setting up his own instrument-making business. However, because he had not served at least seven years as an apprentice, the Glasgow Guild of Hammermen (any artisans using hammers) blocked his application, despite there being no other mathematical instrument makers in Scotland.
Watt was saved from this impasse by three professors of the University of Glasgow, who offered him the opportunity to set up a small workshop within the university. It was established in 1758 and one of the professors, the physicist and chemist Joseph Black, became Watt's friend.
In 1764, Watt married his cousin Margaret Miller, with whom he had five children, two of whom lived to adulthood. She died in childbirth in 1772. In 1777 he married again, to Ann MacGregor, daughter of a Glasgow dye-maker, who survived him. She died in 1832.
Watt was an enthusiastic inventor, with a fertile imagination that sometimes got in the way of finishing his works, because he could always see "just one more improvement". He was skilled with his hands, and was also able to perform systematic scientific measurements that could quantify the improvements he made and produce a greater understanding of the phenomenon he was working with.
Watt was a gentleman, greatly respected by other prominent men of the Industrial Revolution. He was an important member of the Lunar Society, and was a much sought after conversationalist and companion, always interested in expanding his horizons. He was a rather poor businessman, and especially hated bargaining and negotiating terms with those who sought to utilize the steam engine. Until he retired, he was always much concerned about his financial affairs, and was something of a worrier. His personal relationships with his friends and partners were always congenial and long-lasting.
James Watt's workshop
Watt retired in 1800, the same year that his fundamental patent and partnership with Boulton expired. The famous partnership was transferred to the men's sons, Matthew Boulton and James Watt Jr. Longtime firm engineer William Murdoch was made a partner and the firm prospered.
"Heathfield", Watt's house in Handsworth, BirminghamWatt continued to invent other things before and during his semi-retirement. He invented a new method of measuring distances by telescope, a device for copying letters, improvements in the oil lamp, a steam mangle and a machine for copying sculptures. Within his home in Handsworth Heath, Staffordshire, Watt made use of a garret room as a workshop, and it was here that he worked on many of his inventions.
He and his second wife travelled to France and Germany, and he purchased an estate in Wales at Doldowlod House, one mile south of Llanwrthwl, which he much improved.
He died on 25 August 1819 at his home "Heathfield" in Handsworth, Birmingham, England at the age of 83. He was buried on 2 September.
The garret room workshop that Watt used in his retirement was left locked and untouched until 1853, when it was first viewed by his biographer J. P. Muirhead. Thereafter, it was occasionally visited, but left untouched, as a kind of shrine. A proposal to have it transferred to the Patent Office came to nothing. When the house was due to be demolished in 1924, the room and all its contents were presented to the Science Museum, where it was recreated in its entirety. Garret workshop of James Watt It remained on display for visitors for many years, but was walled-off when the gallery it was housed in closed. The workshop remains intact, and preserved, and there are plans for it to go on display again at some point in the near future.
Original Condenser by James Watt.
As with many major inventions, there is some dispute as to whether Watt was the original sole inventor of some of the numerous inventions he patented. There is no dispute, however, that he was the sole inventor of his most important invention, the separate condenser. It was his practice (from around the 1780s) to pre-empt others' ideas which were known to him by filing patents with the intention of securing credit for the invention for himself, and ensuring that no one else was able to practice it. As he states in a letter to Boulton of 17 August 1784:
:I have given such descriptions of engines for wheel carriages as I could do in the time and space I could allow myself; but it is very defective and can only serve to keep other people from similar patents.
Some argue that his prohibitions on his employee William Murdoch from working with high pressure steam on his steam road locomotive experiments delayed its development. Watt, with his partner Matthew Boulton, battled against rival engineers such as Jonathan Hornblower who tried to develop engines which did not fall foul of his patents.
Watt patented the application of the sun and planet gear to steam in 1781 and a steam locomotive in 1784, both of which have strong claims to have been invented by his employee, William Murdoch. Watt himself described the provenance of the invention of the sun and planet gear in a letter to Boulton from Watt dated 5 January 1782:
:I have tried a model of one of my old plans of rotative engines revived and executed by W. M[urdock] and which merits being included in the specification as a fifth method...
The patent was never contested by Murdoch, who remained an employee of Boulton and Watt for most of his life, and Boulton and Watt's firm continued to use the sun and planet gear in their rotative engines, even long after the patent for the crank expired in 1794.
Watt opposed the use of high-pressure steam, and many inventors such as Richard Trevithick pioneered such engines, although frequently running into patent infringement actions by Watt. Those more efficient steam engines would eventually displace Watt's engines, leading to another industrial revolution with the development of the steam locomotive.
James Watt statue on City Square at Leeds.
Watt celebrated in a statue by Alexander Munro in Chamberlain Square, outside Birmingham Central Library
James Watt's improvements transformed the Newcomen engine, which had hardly changed for fifty years, and initiated changes in generating and applying power, which transformed the world of work, and were a key innovation of the Industrial Revolution. The importance of the invention can hardly be overstatedâit gave us the modern world. A key feature of it was that it brought the engine out of the remote coal fields into factories where many mechanics, engineers, and even tinkerers were exposed to its virtues and limitations. It was a platform for generations of inventors to improve. It was clear to many that higher pressures produced in improved boilers would produce engines having even higher efficiency, and would lead to the revolution in transportation that was soon embodied in the locomotive and steamboat. It made possible the construction of new factories that, since they were not dependent on water power, could work the year round, and could be placed almost anywhere. Work was moved out of the cottages, resulting in economies of scale. Capital could work more efficiently, and manufacturing productivity greatly improved. It made possible the cascade of new sorts of machine tools that could be used to produce better machines, including that most remarkable of all of them, the Watt steam engine.
Of Watt, the English Novelist Aldous Huxley (1894-1963) wrote; "To us, the moment 8:17 A.M. means something - something very important, if it happens to be the starting time of our daily train. To our ancestors, such an odd eccentric instant was without significance - did not even exist. In inventing the locomotive, Watt and Stephenson were part inventors of time."
Watt was a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and the Royal Society of London. He was a member of the Batavian Society, and one of only eight Foreign Associates of the French Academy of Sciences.
The watt is named after James Watt for his contributions to the development of the steam engine, and was adopted by the Second Congress of the British Association for the Advancement of Science in 1889 and by the 11th General Conference on Weights and Measures in 1960 as the unit of power incorporated in the International System of Units (or "SI").
'
The James Watt Memorial College in Greenock.
Watt was buried in the grounds of St. Mary's Church, Handsworth, in Birmingham. Later expansion of the church, over his grave, means that his tomb is now buried inside the church. A statue of him, Boulton and Murdoch is in Birmingham, as are five other statues of him alone, one in Chamberlain Square, the other outside the Law Courts. He is also remembered by the Moonstones and a school is named in his honour, both in Birmingham. An extensive archive of his papers is held at Birmingham Central Library. Matthew Boulton's home, Soho House, is now a museum, commemorating the work of both men. The University of Glasgow's Faculty of Engineering, the oldest in the United Kingdom, (where Watt was a professor) has its headquarters in the James Watt Building, which also houses the department of Mechanical Engineering and the department of Aerospace Engineering.
The location of James Watt's birth in Greenock is commemorated by a statue, close to his birthplace. Several locations and street names in Greenock recall him, most notably the Watt Memorial Library, which was begun in 1816 with Watt's donation of scientific books, and developed as part of the Watt Institution by his son (which ultimately became the James Watt College). Taken over by the local authority in 1974, the library now also houses the local history collection and archives of Inverclyde, and is dominated by a large seated statue in the vestibule. Watt is additionally commemorated by statuary in George Square, Glasgow and Princes Street, Edinburgh.
The James Watt College has expanded from its original location to include campuses in Kilwinning (North Ayrshire), Finnart Street and The Waterfront in Greenock, and the Sports campus in Largs. Heriot-Watt University near Edinburgh was at one time the School of Arts of Edinburgh, founded in 1821 as the worldâs first Mechanics Institute, but to commemorate George Heriot, the 16th century financier to King James, and James Watt, after Royal Charter the name was changed to Heriot-Watt University. Dozens of university and college buildings (chiefly of science and technology) are named after him.
The huge painting James Watt contemplating the steam engine by James Eckford Lauder is now owned by the National Gallery of Scotland.
Watt was ranked first, tying with Edison, among 229 significant figures in the history of technology by Charles Murray's survey of historiometry presented in his book Human Accomplishments.
Over 50 roads or streets in the UK are named after him.
A colossal statue of Watt by Chantrey was placed in Westminster Abbey, and later was moved to St. Paul's Cathedral. On the cenotaph the inscription reads:
Chantrey's statue of James Watt
:NOT TO PERPETUATE A NAME,
:WHICH MUST ENDURE WHILE THE PEACEFUL ARTS FLOURISH,
:BUT TO SHOW
:THAT MANKIND HAVE LEARNED TO HONOUR THOSE
:WHO BEST DESERVE THEIR GRATITUDE,
:THE KING,
:HIS MINISTERS, AND MANY OF THE NOBLES
:AND COMMONERS OF THE REALM
:RAISED THIS MONUMENT TO
:JAMES WATT
:WHO DIRECTING THE FORCE OF AN ORIGINAL GENIUS
:EARLY EXERCISED IN PHILOSOPHIC RESEARCH
:TO THE IMPROVEMENT OF
:THE STEAM-ENGINE
:ENLARGED THE RESOURCES OF HIS COUNTRY
:INCREASED THE POWER OF MAN
:AND ROSE TO AN EMINENT PLACE
:AMONG THE MOST ILLUSTRIOUS FOLLOWERS OF SCIENCE
:AND THE REAL BENEFACTORS OF THE WORLD
:BORN AT GREENOCK MDCCXXXVI
:DIED AT HEATHFIELD IN STAFFORDSHIRE MDCCCXIX
A lecture theatre in the Mechanical & Manufacturing Engineering building at the University of Birmingham is named "G31 - The James Watt Lecture Theatre".
On 29 May 2009, the Bank of England announced that Watt would appear on a new £50 note, alongside Matthew Boulton.
* Watt steam engine
* Centrifugal governor
* Indicator diagram
* Watt's linkage
* Parallel motion
* Sun and planet gear
*"Some Unpublished Letters of James Watt" in Journal of Institution of Mechanical Engineers (London, 1915).
*Carnegie, Andrew, James Watt University Press of the Pacific (2001) (Reprinted from the 1913 ed.), ISBN 0-89875-578-6.
*
* H. W. Dickinson and Hugh Pembroke Vowles James Watt and the Industrial Revolution (published in 1943, new edition 1948 and reprinted in 1949. Also published in Spanish and Portuguese (1944) by the British Council)
*Hills, Rev. Dr. Richard L., James Watt, Vol 1, His time in Scotland, 1736-1774 (2002); Vol 2, The years of toil, 1775-1785; Vol 3 Triumph through adversity 1785-1819. Landmark Publishing Ltd, ISBN 1-84306-045-0.
*
*
*Marsden, Ben. Watt's Perfect Engine Columbia University Press (New York, 2002) ISBN 0-231-13172-0.
*
*
*Samuel Smiles, Lives of the Engineers, (London, 1861-62, new edition, five volumes, 1905).
;Related topics
*
*
* James Watt by Andrew Carnegie (1905)
* James Watt by Thomas H. Marshall (1925)
* Archives of Soho at Birmingham Central Library.
* BBC History: James Watt
* Revolutionary Players website
* Cornwall Record Office Boulton & Watt letters
* Significant Scots - James Watt
*
|
James_Watt | Why did the Glasgow Guild of Hammermen reject Watt's application to become a mathematical instrument maker? | null | data/set4/a2 | James_Watt
James Watt, FRS, FRSE (19 January 1736 25 August 1819) was a Scottish inventor and mechanical engineer whose improvements to the Newcomen steam engine were fundamental to the changes brought by the Industrial Revolution in both the Kingdom of Great Britain and the world.
James Watt was born on 19 January 1736 in Greenock, Renfrewshire, a seaport on the Firth of Clyde. His father was a shipwright, ship owner and contractor, and served as the town's chief baillie, while his mother, Agnes Muirhead, came from a distinguished family and was well educated. Both were Presbyterians and strong Covenanters. Watt's grandfather, Thomas Watt, was a mathematics teacher and baillie to the Baron of Cartsburn. Watt did not attend school regularly; initially he was mostly schooled at home by his mother but later he attended Greenock grammar school. He exhibited great manual dexterity and an aptitude for mathematics, although Latin and Greek failed to interest him, and he absorbed the legends and lore of the Scottish people.
When he was 18, his mother died and his father's health had begun to fail. Watt travelled to London to study instrument-making for a year, then returned to Scotland to Glasgow intent on setting up his own instrument-making business. However, because he had not served at least seven years as an apprentice, the Glasgow Guild of Hammermen (any artisans using hammers) blocked his application, despite there being no other mathematical instrument makers in Scotland.
Watt was saved from this impasse by three professors of the University of Glasgow, who offered him the opportunity to set up a small workshop within the university. It was established in 1758 and one of the professors, the physicist and chemist Joseph Black, became Watt's friend.
In 1764, Watt married his cousin Margaret Miller, with whom he had five children, two of whom lived to adulthood. She died in childbirth in 1772. In 1777 he married again, to Ann MacGregor, daughter of a Glasgow dye-maker, who survived him. She died in 1832.
Watt was an enthusiastic inventor, with a fertile imagination that sometimes got in the way of finishing his works, because he could always see "just one more improvement". He was skilled with his hands, and was also able to perform systematic scientific measurements that could quantify the improvements he made and produce a greater understanding of the phenomenon he was working with.
Watt was a gentleman, greatly respected by other prominent men of the Industrial Revolution. He was an important member of the Lunar Society, and was a much sought after conversationalist and companion, always interested in expanding his horizons. He was a rather poor businessman, and especially hated bargaining and negotiating terms with those who sought to utilize the steam engine. Until he retired, he was always much concerned about his financial affairs, and was something of a worrier. His personal relationships with his friends and partners were always congenial and long-lasting.
James Watt's workshop
Watt retired in 1800, the same year that his fundamental patent and partnership with Boulton expired. The famous partnership was transferred to the men's sons, Matthew Boulton and James Watt Jr. Longtime firm engineer William Murdoch was made a partner and the firm prospered.
"Heathfield", Watt's house in Handsworth, BirminghamWatt continued to invent other things before and during his semi-retirement. He invented a new method of measuring distances by telescope, a device for copying letters, improvements in the oil lamp, a steam mangle and a machine for copying sculptures. Within his home in Handsworth Heath, Staffordshire, Watt made use of a garret room as a workshop, and it was here that he worked on many of his inventions.
He and his second wife travelled to France and Germany, and he purchased an estate in Wales at Doldowlod House, one mile south of Llanwrthwl, which he much improved.
He died on 25 August 1819 at his home "Heathfield" in Handsworth, Birmingham, England at the age of 83. He was buried on 2 September.
The garret room workshop that Watt used in his retirement was left locked and untouched until 1853, when it was first viewed by his biographer J. P. Muirhead. Thereafter, it was occasionally visited, but left untouched, as a kind of shrine. A proposal to have it transferred to the Patent Office came to nothing. When the house was due to be demolished in 1924, the room and all its contents were presented to the Science Museum, where it was recreated in its entirety. Garret workshop of James Watt It remained on display for visitors for many years, but was walled-off when the gallery it was housed in closed. The workshop remains intact, and preserved, and there are plans for it to go on display again at some point in the near future.
Original Condenser by James Watt.
As with many major inventions, there is some dispute as to whether Watt was the original sole inventor of some of the numerous inventions he patented. There is no dispute, however, that he was the sole inventor of his most important invention, the separate condenser. It was his practice (from around the 1780s) to pre-empt others' ideas which were known to him by filing patents with the intention of securing credit for the invention for himself, and ensuring that no one else was able to practice it. As he states in a letter to Boulton of 17 August 1784:
:I have given such descriptions of engines for wheel carriages as I could do in the time and space I could allow myself; but it is very defective and can only serve to keep other people from similar patents.
Some argue that his prohibitions on his employee William Murdoch from working with high pressure steam on his steam road locomotive experiments delayed its development. Watt, with his partner Matthew Boulton, battled against rival engineers such as Jonathan Hornblower who tried to develop engines which did not fall foul of his patents.
Watt patented the application of the sun and planet gear to steam in 1781 and a steam locomotive in 1784, both of which have strong claims to have been invented by his employee, William Murdoch. Watt himself described the provenance of the invention of the sun and planet gear in a letter to Boulton from Watt dated 5 January 1782:
:I have tried a model of one of my old plans of rotative engines revived and executed by W. M[urdock] and which merits being included in the specification as a fifth method...
The patent was never contested by Murdoch, who remained an employee of Boulton and Watt for most of his life, and Boulton and Watt's firm continued to use the sun and planet gear in their rotative engines, even long after the patent for the crank expired in 1794.
Watt opposed the use of high-pressure steam, and many inventors such as Richard Trevithick pioneered such engines, although frequently running into patent infringement actions by Watt. Those more efficient steam engines would eventually displace Watt's engines, leading to another industrial revolution with the development of the steam locomotive.
James Watt statue on City Square at Leeds.
Watt celebrated in a statue by Alexander Munro in Chamberlain Square, outside Birmingham Central Library
James Watt's improvements transformed the Newcomen engine, which had hardly changed for fifty years, and initiated changes in generating and applying power, which transformed the world of work, and were a key innovation of the Industrial Revolution. The importance of the invention can hardly be overstatedâit gave us the modern world. A key feature of it was that it brought the engine out of the remote coal fields into factories where many mechanics, engineers, and even tinkerers were exposed to its virtues and limitations. It was a platform for generations of inventors to improve. It was clear to many that higher pressures produced in improved boilers would produce engines having even higher efficiency, and would lead to the revolution in transportation that was soon embodied in the locomotive and steamboat. It made possible the construction of new factories that, since they were not dependent on water power, could work the year round, and could be placed almost anywhere. Work was moved out of the cottages, resulting in economies of scale. Capital could work more efficiently, and manufacturing productivity greatly improved. It made possible the cascade of new sorts of machine tools that could be used to produce better machines, including that most remarkable of all of them, the Watt steam engine.
Of Watt, the English Novelist Aldous Huxley (1894-1963) wrote; "To us, the moment 8:17 A.M. means something - something very important, if it happens to be the starting time of our daily train. To our ancestors, such an odd eccentric instant was without significance - did not even exist. In inventing the locomotive, Watt and Stephenson were part inventors of time."
Watt was a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and the Royal Society of London. He was a member of the Batavian Society, and one of only eight Foreign Associates of the French Academy of Sciences.
The watt is named after James Watt for his contributions to the development of the steam engine, and was adopted by the Second Congress of the British Association for the Advancement of Science in 1889 and by the 11th General Conference on Weights and Measures in 1960 as the unit of power incorporated in the International System of Units (or "SI").
'
The James Watt Memorial College in Greenock.
Watt was buried in the grounds of St. Mary's Church, Handsworth, in Birmingham. Later expansion of the church, over his grave, means that his tomb is now buried inside the church. A statue of him, Boulton and Murdoch is in Birmingham, as are five other statues of him alone, one in Chamberlain Square, the other outside the Law Courts. He is also remembered by the Moonstones and a school is named in his honour, both in Birmingham. An extensive archive of his papers is held at Birmingham Central Library. Matthew Boulton's home, Soho House, is now a museum, commemorating the work of both men. The University of Glasgow's Faculty of Engineering, the oldest in the United Kingdom, (where Watt was a professor) has its headquarters in the James Watt Building, which also houses the department of Mechanical Engineering and the department of Aerospace Engineering.
The location of James Watt's birth in Greenock is commemorated by a statue, close to his birthplace. Several locations and street names in Greenock recall him, most notably the Watt Memorial Library, which was begun in 1816 with Watt's donation of scientific books, and developed as part of the Watt Institution by his son (which ultimately became the James Watt College). Taken over by the local authority in 1974, the library now also houses the local history collection and archives of Inverclyde, and is dominated by a large seated statue in the vestibule. Watt is additionally commemorated by statuary in George Square, Glasgow and Princes Street, Edinburgh.
The James Watt College has expanded from its original location to include campuses in Kilwinning (North Ayrshire), Finnart Street and The Waterfront in Greenock, and the Sports campus in Largs. Heriot-Watt University near Edinburgh was at one time the School of Arts of Edinburgh, founded in 1821 as the worldâs first Mechanics Institute, but to commemorate George Heriot, the 16th century financier to King James, and James Watt, after Royal Charter the name was changed to Heriot-Watt University. Dozens of university and college buildings (chiefly of science and technology) are named after him.
The huge painting James Watt contemplating the steam engine by James Eckford Lauder is now owned by the National Gallery of Scotland.
Watt was ranked first, tying with Edison, among 229 significant figures in the history of technology by Charles Murray's survey of historiometry presented in his book Human Accomplishments.
Over 50 roads or streets in the UK are named after him.
A colossal statue of Watt by Chantrey was placed in Westminster Abbey, and later was moved to St. Paul's Cathedral. On the cenotaph the inscription reads:
Chantrey's statue of James Watt
:NOT TO PERPETUATE A NAME,
:WHICH MUST ENDURE WHILE THE PEACEFUL ARTS FLOURISH,
:BUT TO SHOW
:THAT MANKIND HAVE LEARNED TO HONOUR THOSE
:WHO BEST DESERVE THEIR GRATITUDE,
:THE KING,
:HIS MINISTERS, AND MANY OF THE NOBLES
:AND COMMONERS OF THE REALM
:RAISED THIS MONUMENT TO
:JAMES WATT
:WHO DIRECTING THE FORCE OF AN ORIGINAL GENIUS
:EARLY EXERCISED IN PHILOSOPHIC RESEARCH
:TO THE IMPROVEMENT OF
:THE STEAM-ENGINE
:ENLARGED THE RESOURCES OF HIS COUNTRY
:INCREASED THE POWER OF MAN
:AND ROSE TO AN EMINENT PLACE
:AMONG THE MOST ILLUSTRIOUS FOLLOWERS OF SCIENCE
:AND THE REAL BENEFACTORS OF THE WORLD
:BORN AT GREENOCK MDCCXXXVI
:DIED AT HEATHFIELD IN STAFFORDSHIRE MDCCCXIX
A lecture theatre in the Mechanical & Manufacturing Engineering building at the University of Birmingham is named "G31 - The James Watt Lecture Theatre".
On 29 May 2009, the Bank of England announced that Watt would appear on a new £50 note, alongside Matthew Boulton.
* Watt steam engine
* Centrifugal governor
* Indicator diagram
* Watt's linkage
* Parallel motion
* Sun and planet gear
*"Some Unpublished Letters of James Watt" in Journal of Institution of Mechanical Engineers (London, 1915).
*Carnegie, Andrew, James Watt University Press of the Pacific (2001) (Reprinted from the 1913 ed.), ISBN 0-89875-578-6.
*
* H. W. Dickinson and Hugh Pembroke Vowles James Watt and the Industrial Revolution (published in 1943, new edition 1948 and reprinted in 1949. Also published in Spanish and Portuguese (1944) by the British Council)
*Hills, Rev. Dr. Richard L., James Watt, Vol 1, His time in Scotland, 1736-1774 (2002); Vol 2, The years of toil, 1775-1785; Vol 3 Triumph through adversity 1785-1819. Landmark Publishing Ltd, ISBN 1-84306-045-0.
*
*
*Marsden, Ben. Watt's Perfect Engine Columbia University Press (New York, 2002) ISBN 0-231-13172-0.
*
*
*Samuel Smiles, Lives of the Engineers, (London, 1861-62, new edition, five volumes, 1905).
;Related topics
*
*
* James Watt by Andrew Carnegie (1905)
* James Watt by Thomas H. Marshall (1925)
* Archives of Soho at Birmingham Central Library.
* BBC History: James Watt
* Revolutionary Players website
* Cornwall Record Office Boulton & Watt letters
* Significant Scots - James Watt
*
|
James_Watt | How old was Watt when he died? | null | data/set4/a2 | James_Watt
James Watt, FRS, FRSE (19 January 1736 25 August 1819) was a Scottish inventor and mechanical engineer whose improvements to the Newcomen steam engine were fundamental to the changes brought by the Industrial Revolution in both the Kingdom of Great Britain and the world.
James Watt was born on 19 January 1736 in Greenock, Renfrewshire, a seaport on the Firth of Clyde. His father was a shipwright, ship owner and contractor, and served as the town's chief baillie, while his mother, Agnes Muirhead, came from a distinguished family and was well educated. Both were Presbyterians and strong Covenanters. Watt's grandfather, Thomas Watt, was a mathematics teacher and baillie to the Baron of Cartsburn. Watt did not attend school regularly; initially he was mostly schooled at home by his mother but later he attended Greenock grammar school. He exhibited great manual dexterity and an aptitude for mathematics, although Latin and Greek failed to interest him, and he absorbed the legends and lore of the Scottish people.
When he was 18, his mother died and his father's health had begun to fail. Watt travelled to London to study instrument-making for a year, then returned to Scotland to Glasgow intent on setting up his own instrument-making business. However, because he had not served at least seven years as an apprentice, the Glasgow Guild of Hammermen (any artisans using hammers) blocked his application, despite there being no other mathematical instrument makers in Scotland.
Watt was saved from this impasse by three professors of the University of Glasgow, who offered him the opportunity to set up a small workshop within the university. It was established in 1758 and one of the professors, the physicist and chemist Joseph Black, became Watt's friend.
In 1764, Watt married his cousin Margaret Miller, with whom he had five children, two of whom lived to adulthood. She died in childbirth in 1772. In 1777 he married again, to Ann MacGregor, daughter of a Glasgow dye-maker, who survived him. She died in 1832.
Watt was an enthusiastic inventor, with a fertile imagination that sometimes got in the way of finishing his works, because he could always see "just one more improvement". He was skilled with his hands, and was also able to perform systematic scientific measurements that could quantify the improvements he made and produce a greater understanding of the phenomenon he was working with.
Watt was a gentleman, greatly respected by other prominent men of the Industrial Revolution. He was an important member of the Lunar Society, and was a much sought after conversationalist and companion, always interested in expanding his horizons. He was a rather poor businessman, and especially hated bargaining and negotiating terms with those who sought to utilize the steam engine. Until he retired, he was always much concerned about his financial affairs, and was something of a worrier. His personal relationships with his friends and partners were always congenial and long-lasting.
James Watt's workshop
Watt retired in 1800, the same year that his fundamental patent and partnership with Boulton expired. The famous partnership was transferred to the men's sons, Matthew Boulton and James Watt Jr. Longtime firm engineer William Murdoch was made a partner and the firm prospered.
"Heathfield", Watt's house in Handsworth, BirminghamWatt continued to invent other things before and during his semi-retirement. He invented a new method of measuring distances by telescope, a device for copying letters, improvements in the oil lamp, a steam mangle and a machine for copying sculptures. Within his home in Handsworth Heath, Staffordshire, Watt made use of a garret room as a workshop, and it was here that he worked on many of his inventions.
He and his second wife travelled to France and Germany, and he purchased an estate in Wales at Doldowlod House, one mile south of Llanwrthwl, which he much improved.
He died on 25 August 1819 at his home "Heathfield" in Handsworth, Birmingham, England at the age of 83. He was buried on 2 September.
The garret room workshop that Watt used in his retirement was left locked and untouched until 1853, when it was first viewed by his biographer J. P. Muirhead. Thereafter, it was occasionally visited, but left untouched, as a kind of shrine. A proposal to have it transferred to the Patent Office came to nothing. When the house was due to be demolished in 1924, the room and all its contents were presented to the Science Museum, where it was recreated in its entirety. Garret workshop of James Watt It remained on display for visitors for many years, but was walled-off when the gallery it was housed in closed. The workshop remains intact, and preserved, and there are plans for it to go on display again at some point in the near future.
Original Condenser by James Watt.
As with many major inventions, there is some dispute as to whether Watt was the original sole inventor of some of the numerous inventions he patented. There is no dispute, however, that he was the sole inventor of his most important invention, the separate condenser. It was his practice (from around the 1780s) to pre-empt others' ideas which were known to him by filing patents with the intention of securing credit for the invention for himself, and ensuring that no one else was able to practice it. As he states in a letter to Boulton of 17 August 1784:
:I have given such descriptions of engines for wheel carriages as I could do in the time and space I could allow myself; but it is very defective and can only serve to keep other people from similar patents.
Some argue that his prohibitions on his employee William Murdoch from working with high pressure steam on his steam road locomotive experiments delayed its development. Watt, with his partner Matthew Boulton, battled against rival engineers such as Jonathan Hornblower who tried to develop engines which did not fall foul of his patents.
Watt patented the application of the sun and planet gear to steam in 1781 and a steam locomotive in 1784, both of which have strong claims to have been invented by his employee, William Murdoch. Watt himself described the provenance of the invention of the sun and planet gear in a letter to Boulton from Watt dated 5 January 1782:
:I have tried a model of one of my old plans of rotative engines revived and executed by W. M[urdock] and which merits being included in the specification as a fifth method...
The patent was never contested by Murdoch, who remained an employee of Boulton and Watt for most of his life, and Boulton and Watt's firm continued to use the sun and planet gear in their rotative engines, even long after the patent for the crank expired in 1794.
Watt opposed the use of high-pressure steam, and many inventors such as Richard Trevithick pioneered such engines, although frequently running into patent infringement actions by Watt. Those more efficient steam engines would eventually displace Watt's engines, leading to another industrial revolution with the development of the steam locomotive.
James Watt statue on City Square at Leeds.
Watt celebrated in a statue by Alexander Munro in Chamberlain Square, outside Birmingham Central Library
James Watt's improvements transformed the Newcomen engine, which had hardly changed for fifty years, and initiated changes in generating and applying power, which transformed the world of work, and were a key innovation of the Industrial Revolution. The importance of the invention can hardly be overstatedâit gave us the modern world. A key feature of it was that it brought the engine out of the remote coal fields into factories where many mechanics, engineers, and even tinkerers were exposed to its virtues and limitations. It was a platform for generations of inventors to improve. It was clear to many that higher pressures produced in improved boilers would produce engines having even higher efficiency, and would lead to the revolution in transportation that was soon embodied in the locomotive and steamboat. It made possible the construction of new factories that, since they were not dependent on water power, could work the year round, and could be placed almost anywhere. Work was moved out of the cottages, resulting in economies of scale. Capital could work more efficiently, and manufacturing productivity greatly improved. It made possible the cascade of new sorts of machine tools that could be used to produce better machines, including that most remarkable of all of them, the Watt steam engine.
Of Watt, the English Novelist Aldous Huxley (1894-1963) wrote; "To us, the moment 8:17 A.M. means something - something very important, if it happens to be the starting time of our daily train. To our ancestors, such an odd eccentric instant was without significance - did not even exist. In inventing the locomotive, Watt and Stephenson were part inventors of time."
Watt was a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and the Royal Society of London. He was a member of the Batavian Society, and one of only eight Foreign Associates of the French Academy of Sciences.
The watt is named after James Watt for his contributions to the development of the steam engine, and was adopted by the Second Congress of the British Association for the Advancement of Science in 1889 and by the 11th General Conference on Weights and Measures in 1960 as the unit of power incorporated in the International System of Units (or "SI").
'
The James Watt Memorial College in Greenock.
Watt was buried in the grounds of St. Mary's Church, Handsworth, in Birmingham. Later expansion of the church, over his grave, means that his tomb is now buried inside the church. A statue of him, Boulton and Murdoch is in Birmingham, as are five other statues of him alone, one in Chamberlain Square, the other outside the Law Courts. He is also remembered by the Moonstones and a school is named in his honour, both in Birmingham. An extensive archive of his papers is held at Birmingham Central Library. Matthew Boulton's home, Soho House, is now a museum, commemorating the work of both men. The University of Glasgow's Faculty of Engineering, the oldest in the United Kingdom, (where Watt was a professor) has its headquarters in the James Watt Building, which also houses the department of Mechanical Engineering and the department of Aerospace Engineering.
The location of James Watt's birth in Greenock is commemorated by a statue, close to his birthplace. Several locations and street names in Greenock recall him, most notably the Watt Memorial Library, which was begun in 1816 with Watt's donation of scientific books, and developed as part of the Watt Institution by his son (which ultimately became the James Watt College). Taken over by the local authority in 1974, the library now also houses the local history collection and archives of Inverclyde, and is dominated by a large seated statue in the vestibule. Watt is additionally commemorated by statuary in George Square, Glasgow and Princes Street, Edinburgh.
The James Watt College has expanded from its original location to include campuses in Kilwinning (North Ayrshire), Finnart Street and The Waterfront in Greenock, and the Sports campus in Largs. Heriot-Watt University near Edinburgh was at one time the School of Arts of Edinburgh, founded in 1821 as the worldâs first Mechanics Institute, but to commemorate George Heriot, the 16th century financier to King James, and James Watt, after Royal Charter the name was changed to Heriot-Watt University. Dozens of university and college buildings (chiefly of science and technology) are named after him.
The huge painting James Watt contemplating the steam engine by James Eckford Lauder is now owned by the National Gallery of Scotland.
Watt was ranked first, tying with Edison, among 229 significant figures in the history of technology by Charles Murray's survey of historiometry presented in his book Human Accomplishments.
Over 50 roads or streets in the UK are named after him.
A colossal statue of Watt by Chantrey was placed in Westminster Abbey, and later was moved to St. Paul's Cathedral. On the cenotaph the inscription reads:
Chantrey's statue of James Watt
:NOT TO PERPETUATE A NAME,
:WHICH MUST ENDURE WHILE THE PEACEFUL ARTS FLOURISH,
:BUT TO SHOW
:THAT MANKIND HAVE LEARNED TO HONOUR THOSE
:WHO BEST DESERVE THEIR GRATITUDE,
:THE KING,
:HIS MINISTERS, AND MANY OF THE NOBLES
:AND COMMONERS OF THE REALM
:RAISED THIS MONUMENT TO
:JAMES WATT
:WHO DIRECTING THE FORCE OF AN ORIGINAL GENIUS
:EARLY EXERCISED IN PHILOSOPHIC RESEARCH
:TO THE IMPROVEMENT OF
:THE STEAM-ENGINE
:ENLARGED THE RESOURCES OF HIS COUNTRY
:INCREASED THE POWER OF MAN
:AND ROSE TO AN EMINENT PLACE
:AMONG THE MOST ILLUSTRIOUS FOLLOWERS OF SCIENCE
:AND THE REAL BENEFACTORS OF THE WORLD
:BORN AT GREENOCK MDCCXXXVI
:DIED AT HEATHFIELD IN STAFFORDSHIRE MDCCCXIX
A lecture theatre in the Mechanical & Manufacturing Engineering building at the University of Birmingham is named "G31 - The James Watt Lecture Theatre".
On 29 May 2009, the Bank of England announced that Watt would appear on a new £50 note, alongside Matthew Boulton.
* Watt steam engine
* Centrifugal governor
* Indicator diagram
* Watt's linkage
* Parallel motion
* Sun and planet gear
*"Some Unpublished Letters of James Watt" in Journal of Institution of Mechanical Engineers (London, 1915).
*Carnegie, Andrew, James Watt University Press of the Pacific (2001) (Reprinted from the 1913 ed.), ISBN 0-89875-578-6.
*
* H. W. Dickinson and Hugh Pembroke Vowles James Watt and the Industrial Revolution (published in 1943, new edition 1948 and reprinted in 1949. Also published in Spanish and Portuguese (1944) by the British Council)
*Hills, Rev. Dr. Richard L., James Watt, Vol 1, His time in Scotland, 1736-1774 (2002); Vol 2, The years of toil, 1775-1785; Vol 3 Triumph through adversity 1785-1819. Landmark Publishing Ltd, ISBN 1-84306-045-0.
*
*
*Marsden, Ben. Watt's Perfect Engine Columbia University Press (New York, 2002) ISBN 0-231-13172-0.
*
*
*Samuel Smiles, Lives of the Engineers, (London, 1861-62, new edition, five volumes, 1905).
;Related topics
*
*
* James Watt by Andrew Carnegie (1905)
* James Watt by Thomas H. Marshall (1925)
* Archives of Soho at Birmingham Central Library.
* BBC History: James Watt
* Revolutionary Players website
* Cornwall Record Office Boulton & Watt letters
* Significant Scots - James Watt
*
|
James_Watt | How old was Watt when he died? | null | data/set4/a2 | James_Watt
James Watt, FRS, FRSE (19 January 1736 25 August 1819) was a Scottish inventor and mechanical engineer whose improvements to the Newcomen steam engine were fundamental to the changes brought by the Industrial Revolution in both the Kingdom of Great Britain and the world.
James Watt was born on 19 January 1736 in Greenock, Renfrewshire, a seaport on the Firth of Clyde. His father was a shipwright, ship owner and contractor, and served as the town's chief baillie, while his mother, Agnes Muirhead, came from a distinguished family and was well educated. Both were Presbyterians and strong Covenanters. Watt's grandfather, Thomas Watt, was a mathematics teacher and baillie to the Baron of Cartsburn. Watt did not attend school regularly; initially he was mostly schooled at home by his mother but later he attended Greenock grammar school. He exhibited great manual dexterity and an aptitude for mathematics, although Latin and Greek failed to interest him, and he absorbed the legends and lore of the Scottish people.
When he was 18, his mother died and his father's health had begun to fail. Watt travelled to London to study instrument-making for a year, then returned to Scotland to Glasgow intent on setting up his own instrument-making business. However, because he had not served at least seven years as an apprentice, the Glasgow Guild of Hammermen (any artisans using hammers) blocked his application, despite there being no other mathematical instrument makers in Scotland.
Watt was saved from this impasse by three professors of the University of Glasgow, who offered him the opportunity to set up a small workshop within the university. It was established in 1758 and one of the professors, the physicist and chemist Joseph Black, became Watt's friend.
In 1764, Watt married his cousin Margaret Miller, with whom he had five children, two of whom lived to adulthood. She died in childbirth in 1772. In 1777 he married again, to Ann MacGregor, daughter of a Glasgow dye-maker, who survived him. She died in 1832.
Watt was an enthusiastic inventor, with a fertile imagination that sometimes got in the way of finishing his works, because he could always see "just one more improvement". He was skilled with his hands, and was also able to perform systematic scientific measurements that could quantify the improvements he made and produce a greater understanding of the phenomenon he was working with.
Watt was a gentleman, greatly respected by other prominent men of the Industrial Revolution. He was an important member of the Lunar Society, and was a much sought after conversationalist and companion, always interested in expanding his horizons. He was a rather poor businessman, and especially hated bargaining and negotiating terms with those who sought to utilize the steam engine. Until he retired, he was always much concerned about his financial affairs, and was something of a worrier. His personal relationships with his friends and partners were always congenial and long-lasting.
James Watt's workshop
Watt retired in 1800, the same year that his fundamental patent and partnership with Boulton expired. The famous partnership was transferred to the men's sons, Matthew Boulton and James Watt Jr. Longtime firm engineer William Murdoch was made a partner and the firm prospered.
"Heathfield", Watt's house in Handsworth, BirminghamWatt continued to invent other things before and during his semi-retirement. He invented a new method of measuring distances by telescope, a device for copying letters, improvements in the oil lamp, a steam mangle and a machine for copying sculptures. Within his home in Handsworth Heath, Staffordshire, Watt made use of a garret room as a workshop, and it was here that he worked on many of his inventions.
He and his second wife travelled to France and Germany, and he purchased an estate in Wales at Doldowlod House, one mile south of Llanwrthwl, which he much improved.
He died on 25 August 1819 at his home "Heathfield" in Handsworth, Birmingham, England at the age of 83. He was buried on 2 September.
The garret room workshop that Watt used in his retirement was left locked and untouched until 1853, when it was first viewed by his biographer J. P. Muirhead. Thereafter, it was occasionally visited, but left untouched, as a kind of shrine. A proposal to have it transferred to the Patent Office came to nothing. When the house was due to be demolished in 1924, the room and all its contents were presented to the Science Museum, where it was recreated in its entirety. Garret workshop of James Watt It remained on display for visitors for many years, but was walled-off when the gallery it was housed in closed. The workshop remains intact, and preserved, and there are plans for it to go on display again at some point in the near future.
Original Condenser by James Watt.
As with many major inventions, there is some dispute as to whether Watt was the original sole inventor of some of the numerous inventions he patented. There is no dispute, however, that he was the sole inventor of his most important invention, the separate condenser. It was his practice (from around the 1780s) to pre-empt others' ideas which were known to him by filing patents with the intention of securing credit for the invention for himself, and ensuring that no one else was able to practice it. As he states in a letter to Boulton of 17 August 1784:
:I have given such descriptions of engines for wheel carriages as I could do in the time and space I could allow myself; but it is very defective and can only serve to keep other people from similar patents.
Some argue that his prohibitions on his employee William Murdoch from working with high pressure steam on his steam road locomotive experiments delayed its development. Watt, with his partner Matthew Boulton, battled against rival engineers such as Jonathan Hornblower who tried to develop engines which did not fall foul of his patents.
Watt patented the application of the sun and planet gear to steam in 1781 and a steam locomotive in 1784, both of which have strong claims to have been invented by his employee, William Murdoch. Watt himself described the provenance of the invention of the sun and planet gear in a letter to Boulton from Watt dated 5 January 1782:
:I have tried a model of one of my old plans of rotative engines revived and executed by W. M[urdock] and which merits being included in the specification as a fifth method...
The patent was never contested by Murdoch, who remained an employee of Boulton and Watt for most of his life, and Boulton and Watt's firm continued to use the sun and planet gear in their rotative engines, even long after the patent for the crank expired in 1794.
Watt opposed the use of high-pressure steam, and many inventors such as Richard Trevithick pioneered such engines, although frequently running into patent infringement actions by Watt. Those more efficient steam engines would eventually displace Watt's engines, leading to another industrial revolution with the development of the steam locomotive.
James Watt statue on City Square at Leeds.
Watt celebrated in a statue by Alexander Munro in Chamberlain Square, outside Birmingham Central Library
James Watt's improvements transformed the Newcomen engine, which had hardly changed for fifty years, and initiated changes in generating and applying power, which transformed the world of work, and were a key innovation of the Industrial Revolution. The importance of the invention can hardly be overstatedâit gave us the modern world. A key feature of it was that it brought the engine out of the remote coal fields into factories where many mechanics, engineers, and even tinkerers were exposed to its virtues and limitations. It was a platform for generations of inventors to improve. It was clear to many that higher pressures produced in improved boilers would produce engines having even higher efficiency, and would lead to the revolution in transportation that was soon embodied in the locomotive and steamboat. It made possible the construction of new factories that, since they were not dependent on water power, could work the year round, and could be placed almost anywhere. Work was moved out of the cottages, resulting in economies of scale. Capital could work more efficiently, and manufacturing productivity greatly improved. It made possible the cascade of new sorts of machine tools that could be used to produce better machines, including that most remarkable of all of them, the Watt steam engine.
Of Watt, the English Novelist Aldous Huxley (1894-1963) wrote; "To us, the moment 8:17 A.M. means something - something very important, if it happens to be the starting time of our daily train. To our ancestors, such an odd eccentric instant was without significance - did not even exist. In inventing the locomotive, Watt and Stephenson were part inventors of time."
Watt was a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and the Royal Society of London. He was a member of the Batavian Society, and one of only eight Foreign Associates of the French Academy of Sciences.
The watt is named after James Watt for his contributions to the development of the steam engine, and was adopted by the Second Congress of the British Association for the Advancement of Science in 1889 and by the 11th General Conference on Weights and Measures in 1960 as the unit of power incorporated in the International System of Units (or "SI").
'
The James Watt Memorial College in Greenock.
Watt was buried in the grounds of St. Mary's Church, Handsworth, in Birmingham. Later expansion of the church, over his grave, means that his tomb is now buried inside the church. A statue of him, Boulton and Murdoch is in Birmingham, as are five other statues of him alone, one in Chamberlain Square, the other outside the Law Courts. He is also remembered by the Moonstones and a school is named in his honour, both in Birmingham. An extensive archive of his papers is held at Birmingham Central Library. Matthew Boulton's home, Soho House, is now a museum, commemorating the work of both men. The University of Glasgow's Faculty of Engineering, the oldest in the United Kingdom, (where Watt was a professor) has its headquarters in the James Watt Building, which also houses the department of Mechanical Engineering and the department of Aerospace Engineering.
The location of James Watt's birth in Greenock is commemorated by a statue, close to his birthplace. Several locations and street names in Greenock recall him, most notably the Watt Memorial Library, which was begun in 1816 with Watt's donation of scientific books, and developed as part of the Watt Institution by his son (which ultimately became the James Watt College). Taken over by the local authority in 1974, the library now also houses the local history collection and archives of Inverclyde, and is dominated by a large seated statue in the vestibule. Watt is additionally commemorated by statuary in George Square, Glasgow and Princes Street, Edinburgh.
The James Watt College has expanded from its original location to include campuses in Kilwinning (North Ayrshire), Finnart Street and The Waterfront in Greenock, and the Sports campus in Largs. Heriot-Watt University near Edinburgh was at one time the School of Arts of Edinburgh, founded in 1821 as the worldâs first Mechanics Institute, but to commemorate George Heriot, the 16th century financier to King James, and James Watt, after Royal Charter the name was changed to Heriot-Watt University. Dozens of university and college buildings (chiefly of science and technology) are named after him.
The huge painting James Watt contemplating the steam engine by James Eckford Lauder is now owned by the National Gallery of Scotland.
Watt was ranked first, tying with Edison, among 229 significant figures in the history of technology by Charles Murray's survey of historiometry presented in his book Human Accomplishments.
Over 50 roads or streets in the UK are named after him.
A colossal statue of Watt by Chantrey was placed in Westminster Abbey, and later was moved to St. Paul's Cathedral. On the cenotaph the inscription reads:
Chantrey's statue of James Watt
:NOT TO PERPETUATE A NAME,
:WHICH MUST ENDURE WHILE THE PEACEFUL ARTS FLOURISH,
:BUT TO SHOW
:THAT MANKIND HAVE LEARNED TO HONOUR THOSE
:WHO BEST DESERVE THEIR GRATITUDE,
:THE KING,
:HIS MINISTERS, AND MANY OF THE NOBLES
:AND COMMONERS OF THE REALM
:RAISED THIS MONUMENT TO
:JAMES WATT
:WHO DIRECTING THE FORCE OF AN ORIGINAL GENIUS
:EARLY EXERCISED IN PHILOSOPHIC RESEARCH
:TO THE IMPROVEMENT OF
:THE STEAM-ENGINE
:ENLARGED THE RESOURCES OF HIS COUNTRY
:INCREASED THE POWER OF MAN
:AND ROSE TO AN EMINENT PLACE
:AMONG THE MOST ILLUSTRIOUS FOLLOWERS OF SCIENCE
:AND THE REAL BENEFACTORS OF THE WORLD
:BORN AT GREENOCK MDCCXXXVI
:DIED AT HEATHFIELD IN STAFFORDSHIRE MDCCCXIX
A lecture theatre in the Mechanical & Manufacturing Engineering building at the University of Birmingham is named "G31 - The James Watt Lecture Theatre".
On 29 May 2009, the Bank of England announced that Watt would appear on a new £50 note, alongside Matthew Boulton.
* Watt steam engine
* Centrifugal governor
* Indicator diagram
* Watt's linkage
* Parallel motion
* Sun and planet gear
*"Some Unpublished Letters of James Watt" in Journal of Institution of Mechanical Engineers (London, 1915).
*Carnegie, Andrew, James Watt University Press of the Pacific (2001) (Reprinted from the 1913 ed.), ISBN 0-89875-578-6.
*
* H. W. Dickinson and Hugh Pembroke Vowles James Watt and the Industrial Revolution (published in 1943, new edition 1948 and reprinted in 1949. Also published in Spanish and Portuguese (1944) by the British Council)
*Hills, Rev. Dr. Richard L., James Watt, Vol 1, His time in Scotland, 1736-1774 (2002); Vol 2, The years of toil, 1775-1785; Vol 3 Triumph through adversity 1785-1819. Landmark Publishing Ltd, ISBN 1-84306-045-0.
*
*
*Marsden, Ben. Watt's Perfect Engine Columbia University Press (New York, 2002) ISBN 0-231-13172-0.
*
*
*Samuel Smiles, Lives of the Engineers, (London, 1861-62, new edition, five volumes, 1905).
;Related topics
*
*
* James Watt by Andrew Carnegie (1905)
* James Watt by Thomas H. Marshall (1925)
* Archives of Soho at Birmingham Central Library.
* BBC History: James Watt
* Revolutionary Players website
* Cornwall Record Office Boulton & Watt letters
* Significant Scots - James Watt
*
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Koala | What happened in the early 20th century? | The koalas of South Australia were largely exterminated. | data/set1/a3 | Koala
The koala (Phascolarctos cinereus) is a thickset arboreal marsupial herbivore native to Australia, and the only extant representative of the family Phascolarctidae.
The koala is found in coastal regions of eastern and southern Australia, from near Adelaide to the southern part of Cape York Peninsula. Populations also extend for considerable distances inland in regions with enough moisture to support suitable woodlands. The koalas of South Australia were largely exterminated during the early part of the 20th century, but the state has since been repopulated with Victorian stock. The koala is not found in Tasmania or Western Australia.
The word koala comes from the Dharuk gula. Although the vowel was originally written in the Latin alphabet as "oo" (in spellings such as coola or koolah), it was changed to "oa" possibly due to an error. The word is erroneously said to mean "doesn't drink".
The scientific name of the koala's genus, Phascolarctos, is derived from Greek phaskolos "pouch" and arktos "bear". Its species name, cinereus, is Latin and means "ash-coloured".
Although the koala is not a bear, English-speaking settlers from the late 18th century first called it koala bear due to its similarity in appearance to bears. Although taxonomically incorrect, the name koala bear is still in use today outside Australia â its use is discouraged because of the inaccuracy in the name. Other descriptive English names based on "bear" have included monkey bear, native bear, and tree-bear.
A Southern koala on Kangaroo Island, not native to the island
Although three subspecies have been described, these are arbitrary selections from a cline and are not generally accepted as valid. Following Bergmann's Rule, southern individuals from the cooler climates are larger. A typical Victorian koala (formerly P. cinereus victor) has longer, thicker fur, is a darker, softer grey, often with chocolate-brown highlights on the back and forearms, and has a more prominently light-coloured ventral side and fluffy white ear tufts. Typical and New South Wales koala weights are for males and for females. In tropical and sub-tropical Queensland, however, the koala is smaller (at around for an average male and just over for an average female), a lighter often rather scruffy grey in colour, and has shorter, thinner fur. In Queensland, the koala was previously classified as the subspecies P. cinereus adustus, and the intermediate forms in New South Wales as P. cinereus cinereus. A fourth variation, though not technically a subspecies, is Phascolarctos cinereus aurum, or in English "golden koala," which has a slight golden tinge to the fur as a result of an absence of the melanin pigment that produces albinism in most other mammalian species. The variation from one form to another is continuous and there are substantial differences between individual koalas in any given region such as hair colour.
The origins of the koala are unclear, although almost certainly they descended from terrestrial wombat-like animals. Koala fossils are quite rare, but some have been found in northern Australia dating to 20 million years ago. During this time, the northern half of Australia was rainforest. The koala did not specialise in a diet of eucalyptus until the climate cooled and eucalypt forests grew in the place of rainforests. The fossil record indicates that before 50,000 years ago, giant koalas inhabited the southern regions of Australia. The koala fills the same ecological role as the sloth of South America.
Female
Koalas have a slow metabolism and sleep for most of the day
The koala is broadly similar in appearance to the wombat (its closest living relative), but has a thicker coat, much larger ears, and longer limbs. The koala has large, sharp claws to assist with climbing tree trunks. Weight varies from about for a large southern male, to about for a small northern female. The koala's five fingers are arranged with opposable thumbs, providing better gripping ability. The first two fingers are positioned in apposition on the front paws, and the first three fingers for the hind paws. The koala is one of the few mammals (other than primates) that has fingerprints. Koala fingerprints are similar to human fingerprints; even with an electron microscope, it can be quite difficult to distinguish between the two.
The teeth of the koala are adapted to their herbivorous diet, and are similar to those of other diprotodont marsupials, such as kangaroos and wombats. They have sharp incisors to clip leaves at the front of the mouth, separated from the grinding cheek teeth by a wide diastema. The dental formula for koalas is:
The male koala, like many marsupials, has a bifurcated penis. The female has two lateral vaginas and two separate uteri, which is common to all marsupials.
Koala walking along a branch. Koalas also walk on all four legs when walking on the ground
The brain in the ancestors of the modern koala once filled the whole cranial cavity, but has become drastically reduced in the present species, a degeneration scientists suspect is an adaptation to a diet low in energy. One of the smallest in marsupials with no more than 0.2% of its body weight, about 40% of the cranial cavity is filled with cerebrospinal fluid, while the brain's two cerebral hemispheres are like "a pair of shrivelled walnut halves on top of the brain stem, in contact neither with each other nor the bones of the skull. It is the only animal on Earth with such a strangely reduced brain."
It is generally a silent animal, but males have a very loud advertising call that can be heard from almost a kilometre away during the breeding season. When under stress, koalas may issue a loud cry, which has been reported as similar to that of a human baby. There is little reliable information about the lifespan of the koala, but in captivity they have been observed to reach the age of 18 years.
A young joey, preserved at Port Macquarie Koala Hospital
Baby koala on a mothers back
Females reach maturity at 2 to 3 years of age, males at 3 to 4 years. A healthy female koala can produce one young each year for about 12 years. Gestation is 35 days. Twins are very rare; the world's first confirmed identical twin koalas, named "Euca" and "Lyptus", were born at the University of Queensland in April, 1999. /ref> Mating normally occurs between December and March, the Southern Hemisphere's summer.
A baby koala is referred to as a joey and is hairless, blind, and earless. At birth the joey, only a quarter of an inch long, crawls into the downward-facing pouch on the mother's belly (which is closed by a drawstring-like muscle that the mother can tighten at will) and attaches itself to one of the two teats.
Young remain hidden in the pouch for about six months, only feeding on milk. During this time they grow ears, eyes, and fur. The joey then begins to explore outside of the pouch. At about this stage it begins to consume small quantities of the motherâs "pap" (formerly thought to be excrement, but now thought to come from the mother's cecum) in order to inoculate its gut with the microbes necessary to digest eucalypt leaves. The joey will remain with its mother for another six months or so, riding on her back, and feeding on both milk and eucalypt leaves until weaning is complete at about 12 months of age. Young females disperse to nearby areas at that time; young males often stay in the mother's home range until they are two or three years old.
Koala with young
Koala dozing during the day
The koala lives almost entirely on eucalypt leaves. This is likely to be an evolutionary adaptation that takes advantage of an otherwise unfilled ecological niche, since eucalypt leaves are low in protein, high in indigestible substances, and contain phenolic and terpene compounds that are toxic to most species. Like wombats and sloths, the koala has a very low metabolic rate for a mammal and rests motionless for about 16 to 18 hours a day, sleeping most of that time. Koalas can be aggressive towards each other, throwing a foreleg around their opponent and biting, though most aggressive behavior is brief squabbles. Handling koalas may cause them stress, and the issue of aggression and stress from handling is a political issue in Australia.
Koalas spend about three of their five active hours eating. Feeding occurs at any time of day, but usually at night. Koalas eat an average of of eucalypt leaves each day, chewing them with powerful jaws to a very fine paste before swallowing. The liver deactivates the toxic components ready for excretion, and the hind gut (especially the caecum) is greatly enlarged to extract the maximum amount of nutrient from the poor quality diet. Much of this is done through bacterial fermentation: while young are being weaned, the mother passes these essential digestive aids on to her offspring.
A koala eating eucalyptus
Koala in tree, scratching grooming
The koala will eat the leaves of a wide range of eucalypts, and occasionally even some non-eucalypt species such as Acacia, Leptospermum, and Melaleuca. It has firm preferences for particular varieties of eucalypt and these preferences vary from one region to another: in the south Manna Gum, Blue Gum, and Swamp Gum are favoured; Grey Gum and Tallowwood are important in the north, and the ubiquitous River Red Gum of the isolated seasonal swamps and watercourses that meander across the dry inland plains allows the koala to live in surprisingly arid areas. Many factors determine which of the 680 species of eucalypt trees the koala eats. Among trees of their favourite species, however, the major factor that determines which individual trees the koala chooses is the concentration of a group of phenolic toxins called formylated phloroglucinol compounds.
The Australian Government currently lists the koala as a priority species for conservation status assessment. Government estimates of the national koala population numbers in the hundreds of thousands, although other studies have estimated as few as 80,000 koalas left in the wild. The Australian Koala Foundation estimates there are around 100,000 koalas left in the wild.
The IUCN lists the species as "Least Concern". The Australian government does not consider the species to be threatened, although the US government has declared the koala a threatened species.
The koala inhabits four Australian states. Under state legislation, the species is listed as:
*Queensland â Common, or "Least Concern Wildlife" throughout the state, except in the South East Queensland bioregion, where it is listed as vulnerable.
*New South Wales â listed at a state scale as vulnerable, but varying regionally from secure to locally extinct.
*South Australia â classified as rare.
*Victoria â The koala population in Victoria was considered large and thriving, according to an article which was last reviewed on 29 October, 2007.
The koala was hunted almost to extinction in the early 20th century, largely for its fur. Millions of furs were traded to Europe and the United States, and the population has not fully recovered from such decimations. Extensive cullings occurred in Queensland in 1915, 1917, and again in 1919 when over one million koalas were killed with guns, poisons, and nooses. The public outcry over the cullings was most likely the first wide-scale environmental issue that rallied Australians. Despite the growing movement to protect native species, the poverty brought about by the drought of 1926â28 led to another 600,000 koalas being killed during a one-month open season in August 1927.
Today, habitat loss and the impacts of urbanisation (such as dog attacks and traffic accidents) are the leading threats to the survival of the koala. In recent years, some colonies have been hard hit by disease, especially chlamydia. Koalas 'extinct within 30 years' after chlamydia outbreak, by Bonnie Malkin, The Telegraph, 10 Nov 2009 The koala requires large areas of healthy, connected forest and will travel long distances along tree corridors in search of new territory and mates. The increasing human population of the coastal parts of the continent continues to cut these corridors by agricultural and residential development, forestry, and road-building, marooning koala colonies in decreasing areas of bush. The long term viability of the koala is therefore threatened by genetic weakness . The Australian Koala Foundation is the principal organisation dedicated to the conservation of the koala and its habitat, mapping of land for koala habitat and claiming strong evidence that wild koala populations are in serious decline throughout the species natural range.
Although the species covers a large area, only 'pieces' of koala habitat remain. Presently, many habitats are lost to weeds, clearance for agriculture, or carved up by developers. Other threats come from logging, poor management, attacks from feral and domestic animals, diseases, and roads.
In contrast to the situation on much of the mainland, where populations are declining, koalas, like many other species, can overrun smaller islands or isolated regions where they have been introduced. On Kangaroo Island in South Australia, koalas introduced some 90 years ago have thrived in the absence of predators and competition. Combined with an inability to migrate to new areas, this has caused the koala populations to become unsustainable and threaten the island's unique ecology. In particular, species of Manna Gum, native to the island, are being stripped by koalas at a rate faster than they can regenerate, endangering local birds and invertebrates that rely on them, and causing the extinction of at least one isolated population of manna. Koala numbers are estimated at over 30,000 , with ecologists suggesting that the island can sustain 10,000 at most . Although culling has been suggested as a means to reduce koala numbers, with the South Australian government seriously considering such in 1996, this has met with fierce opposition both domestically and internationally, and the species remains protected. The popularity of the koala has made the possibility of a cull politically improbable, with any negative perception likely to impact tourism and a government's electability. In place of a cull, sterilization and relocation programs have had only limited success in reducing numbers thus far, and remain expensive. There is evidence that koalas relocated to the mainland have difficulty establishing themselves in the different circumstances. A mooted alternative to the complex sterilization method, wherein the animal must first be captured, are hormonal implants that can be injected via darts.
As with most native Australian animals, the koala cannot legally be kept as a pet in Australia or anywhere else. The only people who are permitted to keep koalas are wildlife carers and, occasionally, research scientists. These individuals are issued with special permits to care for koalas, but have to return them to the wild when they are either well enough or, in the case of joeys, old enough.
*Fauna of Australia
*Koala emblems and popular culture
*List of monotremes and marsupials
* Australian Koala Foundation
* Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary
* The Koala
|
Koala | Do Koalas have a slow metabolism? | yes | data/set1/a3 | Koala
The koala (Phascolarctos cinereus) is a thickset arboreal marsupial herbivore native to Australia, and the only extant representative of the family Phascolarctidae.
The koala is found in coastal regions of eastern and southern Australia, from near Adelaide to the southern part of Cape York Peninsula. Populations also extend for considerable distances inland in regions with enough moisture to support suitable woodlands. The koalas of South Australia were largely exterminated during the early part of the 20th century, but the state has since been repopulated with Victorian stock. The koala is not found in Tasmania or Western Australia.
The word koala comes from the Dharuk gula. Although the vowel was originally written in the Latin alphabet as "oo" (in spellings such as coola or koolah), it was changed to "oa" possibly due to an error. The word is erroneously said to mean "doesn't drink".
The scientific name of the koala's genus, Phascolarctos, is derived from Greek phaskolos "pouch" and arktos "bear". Its species name, cinereus, is Latin and means "ash-coloured".
Although the koala is not a bear, English-speaking settlers from the late 18th century first called it koala bear due to its similarity in appearance to bears. Although taxonomically incorrect, the name koala bear is still in use today outside Australia â its use is discouraged because of the inaccuracy in the name. Other descriptive English names based on "bear" have included monkey bear, native bear, and tree-bear.
A Southern koala on Kangaroo Island, not native to the island
Although three subspecies have been described, these are arbitrary selections from a cline and are not generally accepted as valid. Following Bergmann's Rule, southern individuals from the cooler climates are larger. A typical Victorian koala (formerly P. cinereus victor) has longer, thicker fur, is a darker, softer grey, often with chocolate-brown highlights on the back and forearms, and has a more prominently light-coloured ventral side and fluffy white ear tufts. Typical and New South Wales koala weights are for males and for females. In tropical and sub-tropical Queensland, however, the koala is smaller (at around for an average male and just over for an average female), a lighter often rather scruffy grey in colour, and has shorter, thinner fur. In Queensland, the koala was previously classified as the subspecies P. cinereus adustus, and the intermediate forms in New South Wales as P. cinereus cinereus. A fourth variation, though not technically a subspecies, is Phascolarctos cinereus aurum, or in English "golden koala," which has a slight golden tinge to the fur as a result of an absence of the melanin pigment that produces albinism in most other mammalian species. The variation from one form to another is continuous and there are substantial differences between individual koalas in any given region such as hair colour.
The origins of the koala are unclear, although almost certainly they descended from terrestrial wombat-like animals. Koala fossils are quite rare, but some have been found in northern Australia dating to 20 million years ago. During this time, the northern half of Australia was rainforest. The koala did not specialise in a diet of eucalyptus until the climate cooled and eucalypt forests grew in the place of rainforests. The fossil record indicates that before 50,000 years ago, giant koalas inhabited the southern regions of Australia. The koala fills the same ecological role as the sloth of South America.
Female
Koalas have a slow metabolism and sleep for most of the day
The koala is broadly similar in appearance to the wombat (its closest living relative), but has a thicker coat, much larger ears, and longer limbs. The koala has large, sharp claws to assist with climbing tree trunks. Weight varies from about for a large southern male, to about for a small northern female. The koala's five fingers are arranged with opposable thumbs, providing better gripping ability. The first two fingers are positioned in apposition on the front paws, and the first three fingers for the hind paws. The koala is one of the few mammals (other than primates) that has fingerprints. Koala fingerprints are similar to human fingerprints; even with an electron microscope, it can be quite difficult to distinguish between the two.
The teeth of the koala are adapted to their herbivorous diet, and are similar to those of other diprotodont marsupials, such as kangaroos and wombats. They have sharp incisors to clip leaves at the front of the mouth, separated from the grinding cheek teeth by a wide diastema. The dental formula for koalas is:
The male koala, like many marsupials, has a bifurcated penis. The female has two lateral vaginas and two separate uteri, which is common to all marsupials.
Koala walking along a branch. Koalas also walk on all four legs when walking on the ground
The brain in the ancestors of the modern koala once filled the whole cranial cavity, but has become drastically reduced in the present species, a degeneration scientists suspect is an adaptation to a diet low in energy. One of the smallest in marsupials with no more than 0.2% of its body weight, about 40% of the cranial cavity is filled with cerebrospinal fluid, while the brain's two cerebral hemispheres are like "a pair of shrivelled walnut halves on top of the brain stem, in contact neither with each other nor the bones of the skull. It is the only animal on Earth with such a strangely reduced brain."
It is generally a silent animal, but males have a very loud advertising call that can be heard from almost a kilometre away during the breeding season. When under stress, koalas may issue a loud cry, which has been reported as similar to that of a human baby. There is little reliable information about the lifespan of the koala, but in captivity they have been observed to reach the age of 18 years.
A young joey, preserved at Port Macquarie Koala Hospital
Baby koala on a mothers back
Females reach maturity at 2 to 3 years of age, males at 3 to 4 years. A healthy female koala can produce one young each year for about 12 years. Gestation is 35 days. Twins are very rare; the world's first confirmed identical twin koalas, named "Euca" and "Lyptus", were born at the University of Queensland in April, 1999. /ref> Mating normally occurs between December and March, the Southern Hemisphere's summer.
A baby koala is referred to as a joey and is hairless, blind, and earless. At birth the joey, only a quarter of an inch long, crawls into the downward-facing pouch on the mother's belly (which is closed by a drawstring-like muscle that the mother can tighten at will) and attaches itself to one of the two teats.
Young remain hidden in the pouch for about six months, only feeding on milk. During this time they grow ears, eyes, and fur. The joey then begins to explore outside of the pouch. At about this stage it begins to consume small quantities of the motherâs "pap" (formerly thought to be excrement, but now thought to come from the mother's cecum) in order to inoculate its gut with the microbes necessary to digest eucalypt leaves. The joey will remain with its mother for another six months or so, riding on her back, and feeding on both milk and eucalypt leaves until weaning is complete at about 12 months of age. Young females disperse to nearby areas at that time; young males often stay in the mother's home range until they are two or three years old.
Koala with young
Koala dozing during the day
The koala lives almost entirely on eucalypt leaves. This is likely to be an evolutionary adaptation that takes advantage of an otherwise unfilled ecological niche, since eucalypt leaves are low in protein, high in indigestible substances, and contain phenolic and terpene compounds that are toxic to most species. Like wombats and sloths, the koala has a very low metabolic rate for a mammal and rests motionless for about 16 to 18 hours a day, sleeping most of that time. Koalas can be aggressive towards each other, throwing a foreleg around their opponent and biting, though most aggressive behavior is brief squabbles. Handling koalas may cause them stress, and the issue of aggression and stress from handling is a political issue in Australia.
Koalas spend about three of their five active hours eating. Feeding occurs at any time of day, but usually at night. Koalas eat an average of of eucalypt leaves each day, chewing them with powerful jaws to a very fine paste before swallowing. The liver deactivates the toxic components ready for excretion, and the hind gut (especially the caecum) is greatly enlarged to extract the maximum amount of nutrient from the poor quality diet. Much of this is done through bacterial fermentation: while young are being weaned, the mother passes these essential digestive aids on to her offspring.
A koala eating eucalyptus
Koala in tree, scratching grooming
The koala will eat the leaves of a wide range of eucalypts, and occasionally even some non-eucalypt species such as Acacia, Leptospermum, and Melaleuca. It has firm preferences for particular varieties of eucalypt and these preferences vary from one region to another: in the south Manna Gum, Blue Gum, and Swamp Gum are favoured; Grey Gum and Tallowwood are important in the north, and the ubiquitous River Red Gum of the isolated seasonal swamps and watercourses that meander across the dry inland plains allows the koala to live in surprisingly arid areas. Many factors determine which of the 680 species of eucalypt trees the koala eats. Among trees of their favourite species, however, the major factor that determines which individual trees the koala chooses is the concentration of a group of phenolic toxins called formylated phloroglucinol compounds.
The Australian Government currently lists the koala as a priority species for conservation status assessment. Government estimates of the national koala population numbers in the hundreds of thousands, although other studies have estimated as few as 80,000 koalas left in the wild. The Australian Koala Foundation estimates there are around 100,000 koalas left in the wild.
The IUCN lists the species as "Least Concern". The Australian government does not consider the species to be threatened, although the US government has declared the koala a threatened species.
The koala inhabits four Australian states. Under state legislation, the species is listed as:
*Queensland â Common, or "Least Concern Wildlife" throughout the state, except in the South East Queensland bioregion, where it is listed as vulnerable.
*New South Wales â listed at a state scale as vulnerable, but varying regionally from secure to locally extinct.
*South Australia â classified as rare.
*Victoria â The koala population in Victoria was considered large and thriving, according to an article which was last reviewed on 29 October, 2007.
The koala was hunted almost to extinction in the early 20th century, largely for its fur. Millions of furs were traded to Europe and the United States, and the population has not fully recovered from such decimations. Extensive cullings occurred in Queensland in 1915, 1917, and again in 1919 when over one million koalas were killed with guns, poisons, and nooses. The public outcry over the cullings was most likely the first wide-scale environmental issue that rallied Australians. Despite the growing movement to protect native species, the poverty brought about by the drought of 1926â28 led to another 600,000 koalas being killed during a one-month open season in August 1927.
Today, habitat loss and the impacts of urbanisation (such as dog attacks and traffic accidents) are the leading threats to the survival of the koala. In recent years, some colonies have been hard hit by disease, especially chlamydia. Koalas 'extinct within 30 years' after chlamydia outbreak, by Bonnie Malkin, The Telegraph, 10 Nov 2009 The koala requires large areas of healthy, connected forest and will travel long distances along tree corridors in search of new territory and mates. The increasing human population of the coastal parts of the continent continues to cut these corridors by agricultural and residential development, forestry, and road-building, marooning koala colonies in decreasing areas of bush. The long term viability of the koala is therefore threatened by genetic weakness . The Australian Koala Foundation is the principal organisation dedicated to the conservation of the koala and its habitat, mapping of land for koala habitat and claiming strong evidence that wild koala populations are in serious decline throughout the species natural range.
Although the species covers a large area, only 'pieces' of koala habitat remain. Presently, many habitats are lost to weeds, clearance for agriculture, or carved up by developers. Other threats come from logging, poor management, attacks from feral and domestic animals, diseases, and roads.
In contrast to the situation on much of the mainland, where populations are declining, koalas, like many other species, can overrun smaller islands or isolated regions where they have been introduced. On Kangaroo Island in South Australia, koalas introduced some 90 years ago have thrived in the absence of predators and competition. Combined with an inability to migrate to new areas, this has caused the koala populations to become unsustainable and threaten the island's unique ecology. In particular, species of Manna Gum, native to the island, are being stripped by koalas at a rate faster than they can regenerate, endangering local birds and invertebrates that rely on them, and causing the extinction of at least one isolated population of manna. Koala numbers are estimated at over 30,000 , with ecologists suggesting that the island can sustain 10,000 at most . Although culling has been suggested as a means to reduce koala numbers, with the South Australian government seriously considering such in 1996, this has met with fierce opposition both domestically and internationally, and the species remains protected. The popularity of the koala has made the possibility of a cull politically improbable, with any negative perception likely to impact tourism and a government's electability. In place of a cull, sterilization and relocation programs have had only limited success in reducing numbers thus far, and remain expensive. There is evidence that koalas relocated to the mainland have difficulty establishing themselves in the different circumstances. A mooted alternative to the complex sterilization method, wherein the animal must first be captured, are hormonal implants that can be injected via darts.
As with most native Australian animals, the koala cannot legally be kept as a pet in Australia or anywhere else. The only people who are permitted to keep koalas are wildlife carers and, occasionally, research scientists. These individuals are issued with special permits to care for koalas, but have to return them to the wild when they are either well enough or, in the case of joeys, old enough.
*Fauna of Australia
*Koala emblems and popular culture
*List of monotremes and marsupials
* Australian Koala Foundation
* Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary
* The Koala
|
Koala | Did eucalypt forests grow in the place of rainforests? | Yes, the koala did not specialise in a diet of eucalyptus until the climate cooled and eucalypt forests grew in the place of rainforests. | data/set1/a3 | Koala
The koala (Phascolarctos cinereus) is a thickset arboreal marsupial herbivore native to Australia, and the only extant representative of the family Phascolarctidae.
The koala is found in coastal regions of eastern and southern Australia, from near Adelaide to the southern part of Cape York Peninsula. Populations also extend for considerable distances inland in regions with enough moisture to support suitable woodlands. The koalas of South Australia were largely exterminated during the early part of the 20th century, but the state has since been repopulated with Victorian stock. The koala is not found in Tasmania or Western Australia.
The word koala comes from the Dharuk gula. Although the vowel was originally written in the Latin alphabet as "oo" (in spellings such as coola or koolah), it was changed to "oa" possibly due to an error. The word is erroneously said to mean "doesn't drink".
The scientific name of the koala's genus, Phascolarctos, is derived from Greek phaskolos "pouch" and arktos "bear". Its species name, cinereus, is Latin and means "ash-coloured".
Although the koala is not a bear, English-speaking settlers from the late 18th century first called it koala bear due to its similarity in appearance to bears. Although taxonomically incorrect, the name koala bear is still in use today outside Australia â its use is discouraged because of the inaccuracy in the name. Other descriptive English names based on "bear" have included monkey bear, native bear, and tree-bear.
A Southern koala on Kangaroo Island, not native to the island
Although three subspecies have been described, these are arbitrary selections from a cline and are not generally accepted as valid. Following Bergmann's Rule, southern individuals from the cooler climates are larger. A typical Victorian koala (formerly P. cinereus victor) has longer, thicker fur, is a darker, softer grey, often with chocolate-brown highlights on the back and forearms, and has a more prominently light-coloured ventral side and fluffy white ear tufts. Typical and New South Wales koala weights are for males and for females. In tropical and sub-tropical Queensland, however, the koala is smaller (at around for an average male and just over for an average female), a lighter often rather scruffy grey in colour, and has shorter, thinner fur. In Queensland, the koala was previously classified as the subspecies P. cinereus adustus, and the intermediate forms in New South Wales as P. cinereus cinereus. A fourth variation, though not technically a subspecies, is Phascolarctos cinereus aurum, or in English "golden koala," which has a slight golden tinge to the fur as a result of an absence of the melanin pigment that produces albinism in most other mammalian species. The variation from one form to another is continuous and there are substantial differences between individual koalas in any given region such as hair colour.
The origins of the koala are unclear, although almost certainly they descended from terrestrial wombat-like animals. Koala fossils are quite rare, but some have been found in northern Australia dating to 20 million years ago. During this time, the northern half of Australia was rainforest. The koala did not specialise in a diet of eucalyptus until the climate cooled and eucalypt forests grew in the place of rainforests. The fossil record indicates that before 50,000 years ago, giant koalas inhabited the southern regions of Australia. The koala fills the same ecological role as the sloth of South America.
Female
Koalas have a slow metabolism and sleep for most of the day
The koala is broadly similar in appearance to the wombat (its closest living relative), but has a thicker coat, much larger ears, and longer limbs. The koala has large, sharp claws to assist with climbing tree trunks. Weight varies from about for a large southern male, to about for a small northern female. The koala's five fingers are arranged with opposable thumbs, providing better gripping ability. The first two fingers are positioned in apposition on the front paws, and the first three fingers for the hind paws. The koala is one of the few mammals (other than primates) that has fingerprints. Koala fingerprints are similar to human fingerprints; even with an electron microscope, it can be quite difficult to distinguish between the two.
The teeth of the koala are adapted to their herbivorous diet, and are similar to those of other diprotodont marsupials, such as kangaroos and wombats. They have sharp incisors to clip leaves at the front of the mouth, separated from the grinding cheek teeth by a wide diastema. The dental formula for koalas is:
The male koala, like many marsupials, has a bifurcated penis. The female has two lateral vaginas and two separate uteri, which is common to all marsupials.
Koala walking along a branch. Koalas also walk on all four legs when walking on the ground
The brain in the ancestors of the modern koala once filled the whole cranial cavity, but has become drastically reduced in the present species, a degeneration scientists suspect is an adaptation to a diet low in energy. One of the smallest in marsupials with no more than 0.2% of its body weight, about 40% of the cranial cavity is filled with cerebrospinal fluid, while the brain's two cerebral hemispheres are like "a pair of shrivelled walnut halves on top of the brain stem, in contact neither with each other nor the bones of the skull. It is the only animal on Earth with such a strangely reduced brain."
It is generally a silent animal, but males have a very loud advertising call that can be heard from almost a kilometre away during the breeding season. When under stress, koalas may issue a loud cry, which has been reported as similar to that of a human baby. There is little reliable information about the lifespan of the koala, but in captivity they have been observed to reach the age of 18 years.
A young joey, preserved at Port Macquarie Koala Hospital
Baby koala on a mothers back
Females reach maturity at 2 to 3 years of age, males at 3 to 4 years. A healthy female koala can produce one young each year for about 12 years. Gestation is 35 days. Twins are very rare; the world's first confirmed identical twin koalas, named "Euca" and "Lyptus", were born at the University of Queensland in April, 1999. /ref> Mating normally occurs between December and March, the Southern Hemisphere's summer.
A baby koala is referred to as a joey and is hairless, blind, and earless. At birth the joey, only a quarter of an inch long, crawls into the downward-facing pouch on the mother's belly (which is closed by a drawstring-like muscle that the mother can tighten at will) and attaches itself to one of the two teats.
Young remain hidden in the pouch for about six months, only feeding on milk. During this time they grow ears, eyes, and fur. The joey then begins to explore outside of the pouch. At about this stage it begins to consume small quantities of the motherâs "pap" (formerly thought to be excrement, but now thought to come from the mother's cecum) in order to inoculate its gut with the microbes necessary to digest eucalypt leaves. The joey will remain with its mother for another six months or so, riding on her back, and feeding on both milk and eucalypt leaves until weaning is complete at about 12 months of age. Young females disperse to nearby areas at that time; young males often stay in the mother's home range until they are two or three years old.
Koala with young
Koala dozing during the day
The koala lives almost entirely on eucalypt leaves. This is likely to be an evolutionary adaptation that takes advantage of an otherwise unfilled ecological niche, since eucalypt leaves are low in protein, high in indigestible substances, and contain phenolic and terpene compounds that are toxic to most species. Like wombats and sloths, the koala has a very low metabolic rate for a mammal and rests motionless for about 16 to 18 hours a day, sleeping most of that time. Koalas can be aggressive towards each other, throwing a foreleg around their opponent and biting, though most aggressive behavior is brief squabbles. Handling koalas may cause them stress, and the issue of aggression and stress from handling is a political issue in Australia.
Koalas spend about three of their five active hours eating. Feeding occurs at any time of day, but usually at night. Koalas eat an average of of eucalypt leaves each day, chewing them with powerful jaws to a very fine paste before swallowing. The liver deactivates the toxic components ready for excretion, and the hind gut (especially the caecum) is greatly enlarged to extract the maximum amount of nutrient from the poor quality diet. Much of this is done through bacterial fermentation: while young are being weaned, the mother passes these essential digestive aids on to her offspring.
A koala eating eucalyptus
Koala in tree, scratching grooming
The koala will eat the leaves of a wide range of eucalypts, and occasionally even some non-eucalypt species such as Acacia, Leptospermum, and Melaleuca. It has firm preferences for particular varieties of eucalypt and these preferences vary from one region to another: in the south Manna Gum, Blue Gum, and Swamp Gum are favoured; Grey Gum and Tallowwood are important in the north, and the ubiquitous River Red Gum of the isolated seasonal swamps and watercourses that meander across the dry inland plains allows the koala to live in surprisingly arid areas. Many factors determine which of the 680 species of eucalypt trees the koala eats. Among trees of their favourite species, however, the major factor that determines which individual trees the koala chooses is the concentration of a group of phenolic toxins called formylated phloroglucinol compounds.
The Australian Government currently lists the koala as a priority species for conservation status assessment. Government estimates of the national koala population numbers in the hundreds of thousands, although other studies have estimated as few as 80,000 koalas left in the wild. The Australian Koala Foundation estimates there are around 100,000 koalas left in the wild.
The IUCN lists the species as "Least Concern". The Australian government does not consider the species to be threatened, although the US government has declared the koala a threatened species.
The koala inhabits four Australian states. Under state legislation, the species is listed as:
*Queensland â Common, or "Least Concern Wildlife" throughout the state, except in the South East Queensland bioregion, where it is listed as vulnerable.
*New South Wales â listed at a state scale as vulnerable, but varying regionally from secure to locally extinct.
*South Australia â classified as rare.
*Victoria â The koala population in Victoria was considered large and thriving, according to an article which was last reviewed on 29 October, 2007.
The koala was hunted almost to extinction in the early 20th century, largely for its fur. Millions of furs were traded to Europe and the United States, and the population has not fully recovered from such decimations. Extensive cullings occurred in Queensland in 1915, 1917, and again in 1919 when over one million koalas were killed with guns, poisons, and nooses. The public outcry over the cullings was most likely the first wide-scale environmental issue that rallied Australians. Despite the growing movement to protect native species, the poverty brought about by the drought of 1926â28 led to another 600,000 koalas being killed during a one-month open season in August 1927.
Today, habitat loss and the impacts of urbanisation (such as dog attacks and traffic accidents) are the leading threats to the survival of the koala. In recent years, some colonies have been hard hit by disease, especially chlamydia. Koalas 'extinct within 30 years' after chlamydia outbreak, by Bonnie Malkin, The Telegraph, 10 Nov 2009 The koala requires large areas of healthy, connected forest and will travel long distances along tree corridors in search of new territory and mates. The increasing human population of the coastal parts of the continent continues to cut these corridors by agricultural and residential development, forestry, and road-building, marooning koala colonies in decreasing areas of bush. The long term viability of the koala is therefore threatened by genetic weakness . The Australian Koala Foundation is the principal organisation dedicated to the conservation of the koala and its habitat, mapping of land for koala habitat and claiming strong evidence that wild koala populations are in serious decline throughout the species natural range.
Although the species covers a large area, only 'pieces' of koala habitat remain. Presently, many habitats are lost to weeds, clearance for agriculture, or carved up by developers. Other threats come from logging, poor management, attacks from feral and domestic animals, diseases, and roads.
In contrast to the situation on much of the mainland, where populations are declining, koalas, like many other species, can overrun smaller islands or isolated regions where they have been introduced. On Kangaroo Island in South Australia, koalas introduced some 90 years ago have thrived in the absence of predators and competition. Combined with an inability to migrate to new areas, this has caused the koala populations to become unsustainable and threaten the island's unique ecology. In particular, species of Manna Gum, native to the island, are being stripped by koalas at a rate faster than they can regenerate, endangering local birds and invertebrates that rely on them, and causing the extinction of at least one isolated population of manna. Koala numbers are estimated at over 30,000 , with ecologists suggesting that the island can sustain 10,000 at most . Although culling has been suggested as a means to reduce koala numbers, with the South Australian government seriously considering such in 1996, this has met with fierce opposition both domestically and internationally, and the species remains protected. The popularity of the koala has made the possibility of a cull politically improbable, with any negative perception likely to impact tourism and a government's electability. In place of a cull, sterilization and relocation programs have had only limited success in reducing numbers thus far, and remain expensive. There is evidence that koalas relocated to the mainland have difficulty establishing themselves in the different circumstances. A mooted alternative to the complex sterilization method, wherein the animal must first be captured, are hormonal implants that can be injected via darts.
As with most native Australian animals, the koala cannot legally be kept as a pet in Australia or anywhere else. The only people who are permitted to keep koalas are wildlife carers and, occasionally, research scientists. These individuals are issued with special permits to care for koalas, but have to return them to the wild when they are either well enough or, in the case of joeys, old enough.
*Fauna of Australia
*Koala emblems and popular culture
*List of monotremes and marsupials
* Australian Koala Foundation
* Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary
* The Koala
|
Koala | Does the koala fill the same ecological role as the sloth of South America? | The koala fills the same ecological role as the sloth of South America. | data/set1/a3 | Koala
The koala (Phascolarctos cinereus) is a thickset arboreal marsupial herbivore native to Australia, and the only extant representative of the family Phascolarctidae.
The koala is found in coastal regions of eastern and southern Australia, from near Adelaide to the southern part of Cape York Peninsula. Populations also extend for considerable distances inland in regions with enough moisture to support suitable woodlands. The koalas of South Australia were largely exterminated during the early part of the 20th century, but the state has since been repopulated with Victorian stock. The koala is not found in Tasmania or Western Australia.
The word koala comes from the Dharuk gula. Although the vowel was originally written in the Latin alphabet as "oo" (in spellings such as coola or koolah), it was changed to "oa" possibly due to an error. The word is erroneously said to mean "doesn't drink".
The scientific name of the koala's genus, Phascolarctos, is derived from Greek phaskolos "pouch" and arktos "bear". Its species name, cinereus, is Latin and means "ash-coloured".
Although the koala is not a bear, English-speaking settlers from the late 18th century first called it koala bear due to its similarity in appearance to bears. Although taxonomically incorrect, the name koala bear is still in use today outside Australia â its use is discouraged because of the inaccuracy in the name. Other descriptive English names based on "bear" have included monkey bear, native bear, and tree-bear.
A Southern koala on Kangaroo Island, not native to the island
Although three subspecies have been described, these are arbitrary selections from a cline and are not generally accepted as valid. Following Bergmann's Rule, southern individuals from the cooler climates are larger. A typical Victorian koala (formerly P. cinereus victor) has longer, thicker fur, is a darker, softer grey, often with chocolate-brown highlights on the back and forearms, and has a more prominently light-coloured ventral side and fluffy white ear tufts. Typical and New South Wales koala weights are for males and for females. In tropical and sub-tropical Queensland, however, the koala is smaller (at around for an average male and just over for an average female), a lighter often rather scruffy grey in colour, and has shorter, thinner fur. In Queensland, the koala was previously classified as the subspecies P. cinereus adustus, and the intermediate forms in New South Wales as P. cinereus cinereus. A fourth variation, though not technically a subspecies, is Phascolarctos cinereus aurum, or in English "golden koala," which has a slight golden tinge to the fur as a result of an absence of the melanin pigment that produces albinism in most other mammalian species. The variation from one form to another is continuous and there are substantial differences between individual koalas in any given region such as hair colour.
The origins of the koala are unclear, although almost certainly they descended from terrestrial wombat-like animals. Koala fossils are quite rare, but some have been found in northern Australia dating to 20 million years ago. During this time, the northern half of Australia was rainforest. The koala did not specialise in a diet of eucalyptus until the climate cooled and eucalypt forests grew in the place of rainforests. The fossil record indicates that before 50,000 years ago, giant koalas inhabited the southern regions of Australia. The koala fills the same ecological role as the sloth of South America.
Female
Koalas have a slow metabolism and sleep for most of the day
The koala is broadly similar in appearance to the wombat (its closest living relative), but has a thicker coat, much larger ears, and longer limbs. The koala has large, sharp claws to assist with climbing tree trunks. Weight varies from about for a large southern male, to about for a small northern female. The koala's five fingers are arranged with opposable thumbs, providing better gripping ability. The first two fingers are positioned in apposition on the front paws, and the first three fingers for the hind paws. The koala is one of the few mammals (other than primates) that has fingerprints. Koala fingerprints are similar to human fingerprints; even with an electron microscope, it can be quite difficult to distinguish between the two.
The teeth of the koala are adapted to their herbivorous diet, and are similar to those of other diprotodont marsupials, such as kangaroos and wombats. They have sharp incisors to clip leaves at the front of the mouth, separated from the grinding cheek teeth by a wide diastema. The dental formula for koalas is:
The male koala, like many marsupials, has a bifurcated penis. The female has two lateral vaginas and two separate uteri, which is common to all marsupials.
Koala walking along a branch. Koalas also walk on all four legs when walking on the ground
The brain in the ancestors of the modern koala once filled the whole cranial cavity, but has become drastically reduced in the present species, a degeneration scientists suspect is an adaptation to a diet low in energy. One of the smallest in marsupials with no more than 0.2% of its body weight, about 40% of the cranial cavity is filled with cerebrospinal fluid, while the brain's two cerebral hemispheres are like "a pair of shrivelled walnut halves on top of the brain stem, in contact neither with each other nor the bones of the skull. It is the only animal on Earth with such a strangely reduced brain."
It is generally a silent animal, but males have a very loud advertising call that can be heard from almost a kilometre away during the breeding season. When under stress, koalas may issue a loud cry, which has been reported as similar to that of a human baby. There is little reliable information about the lifespan of the koala, but in captivity they have been observed to reach the age of 18 years.
A young joey, preserved at Port Macquarie Koala Hospital
Baby koala on a mothers back
Females reach maturity at 2 to 3 years of age, males at 3 to 4 years. A healthy female koala can produce one young each year for about 12 years. Gestation is 35 days. Twins are very rare; the world's first confirmed identical twin koalas, named "Euca" and "Lyptus", were born at the University of Queensland in April, 1999. /ref> Mating normally occurs between December and March, the Southern Hemisphere's summer.
A baby koala is referred to as a joey and is hairless, blind, and earless. At birth the joey, only a quarter of an inch long, crawls into the downward-facing pouch on the mother's belly (which is closed by a drawstring-like muscle that the mother can tighten at will) and attaches itself to one of the two teats.
Young remain hidden in the pouch for about six months, only feeding on milk. During this time they grow ears, eyes, and fur. The joey then begins to explore outside of the pouch. At about this stage it begins to consume small quantities of the motherâs "pap" (formerly thought to be excrement, but now thought to come from the mother's cecum) in order to inoculate its gut with the microbes necessary to digest eucalypt leaves. The joey will remain with its mother for another six months or so, riding on her back, and feeding on both milk and eucalypt leaves until weaning is complete at about 12 months of age. Young females disperse to nearby areas at that time; young males often stay in the mother's home range until they are two or three years old.
Koala with young
Koala dozing during the day
The koala lives almost entirely on eucalypt leaves. This is likely to be an evolutionary adaptation that takes advantage of an otherwise unfilled ecological niche, since eucalypt leaves are low in protein, high in indigestible substances, and contain phenolic and terpene compounds that are toxic to most species. Like wombats and sloths, the koala has a very low metabolic rate for a mammal and rests motionless for about 16 to 18 hours a day, sleeping most of that time. Koalas can be aggressive towards each other, throwing a foreleg around their opponent and biting, though most aggressive behavior is brief squabbles. Handling koalas may cause them stress, and the issue of aggression and stress from handling is a political issue in Australia.
Koalas spend about three of their five active hours eating. Feeding occurs at any time of day, but usually at night. Koalas eat an average of of eucalypt leaves each day, chewing them with powerful jaws to a very fine paste before swallowing. The liver deactivates the toxic components ready for excretion, and the hind gut (especially the caecum) is greatly enlarged to extract the maximum amount of nutrient from the poor quality diet. Much of this is done through bacterial fermentation: while young are being weaned, the mother passes these essential digestive aids on to her offspring.
A koala eating eucalyptus
Koala in tree, scratching grooming
The koala will eat the leaves of a wide range of eucalypts, and occasionally even some non-eucalypt species such as Acacia, Leptospermum, and Melaleuca. It has firm preferences for particular varieties of eucalypt and these preferences vary from one region to another: in the south Manna Gum, Blue Gum, and Swamp Gum are favoured; Grey Gum and Tallowwood are important in the north, and the ubiquitous River Red Gum of the isolated seasonal swamps and watercourses that meander across the dry inland plains allows the koala to live in surprisingly arid areas. Many factors determine which of the 680 species of eucalypt trees the koala eats. Among trees of their favourite species, however, the major factor that determines which individual trees the koala chooses is the concentration of a group of phenolic toxins called formylated phloroglucinol compounds.
The Australian Government currently lists the koala as a priority species for conservation status assessment. Government estimates of the national koala population numbers in the hundreds of thousands, although other studies have estimated as few as 80,000 koalas left in the wild. The Australian Koala Foundation estimates there are around 100,000 koalas left in the wild.
The IUCN lists the species as "Least Concern". The Australian government does not consider the species to be threatened, although the US government has declared the koala a threatened species.
The koala inhabits four Australian states. Under state legislation, the species is listed as:
*Queensland â Common, or "Least Concern Wildlife" throughout the state, except in the South East Queensland bioregion, where it is listed as vulnerable.
*New South Wales â listed at a state scale as vulnerable, but varying regionally from secure to locally extinct.
*South Australia â classified as rare.
*Victoria â The koala population in Victoria was considered large and thriving, according to an article which was last reviewed on 29 October, 2007.
The koala was hunted almost to extinction in the early 20th century, largely for its fur. Millions of furs were traded to Europe and the United States, and the population has not fully recovered from such decimations. Extensive cullings occurred in Queensland in 1915, 1917, and again in 1919 when over one million koalas were killed with guns, poisons, and nooses. The public outcry over the cullings was most likely the first wide-scale environmental issue that rallied Australians. Despite the growing movement to protect native species, the poverty brought about by the drought of 1926â28 led to another 600,000 koalas being killed during a one-month open season in August 1927.
Today, habitat loss and the impacts of urbanisation (such as dog attacks and traffic accidents) are the leading threats to the survival of the koala. In recent years, some colonies have been hard hit by disease, especially chlamydia. Koalas 'extinct within 30 years' after chlamydia outbreak, by Bonnie Malkin, The Telegraph, 10 Nov 2009 The koala requires large areas of healthy, connected forest and will travel long distances along tree corridors in search of new territory and mates. The increasing human population of the coastal parts of the continent continues to cut these corridors by agricultural and residential development, forestry, and road-building, marooning koala colonies in decreasing areas of bush. The long term viability of the koala is therefore threatened by genetic weakness . The Australian Koala Foundation is the principal organisation dedicated to the conservation of the koala and its habitat, mapping of land for koala habitat and claiming strong evidence that wild koala populations are in serious decline throughout the species natural range.
Although the species covers a large area, only 'pieces' of koala habitat remain. Presently, many habitats are lost to weeds, clearance for agriculture, or carved up by developers. Other threats come from logging, poor management, attacks from feral and domestic animals, diseases, and roads.
In contrast to the situation on much of the mainland, where populations are declining, koalas, like many other species, can overrun smaller islands or isolated regions where they have been introduced. On Kangaroo Island in South Australia, koalas introduced some 90 years ago have thrived in the absence of predators and competition. Combined with an inability to migrate to new areas, this has caused the koala populations to become unsustainable and threaten the island's unique ecology. In particular, species of Manna Gum, native to the island, are being stripped by koalas at a rate faster than they can regenerate, endangering local birds and invertebrates that rely on them, and causing the extinction of at least one isolated population of manna. Koala numbers are estimated at over 30,000 , with ecologists suggesting that the island can sustain 10,000 at most . Although culling has been suggested as a means to reduce koala numbers, with the South Australian government seriously considering such in 1996, this has met with fierce opposition both domestically and internationally, and the species remains protected. The popularity of the koala has made the possibility of a cull politically improbable, with any negative perception likely to impact tourism and a government's electability. In place of a cull, sterilization and relocation programs have had only limited success in reducing numbers thus far, and remain expensive. There is evidence that koalas relocated to the mainland have difficulty establishing themselves in the different circumstances. A mooted alternative to the complex sterilization method, wherein the animal must first be captured, are hormonal implants that can be injected via darts.
As with most native Australian animals, the koala cannot legally be kept as a pet in Australia or anywhere else. The only people who are permitted to keep koalas are wildlife carers and, occasionally, research scientists. These individuals are issued with special permits to care for koalas, but have to return them to the wild when they are either well enough or, in the case of joeys, old enough.
*Fauna of Australia
*Koala emblems and popular culture
*List of monotremes and marsupials
* Australian Koala Foundation
* Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary
* The Koala
|
Koala | Is the long term viability of the koala therefore threatened by genetic weakness? | The long term viability of the koala is therefore threatened by genetic weakness. | data/set1/a3 | Koala
The koala (Phascolarctos cinereus) is a thickset arboreal marsupial herbivore native to Australia, and the only extant representative of the family Phascolarctidae.
The koala is found in coastal regions of eastern and southern Australia, from near Adelaide to the southern part of Cape York Peninsula. Populations also extend for considerable distances inland in regions with enough moisture to support suitable woodlands. The koalas of South Australia were largely exterminated during the early part of the 20th century, but the state has since been repopulated with Victorian stock. The koala is not found in Tasmania or Western Australia.
The word koala comes from the Dharuk gula. Although the vowel was originally written in the Latin alphabet as "oo" (in spellings such as coola or koolah), it was changed to "oa" possibly due to an error. The word is erroneously said to mean "doesn't drink".
The scientific name of the koala's genus, Phascolarctos, is derived from Greek phaskolos "pouch" and arktos "bear". Its species name, cinereus, is Latin and means "ash-coloured".
Although the koala is not a bear, English-speaking settlers from the late 18th century first called it koala bear due to its similarity in appearance to bears. Although taxonomically incorrect, the name koala bear is still in use today outside Australia â its use is discouraged because of the inaccuracy in the name. Other descriptive English names based on "bear" have included monkey bear, native bear, and tree-bear.
A Southern koala on Kangaroo Island, not native to the island
Although three subspecies have been described, these are arbitrary selections from a cline and are not generally accepted as valid. Following Bergmann's Rule, southern individuals from the cooler climates are larger. A typical Victorian koala (formerly P. cinereus victor) has longer, thicker fur, is a darker, softer grey, often with chocolate-brown highlights on the back and forearms, and has a more prominently light-coloured ventral side and fluffy white ear tufts. Typical and New South Wales koala weights are for males and for females. In tropical and sub-tropical Queensland, however, the koala is smaller (at around for an average male and just over for an average female), a lighter often rather scruffy grey in colour, and has shorter, thinner fur. In Queensland, the koala was previously classified as the subspecies P. cinereus adustus, and the intermediate forms in New South Wales as P. cinereus cinereus. A fourth variation, though not technically a subspecies, is Phascolarctos cinereus aurum, or in English "golden koala," which has a slight golden tinge to the fur as a result of an absence of the melanin pigment that produces albinism in most other mammalian species. The variation from one form to another is continuous and there are substantial differences between individual koalas in any given region such as hair colour.
The origins of the koala are unclear, although almost certainly they descended from terrestrial wombat-like animals. Koala fossils are quite rare, but some have been found in northern Australia dating to 20 million years ago. During this time, the northern half of Australia was rainforest. The koala did not specialise in a diet of eucalyptus until the climate cooled and eucalypt forests grew in the place of rainforests. The fossil record indicates that before 50,000 years ago, giant koalas inhabited the southern regions of Australia. The koala fills the same ecological role as the sloth of South America.
Female
Koalas have a slow metabolism and sleep for most of the day
The koala is broadly similar in appearance to the wombat (its closest living relative), but has a thicker coat, much larger ears, and longer limbs. The koala has large, sharp claws to assist with climbing tree trunks. Weight varies from about for a large southern male, to about for a small northern female. The koala's five fingers are arranged with opposable thumbs, providing better gripping ability. The first two fingers are positioned in apposition on the front paws, and the first three fingers for the hind paws. The koala is one of the few mammals (other than primates) that has fingerprints. Koala fingerprints are similar to human fingerprints; even with an electron microscope, it can be quite difficult to distinguish between the two.
The teeth of the koala are adapted to their herbivorous diet, and are similar to those of other diprotodont marsupials, such as kangaroos and wombats. They have sharp incisors to clip leaves at the front of the mouth, separated from the grinding cheek teeth by a wide diastema. The dental formula for koalas is:
The male koala, like many marsupials, has a bifurcated penis. The female has two lateral vaginas and two separate uteri, which is common to all marsupials.
Koala walking along a branch. Koalas also walk on all four legs when walking on the ground
The brain in the ancestors of the modern koala once filled the whole cranial cavity, but has become drastically reduced in the present species, a degeneration scientists suspect is an adaptation to a diet low in energy. One of the smallest in marsupials with no more than 0.2% of its body weight, about 40% of the cranial cavity is filled with cerebrospinal fluid, while the brain's two cerebral hemispheres are like "a pair of shrivelled walnut halves on top of the brain stem, in contact neither with each other nor the bones of the skull. It is the only animal on Earth with such a strangely reduced brain."
It is generally a silent animal, but males have a very loud advertising call that can be heard from almost a kilometre away during the breeding season. When under stress, koalas may issue a loud cry, which has been reported as similar to that of a human baby. There is little reliable information about the lifespan of the koala, but in captivity they have been observed to reach the age of 18 years.
A young joey, preserved at Port Macquarie Koala Hospital
Baby koala on a mothers back
Females reach maturity at 2 to 3 years of age, males at 3 to 4 years. A healthy female koala can produce one young each year for about 12 years. Gestation is 35 days. Twins are very rare; the world's first confirmed identical twin koalas, named "Euca" and "Lyptus", were born at the University of Queensland in April, 1999. /ref> Mating normally occurs between December and March, the Southern Hemisphere's summer.
A baby koala is referred to as a joey and is hairless, blind, and earless. At birth the joey, only a quarter of an inch long, crawls into the downward-facing pouch on the mother's belly (which is closed by a drawstring-like muscle that the mother can tighten at will) and attaches itself to one of the two teats.
Young remain hidden in the pouch for about six months, only feeding on milk. During this time they grow ears, eyes, and fur. The joey then begins to explore outside of the pouch. At about this stage it begins to consume small quantities of the motherâs "pap" (formerly thought to be excrement, but now thought to come from the mother's cecum) in order to inoculate its gut with the microbes necessary to digest eucalypt leaves. The joey will remain with its mother for another six months or so, riding on her back, and feeding on both milk and eucalypt leaves until weaning is complete at about 12 months of age. Young females disperse to nearby areas at that time; young males often stay in the mother's home range until they are two or three years old.
Koala with young
Koala dozing during the day
The koala lives almost entirely on eucalypt leaves. This is likely to be an evolutionary adaptation that takes advantage of an otherwise unfilled ecological niche, since eucalypt leaves are low in protein, high in indigestible substances, and contain phenolic and terpene compounds that are toxic to most species. Like wombats and sloths, the koala has a very low metabolic rate for a mammal and rests motionless for about 16 to 18 hours a day, sleeping most of that time. Koalas can be aggressive towards each other, throwing a foreleg around their opponent and biting, though most aggressive behavior is brief squabbles. Handling koalas may cause them stress, and the issue of aggression and stress from handling is a political issue in Australia.
Koalas spend about three of their five active hours eating. Feeding occurs at any time of day, but usually at night. Koalas eat an average of of eucalypt leaves each day, chewing them with powerful jaws to a very fine paste before swallowing. The liver deactivates the toxic components ready for excretion, and the hind gut (especially the caecum) is greatly enlarged to extract the maximum amount of nutrient from the poor quality diet. Much of this is done through bacterial fermentation: while young are being weaned, the mother passes these essential digestive aids on to her offspring.
A koala eating eucalyptus
Koala in tree, scratching grooming
The koala will eat the leaves of a wide range of eucalypts, and occasionally even some non-eucalypt species such as Acacia, Leptospermum, and Melaleuca. It has firm preferences for particular varieties of eucalypt and these preferences vary from one region to another: in the south Manna Gum, Blue Gum, and Swamp Gum are favoured; Grey Gum and Tallowwood are important in the north, and the ubiquitous River Red Gum of the isolated seasonal swamps and watercourses that meander across the dry inland plains allows the koala to live in surprisingly arid areas. Many factors determine which of the 680 species of eucalypt trees the koala eats. Among trees of their favourite species, however, the major factor that determines which individual trees the koala chooses is the concentration of a group of phenolic toxins called formylated phloroglucinol compounds.
The Australian Government currently lists the koala as a priority species for conservation status assessment. Government estimates of the national koala population numbers in the hundreds of thousands, although other studies have estimated as few as 80,000 koalas left in the wild. The Australian Koala Foundation estimates there are around 100,000 koalas left in the wild.
The IUCN lists the species as "Least Concern". The Australian government does not consider the species to be threatened, although the US government has declared the koala a threatened species.
The koala inhabits four Australian states. Under state legislation, the species is listed as:
*Queensland â Common, or "Least Concern Wildlife" throughout the state, except in the South East Queensland bioregion, where it is listed as vulnerable.
*New South Wales â listed at a state scale as vulnerable, but varying regionally from secure to locally extinct.
*South Australia â classified as rare.
*Victoria â The koala population in Victoria was considered large and thriving, according to an article which was last reviewed on 29 October, 2007.
The koala was hunted almost to extinction in the early 20th century, largely for its fur. Millions of furs were traded to Europe and the United States, and the population has not fully recovered from such decimations. Extensive cullings occurred in Queensland in 1915, 1917, and again in 1919 when over one million koalas were killed with guns, poisons, and nooses. The public outcry over the cullings was most likely the first wide-scale environmental issue that rallied Australians. Despite the growing movement to protect native species, the poverty brought about by the drought of 1926â28 led to another 600,000 koalas being killed during a one-month open season in August 1927.
Today, habitat loss and the impacts of urbanisation (such as dog attacks and traffic accidents) are the leading threats to the survival of the koala. In recent years, some colonies have been hard hit by disease, especially chlamydia. Koalas 'extinct within 30 years' after chlamydia outbreak, by Bonnie Malkin, The Telegraph, 10 Nov 2009 The koala requires large areas of healthy, connected forest and will travel long distances along tree corridors in search of new territory and mates. The increasing human population of the coastal parts of the continent continues to cut these corridors by agricultural and residential development, forestry, and road-building, marooning koala colonies in decreasing areas of bush. The long term viability of the koala is therefore threatened by genetic weakness . The Australian Koala Foundation is the principal organisation dedicated to the conservation of the koala and its habitat, mapping of land for koala habitat and claiming strong evidence that wild koala populations are in serious decline throughout the species natural range.
Although the species covers a large area, only 'pieces' of koala habitat remain. Presently, many habitats are lost to weeds, clearance for agriculture, or carved up by developers. Other threats come from logging, poor management, attacks from feral and domestic animals, diseases, and roads.
In contrast to the situation on much of the mainland, where populations are declining, koalas, like many other species, can overrun smaller islands or isolated regions where they have been introduced. On Kangaroo Island in South Australia, koalas introduced some 90 years ago have thrived in the absence of predators and competition. Combined with an inability to migrate to new areas, this has caused the koala populations to become unsustainable and threaten the island's unique ecology. In particular, species of Manna Gum, native to the island, are being stripped by koalas at a rate faster than they can regenerate, endangering local birds and invertebrates that rely on them, and causing the extinction of at least one isolated population of manna. Koala numbers are estimated at over 30,000 , with ecologists suggesting that the island can sustain 10,000 at most . Although culling has been suggested as a means to reduce koala numbers, with the South Australian government seriously considering such in 1996, this has met with fierce opposition both domestically and internationally, and the species remains protected. The popularity of the koala has made the possibility of a cull politically improbable, with any negative perception likely to impact tourism and a government's electability. In place of a cull, sterilization and relocation programs have had only limited success in reducing numbers thus far, and remain expensive. There is evidence that koalas relocated to the mainland have difficulty establishing themselves in the different circumstances. A mooted alternative to the complex sterilization method, wherein the animal must first be captured, are hormonal implants that can be injected via darts.
As with most native Australian animals, the koala cannot legally be kept as a pet in Australia or anywhere else. The only people who are permitted to keep koalas are wildlife carers and, occasionally, research scientists. These individuals are issued with special permits to care for koalas, but have to return them to the wild when they are either well enough or, in the case of joeys, old enough.
*Fauna of Australia
*Koala emblems and popular culture
*List of monotremes and marsupials
* Australian Koala Foundation
* Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary
* The Koala
|
Koala | Is the koala found in coastal regions of eastern and southern Australia, from near Adelaide to the southern part of Cape York Peninsula? | yes | data/set1/a3 | Koala
The koala (Phascolarctos cinereus) is a thickset arboreal marsupial herbivore native to Australia, and the only extant representative of the family Phascolarctidae.
The koala is found in coastal regions of eastern and southern Australia, from near Adelaide to the southern part of Cape York Peninsula. Populations also extend for considerable distances inland in regions with enough moisture to support suitable woodlands. The koalas of South Australia were largely exterminated during the early part of the 20th century, but the state has since been repopulated with Victorian stock. The koala is not found in Tasmania or Western Australia.
The word koala comes from the Dharuk gula. Although the vowel was originally written in the Latin alphabet as "oo" (in spellings such as coola or koolah), it was changed to "oa" possibly due to an error. The word is erroneously said to mean "doesn't drink".
The scientific name of the koala's genus, Phascolarctos, is derived from Greek phaskolos "pouch" and arktos "bear". Its species name, cinereus, is Latin and means "ash-coloured".
Although the koala is not a bear, English-speaking settlers from the late 18th century first called it koala bear due to its similarity in appearance to bears. Although taxonomically incorrect, the name koala bear is still in use today outside Australia â its use is discouraged because of the inaccuracy in the name. Other descriptive English names based on "bear" have included monkey bear, native bear, and tree-bear.
A Southern koala on Kangaroo Island, not native to the island
Although three subspecies have been described, these are arbitrary selections from a cline and are not generally accepted as valid. Following Bergmann's Rule, southern individuals from the cooler climates are larger. A typical Victorian koala (formerly P. cinereus victor) has longer, thicker fur, is a darker, softer grey, often with chocolate-brown highlights on the back and forearms, and has a more prominently light-coloured ventral side and fluffy white ear tufts. Typical and New South Wales koala weights are for males and for females. In tropical and sub-tropical Queensland, however, the koala is smaller (at around for an average male and just over for an average female), a lighter often rather scruffy grey in colour, and has shorter, thinner fur. In Queensland, the koala was previously classified as the subspecies P. cinereus adustus, and the intermediate forms in New South Wales as P. cinereus cinereus. A fourth variation, though not technically a subspecies, is Phascolarctos cinereus aurum, or in English "golden koala," which has a slight golden tinge to the fur as a result of an absence of the melanin pigment that produces albinism in most other mammalian species. The variation from one form to another is continuous and there are substantial differences between individual koalas in any given region such as hair colour.
The origins of the koala are unclear, although almost certainly they descended from terrestrial wombat-like animals. Koala fossils are quite rare, but some have been found in northern Australia dating to 20 million years ago. During this time, the northern half of Australia was rainforest. The koala did not specialise in a diet of eucalyptus until the climate cooled and eucalypt forests grew in the place of rainforests. The fossil record indicates that before 50,000 years ago, giant koalas inhabited the southern regions of Australia. The koala fills the same ecological role as the sloth of South America.
Female
Koalas have a slow metabolism and sleep for most of the day
The koala is broadly similar in appearance to the wombat (its closest living relative), but has a thicker coat, much larger ears, and longer limbs. The koala has large, sharp claws to assist with climbing tree trunks. Weight varies from about for a large southern male, to about for a small northern female. The koala's five fingers are arranged with opposable thumbs, providing better gripping ability. The first two fingers are positioned in apposition on the front paws, and the first three fingers for the hind paws. The koala is one of the few mammals (other than primates) that has fingerprints. Koala fingerprints are similar to human fingerprints; even with an electron microscope, it can be quite difficult to distinguish between the two.
The teeth of the koala are adapted to their herbivorous diet, and are similar to those of other diprotodont marsupials, such as kangaroos and wombats. They have sharp incisors to clip leaves at the front of the mouth, separated from the grinding cheek teeth by a wide diastema. The dental formula for koalas is:
The male koala, like many marsupials, has a bifurcated penis. The female has two lateral vaginas and two separate uteri, which is common to all marsupials.
Koala walking along a branch. Koalas also walk on all four legs when walking on the ground
The brain in the ancestors of the modern koala once filled the whole cranial cavity, but has become drastically reduced in the present species, a degeneration scientists suspect is an adaptation to a diet low in energy. One of the smallest in marsupials with no more than 0.2% of its body weight, about 40% of the cranial cavity is filled with cerebrospinal fluid, while the brain's two cerebral hemispheres are like "a pair of shrivelled walnut halves on top of the brain stem, in contact neither with each other nor the bones of the skull. It is the only animal on Earth with such a strangely reduced brain."
It is generally a silent animal, but males have a very loud advertising call that can be heard from almost a kilometre away during the breeding season. When under stress, koalas may issue a loud cry, which has been reported as similar to that of a human baby. There is little reliable information about the lifespan of the koala, but in captivity they have been observed to reach the age of 18 years.
A young joey, preserved at Port Macquarie Koala Hospital
Baby koala on a mothers back
Females reach maturity at 2 to 3 years of age, males at 3 to 4 years. A healthy female koala can produce one young each year for about 12 years. Gestation is 35 days. Twins are very rare; the world's first confirmed identical twin koalas, named "Euca" and "Lyptus", were born at the University of Queensland in April, 1999. /ref> Mating normally occurs between December and March, the Southern Hemisphere's summer.
A baby koala is referred to as a joey and is hairless, blind, and earless. At birth the joey, only a quarter of an inch long, crawls into the downward-facing pouch on the mother's belly (which is closed by a drawstring-like muscle that the mother can tighten at will) and attaches itself to one of the two teats.
Young remain hidden in the pouch for about six months, only feeding on milk. During this time they grow ears, eyes, and fur. The joey then begins to explore outside of the pouch. At about this stage it begins to consume small quantities of the motherâs "pap" (formerly thought to be excrement, but now thought to come from the mother's cecum) in order to inoculate its gut with the microbes necessary to digest eucalypt leaves. The joey will remain with its mother for another six months or so, riding on her back, and feeding on both milk and eucalypt leaves until weaning is complete at about 12 months of age. Young females disperse to nearby areas at that time; young males often stay in the mother's home range until they are two or three years old.
Koala with young
Koala dozing during the day
The koala lives almost entirely on eucalypt leaves. This is likely to be an evolutionary adaptation that takes advantage of an otherwise unfilled ecological niche, since eucalypt leaves are low in protein, high in indigestible substances, and contain phenolic and terpene compounds that are toxic to most species. Like wombats and sloths, the koala has a very low metabolic rate for a mammal and rests motionless for about 16 to 18 hours a day, sleeping most of that time. Koalas can be aggressive towards each other, throwing a foreleg around their opponent and biting, though most aggressive behavior is brief squabbles. Handling koalas may cause them stress, and the issue of aggression and stress from handling is a political issue in Australia.
Koalas spend about three of their five active hours eating. Feeding occurs at any time of day, but usually at night. Koalas eat an average of of eucalypt leaves each day, chewing them with powerful jaws to a very fine paste before swallowing. The liver deactivates the toxic components ready for excretion, and the hind gut (especially the caecum) is greatly enlarged to extract the maximum amount of nutrient from the poor quality diet. Much of this is done through bacterial fermentation: while young are being weaned, the mother passes these essential digestive aids on to her offspring.
A koala eating eucalyptus
Koala in tree, scratching grooming
The koala will eat the leaves of a wide range of eucalypts, and occasionally even some non-eucalypt species such as Acacia, Leptospermum, and Melaleuca. It has firm preferences for particular varieties of eucalypt and these preferences vary from one region to another: in the south Manna Gum, Blue Gum, and Swamp Gum are favoured; Grey Gum and Tallowwood are important in the north, and the ubiquitous River Red Gum of the isolated seasonal swamps and watercourses that meander across the dry inland plains allows the koala to live in surprisingly arid areas. Many factors determine which of the 680 species of eucalypt trees the koala eats. Among trees of their favourite species, however, the major factor that determines which individual trees the koala chooses is the concentration of a group of phenolic toxins called formylated phloroglucinol compounds.
The Australian Government currently lists the koala as a priority species for conservation status assessment. Government estimates of the national koala population numbers in the hundreds of thousands, although other studies have estimated as few as 80,000 koalas left in the wild. The Australian Koala Foundation estimates there are around 100,000 koalas left in the wild.
The IUCN lists the species as "Least Concern". The Australian government does not consider the species to be threatened, although the US government has declared the koala a threatened species.
The koala inhabits four Australian states. Under state legislation, the species is listed as:
*Queensland â Common, or "Least Concern Wildlife" throughout the state, except in the South East Queensland bioregion, where it is listed as vulnerable.
*New South Wales â listed at a state scale as vulnerable, but varying regionally from secure to locally extinct.
*South Australia â classified as rare.
*Victoria â The koala population in Victoria was considered large and thriving, according to an article which was last reviewed on 29 October, 2007.
The koala was hunted almost to extinction in the early 20th century, largely for its fur. Millions of furs were traded to Europe and the United States, and the population has not fully recovered from such decimations. Extensive cullings occurred in Queensland in 1915, 1917, and again in 1919 when over one million koalas were killed with guns, poisons, and nooses. The public outcry over the cullings was most likely the first wide-scale environmental issue that rallied Australians. Despite the growing movement to protect native species, the poverty brought about by the drought of 1926â28 led to another 600,000 koalas being killed during a one-month open season in August 1927.
Today, habitat loss and the impacts of urbanisation (such as dog attacks and traffic accidents) are the leading threats to the survival of the koala. In recent years, some colonies have been hard hit by disease, especially chlamydia. Koalas 'extinct within 30 years' after chlamydia outbreak, by Bonnie Malkin, The Telegraph, 10 Nov 2009 The koala requires large areas of healthy, connected forest and will travel long distances along tree corridors in search of new territory and mates. The increasing human population of the coastal parts of the continent continues to cut these corridors by agricultural and residential development, forestry, and road-building, marooning koala colonies in decreasing areas of bush. The long term viability of the koala is therefore threatened by genetic weakness . The Australian Koala Foundation is the principal organisation dedicated to the conservation of the koala and its habitat, mapping of land for koala habitat and claiming strong evidence that wild koala populations are in serious decline throughout the species natural range.
Although the species covers a large area, only 'pieces' of koala habitat remain. Presently, many habitats are lost to weeds, clearance for agriculture, or carved up by developers. Other threats come from logging, poor management, attacks from feral and domestic animals, diseases, and roads.
In contrast to the situation on much of the mainland, where populations are declining, koalas, like many other species, can overrun smaller islands or isolated regions where they have been introduced. On Kangaroo Island in South Australia, koalas introduced some 90 years ago have thrived in the absence of predators and competition. Combined with an inability to migrate to new areas, this has caused the koala populations to become unsustainable and threaten the island's unique ecology. In particular, species of Manna Gum, native to the island, are being stripped by koalas at a rate faster than they can regenerate, endangering local birds and invertebrates that rely on them, and causing the extinction of at least one isolated population of manna. Koala numbers are estimated at over 30,000 , with ecologists suggesting that the island can sustain 10,000 at most . Although culling has been suggested as a means to reduce koala numbers, with the South Australian government seriously considering such in 1996, this has met with fierce opposition both domestically and internationally, and the species remains protected. The popularity of the koala has made the possibility of a cull politically improbable, with any negative perception likely to impact tourism and a government's electability. In place of a cull, sterilization and relocation programs have had only limited success in reducing numbers thus far, and remain expensive. There is evidence that koalas relocated to the mainland have difficulty establishing themselves in the different circumstances. A mooted alternative to the complex sterilization method, wherein the animal must first be captured, are hormonal implants that can be injected via darts.
As with most native Australian animals, the koala cannot legally be kept as a pet in Australia or anywhere else. The only people who are permitted to keep koalas are wildlife carers and, occasionally, research scientists. These individuals are issued with special permits to care for koalas, but have to return them to the wild when they are either well enough or, in the case of joeys, old enough.
*Fauna of Australia
*Koala emblems and popular culture
*List of monotremes and marsupials
* Australian Koala Foundation
* Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary
* The Koala
|
Koala | Do populations also extend for considerable distances inland in regions with enough moisture to support suitable woodlands? | Populations also extend for considerable distances inland in regions with enough moisture to support suitable woodlands. | data/set1/a3 | Koala
The koala (Phascolarctos cinereus) is a thickset arboreal marsupial herbivore native to Australia, and the only extant representative of the family Phascolarctidae.
The koala is found in coastal regions of eastern and southern Australia, from near Adelaide to the southern part of Cape York Peninsula. Populations also extend for considerable distances inland in regions with enough moisture to support suitable woodlands. The koalas of South Australia were largely exterminated during the early part of the 20th century, but the state has since been repopulated with Victorian stock. The koala is not found in Tasmania or Western Australia.
The word koala comes from the Dharuk gula. Although the vowel was originally written in the Latin alphabet as "oo" (in spellings such as coola or koolah), it was changed to "oa" possibly due to an error. The word is erroneously said to mean "doesn't drink".
The scientific name of the koala's genus, Phascolarctos, is derived from Greek phaskolos "pouch" and arktos "bear". Its species name, cinereus, is Latin and means "ash-coloured".
Although the koala is not a bear, English-speaking settlers from the late 18th century first called it koala bear due to its similarity in appearance to bears. Although taxonomically incorrect, the name koala bear is still in use today outside Australia â its use is discouraged because of the inaccuracy in the name. Other descriptive English names based on "bear" have included monkey bear, native bear, and tree-bear.
A Southern koala on Kangaroo Island, not native to the island
Although three subspecies have been described, these are arbitrary selections from a cline and are not generally accepted as valid. Following Bergmann's Rule, southern individuals from the cooler climates are larger. A typical Victorian koala (formerly P. cinereus victor) has longer, thicker fur, is a darker, softer grey, often with chocolate-brown highlights on the back and forearms, and has a more prominently light-coloured ventral side and fluffy white ear tufts. Typical and New South Wales koala weights are for males and for females. In tropical and sub-tropical Queensland, however, the koala is smaller (at around for an average male and just over for an average female), a lighter often rather scruffy grey in colour, and has shorter, thinner fur. In Queensland, the koala was previously classified as the subspecies P. cinereus adustus, and the intermediate forms in New South Wales as P. cinereus cinereus. A fourth variation, though not technically a subspecies, is Phascolarctos cinereus aurum, or in English "golden koala," which has a slight golden tinge to the fur as a result of an absence of the melanin pigment that produces albinism in most other mammalian species. The variation from one form to another is continuous and there are substantial differences between individual koalas in any given region such as hair colour.
The origins of the koala are unclear, although almost certainly they descended from terrestrial wombat-like animals. Koala fossils are quite rare, but some have been found in northern Australia dating to 20 million years ago. During this time, the northern half of Australia was rainforest. The koala did not specialise in a diet of eucalyptus until the climate cooled and eucalypt forests grew in the place of rainforests. The fossil record indicates that before 50,000 years ago, giant koalas inhabited the southern regions of Australia. The koala fills the same ecological role as the sloth of South America.
Female
Koalas have a slow metabolism and sleep for most of the day
The koala is broadly similar in appearance to the wombat (its closest living relative), but has a thicker coat, much larger ears, and longer limbs. The koala has large, sharp claws to assist with climbing tree trunks. Weight varies from about for a large southern male, to about for a small northern female. The koala's five fingers are arranged with opposable thumbs, providing better gripping ability. The first two fingers are positioned in apposition on the front paws, and the first three fingers for the hind paws. The koala is one of the few mammals (other than primates) that has fingerprints. Koala fingerprints are similar to human fingerprints; even with an electron microscope, it can be quite difficult to distinguish between the two.
The teeth of the koala are adapted to their herbivorous diet, and are similar to those of other diprotodont marsupials, such as kangaroos and wombats. They have sharp incisors to clip leaves at the front of the mouth, separated from the grinding cheek teeth by a wide diastema. The dental formula for koalas is:
The male koala, like many marsupials, has a bifurcated penis. The female has two lateral vaginas and two separate uteri, which is common to all marsupials.
Koala walking along a branch. Koalas also walk on all four legs when walking on the ground
The brain in the ancestors of the modern koala once filled the whole cranial cavity, but has become drastically reduced in the present species, a degeneration scientists suspect is an adaptation to a diet low in energy. One of the smallest in marsupials with no more than 0.2% of its body weight, about 40% of the cranial cavity is filled with cerebrospinal fluid, while the brain's two cerebral hemispheres are like "a pair of shrivelled walnut halves on top of the brain stem, in contact neither with each other nor the bones of the skull. It is the only animal on Earth with such a strangely reduced brain."
It is generally a silent animal, but males have a very loud advertising call that can be heard from almost a kilometre away during the breeding season. When under stress, koalas may issue a loud cry, which has been reported as similar to that of a human baby. There is little reliable information about the lifespan of the koala, but in captivity they have been observed to reach the age of 18 years.
A young joey, preserved at Port Macquarie Koala Hospital
Baby koala on a mothers back
Females reach maturity at 2 to 3 years of age, males at 3 to 4 years. A healthy female koala can produce one young each year for about 12 years. Gestation is 35 days. Twins are very rare; the world's first confirmed identical twin koalas, named "Euca" and "Lyptus", were born at the University of Queensland in April, 1999. /ref> Mating normally occurs between December and March, the Southern Hemisphere's summer.
A baby koala is referred to as a joey and is hairless, blind, and earless. At birth the joey, only a quarter of an inch long, crawls into the downward-facing pouch on the mother's belly (which is closed by a drawstring-like muscle that the mother can tighten at will) and attaches itself to one of the two teats.
Young remain hidden in the pouch for about six months, only feeding on milk. During this time they grow ears, eyes, and fur. The joey then begins to explore outside of the pouch. At about this stage it begins to consume small quantities of the motherâs "pap" (formerly thought to be excrement, but now thought to come from the mother's cecum) in order to inoculate its gut with the microbes necessary to digest eucalypt leaves. The joey will remain with its mother for another six months or so, riding on her back, and feeding on both milk and eucalypt leaves until weaning is complete at about 12 months of age. Young females disperse to nearby areas at that time; young males often stay in the mother's home range until they are two or three years old.
Koala with young
Koala dozing during the day
The koala lives almost entirely on eucalypt leaves. This is likely to be an evolutionary adaptation that takes advantage of an otherwise unfilled ecological niche, since eucalypt leaves are low in protein, high in indigestible substances, and contain phenolic and terpene compounds that are toxic to most species. Like wombats and sloths, the koala has a very low metabolic rate for a mammal and rests motionless for about 16 to 18 hours a day, sleeping most of that time. Koalas can be aggressive towards each other, throwing a foreleg around their opponent and biting, though most aggressive behavior is brief squabbles. Handling koalas may cause them stress, and the issue of aggression and stress from handling is a political issue in Australia.
Koalas spend about three of their five active hours eating. Feeding occurs at any time of day, but usually at night. Koalas eat an average of of eucalypt leaves each day, chewing them with powerful jaws to a very fine paste before swallowing. The liver deactivates the toxic components ready for excretion, and the hind gut (especially the caecum) is greatly enlarged to extract the maximum amount of nutrient from the poor quality diet. Much of this is done through bacterial fermentation: while young are being weaned, the mother passes these essential digestive aids on to her offspring.
A koala eating eucalyptus
Koala in tree, scratching grooming
The koala will eat the leaves of a wide range of eucalypts, and occasionally even some non-eucalypt species such as Acacia, Leptospermum, and Melaleuca. It has firm preferences for particular varieties of eucalypt and these preferences vary from one region to another: in the south Manna Gum, Blue Gum, and Swamp Gum are favoured; Grey Gum and Tallowwood are important in the north, and the ubiquitous River Red Gum of the isolated seasonal swamps and watercourses that meander across the dry inland plains allows the koala to live in surprisingly arid areas. Many factors determine which of the 680 species of eucalypt trees the koala eats. Among trees of their favourite species, however, the major factor that determines which individual trees the koala chooses is the concentration of a group of phenolic toxins called formylated phloroglucinol compounds.
The Australian Government currently lists the koala as a priority species for conservation status assessment. Government estimates of the national koala population numbers in the hundreds of thousands, although other studies have estimated as few as 80,000 koalas left in the wild. The Australian Koala Foundation estimates there are around 100,000 koalas left in the wild.
The IUCN lists the species as "Least Concern". The Australian government does not consider the species to be threatened, although the US government has declared the koala a threatened species.
The koala inhabits four Australian states. Under state legislation, the species is listed as:
*Queensland â Common, or "Least Concern Wildlife" throughout the state, except in the South East Queensland bioregion, where it is listed as vulnerable.
*New South Wales â listed at a state scale as vulnerable, but varying regionally from secure to locally extinct.
*South Australia â classified as rare.
*Victoria â The koala population in Victoria was considered large and thriving, according to an article which was last reviewed on 29 October, 2007.
The koala was hunted almost to extinction in the early 20th century, largely for its fur. Millions of furs were traded to Europe and the United States, and the population has not fully recovered from such decimations. Extensive cullings occurred in Queensland in 1915, 1917, and again in 1919 when over one million koalas were killed with guns, poisons, and nooses. The public outcry over the cullings was most likely the first wide-scale environmental issue that rallied Australians. Despite the growing movement to protect native species, the poverty brought about by the drought of 1926â28 led to another 600,000 koalas being killed during a one-month open season in August 1927.
Today, habitat loss and the impacts of urbanisation (such as dog attacks and traffic accidents) are the leading threats to the survival of the koala. In recent years, some colonies have been hard hit by disease, especially chlamydia. Koalas 'extinct within 30 years' after chlamydia outbreak, by Bonnie Malkin, The Telegraph, 10 Nov 2009 The koala requires large areas of healthy, connected forest and will travel long distances along tree corridors in search of new territory and mates. The increasing human population of the coastal parts of the continent continues to cut these corridors by agricultural and residential development, forestry, and road-building, marooning koala colonies in decreasing areas of bush. The long term viability of the koala is therefore threatened by genetic weakness . The Australian Koala Foundation is the principal organisation dedicated to the conservation of the koala and its habitat, mapping of land for koala habitat and claiming strong evidence that wild koala populations are in serious decline throughout the species natural range.
Although the species covers a large area, only 'pieces' of koala habitat remain. Presently, many habitats are lost to weeds, clearance for agriculture, or carved up by developers. Other threats come from logging, poor management, attacks from feral and domestic animals, diseases, and roads.
In contrast to the situation on much of the mainland, where populations are declining, koalas, like many other species, can overrun smaller islands or isolated regions where they have been introduced. On Kangaroo Island in South Australia, koalas introduced some 90 years ago have thrived in the absence of predators and competition. Combined with an inability to migrate to new areas, this has caused the koala populations to become unsustainable and threaten the island's unique ecology. In particular, species of Manna Gum, native to the island, are being stripped by koalas at a rate faster than they can regenerate, endangering local birds and invertebrates that rely on them, and causing the extinction of at least one isolated population of manna. Koala numbers are estimated at over 30,000 , with ecologists suggesting that the island can sustain 10,000 at most . Although culling has been suggested as a means to reduce koala numbers, with the South Australian government seriously considering such in 1996, this has met with fierce opposition both domestically and internationally, and the species remains protected. The popularity of the koala has made the possibility of a cull politically improbable, with any negative perception likely to impact tourism and a government's electability. In place of a cull, sterilization and relocation programs have had only limited success in reducing numbers thus far, and remain expensive. There is evidence that koalas relocated to the mainland have difficulty establishing themselves in the different circumstances. A mooted alternative to the complex sterilization method, wherein the animal must first be captured, are hormonal implants that can be injected via darts.
As with most native Australian animals, the koala cannot legally be kept as a pet in Australia or anywhere else. The only people who are permitted to keep koalas are wildlife carers and, occasionally, research scientists. These individuals are issued with special permits to care for koalas, but have to return them to the wild when they are either well enough or, in the case of joeys, old enough.
*Fauna of Australia
*Koala emblems and popular culture
*List of monotremes and marsupials
* Australian Koala Foundation
* Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary
* The Koala
|
Koala | Were the koalas of South Australia largely exterminated during the early part of the 20th century, but the state has since been repopulated with Victorian stock? | The koalas of South Australia were largely exterminated during the early part of the 20th century, but the state has since been repopulated with Victorian stock. | data/set1/a3 | Koala
The koala (Phascolarctos cinereus) is a thickset arboreal marsupial herbivore native to Australia, and the only extant representative of the family Phascolarctidae.
The koala is found in coastal regions of eastern and southern Australia, from near Adelaide to the southern part of Cape York Peninsula. Populations also extend for considerable distances inland in regions with enough moisture to support suitable woodlands. The koalas of South Australia were largely exterminated during the early part of the 20th century, but the state has since been repopulated with Victorian stock. The koala is not found in Tasmania or Western Australia.
The word koala comes from the Dharuk gula. Although the vowel was originally written in the Latin alphabet as "oo" (in spellings such as coola or koolah), it was changed to "oa" possibly due to an error. The word is erroneously said to mean "doesn't drink".
The scientific name of the koala's genus, Phascolarctos, is derived from Greek phaskolos "pouch" and arktos "bear". Its species name, cinereus, is Latin and means "ash-coloured".
Although the koala is not a bear, English-speaking settlers from the late 18th century first called it koala bear due to its similarity in appearance to bears. Although taxonomically incorrect, the name koala bear is still in use today outside Australia â its use is discouraged because of the inaccuracy in the name. Other descriptive English names based on "bear" have included monkey bear, native bear, and tree-bear.
A Southern koala on Kangaroo Island, not native to the island
Although three subspecies have been described, these are arbitrary selections from a cline and are not generally accepted as valid. Following Bergmann's Rule, southern individuals from the cooler climates are larger. A typical Victorian koala (formerly P. cinereus victor) has longer, thicker fur, is a darker, softer grey, often with chocolate-brown highlights on the back and forearms, and has a more prominently light-coloured ventral side and fluffy white ear tufts. Typical and New South Wales koala weights are for males and for females. In tropical and sub-tropical Queensland, however, the koala is smaller (at around for an average male and just over for an average female), a lighter often rather scruffy grey in colour, and has shorter, thinner fur. In Queensland, the koala was previously classified as the subspecies P. cinereus adustus, and the intermediate forms in New South Wales as P. cinereus cinereus. A fourth variation, though not technically a subspecies, is Phascolarctos cinereus aurum, or in English "golden koala," which has a slight golden tinge to the fur as a result of an absence of the melanin pigment that produces albinism in most other mammalian species. The variation from one form to another is continuous and there are substantial differences between individual koalas in any given region such as hair colour.
The origins of the koala are unclear, although almost certainly they descended from terrestrial wombat-like animals. Koala fossils are quite rare, but some have been found in northern Australia dating to 20 million years ago. During this time, the northern half of Australia was rainforest. The koala did not specialise in a diet of eucalyptus until the climate cooled and eucalypt forests grew in the place of rainforests. The fossil record indicates that before 50,000 years ago, giant koalas inhabited the southern regions of Australia. The koala fills the same ecological role as the sloth of South America.
Female
Koalas have a slow metabolism and sleep for most of the day
The koala is broadly similar in appearance to the wombat (its closest living relative), but has a thicker coat, much larger ears, and longer limbs. The koala has large, sharp claws to assist with climbing tree trunks. Weight varies from about for a large southern male, to about for a small northern female. The koala's five fingers are arranged with opposable thumbs, providing better gripping ability. The first two fingers are positioned in apposition on the front paws, and the first three fingers for the hind paws. The koala is one of the few mammals (other than primates) that has fingerprints. Koala fingerprints are similar to human fingerprints; even with an electron microscope, it can be quite difficult to distinguish between the two.
The teeth of the koala are adapted to their herbivorous diet, and are similar to those of other diprotodont marsupials, such as kangaroos and wombats. They have sharp incisors to clip leaves at the front of the mouth, separated from the grinding cheek teeth by a wide diastema. The dental formula for koalas is:
The male koala, like many marsupials, has a bifurcated penis. The female has two lateral vaginas and two separate uteri, which is common to all marsupials.
Koala walking along a branch. Koalas also walk on all four legs when walking on the ground
The brain in the ancestors of the modern koala once filled the whole cranial cavity, but has become drastically reduced in the present species, a degeneration scientists suspect is an adaptation to a diet low in energy. One of the smallest in marsupials with no more than 0.2% of its body weight, about 40% of the cranial cavity is filled with cerebrospinal fluid, while the brain's two cerebral hemispheres are like "a pair of shrivelled walnut halves on top of the brain stem, in contact neither with each other nor the bones of the skull. It is the only animal on Earth with such a strangely reduced brain."
It is generally a silent animal, but males have a very loud advertising call that can be heard from almost a kilometre away during the breeding season. When under stress, koalas may issue a loud cry, which has been reported as similar to that of a human baby. There is little reliable information about the lifespan of the koala, but in captivity they have been observed to reach the age of 18 years.
A young joey, preserved at Port Macquarie Koala Hospital
Baby koala on a mothers back
Females reach maturity at 2 to 3 years of age, males at 3 to 4 years. A healthy female koala can produce one young each year for about 12 years. Gestation is 35 days. Twins are very rare; the world's first confirmed identical twin koalas, named "Euca" and "Lyptus", were born at the University of Queensland in April, 1999. /ref> Mating normally occurs between December and March, the Southern Hemisphere's summer.
A baby koala is referred to as a joey and is hairless, blind, and earless. At birth the joey, only a quarter of an inch long, crawls into the downward-facing pouch on the mother's belly (which is closed by a drawstring-like muscle that the mother can tighten at will) and attaches itself to one of the two teats.
Young remain hidden in the pouch for about six months, only feeding on milk. During this time they grow ears, eyes, and fur. The joey then begins to explore outside of the pouch. At about this stage it begins to consume small quantities of the motherâs "pap" (formerly thought to be excrement, but now thought to come from the mother's cecum) in order to inoculate its gut with the microbes necessary to digest eucalypt leaves. The joey will remain with its mother for another six months or so, riding on her back, and feeding on both milk and eucalypt leaves until weaning is complete at about 12 months of age. Young females disperse to nearby areas at that time; young males often stay in the mother's home range until they are two or three years old.
Koala with young
Koala dozing during the day
The koala lives almost entirely on eucalypt leaves. This is likely to be an evolutionary adaptation that takes advantage of an otherwise unfilled ecological niche, since eucalypt leaves are low in protein, high in indigestible substances, and contain phenolic and terpene compounds that are toxic to most species. Like wombats and sloths, the koala has a very low metabolic rate for a mammal and rests motionless for about 16 to 18 hours a day, sleeping most of that time. Koalas can be aggressive towards each other, throwing a foreleg around their opponent and biting, though most aggressive behavior is brief squabbles. Handling koalas may cause them stress, and the issue of aggression and stress from handling is a political issue in Australia.
Koalas spend about three of their five active hours eating. Feeding occurs at any time of day, but usually at night. Koalas eat an average of of eucalypt leaves each day, chewing them with powerful jaws to a very fine paste before swallowing. The liver deactivates the toxic components ready for excretion, and the hind gut (especially the caecum) is greatly enlarged to extract the maximum amount of nutrient from the poor quality diet. Much of this is done through bacterial fermentation: while young are being weaned, the mother passes these essential digestive aids on to her offspring.
A koala eating eucalyptus
Koala in tree, scratching grooming
The koala will eat the leaves of a wide range of eucalypts, and occasionally even some non-eucalypt species such as Acacia, Leptospermum, and Melaleuca. It has firm preferences for particular varieties of eucalypt and these preferences vary from one region to another: in the south Manna Gum, Blue Gum, and Swamp Gum are favoured; Grey Gum and Tallowwood are important in the north, and the ubiquitous River Red Gum of the isolated seasonal swamps and watercourses that meander across the dry inland plains allows the koala to live in surprisingly arid areas. Many factors determine which of the 680 species of eucalypt trees the koala eats. Among trees of their favourite species, however, the major factor that determines which individual trees the koala chooses is the concentration of a group of phenolic toxins called formylated phloroglucinol compounds.
The Australian Government currently lists the koala as a priority species for conservation status assessment. Government estimates of the national koala population numbers in the hundreds of thousands, although other studies have estimated as few as 80,000 koalas left in the wild. The Australian Koala Foundation estimates there are around 100,000 koalas left in the wild.
The IUCN lists the species as "Least Concern". The Australian government does not consider the species to be threatened, although the US government has declared the koala a threatened species.
The koala inhabits four Australian states. Under state legislation, the species is listed as:
*Queensland â Common, or "Least Concern Wildlife" throughout the state, except in the South East Queensland bioregion, where it is listed as vulnerable.
*New South Wales â listed at a state scale as vulnerable, but varying regionally from secure to locally extinct.
*South Australia â classified as rare.
*Victoria â The koala population in Victoria was considered large and thriving, according to an article which was last reviewed on 29 October, 2007.
The koala was hunted almost to extinction in the early 20th century, largely for its fur. Millions of furs were traded to Europe and the United States, and the population has not fully recovered from such decimations. Extensive cullings occurred in Queensland in 1915, 1917, and again in 1919 when over one million koalas were killed with guns, poisons, and nooses. The public outcry over the cullings was most likely the first wide-scale environmental issue that rallied Australians. Despite the growing movement to protect native species, the poverty brought about by the drought of 1926â28 led to another 600,000 koalas being killed during a one-month open season in August 1927.
Today, habitat loss and the impacts of urbanisation (such as dog attacks and traffic accidents) are the leading threats to the survival of the koala. In recent years, some colonies have been hard hit by disease, especially chlamydia. Koalas 'extinct within 30 years' after chlamydia outbreak, by Bonnie Malkin, The Telegraph, 10 Nov 2009 The koala requires large areas of healthy, connected forest and will travel long distances along tree corridors in search of new territory and mates. The increasing human population of the coastal parts of the continent continues to cut these corridors by agricultural and residential development, forestry, and road-building, marooning koala colonies in decreasing areas of bush. The long term viability of the koala is therefore threatened by genetic weakness . The Australian Koala Foundation is the principal organisation dedicated to the conservation of the koala and its habitat, mapping of land for koala habitat and claiming strong evidence that wild koala populations are in serious decline throughout the species natural range.
Although the species covers a large area, only 'pieces' of koala habitat remain. Presently, many habitats are lost to weeds, clearance for agriculture, or carved up by developers. Other threats come from logging, poor management, attacks from feral and domestic animals, diseases, and roads.
In contrast to the situation on much of the mainland, where populations are declining, koalas, like many other species, can overrun smaller islands or isolated regions where they have been introduced. On Kangaroo Island in South Australia, koalas introduced some 90 years ago have thrived in the absence of predators and competition. Combined with an inability to migrate to new areas, this has caused the koala populations to become unsustainable and threaten the island's unique ecology. In particular, species of Manna Gum, native to the island, are being stripped by koalas at a rate faster than they can regenerate, endangering local birds and invertebrates that rely on them, and causing the extinction of at least one isolated population of manna. Koala numbers are estimated at over 30,000 , with ecologists suggesting that the island can sustain 10,000 at most . Although culling has been suggested as a means to reduce koala numbers, with the South Australian government seriously considering such in 1996, this has met with fierce opposition both domestically and internationally, and the species remains protected. The popularity of the koala has made the possibility of a cull politically improbable, with any negative perception likely to impact tourism and a government's electability. In place of a cull, sterilization and relocation programs have had only limited success in reducing numbers thus far, and remain expensive. There is evidence that koalas relocated to the mainland have difficulty establishing themselves in the different circumstances. A mooted alternative to the complex sterilization method, wherein the animal must first be captured, are hormonal implants that can be injected via darts.
As with most native Australian animals, the koala cannot legally be kept as a pet in Australia or anywhere else. The only people who are permitted to keep koalas are wildlife carers and, occasionally, research scientists. These individuals are issued with special permits to care for koalas, but have to return them to the wild when they are either well enough or, in the case of joeys, old enough.
*Fauna of Australia
*Koala emblems and popular culture
*List of monotremes and marsupials
* Australian Koala Foundation
* Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary
* The Koala
|
Korean_language | Is Korean the official language of Korea? | Yes | data/set5/a6 | Korean_language
:This article is mainly about the spoken Korean language. See Hangul for details on the native Korean writing system.
Korean ( , see below) is the official language of Korea, both South and North. It is also one of the two official languages in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in China. There are about 78 million Korean speakers. In the 15th century a national writing system was commissioned by Sejong the Great, currently called Hangul. Prior to the development of Hangul, Koreans used Hanja (Chinese characters) to write for over a millennia.
The genealogical classification of the Korean language is debated by a small number of linguists. Most classify it as a language isolate Song, Jae Jung (2005) "The Korean language: structure, use and context" Routledge, p. 15
Lyle Campbell & Mauricio Mixco. 2007. A Glossary of Historical Linguistics. University of Utah Press. while a few consider it to be in the Altaic language family. Stratification in the peopling of China: how far does the linguistic evidence match genetics and archaeology? In; Sanchez-Mazas, Blench, Ross, Lin & Pejros eds. Human migrations in continental East Asia and Taiwan: genetic, linguistic and archaeological evidence. 2008. Taylor & Francis Some believe it to be distantly related to Japanese. Like Japanese it is agglutinative in its morphology and SOV in its syntax.
The Korean names for the language are based on the names for Korea used in North and South Korea.
In South Korea, the language is most often called Hangungmal
( ; ), or more formally, Hangugeo ( ; ) or Gugeo ( ; ; literally "national language").
In North Korea and Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in China, the language is most often called ChosÅnmal ( ; with hanja: ), or more formally, ChosÅnÅ ( ; ).
On the other hand, Korean people in the former USSR, who refer to themselves as Koryo-saram (ê³ ë ¤ì¬ë; also Goryeoin [ ; ; literally, "Goryeo person(s)"]) call the language Goryeomal ( ; ).
In mainland China, following the establishment of diplomatic relations with South Korea in 1992, the term CháoxiÇnyÇ ( or the short form: CháoyÇ ( )) has normally been used to refer to the language spoken in North Korea and Yanbian, while HánguóyÇ ( or the short form: HányÇ ( )) is used to refer to the language spoken in South Korea.
Some older English sources also used the name "Korean" to refer to the language, country, and people. The word "Korean" is derived from Goryeo, which is thought to be the first dynasty known to western countries.
Most modern linguists consider Korean to be a language isolate Song, Jae Jung (2005) "The Korean language: structure, use and context" Routledge, p. 15
Lyle Campbell & Mauricio J. Mixco. 2007. A Glossary of Historical Linguistics. University of Utah Press.
Since the publication of the article of Ramstedt in 1928, some linguists eg Miller 1971, 1996, Starostin et al. 2003 support the hypothesis that Korean can be classified as an Altaic language or as a relative of proto-Altaic. Korean is similar to the Altaic languages in that they both lack certain grammatical elements, including articles, fusional morphology and relative pronouns. However, linguists agree today on the fact that typological resemblances cannot be used to prove genetic relatedness of languages eg Vovin 2008: 1 as these features are typologically connected and easily borrowed. Trask 1996: 147-151 Such factors of typological divergence as Middle Mongolian's exhibition of gender agreement Rybatzki 2003: 57 can be used to argue that a genetic relationship is unlikely. Vovin 2008: 5
The hypothesis that Korean might be related to Japanese has had some more supporters due to some considerable overlap in vocabulary and similar grammatical features that have been elaborated upon by such researchers as Samuel E. Martin eg Martin 1966, 1990 and Roy Andrew Miller. eg Miller 1971, 1996 Sergei Starostin (1991) found about 25% of potential cognates in the Japanese-Korean 100-word Swadesh list, which - if true - would place these two languages closer together than other possible members of the Altaic family.
Other linguists, most notably Alexander Vovin, argue, however, that the similarities are not due to any genetic relationship, but rather to a sprachbund effect and heavy borrowing especially from Korean into Western Old Japanese. Vovin 2008 A good example might be Middle Korean sà m Whitman 1985: 232, also found in Martin 1966: 233 This word seems to be cognate, but while it is well-attested in Western Old Japanese and Northern RyÅ«kyÅ«, in Eastern Old Japanese it only occurs in compounds, and it is only present in three subdialects of the South-RyÅ«kyÅ«an dialect group. Then, the doublet wo âhempâ is attested in Western Old Japanese and Southern RyÅ«kyÅ«. It is thus plausible to assume a borrowed term. Vovin 2008: 211-212 See East Asian languages for morphological features shared among languages of the East Asian sprachbund, and Classification of Japanese for further details on the discussion of a possible relationship.
Korean is descended from Old Korean, Middle Korean and Modern Korean. Controversy remains over the proposed Altaic language family and its inclusion of Proto-Korean. Since the Korean War, contemporary North-South differences in Korean have developed, including variance in pronunciation, verb inflection, and vocabulary.
Korean is spoken by the Korean people in North Korea and South Korea and by the Korean diaspora in many countries including the People's Republic of China, Japan, and the United States. Korean-speaking minorities exist in these states, but because of cultural assimilation into host countries, not all ethnic Korean immigrants may speak it with native fluency.
Korean is the official language of South Korea and North Korea. It is also one of the two official languages of the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in China.
In South Korea, the regulatory body for Korean is the Seoul-based National Institute of the Korean Language ( ), which was created by presidential decree on January 23, 1991. In North Korea, the regulatory body is the Sahoe Kwahagwon Åhak YÅnguso ( ).
Dialects of Korean
Korean has several dialects (called mal [literally "speech"], saturi, or bang-eon in Korean). The standard language (pyojuneo or pyojunmal) of South Korea is based on the dialect of the area around Seoul, and the standard for North Korea is based on the dialect spoken around P'yÅngyang. All dialects of Korean are similar to each other, and are in fact all mutually intelligible, perhaps with the exception of the dialect of Jeju Island (see Jeju dialect). The dialect spoken in Jeju is in fact classified as a different language by some Korean linguists. One of the most notable differences between dialects is the use of stress: speakers of Seoul dialect use very little stress, and standard South Korean has a very flat intonation; on the other hand, speakers of the Gyeongsang dialect have a very pronounced intonation.
It is also worth noting that there is substantial evidence for a history of extensive dialect levelling, or even convergent evolution or intermixture of two or more originally distinct linguistic stocks, within the Korean language and its dialects. Many Korean dialects have basic vocabulary that is etymologically distinct from vocabulary of identical meaning in Standard Korean or other dialects, such as South Jeolla dialect /kur/ vs. Standard Korean ì
"mouth" or Gyeongsang dialect vs. Standard Korean "garlic chives." This suggests that the Korean Peninsula may have at one time been much more linguistically diverse than it is at present. See also the Buyeo languages hypothesis.
There is a very close connection between the dialects of Korean and the regions of Korea, since the boundaries of both are largely determined by mountains and seas. Here is a list of traditional dialect names and locations:
The Korean consonants
The IPA symbol (a subscript double straight quotation mark, shown here with a placeholder circle) is used to denote the tensed consonants . Its official use in the Extensions to the IPA is for 'strong' articulation, but is used in the literature for faucalized voice. The Korean consonants also have elements of stiff voice, but it is not yet known how typical this is of faucalized consonants. They are produced with a partially constricted glottis and additional subglottal pressure in addition to tense vocal tract walls, laryngeal lowering, or other expansion of the larynx.
becomes an alveolo-palatal before or for most speakers (but see Differences in the language between North Korea and South Korea). This occurs with the tense fricative and all the affricates as well. At the end of a syllable, /s/ changes to /t/ (Example: beoseot (ë²ì¯) 'mushroom').
may become a bilabial before or , a palatal before or , a velar before , a voiced between voiced sounds, and a elsewhere.
become voiced between voiced sounds.
becomes alveolar flap between vowels, and or at the end of a syllable or next to another . Note that a written syllable-final 'ã¹', when followed by a vowel or a glide (i.e., when the next character starts with 'ã
'), migrates to the next syllable and thus becomes .
Traditionally, was disallowed at the beginning of a word. It disappeared before , and otherwise became . However, the inflow of western loanword changed the trend, and now word-initial (mostly from English loanwords) are pronounced as a free variation of either or . The traditional prohibition of word-initial became a morphological rule called "initial law" (ëìë²ì¹) in South Korea, which pertains to Sino-Korean vocabulary. Such words retain their word-initial in North Korea.
All obstruents (plosives, affricates, fricatives) are unreleased at the end of a word.
Plosive stops become nasal stops before nasal stops.
Hangul spelling does not reflect these assimilatory pronunciation rules, but rather maintains the underlying, partly historical morphology. Given this, it is sometimes hard to tell which actual phonemes are present in a certain word.
One difference between the pronunciation standards of North and South Korea is the treatment of initial , and initial . For example,
* "labour" - north: rodong (ë¡ë), south: nodong (ë
¸ë)
* "history" - north: ryÅksa (ë ¥ì¬), south: yeoksa (ìì¬)
* "female" - north: nyÅja (ë
ì), south: yeoja (ì¬ì)
Grammatical morphemes may change shape depending on the preceding sounds. Examples include -eun/-neun (-ì/-ë) and -i/-ga (-ì´/-ê°). Sometimes sounds may be inserted instead. Examples include -eul/-reul (-ì/-를), -euro/-ro (-ì¼ë¡/-ë¡), -eseo/-seo (-ìì/-ì), -ideunji/-deunji (-ì´ë ì§/-ë ì§) and -iya/-ya (-ì´ì¼/-ì¼). However, -euro/-ro is somewhat irregular, since it will behave differently after a rieul consonant.
Some verbs may also change shape morphophonemically.
Korean is an agglutinative language. Modifiers generally precede the modified words, and in the case of verb modifiers, can be serially appended. The basic form of a Korean sentence is Subject Object Verb, but the verb is the only required and immovable element.
:"Did [you] go to the store?" ("you" implied in conversation)
:"Yes."
The Korean Language contains nine parts of speech.
Korean verbs ( , tongsa, ) are also known in English as "action verbs" or "dynamic verbs" to distinguish them from [ , hyeong-yongsa, "adjectives"]), which are also known as "descriptive verbs" or "stative verbs". Examples of action/dynamic verbs include (hada, "to do") and (kada, "to go") which constitute an action or movement as opposed to descriptive verbs such as (yehppeuda, "to be beautiful"). For a larger list of Korean verbs, see .
Unlike most of the European languages, Korean does not conjugate verbs using agreement with the subject, and nouns have no gender. Instead, verb conjugations depend upon the verb tense, aspect, mood, and the social relation between the speaker, the subjects, and the listeners.
The system of speech levels and honorifics loosely resembles the T-V distinction of most Indo-European languages. For example, different endings are used depending on the speaker's relation with their subject or audience. Politeness is a critical part of Korean language and Korean culture, therefore, when talking to someone esteemed, the correct verb ending must be chosen to indicate the proper respect.
Words categorized as Korean adjectives ( , hyeong-yongsa, ) conjugate similarly to verbs, so some English texts call them "descriptive verbs" or "stative verbs", but they are distinctly separate from (tongsa).
English does not have an identical grammatical category, so the English translation of Korean adjectives may misleadingly suggest that they are verbs. For example, (pukda) translates literally as "to be red" and (aswipda) often best translates as "to lack" or "to want for", but both are (hyeong-yongsa, "adjectives"). For a larger list of Korean adjectives, see .
Korean pre-nouns ( , gwanhyeongsa, ) are also known in English as "determinatives", "attributives", and "unconjugated adjectives". Examples include (kak, "each"). For a larger list, see .
Core and basic noun words are native to the Korean language, e.g. (nara, country), (nal, day). A large body of Korean nouns ( , myeongsa, ) stem from Chinese characters, e.g. (å±±, san, mountain), (é©, yeok, station), (æå, munhwa, culture), etc. Many Sino-Korean words have a native Korean equivalent and vice versa, but not always. Nouns do not have grammatical gender and can be made plural by adding ë¤ to the end of the word, however in most instances the singular form is used even when in English it would be translated as plural. For example, while in English the sentence "there are three apples" would use the plural "apples" instead of the singular "apple", the Korean sentence ì¬ê³¼ ì¸ê° ììµëë¤ (sagwa segae isssumnida) maintains the word ì¬ê³¼ (sagwa, "apple") in its singular form, thus rendered in English as "apple three(things) exist." For a list of Korean nouns, see .
Korean pronouns ( , daemyeongsa, ) are highly influenced by the honorifics in the language. Pronouns change forms depending on the social status of the person or persons spoken to, e.g. the pronoun for "I" there is both the informal (na) and the honorific/humble (jeo). In general second person singular pronouns are avoided, especially when using honorific forms. For a larger list or Korean pronouns, see .
Korean adverbs ( , busa, ) include (tto, "also") and (gadeuk, "fully"). For a larger list, see .
Korean particles ( , josa, ) are also known in English as "postpositions". Examples include (neun, topic marker) and (reul, object marker). For a larger list, see .
Korean interjections ( , gamtansa, ) are also known in English as "exclamations". Examples include (ani, "no"). For a larger list, see .
Korean numbers or numerals ( , susa, ) constitute two regularly used sets: a native Korean set and a Sino-Korean set. The Sino-Korean system is nearly entirely based on the Chinese numerals. The distinction between the two numeral systems is very important. Everything that can be counted will use one of the two systems, but seldom both. Sino-Korean words are sometimes used to mark ordinal usage: yeol beon (ì´ ë²) means "ten times" while sip beon (ì(å) ë²(çª)) means "number ten." The grouping of large numbers in Korean follow the Chinese tradition of myriads (10000) rather than thousands (1000) as is common in Europe and North America.
The relationship between a speaker or writer and his or her subject and audience is paramount in Korean, and the grammar reflects this. The relationship between speaker/writer and subject referent is reflected in honorifics, while that between speaker/writer and audience is reflected in speech level.
When talking about someone superior in status, a speaker or writer usually uses special nouns or verb endings to indicate the subject's superiority. Generally, someone is superior in status if he/she is an older relative, a stranger of roughly equal or greater age, or an employer, teacher, customer, or the like. Someone is equal or inferior in status if he/she is a younger stranger, student, employee or the like. Nowadays, there are special endings which can be used on declarative, interrogative, and imperative sentences; and both honorific or normal sentences. They are made for easier and faster use of Korean.
There are seven verb paradigms or speech levels in Korean, and each level has its own unique set of verb endings which are used to indicate the level of formality of a situation. Unlike honorificsâwhich are used to show respect towards the referentâspeech levels are used to show respect towards a speaker's or writer's audience. The names of the seven levels are derived from the non-honorific imperative form of the verb íë¤ (hada, "do") in each level, plus the suffix ì²´ ("che", hanja: é« ), which means "style".
The highest six levels are generally grouped together as jondaenmal (ì¡´ëë§), while the lowest level (haeche, í´ì²´) is called banmal (ë°ë§) in Korean.
The core of the Korean vocabulary is made up of native Korean words. Like Japanese and Vietnamese, a significant proportion of the vocabulary, especially words that denote abstract ideas, are Sino-Korean words, Sohn, Ho-Min. The Korean Language (Section 1.5.3 "Korean vocabulary", p.12â13), Cambridge University Press, 2001. ISBN 0521369436. either
* directly borrowed from Written Chinese, or
* coined in Japan or Korea using Chinese characters,
in a similar way European languages borrow from Latin and Greek.
The exact proportion of Sino-Korean vocabulary is a matter of debate. Sohn (2001) stated 50-60%. However, Jeong Jae-do, one of the compilers of the dictionary Urimal Kun Sajeon, asserts that the proportion is not so high. He points out that Korean dictionaries compiled during the period of Japanese occupation include many unused Sino-Korean words. In his estimation, the proportion of native Korean vocabulary in the Korean language might be as high as 70%. . The dictionary mentioned is
Korean has two number systems: one native, and one borrowed from Chinese.
To a much lesser extent, words have also occasionally been borrowed from Mongolian, Sanskrit, and other languages. Conversely, the Korean language itself has also contributed some loanwords to other languages, most notably the Tsushima dialect of Japanese.
The vast majority of loanwords other than Sino-Korean come from modern times, 90% of which are from English. Many words have also been borrowed from Japanese and Western languages such as German (areubaiteu "part-time job", allereugi "allergy", "gibsu" "plaster cast used for broken bones"). Some Western words were borrowed indirectly via Japanese, taking a Japanese sound pattern, for example "dozen" > dÄsu > daseu. Most indirect Western borrowings are now written according to current Hangulization rules for the respective Western language, as if borrowed directly. There are a few more complicated borrowings such as "German(y)" (see Names for Germany), the first part of whose endonym the Japanese approximated using the kanji doitsu that were then accepted into the Korean language by their Sino-Korean pronunciation: dok + il = Dogil. In South Korean official use, a number of other Sino-Korean country names have been replaced with phonetically oriented Hangulizations of the countries' endonyms or English names.
As in Japanese, Korean adapts words in ways that are uncommon in English. For example, in soccer heading ( ) is used to label a head-strike, rather than direction. This is a corrupted loan word from the English header.
North Korean vocabulary shows a tendency to prefer native Korean over Sino-Korean or foreign borrowings, especially with recent political objectives aimed at eliminating foreign (mostly Chinese) influences on the Korean language in the North. By contrast, South Korean may have several Sino-Korean or foreign borrowings which tend to be absent in North Korean.
Formerly the languages of the Korean peninsula were written using Chinese characters, using hyangchal or idu. Such systems relied on principles of rebus, and were lost, later in history. Writing became confined to the ruling elite, who used hanja to write in Classical Chinese.
Korean is now mainly written in Hangul, the Korean alphabet promulgated in 1446 by Sejong the Great; hanja may be mixed in to write Sino-Korean words. While South Korean schools still teach 1,800 hanja characters, North Korea had abolished the use of hanja decades ago.
Below is a chart of the Korean alphabet's symbols and their canonical IPA values:
Modern Korean is written with spaces between words, a feature not found in Chinese or Japanese. Korean punctuation marks are almost identical to Western ones. Traditionally, Korean was written in columns from top to bottom, right to left, but is now usually written in rows from left to right, top to bottom.
The Korean language used in the North and the South exhibits differences in pronunciation, spelling, grammar and vocabulary. Kanno, Hiroomi (ed.) / Society for Korean Linguistics in Japan (1987). ChÅsengo o manabÅ (ãæé®®èªãå¦ã¼ãã), SanshÅ«sha, Tokyo. ISBN 4-384-01506-2
In North Korea, palatalization of is optional, and can be pronounced between vowels.
Words that are written the same way may be pronounced differently, such as the examples below. The pronunciations below are given in Revised Romanization, McCune-Reischauer and Hangul, the last of which represents what the Hangul would be if one writes the word as pronounced.
* Similar pronunciation is used in the North whenever the hanja "ç" is attached to a Sino-Korean word ending in ã´, ã
or ã
. (In the South, this rule only applies when it is attached to any single-character Sino-Korean word.)
Some words are spelled differently by the North and the South, but the pronunciations are the same.
Some words have different spellings and pronunciations in the North and the South, some of which were given in the "Phonology" section above:
In general, when transcribing place names, North Korea tends to use the pronunciation in the original language more than South Korea, which often uses the pronunciation in English. For example:
Some grammatical constructions are also different:
Some vocabulary is different between the North and the South:
In the North, guillemets and are the symbols used for quotes; in the South, quotation marks equivalent to the English ones, â and â, are standard, although and are sometimes used in popular novels.
The United States' Defense Language Institute classifies Korean alongside Arabic, Chinese, and Japanese as a Category IV language, meaning that 63 weeks of instruction (as compared to just 25 weeks for French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian) are required to bring an English-speaking student to a limited working level of proficiency in which he or she has "sufficient capability to meet routine social demands and limited job requirements" and "can deal with concrete topics in past, present, and future tense." As a result, the study of the Korean language in the United States is dominated by Korean American heritage language students; they are estimated to form over 80% of all students of the language at non-military universities.
However, Korean is considerably easier for speakers of certain other languages, such as Japanese ; in Japan, it is more widely studied by non-heritage learners. The Korean Language Proficiency Test, an examination aimed at assessing non-native speakers' competence in Korean, was instituted in 1997; 17,000 people applied for the 2005 sitting of the examination.
*Hangul
*Korean romanization
**Revised romanization of Korean
**McCune-Reischauer
**Yale Romanization#Korean
**SKATS
*Korean numerals
*Korean count word
*Korean language and computers
*Hanja
*Sino-Korean vocabulary
*Korean mixed script
*List of English words of Korean origin
*Altaic languages
*List of Korea-related topics
*Vowel harmony
* (Volume 4 of the London Oriental and African Language Library).
*Hulbert, Homer B. (1905): A Comparative Grammar of the Korean Language and the Dravidian Dialects in India. Seoul.
*Martin, Samuel E. (1966): Lexical Evidence Relating Japanese to Korean. Language 42/2: 185â251.
*Martin, Samuel E. (1990): Morphological clues to the relationship of Japanese and Korean. In: Philip Baldi (ed.): Linguistic Change and Reconstruction Methodology. Trends in Linguistics: Studies and Monographs 45: 483-509.
*Miller, Roy Andrew (1971): Japanese and the Other Altaic Languages. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0226527190.
*Miller, Roy Andrew (1996): Languages and History: Japanese, Korean and Altaic. Oslo: Institute for Comparative Research in Human Culture. ISBN 9748299694.
*Ramstedt, G. J. (1928): Remarks on the Korean language. Mémoires de la Société Finno-Oigrienne 58.
*Rybatzki, Volker (2003): Middle Mongol. In: Juha Janhunen (ed.) (2003): The Mongolic languages. London: Routledge. ISBN 0-7007-1133-3: 47â82.
*Starostin, Sergei A.; Anna V. Dybo; Oleg A. Mudrak (2003): Etymological Dictionary of the Altaic Languages, 3 volumes. Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers. ISBN 9004131531.
*Sohn, H.-M. (1999): The Korean Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Song, J.-J. (2005): The Korean Language: Structure, Use and Context. London: Routledge.
*Trask, R. L. (1996): Historical linguistics. Hodder Arnold.
*Vovin, Alexander: Koreo-Japonica. University of Hawai'i Press.
*Whitman, John B. (1985): The Phonological Basis for the Comparison of Japanese and Korean. Unpublished Harvard University Ph.D. dissertation.
* Ethnologue report for Korean
* Linguistic and Philosophical Origins of the Korean Alphabet (Hangul)
* Free Korean language and culture course online, in English
* Linguistic map of Korea
* Korean - a Category III language Languages which are exceptionally difficult for native English speakers
* dongsa.net A Korean verb conjugation tool that explains the conjugations for learners of Korean
|
Korean_language | Is Korean the official language of Korea? | Yes | data/set5/a6 | Korean_language
:This article is mainly about the spoken Korean language. See Hangul for details on the native Korean writing system.
Korean ( , see below) is the official language of Korea, both South and North. It is also one of the two official languages in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in China. There are about 78 million Korean speakers. In the 15th century a national writing system was commissioned by Sejong the Great, currently called Hangul. Prior to the development of Hangul, Koreans used Hanja (Chinese characters) to write for over a millennia.
The genealogical classification of the Korean language is debated by a small number of linguists. Most classify it as a language isolate Song, Jae Jung (2005) "The Korean language: structure, use and context" Routledge, p. 15
Lyle Campbell & Mauricio Mixco. 2007. A Glossary of Historical Linguistics. University of Utah Press. while a few consider it to be in the Altaic language family. Stratification in the peopling of China: how far does the linguistic evidence match genetics and archaeology? In; Sanchez-Mazas, Blench, Ross, Lin & Pejros eds. Human migrations in continental East Asia and Taiwan: genetic, linguistic and archaeological evidence. 2008. Taylor & Francis Some believe it to be distantly related to Japanese. Like Japanese it is agglutinative in its morphology and SOV in its syntax.
The Korean names for the language are based on the names for Korea used in North and South Korea.
In South Korea, the language is most often called Hangungmal
( ; ), or more formally, Hangugeo ( ; ) or Gugeo ( ; ; literally "national language").
In North Korea and Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in China, the language is most often called ChosÅnmal ( ; with hanja: ), or more formally, ChosÅnÅ ( ; ).
On the other hand, Korean people in the former USSR, who refer to themselves as Koryo-saram (ê³ ë ¤ì¬ë; also Goryeoin [ ; ; literally, "Goryeo person(s)"]) call the language Goryeomal ( ; ).
In mainland China, following the establishment of diplomatic relations with South Korea in 1992, the term CháoxiÇnyÇ ( or the short form: CháoyÇ ( )) has normally been used to refer to the language spoken in North Korea and Yanbian, while HánguóyÇ ( or the short form: HányÇ ( )) is used to refer to the language spoken in South Korea.
Some older English sources also used the name "Korean" to refer to the language, country, and people. The word "Korean" is derived from Goryeo, which is thought to be the first dynasty known to western countries.
Most modern linguists consider Korean to be a language isolate Song, Jae Jung (2005) "The Korean language: structure, use and context" Routledge, p. 15
Lyle Campbell & Mauricio J. Mixco. 2007. A Glossary of Historical Linguistics. University of Utah Press.
Since the publication of the article of Ramstedt in 1928, some linguists eg Miller 1971, 1996, Starostin et al. 2003 support the hypothesis that Korean can be classified as an Altaic language or as a relative of proto-Altaic. Korean is similar to the Altaic languages in that they both lack certain grammatical elements, including articles, fusional morphology and relative pronouns. However, linguists agree today on the fact that typological resemblances cannot be used to prove genetic relatedness of languages eg Vovin 2008: 1 as these features are typologically connected and easily borrowed. Trask 1996: 147-151 Such factors of typological divergence as Middle Mongolian's exhibition of gender agreement Rybatzki 2003: 57 can be used to argue that a genetic relationship is unlikely. Vovin 2008: 5
The hypothesis that Korean might be related to Japanese has had some more supporters due to some considerable overlap in vocabulary and similar grammatical features that have been elaborated upon by such researchers as Samuel E. Martin eg Martin 1966, 1990 and Roy Andrew Miller. eg Miller 1971, 1996 Sergei Starostin (1991) found about 25% of potential cognates in the Japanese-Korean 100-word Swadesh list, which - if true - would place these two languages closer together than other possible members of the Altaic family.
Other linguists, most notably Alexander Vovin, argue, however, that the similarities are not due to any genetic relationship, but rather to a sprachbund effect and heavy borrowing especially from Korean into Western Old Japanese. Vovin 2008 A good example might be Middle Korean sà m Whitman 1985: 232, also found in Martin 1966: 233 This word seems to be cognate, but while it is well-attested in Western Old Japanese and Northern RyÅ«kyÅ«, in Eastern Old Japanese it only occurs in compounds, and it is only present in three subdialects of the South-RyÅ«kyÅ«an dialect group. Then, the doublet wo âhempâ is attested in Western Old Japanese and Southern RyÅ«kyÅ«. It is thus plausible to assume a borrowed term. Vovin 2008: 211-212 See East Asian languages for morphological features shared among languages of the East Asian sprachbund, and Classification of Japanese for further details on the discussion of a possible relationship.
Korean is descended from Old Korean, Middle Korean and Modern Korean. Controversy remains over the proposed Altaic language family and its inclusion of Proto-Korean. Since the Korean War, contemporary North-South differences in Korean have developed, including variance in pronunciation, verb inflection, and vocabulary.
Korean is spoken by the Korean people in North Korea and South Korea and by the Korean diaspora in many countries including the People's Republic of China, Japan, and the United States. Korean-speaking minorities exist in these states, but because of cultural assimilation into host countries, not all ethnic Korean immigrants may speak it with native fluency.
Korean is the official language of South Korea and North Korea. It is also one of the two official languages of the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in China.
In South Korea, the regulatory body for Korean is the Seoul-based National Institute of the Korean Language ( ), which was created by presidential decree on January 23, 1991. In North Korea, the regulatory body is the Sahoe Kwahagwon Åhak YÅnguso ( ).
Dialects of Korean
Korean has several dialects (called mal [literally "speech"], saturi, or bang-eon in Korean). The standard language (pyojuneo or pyojunmal) of South Korea is based on the dialect of the area around Seoul, and the standard for North Korea is based on the dialect spoken around P'yÅngyang. All dialects of Korean are similar to each other, and are in fact all mutually intelligible, perhaps with the exception of the dialect of Jeju Island (see Jeju dialect). The dialect spoken in Jeju is in fact classified as a different language by some Korean linguists. One of the most notable differences between dialects is the use of stress: speakers of Seoul dialect use very little stress, and standard South Korean has a very flat intonation; on the other hand, speakers of the Gyeongsang dialect have a very pronounced intonation.
It is also worth noting that there is substantial evidence for a history of extensive dialect levelling, or even convergent evolution or intermixture of two or more originally distinct linguistic stocks, within the Korean language and its dialects. Many Korean dialects have basic vocabulary that is etymologically distinct from vocabulary of identical meaning in Standard Korean or other dialects, such as South Jeolla dialect /kur/ vs. Standard Korean ì
"mouth" or Gyeongsang dialect vs. Standard Korean "garlic chives." This suggests that the Korean Peninsula may have at one time been much more linguistically diverse than it is at present. See also the Buyeo languages hypothesis.
There is a very close connection between the dialects of Korean and the regions of Korea, since the boundaries of both are largely determined by mountains and seas. Here is a list of traditional dialect names and locations:
The Korean consonants
The IPA symbol (a subscript double straight quotation mark, shown here with a placeholder circle) is used to denote the tensed consonants . Its official use in the Extensions to the IPA is for 'strong' articulation, but is used in the literature for faucalized voice. The Korean consonants also have elements of stiff voice, but it is not yet known how typical this is of faucalized consonants. They are produced with a partially constricted glottis and additional subglottal pressure in addition to tense vocal tract walls, laryngeal lowering, or other expansion of the larynx.
becomes an alveolo-palatal before or for most speakers (but see Differences in the language between North Korea and South Korea). This occurs with the tense fricative and all the affricates as well. At the end of a syllable, /s/ changes to /t/ (Example: beoseot (ë²ì¯) 'mushroom').
may become a bilabial before or , a palatal before or , a velar before , a voiced between voiced sounds, and a elsewhere.
become voiced between voiced sounds.
becomes alveolar flap between vowels, and or at the end of a syllable or next to another . Note that a written syllable-final 'ã¹', when followed by a vowel or a glide (i.e., when the next character starts with 'ã
'), migrates to the next syllable and thus becomes .
Traditionally, was disallowed at the beginning of a word. It disappeared before , and otherwise became . However, the inflow of western loanword changed the trend, and now word-initial (mostly from English loanwords) are pronounced as a free variation of either or . The traditional prohibition of word-initial became a morphological rule called "initial law" (ëìë²ì¹) in South Korea, which pertains to Sino-Korean vocabulary. Such words retain their word-initial in North Korea.
All obstruents (plosives, affricates, fricatives) are unreleased at the end of a word.
Plosive stops become nasal stops before nasal stops.
Hangul spelling does not reflect these assimilatory pronunciation rules, but rather maintains the underlying, partly historical morphology. Given this, it is sometimes hard to tell which actual phonemes are present in a certain word.
One difference between the pronunciation standards of North and South Korea is the treatment of initial , and initial . For example,
* "labour" - north: rodong (ë¡ë), south: nodong (ë
¸ë)
* "history" - north: ryÅksa (ë ¥ì¬), south: yeoksa (ìì¬)
* "female" - north: nyÅja (ë
ì), south: yeoja (ì¬ì)
Grammatical morphemes may change shape depending on the preceding sounds. Examples include -eun/-neun (-ì/-ë) and -i/-ga (-ì´/-ê°). Sometimes sounds may be inserted instead. Examples include -eul/-reul (-ì/-를), -euro/-ro (-ì¼ë¡/-ë¡), -eseo/-seo (-ìì/-ì), -ideunji/-deunji (-ì´ë ì§/-ë ì§) and -iya/-ya (-ì´ì¼/-ì¼). However, -euro/-ro is somewhat irregular, since it will behave differently after a rieul consonant.
Some verbs may also change shape morphophonemically.
Korean is an agglutinative language. Modifiers generally precede the modified words, and in the case of verb modifiers, can be serially appended. The basic form of a Korean sentence is Subject Object Verb, but the verb is the only required and immovable element.
:"Did [you] go to the store?" ("you" implied in conversation)
:"Yes."
The Korean Language contains nine parts of speech.
Korean verbs ( , tongsa, ) are also known in English as "action verbs" or "dynamic verbs" to distinguish them from [ , hyeong-yongsa, "adjectives"]), which are also known as "descriptive verbs" or "stative verbs". Examples of action/dynamic verbs include (hada, "to do") and (kada, "to go") which constitute an action or movement as opposed to descriptive verbs such as (yehppeuda, "to be beautiful"). For a larger list of Korean verbs, see .
Unlike most of the European languages, Korean does not conjugate verbs using agreement with the subject, and nouns have no gender. Instead, verb conjugations depend upon the verb tense, aspect, mood, and the social relation between the speaker, the subjects, and the listeners.
The system of speech levels and honorifics loosely resembles the T-V distinction of most Indo-European languages. For example, different endings are used depending on the speaker's relation with their subject or audience. Politeness is a critical part of Korean language and Korean culture, therefore, when talking to someone esteemed, the correct verb ending must be chosen to indicate the proper respect.
Words categorized as Korean adjectives ( , hyeong-yongsa, ) conjugate similarly to verbs, so some English texts call them "descriptive verbs" or "stative verbs", but they are distinctly separate from (tongsa).
English does not have an identical grammatical category, so the English translation of Korean adjectives may misleadingly suggest that they are verbs. For example, (pukda) translates literally as "to be red" and (aswipda) often best translates as "to lack" or "to want for", but both are (hyeong-yongsa, "adjectives"). For a larger list of Korean adjectives, see .
Korean pre-nouns ( , gwanhyeongsa, ) are also known in English as "determinatives", "attributives", and "unconjugated adjectives". Examples include (kak, "each"). For a larger list, see .
Core and basic noun words are native to the Korean language, e.g. (nara, country), (nal, day). A large body of Korean nouns ( , myeongsa, ) stem from Chinese characters, e.g. (å±±, san, mountain), (é©, yeok, station), (æå, munhwa, culture), etc. Many Sino-Korean words have a native Korean equivalent and vice versa, but not always. Nouns do not have grammatical gender and can be made plural by adding ë¤ to the end of the word, however in most instances the singular form is used even when in English it would be translated as plural. For example, while in English the sentence "there are three apples" would use the plural "apples" instead of the singular "apple", the Korean sentence ì¬ê³¼ ì¸ê° ììµëë¤ (sagwa segae isssumnida) maintains the word ì¬ê³¼ (sagwa, "apple") in its singular form, thus rendered in English as "apple three(things) exist." For a list of Korean nouns, see .
Korean pronouns ( , daemyeongsa, ) are highly influenced by the honorifics in the language. Pronouns change forms depending on the social status of the person or persons spoken to, e.g. the pronoun for "I" there is both the informal (na) and the honorific/humble (jeo). In general second person singular pronouns are avoided, especially when using honorific forms. For a larger list or Korean pronouns, see .
Korean adverbs ( , busa, ) include (tto, "also") and (gadeuk, "fully"). For a larger list, see .
Korean particles ( , josa, ) are also known in English as "postpositions". Examples include (neun, topic marker) and (reul, object marker). For a larger list, see .
Korean interjections ( , gamtansa, ) are also known in English as "exclamations". Examples include (ani, "no"). For a larger list, see .
Korean numbers or numerals ( , susa, ) constitute two regularly used sets: a native Korean set and a Sino-Korean set. The Sino-Korean system is nearly entirely based on the Chinese numerals. The distinction between the two numeral systems is very important. Everything that can be counted will use one of the two systems, but seldom both. Sino-Korean words are sometimes used to mark ordinal usage: yeol beon (ì´ ë²) means "ten times" while sip beon (ì(å) ë²(çª)) means "number ten." The grouping of large numbers in Korean follow the Chinese tradition of myriads (10000) rather than thousands (1000) as is common in Europe and North America.
The relationship between a speaker or writer and his or her subject and audience is paramount in Korean, and the grammar reflects this. The relationship between speaker/writer and subject referent is reflected in honorifics, while that between speaker/writer and audience is reflected in speech level.
When talking about someone superior in status, a speaker or writer usually uses special nouns or verb endings to indicate the subject's superiority. Generally, someone is superior in status if he/she is an older relative, a stranger of roughly equal or greater age, or an employer, teacher, customer, or the like. Someone is equal or inferior in status if he/she is a younger stranger, student, employee or the like. Nowadays, there are special endings which can be used on declarative, interrogative, and imperative sentences; and both honorific or normal sentences. They are made for easier and faster use of Korean.
There are seven verb paradigms or speech levels in Korean, and each level has its own unique set of verb endings which are used to indicate the level of formality of a situation. Unlike honorificsâwhich are used to show respect towards the referentâspeech levels are used to show respect towards a speaker's or writer's audience. The names of the seven levels are derived from the non-honorific imperative form of the verb íë¤ (hada, "do") in each level, plus the suffix ì²´ ("che", hanja: é« ), which means "style".
The highest six levels are generally grouped together as jondaenmal (ì¡´ëë§), while the lowest level (haeche, í´ì²´) is called banmal (ë°ë§) in Korean.
The core of the Korean vocabulary is made up of native Korean words. Like Japanese and Vietnamese, a significant proportion of the vocabulary, especially words that denote abstract ideas, are Sino-Korean words, Sohn, Ho-Min. The Korean Language (Section 1.5.3 "Korean vocabulary", p.12â13), Cambridge University Press, 2001. ISBN 0521369436. either
* directly borrowed from Written Chinese, or
* coined in Japan or Korea using Chinese characters,
in a similar way European languages borrow from Latin and Greek.
The exact proportion of Sino-Korean vocabulary is a matter of debate. Sohn (2001) stated 50-60%. However, Jeong Jae-do, one of the compilers of the dictionary Urimal Kun Sajeon, asserts that the proportion is not so high. He points out that Korean dictionaries compiled during the period of Japanese occupation include many unused Sino-Korean words. In his estimation, the proportion of native Korean vocabulary in the Korean language might be as high as 70%. . The dictionary mentioned is
Korean has two number systems: one native, and one borrowed from Chinese.
To a much lesser extent, words have also occasionally been borrowed from Mongolian, Sanskrit, and other languages. Conversely, the Korean language itself has also contributed some loanwords to other languages, most notably the Tsushima dialect of Japanese.
The vast majority of loanwords other than Sino-Korean come from modern times, 90% of which are from English. Many words have also been borrowed from Japanese and Western languages such as German (areubaiteu "part-time job", allereugi "allergy", "gibsu" "plaster cast used for broken bones"). Some Western words were borrowed indirectly via Japanese, taking a Japanese sound pattern, for example "dozen" > dÄsu > daseu. Most indirect Western borrowings are now written according to current Hangulization rules for the respective Western language, as if borrowed directly. There are a few more complicated borrowings such as "German(y)" (see Names for Germany), the first part of whose endonym the Japanese approximated using the kanji doitsu that were then accepted into the Korean language by their Sino-Korean pronunciation: dok + il = Dogil. In South Korean official use, a number of other Sino-Korean country names have been replaced with phonetically oriented Hangulizations of the countries' endonyms or English names.
As in Japanese, Korean adapts words in ways that are uncommon in English. For example, in soccer heading ( ) is used to label a head-strike, rather than direction. This is a corrupted loan word from the English header.
North Korean vocabulary shows a tendency to prefer native Korean over Sino-Korean or foreign borrowings, especially with recent political objectives aimed at eliminating foreign (mostly Chinese) influences on the Korean language in the North. By contrast, South Korean may have several Sino-Korean or foreign borrowings which tend to be absent in North Korean.
Formerly the languages of the Korean peninsula were written using Chinese characters, using hyangchal or idu. Such systems relied on principles of rebus, and were lost, later in history. Writing became confined to the ruling elite, who used hanja to write in Classical Chinese.
Korean is now mainly written in Hangul, the Korean alphabet promulgated in 1446 by Sejong the Great; hanja may be mixed in to write Sino-Korean words. While South Korean schools still teach 1,800 hanja characters, North Korea had abolished the use of hanja decades ago.
Below is a chart of the Korean alphabet's symbols and their canonical IPA values:
Modern Korean is written with spaces between words, a feature not found in Chinese or Japanese. Korean punctuation marks are almost identical to Western ones. Traditionally, Korean was written in columns from top to bottom, right to left, but is now usually written in rows from left to right, top to bottom.
The Korean language used in the North and the South exhibits differences in pronunciation, spelling, grammar and vocabulary. Kanno, Hiroomi (ed.) / Society for Korean Linguistics in Japan (1987). ChÅsengo o manabÅ (ãæé®®èªãå¦ã¼ãã), SanshÅ«sha, Tokyo. ISBN 4-384-01506-2
In North Korea, palatalization of is optional, and can be pronounced between vowels.
Words that are written the same way may be pronounced differently, such as the examples below. The pronunciations below are given in Revised Romanization, McCune-Reischauer and Hangul, the last of which represents what the Hangul would be if one writes the word as pronounced.
* Similar pronunciation is used in the North whenever the hanja "ç" is attached to a Sino-Korean word ending in ã´, ã
or ã
. (In the South, this rule only applies when it is attached to any single-character Sino-Korean word.)
Some words are spelled differently by the North and the South, but the pronunciations are the same.
Some words have different spellings and pronunciations in the North and the South, some of which were given in the "Phonology" section above:
In general, when transcribing place names, North Korea tends to use the pronunciation in the original language more than South Korea, which often uses the pronunciation in English. For example:
Some grammatical constructions are also different:
Some vocabulary is different between the North and the South:
In the North, guillemets and are the symbols used for quotes; in the South, quotation marks equivalent to the English ones, â and â, are standard, although and are sometimes used in popular novels.
The United States' Defense Language Institute classifies Korean alongside Arabic, Chinese, and Japanese as a Category IV language, meaning that 63 weeks of instruction (as compared to just 25 weeks for French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian) are required to bring an English-speaking student to a limited working level of proficiency in which he or she has "sufficient capability to meet routine social demands and limited job requirements" and "can deal with concrete topics in past, present, and future tense." As a result, the study of the Korean language in the United States is dominated by Korean American heritage language students; they are estimated to form over 80% of all students of the language at non-military universities.
However, Korean is considerably easier for speakers of certain other languages, such as Japanese ; in Japan, it is more widely studied by non-heritage learners. The Korean Language Proficiency Test, an examination aimed at assessing non-native speakers' competence in Korean, was instituted in 1997; 17,000 people applied for the 2005 sitting of the examination.
*Hangul
*Korean romanization
**Revised romanization of Korean
**McCune-Reischauer
**Yale Romanization#Korean
**SKATS
*Korean numerals
*Korean count word
*Korean language and computers
*Hanja
*Sino-Korean vocabulary
*Korean mixed script
*List of English words of Korean origin
*Altaic languages
*List of Korea-related topics
*Vowel harmony
* (Volume 4 of the London Oriental and African Language Library).
*Hulbert, Homer B. (1905): A Comparative Grammar of the Korean Language and the Dravidian Dialects in India. Seoul.
*Martin, Samuel E. (1966): Lexical Evidence Relating Japanese to Korean. Language 42/2: 185â251.
*Martin, Samuel E. (1990): Morphological clues to the relationship of Japanese and Korean. In: Philip Baldi (ed.): Linguistic Change and Reconstruction Methodology. Trends in Linguistics: Studies and Monographs 45: 483-509.
*Miller, Roy Andrew (1971): Japanese and the Other Altaic Languages. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0226527190.
*Miller, Roy Andrew (1996): Languages and History: Japanese, Korean and Altaic. Oslo: Institute for Comparative Research in Human Culture. ISBN 9748299694.
*Ramstedt, G. J. (1928): Remarks on the Korean language. Mémoires de la Société Finno-Oigrienne 58.
*Rybatzki, Volker (2003): Middle Mongol. In: Juha Janhunen (ed.) (2003): The Mongolic languages. London: Routledge. ISBN 0-7007-1133-3: 47â82.
*Starostin, Sergei A.; Anna V. Dybo; Oleg A. Mudrak (2003): Etymological Dictionary of the Altaic Languages, 3 volumes. Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers. ISBN 9004131531.
*Sohn, H.-M. (1999): The Korean Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Song, J.-J. (2005): The Korean Language: Structure, Use and Context. London: Routledge.
*Trask, R. L. (1996): Historical linguistics. Hodder Arnold.
*Vovin, Alexander: Koreo-Japonica. University of Hawai'i Press.
*Whitman, John B. (1985): The Phonological Basis for the Comparison of Japanese and Korean. Unpublished Harvard University Ph.D. dissertation.
* Ethnologue report for Korean
* Linguistic and Philosophical Origins of the Korean Alphabet (Hangul)
* Free Korean language and culture course online, in English
* Linguistic map of Korea
* Korean - a Category III language Languages which are exceptionally difficult for native English speakers
* dongsa.net A Korean verb conjugation tool that explains the conjugations for learners of Korean
|
Korean_language | Is the word "Korean" derived from Goryeo? | Yes | data/set5/a6 | Korean_language
:This article is mainly about the spoken Korean language. See Hangul for details on the native Korean writing system.
Korean ( , see below) is the official language of Korea, both South and North. It is also one of the two official languages in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in China. There are about 78 million Korean speakers. In the 15th century a national writing system was commissioned by Sejong the Great, currently called Hangul. Prior to the development of Hangul, Koreans used Hanja (Chinese characters) to write for over a millennia.
The genealogical classification of the Korean language is debated by a small number of linguists. Most classify it as a language isolate Song, Jae Jung (2005) "The Korean language: structure, use and context" Routledge, p. 15
Lyle Campbell & Mauricio Mixco. 2007. A Glossary of Historical Linguistics. University of Utah Press. while a few consider it to be in the Altaic language family. Stratification in the peopling of China: how far does the linguistic evidence match genetics and archaeology? In; Sanchez-Mazas, Blench, Ross, Lin & Pejros eds. Human migrations in continental East Asia and Taiwan: genetic, linguistic and archaeological evidence. 2008. Taylor & Francis Some believe it to be distantly related to Japanese. Like Japanese it is agglutinative in its morphology and SOV in its syntax.
The Korean names for the language are based on the names for Korea used in North and South Korea.
In South Korea, the language is most often called Hangungmal
( ; ), or more formally, Hangugeo ( ; ) or Gugeo ( ; ; literally "national language").
In North Korea and Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in China, the language is most often called ChosÅnmal ( ; with hanja: ), or more formally, ChosÅnÅ ( ; ).
On the other hand, Korean people in the former USSR, who refer to themselves as Koryo-saram (ê³ ë ¤ì¬ë; also Goryeoin [ ; ; literally, "Goryeo person(s)"]) call the language Goryeomal ( ; ).
In mainland China, following the establishment of diplomatic relations with South Korea in 1992, the term CháoxiÇnyÇ ( or the short form: CháoyÇ ( )) has normally been used to refer to the language spoken in North Korea and Yanbian, while HánguóyÇ ( or the short form: HányÇ ( )) is used to refer to the language spoken in South Korea.
Some older English sources also used the name "Korean" to refer to the language, country, and people. The word "Korean" is derived from Goryeo, which is thought to be the first dynasty known to western countries.
Most modern linguists consider Korean to be a language isolate Song, Jae Jung (2005) "The Korean language: structure, use and context" Routledge, p. 15
Lyle Campbell & Mauricio J. Mixco. 2007. A Glossary of Historical Linguistics. University of Utah Press.
Since the publication of the article of Ramstedt in 1928, some linguists eg Miller 1971, 1996, Starostin et al. 2003 support the hypothesis that Korean can be classified as an Altaic language or as a relative of proto-Altaic. Korean is similar to the Altaic languages in that they both lack certain grammatical elements, including articles, fusional morphology and relative pronouns. However, linguists agree today on the fact that typological resemblances cannot be used to prove genetic relatedness of languages eg Vovin 2008: 1 as these features are typologically connected and easily borrowed. Trask 1996: 147-151 Such factors of typological divergence as Middle Mongolian's exhibition of gender agreement Rybatzki 2003: 57 can be used to argue that a genetic relationship is unlikely. Vovin 2008: 5
The hypothesis that Korean might be related to Japanese has had some more supporters due to some considerable overlap in vocabulary and similar grammatical features that have been elaborated upon by such researchers as Samuel E. Martin eg Martin 1966, 1990 and Roy Andrew Miller. eg Miller 1971, 1996 Sergei Starostin (1991) found about 25% of potential cognates in the Japanese-Korean 100-word Swadesh list, which - if true - would place these two languages closer together than other possible members of the Altaic family.
Other linguists, most notably Alexander Vovin, argue, however, that the similarities are not due to any genetic relationship, but rather to a sprachbund effect and heavy borrowing especially from Korean into Western Old Japanese. Vovin 2008 A good example might be Middle Korean sà m Whitman 1985: 232, also found in Martin 1966: 233 This word seems to be cognate, but while it is well-attested in Western Old Japanese and Northern RyÅ«kyÅ«, in Eastern Old Japanese it only occurs in compounds, and it is only present in three subdialects of the South-RyÅ«kyÅ«an dialect group. Then, the doublet wo âhempâ is attested in Western Old Japanese and Southern RyÅ«kyÅ«. It is thus plausible to assume a borrowed term. Vovin 2008: 211-212 See East Asian languages for morphological features shared among languages of the East Asian sprachbund, and Classification of Japanese for further details on the discussion of a possible relationship.
Korean is descended from Old Korean, Middle Korean and Modern Korean. Controversy remains over the proposed Altaic language family and its inclusion of Proto-Korean. Since the Korean War, contemporary North-South differences in Korean have developed, including variance in pronunciation, verb inflection, and vocabulary.
Korean is spoken by the Korean people in North Korea and South Korea and by the Korean diaspora in many countries including the People's Republic of China, Japan, and the United States. Korean-speaking minorities exist in these states, but because of cultural assimilation into host countries, not all ethnic Korean immigrants may speak it with native fluency.
Korean is the official language of South Korea and North Korea. It is also one of the two official languages of the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in China.
In South Korea, the regulatory body for Korean is the Seoul-based National Institute of the Korean Language ( ), which was created by presidential decree on January 23, 1991. In North Korea, the regulatory body is the Sahoe Kwahagwon Åhak YÅnguso ( ).
Dialects of Korean
Korean has several dialects (called mal [literally "speech"], saturi, or bang-eon in Korean). The standard language (pyojuneo or pyojunmal) of South Korea is based on the dialect of the area around Seoul, and the standard for North Korea is based on the dialect spoken around P'yÅngyang. All dialects of Korean are similar to each other, and are in fact all mutually intelligible, perhaps with the exception of the dialect of Jeju Island (see Jeju dialect). The dialect spoken in Jeju is in fact classified as a different language by some Korean linguists. One of the most notable differences between dialects is the use of stress: speakers of Seoul dialect use very little stress, and standard South Korean has a very flat intonation; on the other hand, speakers of the Gyeongsang dialect have a very pronounced intonation.
It is also worth noting that there is substantial evidence for a history of extensive dialect levelling, or even convergent evolution or intermixture of two or more originally distinct linguistic stocks, within the Korean language and its dialects. Many Korean dialects have basic vocabulary that is etymologically distinct from vocabulary of identical meaning in Standard Korean or other dialects, such as South Jeolla dialect /kur/ vs. Standard Korean ì
"mouth" or Gyeongsang dialect vs. Standard Korean "garlic chives." This suggests that the Korean Peninsula may have at one time been much more linguistically diverse than it is at present. See also the Buyeo languages hypothesis.
There is a very close connection between the dialects of Korean and the regions of Korea, since the boundaries of both are largely determined by mountains and seas. Here is a list of traditional dialect names and locations:
The Korean consonants
The IPA symbol (a subscript double straight quotation mark, shown here with a placeholder circle) is used to denote the tensed consonants . Its official use in the Extensions to the IPA is for 'strong' articulation, but is used in the literature for faucalized voice. The Korean consonants also have elements of stiff voice, but it is not yet known how typical this is of faucalized consonants. They are produced with a partially constricted glottis and additional subglottal pressure in addition to tense vocal tract walls, laryngeal lowering, or other expansion of the larynx.
becomes an alveolo-palatal before or for most speakers (but see Differences in the language between North Korea and South Korea). This occurs with the tense fricative and all the affricates as well. At the end of a syllable, /s/ changes to /t/ (Example: beoseot (ë²ì¯) 'mushroom').
may become a bilabial before or , a palatal before or , a velar before , a voiced between voiced sounds, and a elsewhere.
become voiced between voiced sounds.
becomes alveolar flap between vowels, and or at the end of a syllable or next to another . Note that a written syllable-final 'ã¹', when followed by a vowel or a glide (i.e., when the next character starts with 'ã
'), migrates to the next syllable and thus becomes .
Traditionally, was disallowed at the beginning of a word. It disappeared before , and otherwise became . However, the inflow of western loanword changed the trend, and now word-initial (mostly from English loanwords) are pronounced as a free variation of either or . The traditional prohibition of word-initial became a morphological rule called "initial law" (ëìë²ì¹) in South Korea, which pertains to Sino-Korean vocabulary. Such words retain their word-initial in North Korea.
All obstruents (plosives, affricates, fricatives) are unreleased at the end of a word.
Plosive stops become nasal stops before nasal stops.
Hangul spelling does not reflect these assimilatory pronunciation rules, but rather maintains the underlying, partly historical morphology. Given this, it is sometimes hard to tell which actual phonemes are present in a certain word.
One difference between the pronunciation standards of North and South Korea is the treatment of initial , and initial . For example,
* "labour" - north: rodong (ë¡ë), south: nodong (ë
¸ë)
* "history" - north: ryÅksa (ë ¥ì¬), south: yeoksa (ìì¬)
* "female" - north: nyÅja (ë
ì), south: yeoja (ì¬ì)
Grammatical morphemes may change shape depending on the preceding sounds. Examples include -eun/-neun (-ì/-ë) and -i/-ga (-ì´/-ê°). Sometimes sounds may be inserted instead. Examples include -eul/-reul (-ì/-를), -euro/-ro (-ì¼ë¡/-ë¡), -eseo/-seo (-ìì/-ì), -ideunji/-deunji (-ì´ë ì§/-ë ì§) and -iya/-ya (-ì´ì¼/-ì¼). However, -euro/-ro is somewhat irregular, since it will behave differently after a rieul consonant.
Some verbs may also change shape morphophonemically.
Korean is an agglutinative language. Modifiers generally precede the modified words, and in the case of verb modifiers, can be serially appended. The basic form of a Korean sentence is Subject Object Verb, but the verb is the only required and immovable element.
:"Did [you] go to the store?" ("you" implied in conversation)
:"Yes."
The Korean Language contains nine parts of speech.
Korean verbs ( , tongsa, ) are also known in English as "action verbs" or "dynamic verbs" to distinguish them from [ , hyeong-yongsa, "adjectives"]), which are also known as "descriptive verbs" or "stative verbs". Examples of action/dynamic verbs include (hada, "to do") and (kada, "to go") which constitute an action or movement as opposed to descriptive verbs such as (yehppeuda, "to be beautiful"). For a larger list of Korean verbs, see .
Unlike most of the European languages, Korean does not conjugate verbs using agreement with the subject, and nouns have no gender. Instead, verb conjugations depend upon the verb tense, aspect, mood, and the social relation between the speaker, the subjects, and the listeners.
The system of speech levels and honorifics loosely resembles the T-V distinction of most Indo-European languages. For example, different endings are used depending on the speaker's relation with their subject or audience. Politeness is a critical part of Korean language and Korean culture, therefore, when talking to someone esteemed, the correct verb ending must be chosen to indicate the proper respect.
Words categorized as Korean adjectives ( , hyeong-yongsa, ) conjugate similarly to verbs, so some English texts call them "descriptive verbs" or "stative verbs", but they are distinctly separate from (tongsa).
English does not have an identical grammatical category, so the English translation of Korean adjectives may misleadingly suggest that they are verbs. For example, (pukda) translates literally as "to be red" and (aswipda) often best translates as "to lack" or "to want for", but both are (hyeong-yongsa, "adjectives"). For a larger list of Korean adjectives, see .
Korean pre-nouns ( , gwanhyeongsa, ) are also known in English as "determinatives", "attributives", and "unconjugated adjectives". Examples include (kak, "each"). For a larger list, see .
Core and basic noun words are native to the Korean language, e.g. (nara, country), (nal, day). A large body of Korean nouns ( , myeongsa, ) stem from Chinese characters, e.g. (å±±, san, mountain), (é©, yeok, station), (æå, munhwa, culture), etc. Many Sino-Korean words have a native Korean equivalent and vice versa, but not always. Nouns do not have grammatical gender and can be made plural by adding ë¤ to the end of the word, however in most instances the singular form is used even when in English it would be translated as plural. For example, while in English the sentence "there are three apples" would use the plural "apples" instead of the singular "apple", the Korean sentence ì¬ê³¼ ì¸ê° ììµëë¤ (sagwa segae isssumnida) maintains the word ì¬ê³¼ (sagwa, "apple") in its singular form, thus rendered in English as "apple three(things) exist." For a list of Korean nouns, see .
Korean pronouns ( , daemyeongsa, ) are highly influenced by the honorifics in the language. Pronouns change forms depending on the social status of the person or persons spoken to, e.g. the pronoun for "I" there is both the informal (na) and the honorific/humble (jeo). In general second person singular pronouns are avoided, especially when using honorific forms. For a larger list or Korean pronouns, see .
Korean adverbs ( , busa, ) include (tto, "also") and (gadeuk, "fully"). For a larger list, see .
Korean particles ( , josa, ) are also known in English as "postpositions". Examples include (neun, topic marker) and (reul, object marker). For a larger list, see .
Korean interjections ( , gamtansa, ) are also known in English as "exclamations". Examples include (ani, "no"). For a larger list, see .
Korean numbers or numerals ( , susa, ) constitute two regularly used sets: a native Korean set and a Sino-Korean set. The Sino-Korean system is nearly entirely based on the Chinese numerals. The distinction between the two numeral systems is very important. Everything that can be counted will use one of the two systems, but seldom both. Sino-Korean words are sometimes used to mark ordinal usage: yeol beon (ì´ ë²) means "ten times" while sip beon (ì(å) ë²(çª)) means "number ten." The grouping of large numbers in Korean follow the Chinese tradition of myriads (10000) rather than thousands (1000) as is common in Europe and North America.
The relationship between a speaker or writer and his or her subject and audience is paramount in Korean, and the grammar reflects this. The relationship between speaker/writer and subject referent is reflected in honorifics, while that between speaker/writer and audience is reflected in speech level.
When talking about someone superior in status, a speaker or writer usually uses special nouns or verb endings to indicate the subject's superiority. Generally, someone is superior in status if he/she is an older relative, a stranger of roughly equal or greater age, or an employer, teacher, customer, or the like. Someone is equal or inferior in status if he/she is a younger stranger, student, employee or the like. Nowadays, there are special endings which can be used on declarative, interrogative, and imperative sentences; and both honorific or normal sentences. They are made for easier and faster use of Korean.
There are seven verb paradigms or speech levels in Korean, and each level has its own unique set of verb endings which are used to indicate the level of formality of a situation. Unlike honorificsâwhich are used to show respect towards the referentâspeech levels are used to show respect towards a speaker's or writer's audience. The names of the seven levels are derived from the non-honorific imperative form of the verb íë¤ (hada, "do") in each level, plus the suffix ì²´ ("che", hanja: é« ), which means "style".
The highest six levels are generally grouped together as jondaenmal (ì¡´ëë§), while the lowest level (haeche, í´ì²´) is called banmal (ë°ë§) in Korean.
The core of the Korean vocabulary is made up of native Korean words. Like Japanese and Vietnamese, a significant proportion of the vocabulary, especially words that denote abstract ideas, are Sino-Korean words, Sohn, Ho-Min. The Korean Language (Section 1.5.3 "Korean vocabulary", p.12â13), Cambridge University Press, 2001. ISBN 0521369436. either
* directly borrowed from Written Chinese, or
* coined in Japan or Korea using Chinese characters,
in a similar way European languages borrow from Latin and Greek.
The exact proportion of Sino-Korean vocabulary is a matter of debate. Sohn (2001) stated 50-60%. However, Jeong Jae-do, one of the compilers of the dictionary Urimal Kun Sajeon, asserts that the proportion is not so high. He points out that Korean dictionaries compiled during the period of Japanese occupation include many unused Sino-Korean words. In his estimation, the proportion of native Korean vocabulary in the Korean language might be as high as 70%. . The dictionary mentioned is
Korean has two number systems: one native, and one borrowed from Chinese.
To a much lesser extent, words have also occasionally been borrowed from Mongolian, Sanskrit, and other languages. Conversely, the Korean language itself has also contributed some loanwords to other languages, most notably the Tsushima dialect of Japanese.
The vast majority of loanwords other than Sino-Korean come from modern times, 90% of which are from English. Many words have also been borrowed from Japanese and Western languages such as German (areubaiteu "part-time job", allereugi "allergy", "gibsu" "plaster cast used for broken bones"). Some Western words were borrowed indirectly via Japanese, taking a Japanese sound pattern, for example "dozen" > dÄsu > daseu. Most indirect Western borrowings are now written according to current Hangulization rules for the respective Western language, as if borrowed directly. There are a few more complicated borrowings such as "German(y)" (see Names for Germany), the first part of whose endonym the Japanese approximated using the kanji doitsu that were then accepted into the Korean language by their Sino-Korean pronunciation: dok + il = Dogil. In South Korean official use, a number of other Sino-Korean country names have been replaced with phonetically oriented Hangulizations of the countries' endonyms or English names.
As in Japanese, Korean adapts words in ways that are uncommon in English. For example, in soccer heading ( ) is used to label a head-strike, rather than direction. This is a corrupted loan word from the English header.
North Korean vocabulary shows a tendency to prefer native Korean over Sino-Korean or foreign borrowings, especially with recent political objectives aimed at eliminating foreign (mostly Chinese) influences on the Korean language in the North. By contrast, South Korean may have several Sino-Korean or foreign borrowings which tend to be absent in North Korean.
Formerly the languages of the Korean peninsula were written using Chinese characters, using hyangchal or idu. Such systems relied on principles of rebus, and were lost, later in history. Writing became confined to the ruling elite, who used hanja to write in Classical Chinese.
Korean is now mainly written in Hangul, the Korean alphabet promulgated in 1446 by Sejong the Great; hanja may be mixed in to write Sino-Korean words. While South Korean schools still teach 1,800 hanja characters, North Korea had abolished the use of hanja decades ago.
Below is a chart of the Korean alphabet's symbols and their canonical IPA values:
Modern Korean is written with spaces between words, a feature not found in Chinese or Japanese. Korean punctuation marks are almost identical to Western ones. Traditionally, Korean was written in columns from top to bottom, right to left, but is now usually written in rows from left to right, top to bottom.
The Korean language used in the North and the South exhibits differences in pronunciation, spelling, grammar and vocabulary. Kanno, Hiroomi (ed.) / Society for Korean Linguistics in Japan (1987). ChÅsengo o manabÅ (ãæé®®èªãå¦ã¼ãã), SanshÅ«sha, Tokyo. ISBN 4-384-01506-2
In North Korea, palatalization of is optional, and can be pronounced between vowels.
Words that are written the same way may be pronounced differently, such as the examples below. The pronunciations below are given in Revised Romanization, McCune-Reischauer and Hangul, the last of which represents what the Hangul would be if one writes the word as pronounced.
* Similar pronunciation is used in the North whenever the hanja "ç" is attached to a Sino-Korean word ending in ã´, ã
or ã
. (In the South, this rule only applies when it is attached to any single-character Sino-Korean word.)
Some words are spelled differently by the North and the South, but the pronunciations are the same.
Some words have different spellings and pronunciations in the North and the South, some of which were given in the "Phonology" section above:
In general, when transcribing place names, North Korea tends to use the pronunciation in the original language more than South Korea, which often uses the pronunciation in English. For example:
Some grammatical constructions are also different:
Some vocabulary is different between the North and the South:
In the North, guillemets and are the symbols used for quotes; in the South, quotation marks equivalent to the English ones, â and â, are standard, although and are sometimes used in popular novels.
The United States' Defense Language Institute classifies Korean alongside Arabic, Chinese, and Japanese as a Category IV language, meaning that 63 weeks of instruction (as compared to just 25 weeks for French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian) are required to bring an English-speaking student to a limited working level of proficiency in which he or she has "sufficient capability to meet routine social demands and limited job requirements" and "can deal with concrete topics in past, present, and future tense." As a result, the study of the Korean language in the United States is dominated by Korean American heritage language students; they are estimated to form over 80% of all students of the language at non-military universities.
However, Korean is considerably easier for speakers of certain other languages, such as Japanese ; in Japan, it is more widely studied by non-heritage learners. The Korean Language Proficiency Test, an examination aimed at assessing non-native speakers' competence in Korean, was instituted in 1997; 17,000 people applied for the 2005 sitting of the examination.
*Hangul
*Korean romanization
**Revised romanization of Korean
**McCune-Reischauer
**Yale Romanization#Korean
**SKATS
*Korean numerals
*Korean count word
*Korean language and computers
*Hanja
*Sino-Korean vocabulary
*Korean mixed script
*List of English words of Korean origin
*Altaic languages
*List of Korea-related topics
*Vowel harmony
* (Volume 4 of the London Oriental and African Language Library).
*Hulbert, Homer B. (1905): A Comparative Grammar of the Korean Language and the Dravidian Dialects in India. Seoul.
*Martin, Samuel E. (1966): Lexical Evidence Relating Japanese to Korean. Language 42/2: 185â251.
*Martin, Samuel E. (1990): Morphological clues to the relationship of Japanese and Korean. In: Philip Baldi (ed.): Linguistic Change and Reconstruction Methodology. Trends in Linguistics: Studies and Monographs 45: 483-509.
*Miller, Roy Andrew (1971): Japanese and the Other Altaic Languages. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0226527190.
*Miller, Roy Andrew (1996): Languages and History: Japanese, Korean and Altaic. Oslo: Institute for Comparative Research in Human Culture. ISBN 9748299694.
*Ramstedt, G. J. (1928): Remarks on the Korean language. Mémoires de la Société Finno-Oigrienne 58.
*Rybatzki, Volker (2003): Middle Mongol. In: Juha Janhunen (ed.) (2003): The Mongolic languages. London: Routledge. ISBN 0-7007-1133-3: 47â82.
*Starostin, Sergei A.; Anna V. Dybo; Oleg A. Mudrak (2003): Etymological Dictionary of the Altaic Languages, 3 volumes. Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers. ISBN 9004131531.
*Sohn, H.-M. (1999): The Korean Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Song, J.-J. (2005): The Korean Language: Structure, Use and Context. London: Routledge.
*Trask, R. L. (1996): Historical linguistics. Hodder Arnold.
*Vovin, Alexander: Koreo-Japonica. University of Hawai'i Press.
*Whitman, John B. (1985): The Phonological Basis for the Comparison of Japanese and Korean. Unpublished Harvard University Ph.D. dissertation.
* Ethnologue report for Korean
* Linguistic and Philosophical Origins of the Korean Alphabet (Hangul)
* Free Korean language and culture course online, in English
* Linguistic map of Korea
* Korean - a Category III language Languages which are exceptionally difficult for native English speakers
* dongsa.net A Korean verb conjugation tool that explains the conjugations for learners of Korean
|
Korean_language | Is the word "Korean" derived from Goryeo? | yes | data/set5/a6 | Korean_language
:This article is mainly about the spoken Korean language. See Hangul for details on the native Korean writing system.
Korean ( , see below) is the official language of Korea, both South and North. It is also one of the two official languages in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in China. There are about 78 million Korean speakers. In the 15th century a national writing system was commissioned by Sejong the Great, currently called Hangul. Prior to the development of Hangul, Koreans used Hanja (Chinese characters) to write for over a millennia.
The genealogical classification of the Korean language is debated by a small number of linguists. Most classify it as a language isolate Song, Jae Jung (2005) "The Korean language: structure, use and context" Routledge, p. 15
Lyle Campbell & Mauricio Mixco. 2007. A Glossary of Historical Linguistics. University of Utah Press. while a few consider it to be in the Altaic language family. Stratification in the peopling of China: how far does the linguistic evidence match genetics and archaeology? In; Sanchez-Mazas, Blench, Ross, Lin & Pejros eds. Human migrations in continental East Asia and Taiwan: genetic, linguistic and archaeological evidence. 2008. Taylor & Francis Some believe it to be distantly related to Japanese. Like Japanese it is agglutinative in its morphology and SOV in its syntax.
The Korean names for the language are based on the names for Korea used in North and South Korea.
In South Korea, the language is most often called Hangungmal
( ; ), or more formally, Hangugeo ( ; ) or Gugeo ( ; ; literally "national language").
In North Korea and Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in China, the language is most often called ChosÅnmal ( ; with hanja: ), or more formally, ChosÅnÅ ( ; ).
On the other hand, Korean people in the former USSR, who refer to themselves as Koryo-saram (ê³ ë ¤ì¬ë; also Goryeoin [ ; ; literally, "Goryeo person(s)"]) call the language Goryeomal ( ; ).
In mainland China, following the establishment of diplomatic relations with South Korea in 1992, the term CháoxiÇnyÇ ( or the short form: CháoyÇ ( )) has normally been used to refer to the language spoken in North Korea and Yanbian, while HánguóyÇ ( or the short form: HányÇ ( )) is used to refer to the language spoken in South Korea.
Some older English sources also used the name "Korean" to refer to the language, country, and people. The word "Korean" is derived from Goryeo, which is thought to be the first dynasty known to western countries.
Most modern linguists consider Korean to be a language isolate Song, Jae Jung (2005) "The Korean language: structure, use and context" Routledge, p. 15
Lyle Campbell & Mauricio J. Mixco. 2007. A Glossary of Historical Linguistics. University of Utah Press.
Since the publication of the article of Ramstedt in 1928, some linguists eg Miller 1971, 1996, Starostin et al. 2003 support the hypothesis that Korean can be classified as an Altaic language or as a relative of proto-Altaic. Korean is similar to the Altaic languages in that they both lack certain grammatical elements, including articles, fusional morphology and relative pronouns. However, linguists agree today on the fact that typological resemblances cannot be used to prove genetic relatedness of languages eg Vovin 2008: 1 as these features are typologically connected and easily borrowed. Trask 1996: 147-151 Such factors of typological divergence as Middle Mongolian's exhibition of gender agreement Rybatzki 2003: 57 can be used to argue that a genetic relationship is unlikely. Vovin 2008: 5
The hypothesis that Korean might be related to Japanese has had some more supporters due to some considerable overlap in vocabulary and similar grammatical features that have been elaborated upon by such researchers as Samuel E. Martin eg Martin 1966, 1990 and Roy Andrew Miller. eg Miller 1971, 1996 Sergei Starostin (1991) found about 25% of potential cognates in the Japanese-Korean 100-word Swadesh list, which - if true - would place these two languages closer together than other possible members of the Altaic family.
Other linguists, most notably Alexander Vovin, argue, however, that the similarities are not due to any genetic relationship, but rather to a sprachbund effect and heavy borrowing especially from Korean into Western Old Japanese. Vovin 2008 A good example might be Middle Korean sà m Whitman 1985: 232, also found in Martin 1966: 233 This word seems to be cognate, but while it is well-attested in Western Old Japanese and Northern RyÅ«kyÅ«, in Eastern Old Japanese it only occurs in compounds, and it is only present in three subdialects of the South-RyÅ«kyÅ«an dialect group. Then, the doublet wo âhempâ is attested in Western Old Japanese and Southern RyÅ«kyÅ«. It is thus plausible to assume a borrowed term. Vovin 2008: 211-212 See East Asian languages for morphological features shared among languages of the East Asian sprachbund, and Classification of Japanese for further details on the discussion of a possible relationship.
Korean is descended from Old Korean, Middle Korean and Modern Korean. Controversy remains over the proposed Altaic language family and its inclusion of Proto-Korean. Since the Korean War, contemporary North-South differences in Korean have developed, including variance in pronunciation, verb inflection, and vocabulary.
Korean is spoken by the Korean people in North Korea and South Korea and by the Korean diaspora in many countries including the People's Republic of China, Japan, and the United States. Korean-speaking minorities exist in these states, but because of cultural assimilation into host countries, not all ethnic Korean immigrants may speak it with native fluency.
Korean is the official language of South Korea and North Korea. It is also one of the two official languages of the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in China.
In South Korea, the regulatory body for Korean is the Seoul-based National Institute of the Korean Language ( ), which was created by presidential decree on January 23, 1991. In North Korea, the regulatory body is the Sahoe Kwahagwon Åhak YÅnguso ( ).
Dialects of Korean
Korean has several dialects (called mal [literally "speech"], saturi, or bang-eon in Korean). The standard language (pyojuneo or pyojunmal) of South Korea is based on the dialect of the area around Seoul, and the standard for North Korea is based on the dialect spoken around P'yÅngyang. All dialects of Korean are similar to each other, and are in fact all mutually intelligible, perhaps with the exception of the dialect of Jeju Island (see Jeju dialect). The dialect spoken in Jeju is in fact classified as a different language by some Korean linguists. One of the most notable differences between dialects is the use of stress: speakers of Seoul dialect use very little stress, and standard South Korean has a very flat intonation; on the other hand, speakers of the Gyeongsang dialect have a very pronounced intonation.
It is also worth noting that there is substantial evidence for a history of extensive dialect levelling, or even convergent evolution or intermixture of two or more originally distinct linguistic stocks, within the Korean language and its dialects. Many Korean dialects have basic vocabulary that is etymologically distinct from vocabulary of identical meaning in Standard Korean or other dialects, such as South Jeolla dialect /kur/ vs. Standard Korean ì
"mouth" or Gyeongsang dialect vs. Standard Korean "garlic chives." This suggests that the Korean Peninsula may have at one time been much more linguistically diverse than it is at present. See also the Buyeo languages hypothesis.
There is a very close connection between the dialects of Korean and the regions of Korea, since the boundaries of both are largely determined by mountains and seas. Here is a list of traditional dialect names and locations:
The Korean consonants
The IPA symbol (a subscript double straight quotation mark, shown here with a placeholder circle) is used to denote the tensed consonants . Its official use in the Extensions to the IPA is for 'strong' articulation, but is used in the literature for faucalized voice. The Korean consonants also have elements of stiff voice, but it is not yet known how typical this is of faucalized consonants. They are produced with a partially constricted glottis and additional subglottal pressure in addition to tense vocal tract walls, laryngeal lowering, or other expansion of the larynx.
becomes an alveolo-palatal before or for most speakers (but see Differences in the language between North Korea and South Korea). This occurs with the tense fricative and all the affricates as well. At the end of a syllable, /s/ changes to /t/ (Example: beoseot (ë²ì¯) 'mushroom').
may become a bilabial before or , a palatal before or , a velar before , a voiced between voiced sounds, and a elsewhere.
become voiced between voiced sounds.
becomes alveolar flap between vowels, and or at the end of a syllable or next to another . Note that a written syllable-final 'ã¹', when followed by a vowel or a glide (i.e., when the next character starts with 'ã
'), migrates to the next syllable and thus becomes .
Traditionally, was disallowed at the beginning of a word. It disappeared before , and otherwise became . However, the inflow of western loanword changed the trend, and now word-initial (mostly from English loanwords) are pronounced as a free variation of either or . The traditional prohibition of word-initial became a morphological rule called "initial law" (ëìë²ì¹) in South Korea, which pertains to Sino-Korean vocabulary. Such words retain their word-initial in North Korea.
All obstruents (plosives, affricates, fricatives) are unreleased at the end of a word.
Plosive stops become nasal stops before nasal stops.
Hangul spelling does not reflect these assimilatory pronunciation rules, but rather maintains the underlying, partly historical morphology. Given this, it is sometimes hard to tell which actual phonemes are present in a certain word.
One difference between the pronunciation standards of North and South Korea is the treatment of initial , and initial . For example,
* "labour" - north: rodong (ë¡ë), south: nodong (ë
¸ë)
* "history" - north: ryÅksa (ë ¥ì¬), south: yeoksa (ìì¬)
* "female" - north: nyÅja (ë
ì), south: yeoja (ì¬ì)
Grammatical morphemes may change shape depending on the preceding sounds. Examples include -eun/-neun (-ì/-ë) and -i/-ga (-ì´/-ê°). Sometimes sounds may be inserted instead. Examples include -eul/-reul (-ì/-를), -euro/-ro (-ì¼ë¡/-ë¡), -eseo/-seo (-ìì/-ì), -ideunji/-deunji (-ì´ë ì§/-ë ì§) and -iya/-ya (-ì´ì¼/-ì¼). However, -euro/-ro is somewhat irregular, since it will behave differently after a rieul consonant.
Some verbs may also change shape morphophonemically.
Korean is an agglutinative language. Modifiers generally precede the modified words, and in the case of verb modifiers, can be serially appended. The basic form of a Korean sentence is Subject Object Verb, but the verb is the only required and immovable element.
:"Did [you] go to the store?" ("you" implied in conversation)
:"Yes."
The Korean Language contains nine parts of speech.
Korean verbs ( , tongsa, ) are also known in English as "action verbs" or "dynamic verbs" to distinguish them from [ , hyeong-yongsa, "adjectives"]), which are also known as "descriptive verbs" or "stative verbs". Examples of action/dynamic verbs include (hada, "to do") and (kada, "to go") which constitute an action or movement as opposed to descriptive verbs such as (yehppeuda, "to be beautiful"). For a larger list of Korean verbs, see .
Unlike most of the European languages, Korean does not conjugate verbs using agreement with the subject, and nouns have no gender. Instead, verb conjugations depend upon the verb tense, aspect, mood, and the social relation between the speaker, the subjects, and the listeners.
The system of speech levels and honorifics loosely resembles the T-V distinction of most Indo-European languages. For example, different endings are used depending on the speaker's relation with their subject or audience. Politeness is a critical part of Korean language and Korean culture, therefore, when talking to someone esteemed, the correct verb ending must be chosen to indicate the proper respect.
Words categorized as Korean adjectives ( , hyeong-yongsa, ) conjugate similarly to verbs, so some English texts call them "descriptive verbs" or "stative verbs", but they are distinctly separate from (tongsa).
English does not have an identical grammatical category, so the English translation of Korean adjectives may misleadingly suggest that they are verbs. For example, (pukda) translates literally as "to be red" and (aswipda) often best translates as "to lack" or "to want for", but both are (hyeong-yongsa, "adjectives"). For a larger list of Korean adjectives, see .
Korean pre-nouns ( , gwanhyeongsa, ) are also known in English as "determinatives", "attributives", and "unconjugated adjectives". Examples include (kak, "each"). For a larger list, see .
Core and basic noun words are native to the Korean language, e.g. (nara, country), (nal, day). A large body of Korean nouns ( , myeongsa, ) stem from Chinese characters, e.g. (å±±, san, mountain), (é©, yeok, station), (æå, munhwa, culture), etc. Many Sino-Korean words have a native Korean equivalent and vice versa, but not always. Nouns do not have grammatical gender and can be made plural by adding ë¤ to the end of the word, however in most instances the singular form is used even when in English it would be translated as plural. For example, while in English the sentence "there are three apples" would use the plural "apples" instead of the singular "apple", the Korean sentence ì¬ê³¼ ì¸ê° ììµëë¤ (sagwa segae isssumnida) maintains the word ì¬ê³¼ (sagwa, "apple") in its singular form, thus rendered in English as "apple three(things) exist." For a list of Korean nouns, see .
Korean pronouns ( , daemyeongsa, ) are highly influenced by the honorifics in the language. Pronouns change forms depending on the social status of the person or persons spoken to, e.g. the pronoun for "I" there is both the informal (na) and the honorific/humble (jeo). In general second person singular pronouns are avoided, especially when using honorific forms. For a larger list or Korean pronouns, see .
Korean adverbs ( , busa, ) include (tto, "also") and (gadeuk, "fully"). For a larger list, see .
Korean particles ( , josa, ) are also known in English as "postpositions". Examples include (neun, topic marker) and (reul, object marker). For a larger list, see .
Korean interjections ( , gamtansa, ) are also known in English as "exclamations". Examples include (ani, "no"). For a larger list, see .
Korean numbers or numerals ( , susa, ) constitute two regularly used sets: a native Korean set and a Sino-Korean set. The Sino-Korean system is nearly entirely based on the Chinese numerals. The distinction between the two numeral systems is very important. Everything that can be counted will use one of the two systems, but seldom both. Sino-Korean words are sometimes used to mark ordinal usage: yeol beon (ì´ ë²) means "ten times" while sip beon (ì(å) ë²(çª)) means "number ten." The grouping of large numbers in Korean follow the Chinese tradition of myriads (10000) rather than thousands (1000) as is common in Europe and North America.
The relationship between a speaker or writer and his or her subject and audience is paramount in Korean, and the grammar reflects this. The relationship between speaker/writer and subject referent is reflected in honorifics, while that between speaker/writer and audience is reflected in speech level.
When talking about someone superior in status, a speaker or writer usually uses special nouns or verb endings to indicate the subject's superiority. Generally, someone is superior in status if he/she is an older relative, a stranger of roughly equal or greater age, or an employer, teacher, customer, or the like. Someone is equal or inferior in status if he/she is a younger stranger, student, employee or the like. Nowadays, there are special endings which can be used on declarative, interrogative, and imperative sentences; and both honorific or normal sentences. They are made for easier and faster use of Korean.
There are seven verb paradigms or speech levels in Korean, and each level has its own unique set of verb endings which are used to indicate the level of formality of a situation. Unlike honorificsâwhich are used to show respect towards the referentâspeech levels are used to show respect towards a speaker's or writer's audience. The names of the seven levels are derived from the non-honorific imperative form of the verb íë¤ (hada, "do") in each level, plus the suffix ì²´ ("che", hanja: é« ), which means "style".
The highest six levels are generally grouped together as jondaenmal (ì¡´ëë§), while the lowest level (haeche, í´ì²´) is called banmal (ë°ë§) in Korean.
The core of the Korean vocabulary is made up of native Korean words. Like Japanese and Vietnamese, a significant proportion of the vocabulary, especially words that denote abstract ideas, are Sino-Korean words, Sohn, Ho-Min. The Korean Language (Section 1.5.3 "Korean vocabulary", p.12â13), Cambridge University Press, 2001. ISBN 0521369436. either
* directly borrowed from Written Chinese, or
* coined in Japan or Korea using Chinese characters,
in a similar way European languages borrow from Latin and Greek.
The exact proportion of Sino-Korean vocabulary is a matter of debate. Sohn (2001) stated 50-60%. However, Jeong Jae-do, one of the compilers of the dictionary Urimal Kun Sajeon, asserts that the proportion is not so high. He points out that Korean dictionaries compiled during the period of Japanese occupation include many unused Sino-Korean words. In his estimation, the proportion of native Korean vocabulary in the Korean language might be as high as 70%. . The dictionary mentioned is
Korean has two number systems: one native, and one borrowed from Chinese.
To a much lesser extent, words have also occasionally been borrowed from Mongolian, Sanskrit, and other languages. Conversely, the Korean language itself has also contributed some loanwords to other languages, most notably the Tsushima dialect of Japanese.
The vast majority of loanwords other than Sino-Korean come from modern times, 90% of which are from English. Many words have also been borrowed from Japanese and Western languages such as German (areubaiteu "part-time job", allereugi "allergy", "gibsu" "plaster cast used for broken bones"). Some Western words were borrowed indirectly via Japanese, taking a Japanese sound pattern, for example "dozen" > dÄsu > daseu. Most indirect Western borrowings are now written according to current Hangulization rules for the respective Western language, as if borrowed directly. There are a few more complicated borrowings such as "German(y)" (see Names for Germany), the first part of whose endonym the Japanese approximated using the kanji doitsu that were then accepted into the Korean language by their Sino-Korean pronunciation: dok + il = Dogil. In South Korean official use, a number of other Sino-Korean country names have been replaced with phonetically oriented Hangulizations of the countries' endonyms or English names.
As in Japanese, Korean adapts words in ways that are uncommon in English. For example, in soccer heading ( ) is used to label a head-strike, rather than direction. This is a corrupted loan word from the English header.
North Korean vocabulary shows a tendency to prefer native Korean over Sino-Korean or foreign borrowings, especially with recent political objectives aimed at eliminating foreign (mostly Chinese) influences on the Korean language in the North. By contrast, South Korean may have several Sino-Korean or foreign borrowings which tend to be absent in North Korean.
Formerly the languages of the Korean peninsula were written using Chinese characters, using hyangchal or idu. Such systems relied on principles of rebus, and were lost, later in history. Writing became confined to the ruling elite, who used hanja to write in Classical Chinese.
Korean is now mainly written in Hangul, the Korean alphabet promulgated in 1446 by Sejong the Great; hanja may be mixed in to write Sino-Korean words. While South Korean schools still teach 1,800 hanja characters, North Korea had abolished the use of hanja decades ago.
Below is a chart of the Korean alphabet's symbols and their canonical IPA values:
Modern Korean is written with spaces between words, a feature not found in Chinese or Japanese. Korean punctuation marks are almost identical to Western ones. Traditionally, Korean was written in columns from top to bottom, right to left, but is now usually written in rows from left to right, top to bottom.
The Korean language used in the North and the South exhibits differences in pronunciation, spelling, grammar and vocabulary. Kanno, Hiroomi (ed.) / Society for Korean Linguistics in Japan (1987). ChÅsengo o manabÅ (ãæé®®èªãå¦ã¼ãã), SanshÅ«sha, Tokyo. ISBN 4-384-01506-2
In North Korea, palatalization of is optional, and can be pronounced between vowels.
Words that are written the same way may be pronounced differently, such as the examples below. The pronunciations below are given in Revised Romanization, McCune-Reischauer and Hangul, the last of which represents what the Hangul would be if one writes the word as pronounced.
* Similar pronunciation is used in the North whenever the hanja "ç" is attached to a Sino-Korean word ending in ã´, ã
or ã
. (In the South, this rule only applies when it is attached to any single-character Sino-Korean word.)
Some words are spelled differently by the North and the South, but the pronunciations are the same.
Some words have different spellings and pronunciations in the North and the South, some of which were given in the "Phonology" section above:
In general, when transcribing place names, North Korea tends to use the pronunciation in the original language more than South Korea, which often uses the pronunciation in English. For example:
Some grammatical constructions are also different:
Some vocabulary is different between the North and the South:
In the North, guillemets and are the symbols used for quotes; in the South, quotation marks equivalent to the English ones, â and â, are standard, although and are sometimes used in popular novels.
The United States' Defense Language Institute classifies Korean alongside Arabic, Chinese, and Japanese as a Category IV language, meaning that 63 weeks of instruction (as compared to just 25 weeks for French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian) are required to bring an English-speaking student to a limited working level of proficiency in which he or she has "sufficient capability to meet routine social demands and limited job requirements" and "can deal with concrete topics in past, present, and future tense." As a result, the study of the Korean language in the United States is dominated by Korean American heritage language students; they are estimated to form over 80% of all students of the language at non-military universities.
However, Korean is considerably easier for speakers of certain other languages, such as Japanese ; in Japan, it is more widely studied by non-heritage learners. The Korean Language Proficiency Test, an examination aimed at assessing non-native speakers' competence in Korean, was instituted in 1997; 17,000 people applied for the 2005 sitting of the examination.
*Hangul
*Korean romanization
**Revised romanization of Korean
**McCune-Reischauer
**Yale Romanization#Korean
**SKATS
*Korean numerals
*Korean count word
*Korean language and computers
*Hanja
*Sino-Korean vocabulary
*Korean mixed script
*List of English words of Korean origin
*Altaic languages
*List of Korea-related topics
*Vowel harmony
* (Volume 4 of the London Oriental and African Language Library).
*Hulbert, Homer B. (1905): A Comparative Grammar of the Korean Language and the Dravidian Dialects in India. Seoul.
*Martin, Samuel E. (1966): Lexical Evidence Relating Japanese to Korean. Language 42/2: 185â251.
*Martin, Samuel E. (1990): Morphological clues to the relationship of Japanese and Korean. In: Philip Baldi (ed.): Linguistic Change and Reconstruction Methodology. Trends in Linguistics: Studies and Monographs 45: 483-509.
*Miller, Roy Andrew (1971): Japanese and the Other Altaic Languages. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0226527190.
*Miller, Roy Andrew (1996): Languages and History: Japanese, Korean and Altaic. Oslo: Institute for Comparative Research in Human Culture. ISBN 9748299694.
*Ramstedt, G. J. (1928): Remarks on the Korean language. Mémoires de la Société Finno-Oigrienne 58.
*Rybatzki, Volker (2003): Middle Mongol. In: Juha Janhunen (ed.) (2003): The Mongolic languages. London: Routledge. ISBN 0-7007-1133-3: 47â82.
*Starostin, Sergei A.; Anna V. Dybo; Oleg A. Mudrak (2003): Etymological Dictionary of the Altaic Languages, 3 volumes. Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers. ISBN 9004131531.
*Sohn, H.-M. (1999): The Korean Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Song, J.-J. (2005): The Korean Language: Structure, Use and Context. London: Routledge.
*Trask, R. L. (1996): Historical linguistics. Hodder Arnold.
*Vovin, Alexander: Koreo-Japonica. University of Hawai'i Press.
*Whitman, John B. (1985): The Phonological Basis for the Comparison of Japanese and Korean. Unpublished Harvard University Ph.D. dissertation.
* Ethnologue report for Korean
* Linguistic and Philosophical Origins of the Korean Alphabet (Hangul)
* Free Korean language and culture course online, in English
* Linguistic map of Korea
* Korean - a Category III language Languages which are exceptionally difficult for native English speakers
* dongsa.net A Korean verb conjugation tool that explains the conjugations for learners of Korean
|
Korean_language | Are all dialects of Korean similar to each other? | Yes | data/set5/a6 | Korean_language
:This article is mainly about the spoken Korean language. See Hangul for details on the native Korean writing system.
Korean ( , see below) is the official language of Korea, both South and North. It is also one of the two official languages in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in China. There are about 78 million Korean speakers. In the 15th century a national writing system was commissioned by Sejong the Great, currently called Hangul. Prior to the development of Hangul, Koreans used Hanja (Chinese characters) to write for over a millennia.
The genealogical classification of the Korean language is debated by a small number of linguists. Most classify it as a language isolate Song, Jae Jung (2005) "The Korean language: structure, use and context" Routledge, p. 15
Lyle Campbell & Mauricio Mixco. 2007. A Glossary of Historical Linguistics. University of Utah Press. while a few consider it to be in the Altaic language family. Stratification in the peopling of China: how far does the linguistic evidence match genetics and archaeology? In; Sanchez-Mazas, Blench, Ross, Lin & Pejros eds. Human migrations in continental East Asia and Taiwan: genetic, linguistic and archaeological evidence. 2008. Taylor & Francis Some believe it to be distantly related to Japanese. Like Japanese it is agglutinative in its morphology and SOV in its syntax.
The Korean names for the language are based on the names for Korea used in North and South Korea.
In South Korea, the language is most often called Hangungmal
( ; ), or more formally, Hangugeo ( ; ) or Gugeo ( ; ; literally "national language").
In North Korea and Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in China, the language is most often called ChosÅnmal ( ; with hanja: ), or more formally, ChosÅnÅ ( ; ).
On the other hand, Korean people in the former USSR, who refer to themselves as Koryo-saram (ê³ ë ¤ì¬ë; also Goryeoin [ ; ; literally, "Goryeo person(s)"]) call the language Goryeomal ( ; ).
In mainland China, following the establishment of diplomatic relations with South Korea in 1992, the term CháoxiÇnyÇ ( or the short form: CháoyÇ ( )) has normally been used to refer to the language spoken in North Korea and Yanbian, while HánguóyÇ ( or the short form: HányÇ ( )) is used to refer to the language spoken in South Korea.
Some older English sources also used the name "Korean" to refer to the language, country, and people. The word "Korean" is derived from Goryeo, which is thought to be the first dynasty known to western countries.
Most modern linguists consider Korean to be a language isolate Song, Jae Jung (2005) "The Korean language: structure, use and context" Routledge, p. 15
Lyle Campbell & Mauricio J. Mixco. 2007. A Glossary of Historical Linguistics. University of Utah Press.
Since the publication of the article of Ramstedt in 1928, some linguists eg Miller 1971, 1996, Starostin et al. 2003 support the hypothesis that Korean can be classified as an Altaic language or as a relative of proto-Altaic. Korean is similar to the Altaic languages in that they both lack certain grammatical elements, including articles, fusional morphology and relative pronouns. However, linguists agree today on the fact that typological resemblances cannot be used to prove genetic relatedness of languages eg Vovin 2008: 1 as these features are typologically connected and easily borrowed. Trask 1996: 147-151 Such factors of typological divergence as Middle Mongolian's exhibition of gender agreement Rybatzki 2003: 57 can be used to argue that a genetic relationship is unlikely. Vovin 2008: 5
The hypothesis that Korean might be related to Japanese has had some more supporters due to some considerable overlap in vocabulary and similar grammatical features that have been elaborated upon by such researchers as Samuel E. Martin eg Martin 1966, 1990 and Roy Andrew Miller. eg Miller 1971, 1996 Sergei Starostin (1991) found about 25% of potential cognates in the Japanese-Korean 100-word Swadesh list, which - if true - would place these two languages closer together than other possible members of the Altaic family.
Other linguists, most notably Alexander Vovin, argue, however, that the similarities are not due to any genetic relationship, but rather to a sprachbund effect and heavy borrowing especially from Korean into Western Old Japanese. Vovin 2008 A good example might be Middle Korean sà m Whitman 1985: 232, also found in Martin 1966: 233 This word seems to be cognate, but while it is well-attested in Western Old Japanese and Northern RyÅ«kyÅ«, in Eastern Old Japanese it only occurs in compounds, and it is only present in three subdialects of the South-RyÅ«kyÅ«an dialect group. Then, the doublet wo âhempâ is attested in Western Old Japanese and Southern RyÅ«kyÅ«. It is thus plausible to assume a borrowed term. Vovin 2008: 211-212 See East Asian languages for morphological features shared among languages of the East Asian sprachbund, and Classification of Japanese for further details on the discussion of a possible relationship.
Korean is descended from Old Korean, Middle Korean and Modern Korean. Controversy remains over the proposed Altaic language family and its inclusion of Proto-Korean. Since the Korean War, contemporary North-South differences in Korean have developed, including variance in pronunciation, verb inflection, and vocabulary.
Korean is spoken by the Korean people in North Korea and South Korea and by the Korean diaspora in many countries including the People's Republic of China, Japan, and the United States. Korean-speaking minorities exist in these states, but because of cultural assimilation into host countries, not all ethnic Korean immigrants may speak it with native fluency.
Korean is the official language of South Korea and North Korea. It is also one of the two official languages of the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in China.
In South Korea, the regulatory body for Korean is the Seoul-based National Institute of the Korean Language ( ), which was created by presidential decree on January 23, 1991. In North Korea, the regulatory body is the Sahoe Kwahagwon Åhak YÅnguso ( ).
Dialects of Korean
Korean has several dialects (called mal [literally "speech"], saturi, or bang-eon in Korean). The standard language (pyojuneo or pyojunmal) of South Korea is based on the dialect of the area around Seoul, and the standard for North Korea is based on the dialect spoken around P'yÅngyang. All dialects of Korean are similar to each other, and are in fact all mutually intelligible, perhaps with the exception of the dialect of Jeju Island (see Jeju dialect). The dialect spoken in Jeju is in fact classified as a different language by some Korean linguists. One of the most notable differences between dialects is the use of stress: speakers of Seoul dialect use very little stress, and standard South Korean has a very flat intonation; on the other hand, speakers of the Gyeongsang dialect have a very pronounced intonation.
It is also worth noting that there is substantial evidence for a history of extensive dialect levelling, or even convergent evolution or intermixture of two or more originally distinct linguistic stocks, within the Korean language and its dialects. Many Korean dialects have basic vocabulary that is etymologically distinct from vocabulary of identical meaning in Standard Korean or other dialects, such as South Jeolla dialect /kur/ vs. Standard Korean ì
"mouth" or Gyeongsang dialect vs. Standard Korean "garlic chives." This suggests that the Korean Peninsula may have at one time been much more linguistically diverse than it is at present. See also the Buyeo languages hypothesis.
There is a very close connection between the dialects of Korean and the regions of Korea, since the boundaries of both are largely determined by mountains and seas. Here is a list of traditional dialect names and locations:
The Korean consonants
The IPA symbol (a subscript double straight quotation mark, shown here with a placeholder circle) is used to denote the tensed consonants . Its official use in the Extensions to the IPA is for 'strong' articulation, but is used in the literature for faucalized voice. The Korean consonants also have elements of stiff voice, but it is not yet known how typical this is of faucalized consonants. They are produced with a partially constricted glottis and additional subglottal pressure in addition to tense vocal tract walls, laryngeal lowering, or other expansion of the larynx.
becomes an alveolo-palatal before or for most speakers (but see Differences in the language between North Korea and South Korea). This occurs with the tense fricative and all the affricates as well. At the end of a syllable, /s/ changes to /t/ (Example: beoseot (ë²ì¯) 'mushroom').
may become a bilabial before or , a palatal before or , a velar before , a voiced between voiced sounds, and a elsewhere.
become voiced between voiced sounds.
becomes alveolar flap between vowels, and or at the end of a syllable or next to another . Note that a written syllable-final 'ã¹', when followed by a vowel or a glide (i.e., when the next character starts with 'ã
'), migrates to the next syllable and thus becomes .
Traditionally, was disallowed at the beginning of a word. It disappeared before , and otherwise became . However, the inflow of western loanword changed the trend, and now word-initial (mostly from English loanwords) are pronounced as a free variation of either or . The traditional prohibition of word-initial became a morphological rule called "initial law" (ëìë²ì¹) in South Korea, which pertains to Sino-Korean vocabulary. Such words retain their word-initial in North Korea.
All obstruents (plosives, affricates, fricatives) are unreleased at the end of a word.
Plosive stops become nasal stops before nasal stops.
Hangul spelling does not reflect these assimilatory pronunciation rules, but rather maintains the underlying, partly historical morphology. Given this, it is sometimes hard to tell which actual phonemes are present in a certain word.
One difference between the pronunciation standards of North and South Korea is the treatment of initial , and initial . For example,
* "labour" - north: rodong (ë¡ë), south: nodong (ë
¸ë)
* "history" - north: ryÅksa (ë ¥ì¬), south: yeoksa (ìì¬)
* "female" - north: nyÅja (ë
ì), south: yeoja (ì¬ì)
Grammatical morphemes may change shape depending on the preceding sounds. Examples include -eun/-neun (-ì/-ë) and -i/-ga (-ì´/-ê°). Sometimes sounds may be inserted instead. Examples include -eul/-reul (-ì/-를), -euro/-ro (-ì¼ë¡/-ë¡), -eseo/-seo (-ìì/-ì), -ideunji/-deunji (-ì´ë ì§/-ë ì§) and -iya/-ya (-ì´ì¼/-ì¼). However, -euro/-ro is somewhat irregular, since it will behave differently after a rieul consonant.
Some verbs may also change shape morphophonemically.
Korean is an agglutinative language. Modifiers generally precede the modified words, and in the case of verb modifiers, can be serially appended. The basic form of a Korean sentence is Subject Object Verb, but the verb is the only required and immovable element.
:"Did [you] go to the store?" ("you" implied in conversation)
:"Yes."
The Korean Language contains nine parts of speech.
Korean verbs ( , tongsa, ) are also known in English as "action verbs" or "dynamic verbs" to distinguish them from [ , hyeong-yongsa, "adjectives"]), which are also known as "descriptive verbs" or "stative verbs". Examples of action/dynamic verbs include (hada, "to do") and (kada, "to go") which constitute an action or movement as opposed to descriptive verbs such as (yehppeuda, "to be beautiful"). For a larger list of Korean verbs, see .
Unlike most of the European languages, Korean does not conjugate verbs using agreement with the subject, and nouns have no gender. Instead, verb conjugations depend upon the verb tense, aspect, mood, and the social relation between the speaker, the subjects, and the listeners.
The system of speech levels and honorifics loosely resembles the T-V distinction of most Indo-European languages. For example, different endings are used depending on the speaker's relation with their subject or audience. Politeness is a critical part of Korean language and Korean culture, therefore, when talking to someone esteemed, the correct verb ending must be chosen to indicate the proper respect.
Words categorized as Korean adjectives ( , hyeong-yongsa, ) conjugate similarly to verbs, so some English texts call them "descriptive verbs" or "stative verbs", but they are distinctly separate from (tongsa).
English does not have an identical grammatical category, so the English translation of Korean adjectives may misleadingly suggest that they are verbs. For example, (pukda) translates literally as "to be red" and (aswipda) often best translates as "to lack" or "to want for", but both are (hyeong-yongsa, "adjectives"). For a larger list of Korean adjectives, see .
Korean pre-nouns ( , gwanhyeongsa, ) are also known in English as "determinatives", "attributives", and "unconjugated adjectives". Examples include (kak, "each"). For a larger list, see .
Core and basic noun words are native to the Korean language, e.g. (nara, country), (nal, day). A large body of Korean nouns ( , myeongsa, ) stem from Chinese characters, e.g. (å±±, san, mountain), (é©, yeok, station), (æå, munhwa, culture), etc. Many Sino-Korean words have a native Korean equivalent and vice versa, but not always. Nouns do not have grammatical gender and can be made plural by adding ë¤ to the end of the word, however in most instances the singular form is used even when in English it would be translated as plural. For example, while in English the sentence "there are three apples" would use the plural "apples" instead of the singular "apple", the Korean sentence ì¬ê³¼ ì¸ê° ììµëë¤ (sagwa segae isssumnida) maintains the word ì¬ê³¼ (sagwa, "apple") in its singular form, thus rendered in English as "apple three(things) exist." For a list of Korean nouns, see .
Korean pronouns ( , daemyeongsa, ) are highly influenced by the honorifics in the language. Pronouns change forms depending on the social status of the person or persons spoken to, e.g. the pronoun for "I" there is both the informal (na) and the honorific/humble (jeo). In general second person singular pronouns are avoided, especially when using honorific forms. For a larger list or Korean pronouns, see .
Korean adverbs ( , busa, ) include (tto, "also") and (gadeuk, "fully"). For a larger list, see .
Korean particles ( , josa, ) are also known in English as "postpositions". Examples include (neun, topic marker) and (reul, object marker). For a larger list, see .
Korean interjections ( , gamtansa, ) are also known in English as "exclamations". Examples include (ani, "no"). For a larger list, see .
Korean numbers or numerals ( , susa, ) constitute two regularly used sets: a native Korean set and a Sino-Korean set. The Sino-Korean system is nearly entirely based on the Chinese numerals. The distinction between the two numeral systems is very important. Everything that can be counted will use one of the two systems, but seldom both. Sino-Korean words are sometimes used to mark ordinal usage: yeol beon (ì´ ë²) means "ten times" while sip beon (ì(å) ë²(çª)) means "number ten." The grouping of large numbers in Korean follow the Chinese tradition of myriads (10000) rather than thousands (1000) as is common in Europe and North America.
The relationship between a speaker or writer and his or her subject and audience is paramount in Korean, and the grammar reflects this. The relationship between speaker/writer and subject referent is reflected in honorifics, while that between speaker/writer and audience is reflected in speech level.
When talking about someone superior in status, a speaker or writer usually uses special nouns or verb endings to indicate the subject's superiority. Generally, someone is superior in status if he/she is an older relative, a stranger of roughly equal or greater age, or an employer, teacher, customer, or the like. Someone is equal or inferior in status if he/she is a younger stranger, student, employee or the like. Nowadays, there are special endings which can be used on declarative, interrogative, and imperative sentences; and both honorific or normal sentences. They are made for easier and faster use of Korean.
There are seven verb paradigms or speech levels in Korean, and each level has its own unique set of verb endings which are used to indicate the level of formality of a situation. Unlike honorificsâwhich are used to show respect towards the referentâspeech levels are used to show respect towards a speaker's or writer's audience. The names of the seven levels are derived from the non-honorific imperative form of the verb íë¤ (hada, "do") in each level, plus the suffix ì²´ ("che", hanja: é« ), which means "style".
The highest six levels are generally grouped together as jondaenmal (ì¡´ëë§), while the lowest level (haeche, í´ì²´) is called banmal (ë°ë§) in Korean.
The core of the Korean vocabulary is made up of native Korean words. Like Japanese and Vietnamese, a significant proportion of the vocabulary, especially words that denote abstract ideas, are Sino-Korean words, Sohn, Ho-Min. The Korean Language (Section 1.5.3 "Korean vocabulary", p.12â13), Cambridge University Press, 2001. ISBN 0521369436. either
* directly borrowed from Written Chinese, or
* coined in Japan or Korea using Chinese characters,
in a similar way European languages borrow from Latin and Greek.
The exact proportion of Sino-Korean vocabulary is a matter of debate. Sohn (2001) stated 50-60%. However, Jeong Jae-do, one of the compilers of the dictionary Urimal Kun Sajeon, asserts that the proportion is not so high. He points out that Korean dictionaries compiled during the period of Japanese occupation include many unused Sino-Korean words. In his estimation, the proportion of native Korean vocabulary in the Korean language might be as high as 70%. . The dictionary mentioned is
Korean has two number systems: one native, and one borrowed from Chinese.
To a much lesser extent, words have also occasionally been borrowed from Mongolian, Sanskrit, and other languages. Conversely, the Korean language itself has also contributed some loanwords to other languages, most notably the Tsushima dialect of Japanese.
The vast majority of loanwords other than Sino-Korean come from modern times, 90% of which are from English. Many words have also been borrowed from Japanese and Western languages such as German (areubaiteu "part-time job", allereugi "allergy", "gibsu" "plaster cast used for broken bones"). Some Western words were borrowed indirectly via Japanese, taking a Japanese sound pattern, for example "dozen" > dÄsu > daseu. Most indirect Western borrowings are now written according to current Hangulization rules for the respective Western language, as if borrowed directly. There are a few more complicated borrowings such as "German(y)" (see Names for Germany), the first part of whose endonym the Japanese approximated using the kanji doitsu that were then accepted into the Korean language by their Sino-Korean pronunciation: dok + il = Dogil. In South Korean official use, a number of other Sino-Korean country names have been replaced with phonetically oriented Hangulizations of the countries' endonyms or English names.
As in Japanese, Korean adapts words in ways that are uncommon in English. For example, in soccer heading ( ) is used to label a head-strike, rather than direction. This is a corrupted loan word from the English header.
North Korean vocabulary shows a tendency to prefer native Korean over Sino-Korean or foreign borrowings, especially with recent political objectives aimed at eliminating foreign (mostly Chinese) influences on the Korean language in the North. By contrast, South Korean may have several Sino-Korean or foreign borrowings which tend to be absent in North Korean.
Formerly the languages of the Korean peninsula were written using Chinese characters, using hyangchal or idu. Such systems relied on principles of rebus, and were lost, later in history. Writing became confined to the ruling elite, who used hanja to write in Classical Chinese.
Korean is now mainly written in Hangul, the Korean alphabet promulgated in 1446 by Sejong the Great; hanja may be mixed in to write Sino-Korean words. While South Korean schools still teach 1,800 hanja characters, North Korea had abolished the use of hanja decades ago.
Below is a chart of the Korean alphabet's symbols and their canonical IPA values:
Modern Korean is written with spaces between words, a feature not found in Chinese or Japanese. Korean punctuation marks are almost identical to Western ones. Traditionally, Korean was written in columns from top to bottom, right to left, but is now usually written in rows from left to right, top to bottom.
The Korean language used in the North and the South exhibits differences in pronunciation, spelling, grammar and vocabulary. Kanno, Hiroomi (ed.) / Society for Korean Linguistics in Japan (1987). ChÅsengo o manabÅ (ãæé®®èªãå¦ã¼ãã), SanshÅ«sha, Tokyo. ISBN 4-384-01506-2
In North Korea, palatalization of is optional, and can be pronounced between vowels.
Words that are written the same way may be pronounced differently, such as the examples below. The pronunciations below are given in Revised Romanization, McCune-Reischauer and Hangul, the last of which represents what the Hangul would be if one writes the word as pronounced.
* Similar pronunciation is used in the North whenever the hanja "ç" is attached to a Sino-Korean word ending in ã´, ã
or ã
. (In the South, this rule only applies when it is attached to any single-character Sino-Korean word.)
Some words are spelled differently by the North and the South, but the pronunciations are the same.
Some words have different spellings and pronunciations in the North and the South, some of which were given in the "Phonology" section above:
In general, when transcribing place names, North Korea tends to use the pronunciation in the original language more than South Korea, which often uses the pronunciation in English. For example:
Some grammatical constructions are also different:
Some vocabulary is different between the North and the South:
In the North, guillemets and are the symbols used for quotes; in the South, quotation marks equivalent to the English ones, â and â, are standard, although and are sometimes used in popular novels.
The United States' Defense Language Institute classifies Korean alongside Arabic, Chinese, and Japanese as a Category IV language, meaning that 63 weeks of instruction (as compared to just 25 weeks for French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian) are required to bring an English-speaking student to a limited working level of proficiency in which he or she has "sufficient capability to meet routine social demands and limited job requirements" and "can deal with concrete topics in past, present, and future tense." As a result, the study of the Korean language in the United States is dominated by Korean American heritage language students; they are estimated to form over 80% of all students of the language at non-military universities.
However, Korean is considerably easier for speakers of certain other languages, such as Japanese ; in Japan, it is more widely studied by non-heritage learners. The Korean Language Proficiency Test, an examination aimed at assessing non-native speakers' competence in Korean, was instituted in 1997; 17,000 people applied for the 2005 sitting of the examination.
*Hangul
*Korean romanization
**Revised romanization of Korean
**McCune-Reischauer
**Yale Romanization#Korean
**SKATS
*Korean numerals
*Korean count word
*Korean language and computers
*Hanja
*Sino-Korean vocabulary
*Korean mixed script
*List of English words of Korean origin
*Altaic languages
*List of Korea-related topics
*Vowel harmony
* (Volume 4 of the London Oriental and African Language Library).
*Hulbert, Homer B. (1905): A Comparative Grammar of the Korean Language and the Dravidian Dialects in India. Seoul.
*Martin, Samuel E. (1966): Lexical Evidence Relating Japanese to Korean. Language 42/2: 185â251.
*Martin, Samuel E. (1990): Morphological clues to the relationship of Japanese and Korean. In: Philip Baldi (ed.): Linguistic Change and Reconstruction Methodology. Trends in Linguistics: Studies and Monographs 45: 483-509.
*Miller, Roy Andrew (1971): Japanese and the Other Altaic Languages. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0226527190.
*Miller, Roy Andrew (1996): Languages and History: Japanese, Korean and Altaic. Oslo: Institute for Comparative Research in Human Culture. ISBN 9748299694.
*Ramstedt, G. J. (1928): Remarks on the Korean language. Mémoires de la Société Finno-Oigrienne 58.
*Rybatzki, Volker (2003): Middle Mongol. In: Juha Janhunen (ed.) (2003): The Mongolic languages. London: Routledge. ISBN 0-7007-1133-3: 47â82.
*Starostin, Sergei A.; Anna V. Dybo; Oleg A. Mudrak (2003): Etymological Dictionary of the Altaic Languages, 3 volumes. Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers. ISBN 9004131531.
*Sohn, H.-M. (1999): The Korean Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Song, J.-J. (2005): The Korean Language: Structure, Use and Context. London: Routledge.
*Trask, R. L. (1996): Historical linguistics. Hodder Arnold.
*Vovin, Alexander: Koreo-Japonica. University of Hawai'i Press.
*Whitman, John B. (1985): The Phonological Basis for the Comparison of Japanese and Korean. Unpublished Harvard University Ph.D. dissertation.
* Ethnologue report for Korean
* Linguistic and Philosophical Origins of the Korean Alphabet (Hangul)
* Free Korean language and culture course online, in English
* Linguistic map of Korea
* Korean - a Category III language Languages which are exceptionally difficult for native English speakers
* dongsa.net A Korean verb conjugation tool that explains the conjugations for learners of Korean
|
Korean_language | Are all dialects of Korean similar to each other? | Yes | data/set5/a6 | Korean_language
:This article is mainly about the spoken Korean language. See Hangul for details on the native Korean writing system.
Korean ( , see below) is the official language of Korea, both South and North. It is also one of the two official languages in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in China. There are about 78 million Korean speakers. In the 15th century a national writing system was commissioned by Sejong the Great, currently called Hangul. Prior to the development of Hangul, Koreans used Hanja (Chinese characters) to write for over a millennia.
The genealogical classification of the Korean language is debated by a small number of linguists. Most classify it as a language isolate Song, Jae Jung (2005) "The Korean language: structure, use and context" Routledge, p. 15
Lyle Campbell & Mauricio Mixco. 2007. A Glossary of Historical Linguistics. University of Utah Press. while a few consider it to be in the Altaic language family. Stratification in the peopling of China: how far does the linguistic evidence match genetics and archaeology? In; Sanchez-Mazas, Blench, Ross, Lin & Pejros eds. Human migrations in continental East Asia and Taiwan: genetic, linguistic and archaeological evidence. 2008. Taylor & Francis Some believe it to be distantly related to Japanese. Like Japanese it is agglutinative in its morphology and SOV in its syntax.
The Korean names for the language are based on the names for Korea used in North and South Korea.
In South Korea, the language is most often called Hangungmal
( ; ), or more formally, Hangugeo ( ; ) or Gugeo ( ; ; literally "national language").
In North Korea and Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in China, the language is most often called ChosÅnmal ( ; with hanja: ), or more formally, ChosÅnÅ ( ; ).
On the other hand, Korean people in the former USSR, who refer to themselves as Koryo-saram (ê³ ë ¤ì¬ë; also Goryeoin [ ; ; literally, "Goryeo person(s)"]) call the language Goryeomal ( ; ).
In mainland China, following the establishment of diplomatic relations with South Korea in 1992, the term CháoxiÇnyÇ ( or the short form: CháoyÇ ( )) has normally been used to refer to the language spoken in North Korea and Yanbian, while HánguóyÇ ( or the short form: HányÇ ( )) is used to refer to the language spoken in South Korea.
Some older English sources also used the name "Korean" to refer to the language, country, and people. The word "Korean" is derived from Goryeo, which is thought to be the first dynasty known to western countries.
Most modern linguists consider Korean to be a language isolate Song, Jae Jung (2005) "The Korean language: structure, use and context" Routledge, p. 15
Lyle Campbell & Mauricio J. Mixco. 2007. A Glossary of Historical Linguistics. University of Utah Press.
Since the publication of the article of Ramstedt in 1928, some linguists eg Miller 1971, 1996, Starostin et al. 2003 support the hypothesis that Korean can be classified as an Altaic language or as a relative of proto-Altaic. Korean is similar to the Altaic languages in that they both lack certain grammatical elements, including articles, fusional morphology and relative pronouns. However, linguists agree today on the fact that typological resemblances cannot be used to prove genetic relatedness of languages eg Vovin 2008: 1 as these features are typologically connected and easily borrowed. Trask 1996: 147-151 Such factors of typological divergence as Middle Mongolian's exhibition of gender agreement Rybatzki 2003: 57 can be used to argue that a genetic relationship is unlikely. Vovin 2008: 5
The hypothesis that Korean might be related to Japanese has had some more supporters due to some considerable overlap in vocabulary and similar grammatical features that have been elaborated upon by such researchers as Samuel E. Martin eg Martin 1966, 1990 and Roy Andrew Miller. eg Miller 1971, 1996 Sergei Starostin (1991) found about 25% of potential cognates in the Japanese-Korean 100-word Swadesh list, which - if true - would place these two languages closer together than other possible members of the Altaic family.
Other linguists, most notably Alexander Vovin, argue, however, that the similarities are not due to any genetic relationship, but rather to a sprachbund effect and heavy borrowing especially from Korean into Western Old Japanese. Vovin 2008 A good example might be Middle Korean sà m Whitman 1985: 232, also found in Martin 1966: 233 This word seems to be cognate, but while it is well-attested in Western Old Japanese and Northern RyÅ«kyÅ«, in Eastern Old Japanese it only occurs in compounds, and it is only present in three subdialects of the South-RyÅ«kyÅ«an dialect group. Then, the doublet wo âhempâ is attested in Western Old Japanese and Southern RyÅ«kyÅ«. It is thus plausible to assume a borrowed term. Vovin 2008: 211-212 See East Asian languages for morphological features shared among languages of the East Asian sprachbund, and Classification of Japanese for further details on the discussion of a possible relationship.
Korean is descended from Old Korean, Middle Korean and Modern Korean. Controversy remains over the proposed Altaic language family and its inclusion of Proto-Korean. Since the Korean War, contemporary North-South differences in Korean have developed, including variance in pronunciation, verb inflection, and vocabulary.
Korean is spoken by the Korean people in North Korea and South Korea and by the Korean diaspora in many countries including the People's Republic of China, Japan, and the United States. Korean-speaking minorities exist in these states, but because of cultural assimilation into host countries, not all ethnic Korean immigrants may speak it with native fluency.
Korean is the official language of South Korea and North Korea. It is also one of the two official languages of the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in China.
In South Korea, the regulatory body for Korean is the Seoul-based National Institute of the Korean Language ( ), which was created by presidential decree on January 23, 1991. In North Korea, the regulatory body is the Sahoe Kwahagwon Åhak YÅnguso ( ).
Dialects of Korean
Korean has several dialects (called mal [literally "speech"], saturi, or bang-eon in Korean). The standard language (pyojuneo or pyojunmal) of South Korea is based on the dialect of the area around Seoul, and the standard for North Korea is based on the dialect spoken around P'yÅngyang. All dialects of Korean are similar to each other, and are in fact all mutually intelligible, perhaps with the exception of the dialect of Jeju Island (see Jeju dialect). The dialect spoken in Jeju is in fact classified as a different language by some Korean linguists. One of the most notable differences between dialects is the use of stress: speakers of Seoul dialect use very little stress, and standard South Korean has a very flat intonation; on the other hand, speakers of the Gyeongsang dialect have a very pronounced intonation.
It is also worth noting that there is substantial evidence for a history of extensive dialect levelling, or even convergent evolution or intermixture of two or more originally distinct linguistic stocks, within the Korean language and its dialects. Many Korean dialects have basic vocabulary that is etymologically distinct from vocabulary of identical meaning in Standard Korean or other dialects, such as South Jeolla dialect /kur/ vs. Standard Korean ì
"mouth" or Gyeongsang dialect vs. Standard Korean "garlic chives." This suggests that the Korean Peninsula may have at one time been much more linguistically diverse than it is at present. See also the Buyeo languages hypothesis.
There is a very close connection between the dialects of Korean and the regions of Korea, since the boundaries of both are largely determined by mountains and seas. Here is a list of traditional dialect names and locations:
The Korean consonants
The IPA symbol (a subscript double straight quotation mark, shown here with a placeholder circle) is used to denote the tensed consonants . Its official use in the Extensions to the IPA is for 'strong' articulation, but is used in the literature for faucalized voice. The Korean consonants also have elements of stiff voice, but it is not yet known how typical this is of faucalized consonants. They are produced with a partially constricted glottis and additional subglottal pressure in addition to tense vocal tract walls, laryngeal lowering, or other expansion of the larynx.
becomes an alveolo-palatal before or for most speakers (but see Differences in the language between North Korea and South Korea). This occurs with the tense fricative and all the affricates as well. At the end of a syllable, /s/ changes to /t/ (Example: beoseot (ë²ì¯) 'mushroom').
may become a bilabial before or , a palatal before or , a velar before , a voiced between voiced sounds, and a elsewhere.
become voiced between voiced sounds.
becomes alveolar flap between vowels, and or at the end of a syllable or next to another . Note that a written syllable-final 'ã¹', when followed by a vowel or a glide (i.e., when the next character starts with 'ã
'), migrates to the next syllable and thus becomes .
Traditionally, was disallowed at the beginning of a word. It disappeared before , and otherwise became . However, the inflow of western loanword changed the trend, and now word-initial (mostly from English loanwords) are pronounced as a free variation of either or . The traditional prohibition of word-initial became a morphological rule called "initial law" (ëìë²ì¹) in South Korea, which pertains to Sino-Korean vocabulary. Such words retain their word-initial in North Korea.
All obstruents (plosives, affricates, fricatives) are unreleased at the end of a word.
Plosive stops become nasal stops before nasal stops.
Hangul spelling does not reflect these assimilatory pronunciation rules, but rather maintains the underlying, partly historical morphology. Given this, it is sometimes hard to tell which actual phonemes are present in a certain word.
One difference between the pronunciation standards of North and South Korea is the treatment of initial , and initial . For example,
* "labour" - north: rodong (ë¡ë), south: nodong (ë
¸ë)
* "history" - north: ryÅksa (ë ¥ì¬), south: yeoksa (ìì¬)
* "female" - north: nyÅja (ë
ì), south: yeoja (ì¬ì)
Grammatical morphemes may change shape depending on the preceding sounds. Examples include -eun/-neun (-ì/-ë) and -i/-ga (-ì´/-ê°). Sometimes sounds may be inserted instead. Examples include -eul/-reul (-ì/-를), -euro/-ro (-ì¼ë¡/-ë¡), -eseo/-seo (-ìì/-ì), -ideunji/-deunji (-ì´ë ì§/-ë ì§) and -iya/-ya (-ì´ì¼/-ì¼). However, -euro/-ro is somewhat irregular, since it will behave differently after a rieul consonant.
Some verbs may also change shape morphophonemically.
Korean is an agglutinative language. Modifiers generally precede the modified words, and in the case of verb modifiers, can be serially appended. The basic form of a Korean sentence is Subject Object Verb, but the verb is the only required and immovable element.
:"Did [you] go to the store?" ("you" implied in conversation)
:"Yes."
The Korean Language contains nine parts of speech.
Korean verbs ( , tongsa, ) are also known in English as "action verbs" or "dynamic verbs" to distinguish them from [ , hyeong-yongsa, "adjectives"]), which are also known as "descriptive verbs" or "stative verbs". Examples of action/dynamic verbs include (hada, "to do") and (kada, "to go") which constitute an action or movement as opposed to descriptive verbs such as (yehppeuda, "to be beautiful"). For a larger list of Korean verbs, see .
Unlike most of the European languages, Korean does not conjugate verbs using agreement with the subject, and nouns have no gender. Instead, verb conjugations depend upon the verb tense, aspect, mood, and the social relation between the speaker, the subjects, and the listeners.
The system of speech levels and honorifics loosely resembles the T-V distinction of most Indo-European languages. For example, different endings are used depending on the speaker's relation with their subject or audience. Politeness is a critical part of Korean language and Korean culture, therefore, when talking to someone esteemed, the correct verb ending must be chosen to indicate the proper respect.
Words categorized as Korean adjectives ( , hyeong-yongsa, ) conjugate similarly to verbs, so some English texts call them "descriptive verbs" or "stative verbs", but they are distinctly separate from (tongsa).
English does not have an identical grammatical category, so the English translation of Korean adjectives may misleadingly suggest that they are verbs. For example, (pukda) translates literally as "to be red" and (aswipda) often best translates as "to lack" or "to want for", but both are (hyeong-yongsa, "adjectives"). For a larger list of Korean adjectives, see .
Korean pre-nouns ( , gwanhyeongsa, ) are also known in English as "determinatives", "attributives", and "unconjugated adjectives". Examples include (kak, "each"). For a larger list, see .
Core and basic noun words are native to the Korean language, e.g. (nara, country), (nal, day). A large body of Korean nouns ( , myeongsa, ) stem from Chinese characters, e.g. (å±±, san, mountain), (é©, yeok, station), (æå, munhwa, culture), etc. Many Sino-Korean words have a native Korean equivalent and vice versa, but not always. Nouns do not have grammatical gender and can be made plural by adding ë¤ to the end of the word, however in most instances the singular form is used even when in English it would be translated as plural. For example, while in English the sentence "there are three apples" would use the plural "apples" instead of the singular "apple", the Korean sentence ì¬ê³¼ ì¸ê° ììµëë¤ (sagwa segae isssumnida) maintains the word ì¬ê³¼ (sagwa, "apple") in its singular form, thus rendered in English as "apple three(things) exist." For a list of Korean nouns, see .
Korean pronouns ( , daemyeongsa, ) are highly influenced by the honorifics in the language. Pronouns change forms depending on the social status of the person or persons spoken to, e.g. the pronoun for "I" there is both the informal (na) and the honorific/humble (jeo). In general second person singular pronouns are avoided, especially when using honorific forms. For a larger list or Korean pronouns, see .
Korean adverbs ( , busa, ) include (tto, "also") and (gadeuk, "fully"). For a larger list, see .
Korean particles ( , josa, ) are also known in English as "postpositions". Examples include (neun, topic marker) and (reul, object marker). For a larger list, see .
Korean interjections ( , gamtansa, ) are also known in English as "exclamations". Examples include (ani, "no"). For a larger list, see .
Korean numbers or numerals ( , susa, ) constitute two regularly used sets: a native Korean set and a Sino-Korean set. The Sino-Korean system is nearly entirely based on the Chinese numerals. The distinction between the two numeral systems is very important. Everything that can be counted will use one of the two systems, but seldom both. Sino-Korean words are sometimes used to mark ordinal usage: yeol beon (ì´ ë²) means "ten times" while sip beon (ì(å) ë²(çª)) means "number ten." The grouping of large numbers in Korean follow the Chinese tradition of myriads (10000) rather than thousands (1000) as is common in Europe and North America.
The relationship between a speaker or writer and his or her subject and audience is paramount in Korean, and the grammar reflects this. The relationship between speaker/writer and subject referent is reflected in honorifics, while that between speaker/writer and audience is reflected in speech level.
When talking about someone superior in status, a speaker or writer usually uses special nouns or verb endings to indicate the subject's superiority. Generally, someone is superior in status if he/she is an older relative, a stranger of roughly equal or greater age, or an employer, teacher, customer, or the like. Someone is equal or inferior in status if he/she is a younger stranger, student, employee or the like. Nowadays, there are special endings which can be used on declarative, interrogative, and imperative sentences; and both honorific or normal sentences. They are made for easier and faster use of Korean.
There are seven verb paradigms or speech levels in Korean, and each level has its own unique set of verb endings which are used to indicate the level of formality of a situation. Unlike honorificsâwhich are used to show respect towards the referentâspeech levels are used to show respect towards a speaker's or writer's audience. The names of the seven levels are derived from the non-honorific imperative form of the verb íë¤ (hada, "do") in each level, plus the suffix ì²´ ("che", hanja: é« ), which means "style".
The highest six levels are generally grouped together as jondaenmal (ì¡´ëë§), while the lowest level (haeche, í´ì²´) is called banmal (ë°ë§) in Korean.
The core of the Korean vocabulary is made up of native Korean words. Like Japanese and Vietnamese, a significant proportion of the vocabulary, especially words that denote abstract ideas, are Sino-Korean words, Sohn, Ho-Min. The Korean Language (Section 1.5.3 "Korean vocabulary", p.12â13), Cambridge University Press, 2001. ISBN 0521369436. either
* directly borrowed from Written Chinese, or
* coined in Japan or Korea using Chinese characters,
in a similar way European languages borrow from Latin and Greek.
The exact proportion of Sino-Korean vocabulary is a matter of debate. Sohn (2001) stated 50-60%. However, Jeong Jae-do, one of the compilers of the dictionary Urimal Kun Sajeon, asserts that the proportion is not so high. He points out that Korean dictionaries compiled during the period of Japanese occupation include many unused Sino-Korean words. In his estimation, the proportion of native Korean vocabulary in the Korean language might be as high as 70%. . The dictionary mentioned is
Korean has two number systems: one native, and one borrowed from Chinese.
To a much lesser extent, words have also occasionally been borrowed from Mongolian, Sanskrit, and other languages. Conversely, the Korean language itself has also contributed some loanwords to other languages, most notably the Tsushima dialect of Japanese.
The vast majority of loanwords other than Sino-Korean come from modern times, 90% of which are from English. Many words have also been borrowed from Japanese and Western languages such as German (areubaiteu "part-time job", allereugi "allergy", "gibsu" "plaster cast used for broken bones"). Some Western words were borrowed indirectly via Japanese, taking a Japanese sound pattern, for example "dozen" > dÄsu > daseu. Most indirect Western borrowings are now written according to current Hangulization rules for the respective Western language, as if borrowed directly. There are a few more complicated borrowings such as "German(y)" (see Names for Germany), the first part of whose endonym the Japanese approximated using the kanji doitsu that were then accepted into the Korean language by their Sino-Korean pronunciation: dok + il = Dogil. In South Korean official use, a number of other Sino-Korean country names have been replaced with phonetically oriented Hangulizations of the countries' endonyms or English names.
As in Japanese, Korean adapts words in ways that are uncommon in English. For example, in soccer heading ( ) is used to label a head-strike, rather than direction. This is a corrupted loan word from the English header.
North Korean vocabulary shows a tendency to prefer native Korean over Sino-Korean or foreign borrowings, especially with recent political objectives aimed at eliminating foreign (mostly Chinese) influences on the Korean language in the North. By contrast, South Korean may have several Sino-Korean or foreign borrowings which tend to be absent in North Korean.
Formerly the languages of the Korean peninsula were written using Chinese characters, using hyangchal or idu. Such systems relied on principles of rebus, and were lost, later in history. Writing became confined to the ruling elite, who used hanja to write in Classical Chinese.
Korean is now mainly written in Hangul, the Korean alphabet promulgated in 1446 by Sejong the Great; hanja may be mixed in to write Sino-Korean words. While South Korean schools still teach 1,800 hanja characters, North Korea had abolished the use of hanja decades ago.
Below is a chart of the Korean alphabet's symbols and their canonical IPA values:
Modern Korean is written with spaces between words, a feature not found in Chinese or Japanese. Korean punctuation marks are almost identical to Western ones. Traditionally, Korean was written in columns from top to bottom, right to left, but is now usually written in rows from left to right, top to bottom.
The Korean language used in the North and the South exhibits differences in pronunciation, spelling, grammar and vocabulary. Kanno, Hiroomi (ed.) / Society for Korean Linguistics in Japan (1987). ChÅsengo o manabÅ (ãæé®®èªãå¦ã¼ãã), SanshÅ«sha, Tokyo. ISBN 4-384-01506-2
In North Korea, palatalization of is optional, and can be pronounced between vowels.
Words that are written the same way may be pronounced differently, such as the examples below. The pronunciations below are given in Revised Romanization, McCune-Reischauer and Hangul, the last of which represents what the Hangul would be if one writes the word as pronounced.
* Similar pronunciation is used in the North whenever the hanja "ç" is attached to a Sino-Korean word ending in ã´, ã
or ã
. (In the South, this rule only applies when it is attached to any single-character Sino-Korean word.)
Some words are spelled differently by the North and the South, but the pronunciations are the same.
Some words have different spellings and pronunciations in the North and the South, some of which were given in the "Phonology" section above:
In general, when transcribing place names, North Korea tends to use the pronunciation in the original language more than South Korea, which often uses the pronunciation in English. For example:
Some grammatical constructions are also different:
Some vocabulary is different between the North and the South:
In the North, guillemets and are the symbols used for quotes; in the South, quotation marks equivalent to the English ones, â and â, are standard, although and are sometimes used in popular novels.
The United States' Defense Language Institute classifies Korean alongside Arabic, Chinese, and Japanese as a Category IV language, meaning that 63 weeks of instruction (as compared to just 25 weeks for French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian) are required to bring an English-speaking student to a limited working level of proficiency in which he or she has "sufficient capability to meet routine social demands and limited job requirements" and "can deal with concrete topics in past, present, and future tense." As a result, the study of the Korean language in the United States is dominated by Korean American heritage language students; they are estimated to form over 80% of all students of the language at non-military universities.
However, Korean is considerably easier for speakers of certain other languages, such as Japanese ; in Japan, it is more widely studied by non-heritage learners. The Korean Language Proficiency Test, an examination aimed at assessing non-native speakers' competence in Korean, was instituted in 1997; 17,000 people applied for the 2005 sitting of the examination.
*Hangul
*Korean romanization
**Revised romanization of Korean
**McCune-Reischauer
**Yale Romanization#Korean
**SKATS
*Korean numerals
*Korean count word
*Korean language and computers
*Hanja
*Sino-Korean vocabulary
*Korean mixed script
*List of English words of Korean origin
*Altaic languages
*List of Korea-related topics
*Vowel harmony
* (Volume 4 of the London Oriental and African Language Library).
*Hulbert, Homer B. (1905): A Comparative Grammar of the Korean Language and the Dravidian Dialects in India. Seoul.
*Martin, Samuel E. (1966): Lexical Evidence Relating Japanese to Korean. Language 42/2: 185â251.
*Martin, Samuel E. (1990): Morphological clues to the relationship of Japanese and Korean. In: Philip Baldi (ed.): Linguistic Change and Reconstruction Methodology. Trends in Linguistics: Studies and Monographs 45: 483-509.
*Miller, Roy Andrew (1971): Japanese and the Other Altaic Languages. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0226527190.
*Miller, Roy Andrew (1996): Languages and History: Japanese, Korean and Altaic. Oslo: Institute for Comparative Research in Human Culture. ISBN 9748299694.
*Ramstedt, G. J. (1928): Remarks on the Korean language. Mémoires de la Société Finno-Oigrienne 58.
*Rybatzki, Volker (2003): Middle Mongol. In: Juha Janhunen (ed.) (2003): The Mongolic languages. London: Routledge. ISBN 0-7007-1133-3: 47â82.
*Starostin, Sergei A.; Anna V. Dybo; Oleg A. Mudrak (2003): Etymological Dictionary of the Altaic Languages, 3 volumes. Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers. ISBN 9004131531.
*Sohn, H.-M. (1999): The Korean Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Song, J.-J. (2005): The Korean Language: Structure, Use and Context. London: Routledge.
*Trask, R. L. (1996): Historical linguistics. Hodder Arnold.
*Vovin, Alexander: Koreo-Japonica. University of Hawai'i Press.
*Whitman, John B. (1985): The Phonological Basis for the Comparison of Japanese and Korean. Unpublished Harvard University Ph.D. dissertation.
* Ethnologue report for Korean
* Linguistic and Philosophical Origins of the Korean Alphabet (Hangul)
* Free Korean language and culture course online, in English
* Linguistic map of Korea
* Korean - a Category III language Languages which are exceptionally difficult for native English speakers
* dongsa.net A Korean verb conjugation tool that explains the conjugations for learners of Korean
|
Korean_language | About how many Koreans speakers are there? | 78 million | data/set5/a6 | Korean_language
:This article is mainly about the spoken Korean language. See Hangul for details on the native Korean writing system.
Korean ( , see below) is the official language of Korea, both South and North. It is also one of the two official languages in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in China. There are about 78 million Korean speakers. In the 15th century a national writing system was commissioned by Sejong the Great, currently called Hangul. Prior to the development of Hangul, Koreans used Hanja (Chinese characters) to write for over a millennia.
The genealogical classification of the Korean language is debated by a small number of linguists. Most classify it as a language isolate Song, Jae Jung (2005) "The Korean language: structure, use and context" Routledge, p. 15
Lyle Campbell & Mauricio Mixco. 2007. A Glossary of Historical Linguistics. University of Utah Press. while a few consider it to be in the Altaic language family. Stratification in the peopling of China: how far does the linguistic evidence match genetics and archaeology? In; Sanchez-Mazas, Blench, Ross, Lin & Pejros eds. Human migrations in continental East Asia and Taiwan: genetic, linguistic and archaeological evidence. 2008. Taylor & Francis Some believe it to be distantly related to Japanese. Like Japanese it is agglutinative in its morphology and SOV in its syntax.
The Korean names for the language are based on the names for Korea used in North and South Korea.
In South Korea, the language is most often called Hangungmal
( ; ), or more formally, Hangugeo ( ; ) or Gugeo ( ; ; literally "national language").
In North Korea and Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in China, the language is most often called ChosÅnmal ( ; with hanja: ), or more formally, ChosÅnÅ ( ; ).
On the other hand, Korean people in the former USSR, who refer to themselves as Koryo-saram (ê³ ë ¤ì¬ë; also Goryeoin [ ; ; literally, "Goryeo person(s)"]) call the language Goryeomal ( ; ).
In mainland China, following the establishment of diplomatic relations with South Korea in 1992, the term CháoxiÇnyÇ ( or the short form: CháoyÇ ( )) has normally been used to refer to the language spoken in North Korea and Yanbian, while HánguóyÇ ( or the short form: HányÇ ( )) is used to refer to the language spoken in South Korea.
Some older English sources also used the name "Korean" to refer to the language, country, and people. The word "Korean" is derived from Goryeo, which is thought to be the first dynasty known to western countries.
Most modern linguists consider Korean to be a language isolate Song, Jae Jung (2005) "The Korean language: structure, use and context" Routledge, p. 15
Lyle Campbell & Mauricio J. Mixco. 2007. A Glossary of Historical Linguistics. University of Utah Press.
Since the publication of the article of Ramstedt in 1928, some linguists eg Miller 1971, 1996, Starostin et al. 2003 support the hypothesis that Korean can be classified as an Altaic language or as a relative of proto-Altaic. Korean is similar to the Altaic languages in that they both lack certain grammatical elements, including articles, fusional morphology and relative pronouns. However, linguists agree today on the fact that typological resemblances cannot be used to prove genetic relatedness of languages eg Vovin 2008: 1 as these features are typologically connected and easily borrowed. Trask 1996: 147-151 Such factors of typological divergence as Middle Mongolian's exhibition of gender agreement Rybatzki 2003: 57 can be used to argue that a genetic relationship is unlikely. Vovin 2008: 5
The hypothesis that Korean might be related to Japanese has had some more supporters due to some considerable overlap in vocabulary and similar grammatical features that have been elaborated upon by such researchers as Samuel E. Martin eg Martin 1966, 1990 and Roy Andrew Miller. eg Miller 1971, 1996 Sergei Starostin (1991) found about 25% of potential cognates in the Japanese-Korean 100-word Swadesh list, which - if true - would place these two languages closer together than other possible members of the Altaic family.
Other linguists, most notably Alexander Vovin, argue, however, that the similarities are not due to any genetic relationship, but rather to a sprachbund effect and heavy borrowing especially from Korean into Western Old Japanese. Vovin 2008 A good example might be Middle Korean sà m Whitman 1985: 232, also found in Martin 1966: 233 This word seems to be cognate, but while it is well-attested in Western Old Japanese and Northern RyÅ«kyÅ«, in Eastern Old Japanese it only occurs in compounds, and it is only present in three subdialects of the South-RyÅ«kyÅ«an dialect group. Then, the doublet wo âhempâ is attested in Western Old Japanese and Southern RyÅ«kyÅ«. It is thus plausible to assume a borrowed term. Vovin 2008: 211-212 See East Asian languages for morphological features shared among languages of the East Asian sprachbund, and Classification of Japanese for further details on the discussion of a possible relationship.
Korean is descended from Old Korean, Middle Korean and Modern Korean. Controversy remains over the proposed Altaic language family and its inclusion of Proto-Korean. Since the Korean War, contemporary North-South differences in Korean have developed, including variance in pronunciation, verb inflection, and vocabulary.
Korean is spoken by the Korean people in North Korea and South Korea and by the Korean diaspora in many countries including the People's Republic of China, Japan, and the United States. Korean-speaking minorities exist in these states, but because of cultural assimilation into host countries, not all ethnic Korean immigrants may speak it with native fluency.
Korean is the official language of South Korea and North Korea. It is also one of the two official languages of the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in China.
In South Korea, the regulatory body for Korean is the Seoul-based National Institute of the Korean Language ( ), which was created by presidential decree on January 23, 1991. In North Korea, the regulatory body is the Sahoe Kwahagwon Åhak YÅnguso ( ).
Dialects of Korean
Korean has several dialects (called mal [literally "speech"], saturi, or bang-eon in Korean). The standard language (pyojuneo or pyojunmal) of South Korea is based on the dialect of the area around Seoul, and the standard for North Korea is based on the dialect spoken around P'yÅngyang. All dialects of Korean are similar to each other, and are in fact all mutually intelligible, perhaps with the exception of the dialect of Jeju Island (see Jeju dialect). The dialect spoken in Jeju is in fact classified as a different language by some Korean linguists. One of the most notable differences between dialects is the use of stress: speakers of Seoul dialect use very little stress, and standard South Korean has a very flat intonation; on the other hand, speakers of the Gyeongsang dialect have a very pronounced intonation.
It is also worth noting that there is substantial evidence for a history of extensive dialect levelling, or even convergent evolution or intermixture of two or more originally distinct linguistic stocks, within the Korean language and its dialects. Many Korean dialects have basic vocabulary that is etymologically distinct from vocabulary of identical meaning in Standard Korean or other dialects, such as South Jeolla dialect /kur/ vs. Standard Korean ì
"mouth" or Gyeongsang dialect vs. Standard Korean "garlic chives." This suggests that the Korean Peninsula may have at one time been much more linguistically diverse than it is at present. See also the Buyeo languages hypothesis.
There is a very close connection between the dialects of Korean and the regions of Korea, since the boundaries of both are largely determined by mountains and seas. Here is a list of traditional dialect names and locations:
The Korean consonants
The IPA symbol (a subscript double straight quotation mark, shown here with a placeholder circle) is used to denote the tensed consonants . Its official use in the Extensions to the IPA is for 'strong' articulation, but is used in the literature for faucalized voice. The Korean consonants also have elements of stiff voice, but it is not yet known how typical this is of faucalized consonants. They are produced with a partially constricted glottis and additional subglottal pressure in addition to tense vocal tract walls, laryngeal lowering, or other expansion of the larynx.
becomes an alveolo-palatal before or for most speakers (but see Differences in the language between North Korea and South Korea). This occurs with the tense fricative and all the affricates as well. At the end of a syllable, /s/ changes to /t/ (Example: beoseot (ë²ì¯) 'mushroom').
may become a bilabial before or , a palatal before or , a velar before , a voiced between voiced sounds, and a elsewhere.
become voiced between voiced sounds.
becomes alveolar flap between vowels, and or at the end of a syllable or next to another . Note that a written syllable-final 'ã¹', when followed by a vowel or a glide (i.e., when the next character starts with 'ã
'), migrates to the next syllable and thus becomes .
Traditionally, was disallowed at the beginning of a word. It disappeared before , and otherwise became . However, the inflow of western loanword changed the trend, and now word-initial (mostly from English loanwords) are pronounced as a free variation of either or . The traditional prohibition of word-initial became a morphological rule called "initial law" (ëìë²ì¹) in South Korea, which pertains to Sino-Korean vocabulary. Such words retain their word-initial in North Korea.
All obstruents (plosives, affricates, fricatives) are unreleased at the end of a word.
Plosive stops become nasal stops before nasal stops.
Hangul spelling does not reflect these assimilatory pronunciation rules, but rather maintains the underlying, partly historical morphology. Given this, it is sometimes hard to tell which actual phonemes are present in a certain word.
One difference between the pronunciation standards of North and South Korea is the treatment of initial , and initial . For example,
* "labour" - north: rodong (ë¡ë), south: nodong (ë
¸ë)
* "history" - north: ryÅksa (ë ¥ì¬), south: yeoksa (ìì¬)
* "female" - north: nyÅja (ë
ì), south: yeoja (ì¬ì)
Grammatical morphemes may change shape depending on the preceding sounds. Examples include -eun/-neun (-ì/-ë) and -i/-ga (-ì´/-ê°). Sometimes sounds may be inserted instead. Examples include -eul/-reul (-ì/-를), -euro/-ro (-ì¼ë¡/-ë¡), -eseo/-seo (-ìì/-ì), -ideunji/-deunji (-ì´ë ì§/-ë ì§) and -iya/-ya (-ì´ì¼/-ì¼). However, -euro/-ro is somewhat irregular, since it will behave differently after a rieul consonant.
Some verbs may also change shape morphophonemically.
Korean is an agglutinative language. Modifiers generally precede the modified words, and in the case of verb modifiers, can be serially appended. The basic form of a Korean sentence is Subject Object Verb, but the verb is the only required and immovable element.
:"Did [you] go to the store?" ("you" implied in conversation)
:"Yes."
The Korean Language contains nine parts of speech.
Korean verbs ( , tongsa, ) are also known in English as "action verbs" or "dynamic verbs" to distinguish them from [ , hyeong-yongsa, "adjectives"]), which are also known as "descriptive verbs" or "stative verbs". Examples of action/dynamic verbs include (hada, "to do") and (kada, "to go") which constitute an action or movement as opposed to descriptive verbs such as (yehppeuda, "to be beautiful"). For a larger list of Korean verbs, see .
Unlike most of the European languages, Korean does not conjugate verbs using agreement with the subject, and nouns have no gender. Instead, verb conjugations depend upon the verb tense, aspect, mood, and the social relation between the speaker, the subjects, and the listeners.
The system of speech levels and honorifics loosely resembles the T-V distinction of most Indo-European languages. For example, different endings are used depending on the speaker's relation with their subject or audience. Politeness is a critical part of Korean language and Korean culture, therefore, when talking to someone esteemed, the correct verb ending must be chosen to indicate the proper respect.
Words categorized as Korean adjectives ( , hyeong-yongsa, ) conjugate similarly to verbs, so some English texts call them "descriptive verbs" or "stative verbs", but they are distinctly separate from (tongsa).
English does not have an identical grammatical category, so the English translation of Korean adjectives may misleadingly suggest that they are verbs. For example, (pukda) translates literally as "to be red" and (aswipda) often best translates as "to lack" or "to want for", but both are (hyeong-yongsa, "adjectives"). For a larger list of Korean adjectives, see .
Korean pre-nouns ( , gwanhyeongsa, ) are also known in English as "determinatives", "attributives", and "unconjugated adjectives". Examples include (kak, "each"). For a larger list, see .
Core and basic noun words are native to the Korean language, e.g. (nara, country), (nal, day). A large body of Korean nouns ( , myeongsa, ) stem from Chinese characters, e.g. (å±±, san, mountain), (é©, yeok, station), (æå, munhwa, culture), etc. Many Sino-Korean words have a native Korean equivalent and vice versa, but not always. Nouns do not have grammatical gender and can be made plural by adding ë¤ to the end of the word, however in most instances the singular form is used even when in English it would be translated as plural. For example, while in English the sentence "there are three apples" would use the plural "apples" instead of the singular "apple", the Korean sentence ì¬ê³¼ ì¸ê° ììµëë¤ (sagwa segae isssumnida) maintains the word ì¬ê³¼ (sagwa, "apple") in its singular form, thus rendered in English as "apple three(things) exist." For a list of Korean nouns, see .
Korean pronouns ( , daemyeongsa, ) are highly influenced by the honorifics in the language. Pronouns change forms depending on the social status of the person or persons spoken to, e.g. the pronoun for "I" there is both the informal (na) and the honorific/humble (jeo). In general second person singular pronouns are avoided, especially when using honorific forms. For a larger list or Korean pronouns, see .
Korean adverbs ( , busa, ) include (tto, "also") and (gadeuk, "fully"). For a larger list, see .
Korean particles ( , josa, ) are also known in English as "postpositions". Examples include (neun, topic marker) and (reul, object marker). For a larger list, see .
Korean interjections ( , gamtansa, ) are also known in English as "exclamations". Examples include (ani, "no"). For a larger list, see .
Korean numbers or numerals ( , susa, ) constitute two regularly used sets: a native Korean set and a Sino-Korean set. The Sino-Korean system is nearly entirely based on the Chinese numerals. The distinction between the two numeral systems is very important. Everything that can be counted will use one of the two systems, but seldom both. Sino-Korean words are sometimes used to mark ordinal usage: yeol beon (ì´ ë²) means "ten times" while sip beon (ì(å) ë²(çª)) means "number ten." The grouping of large numbers in Korean follow the Chinese tradition of myriads (10000) rather than thousands (1000) as is common in Europe and North America.
The relationship between a speaker or writer and his or her subject and audience is paramount in Korean, and the grammar reflects this. The relationship between speaker/writer and subject referent is reflected in honorifics, while that between speaker/writer and audience is reflected in speech level.
When talking about someone superior in status, a speaker or writer usually uses special nouns or verb endings to indicate the subject's superiority. Generally, someone is superior in status if he/she is an older relative, a stranger of roughly equal or greater age, or an employer, teacher, customer, or the like. Someone is equal or inferior in status if he/she is a younger stranger, student, employee or the like. Nowadays, there are special endings which can be used on declarative, interrogative, and imperative sentences; and both honorific or normal sentences. They are made for easier and faster use of Korean.
There are seven verb paradigms or speech levels in Korean, and each level has its own unique set of verb endings which are used to indicate the level of formality of a situation. Unlike honorificsâwhich are used to show respect towards the referentâspeech levels are used to show respect towards a speaker's or writer's audience. The names of the seven levels are derived from the non-honorific imperative form of the verb íë¤ (hada, "do") in each level, plus the suffix ì²´ ("che", hanja: é« ), which means "style".
The highest six levels are generally grouped together as jondaenmal (ì¡´ëë§), while the lowest level (haeche, í´ì²´) is called banmal (ë°ë§) in Korean.
The core of the Korean vocabulary is made up of native Korean words. Like Japanese and Vietnamese, a significant proportion of the vocabulary, especially words that denote abstract ideas, are Sino-Korean words, Sohn, Ho-Min. The Korean Language (Section 1.5.3 "Korean vocabulary", p.12â13), Cambridge University Press, 2001. ISBN 0521369436. either
* directly borrowed from Written Chinese, or
* coined in Japan or Korea using Chinese characters,
in a similar way European languages borrow from Latin and Greek.
The exact proportion of Sino-Korean vocabulary is a matter of debate. Sohn (2001) stated 50-60%. However, Jeong Jae-do, one of the compilers of the dictionary Urimal Kun Sajeon, asserts that the proportion is not so high. He points out that Korean dictionaries compiled during the period of Japanese occupation include many unused Sino-Korean words. In his estimation, the proportion of native Korean vocabulary in the Korean language might be as high as 70%. . The dictionary mentioned is
Korean has two number systems: one native, and one borrowed from Chinese.
To a much lesser extent, words have also occasionally been borrowed from Mongolian, Sanskrit, and other languages. Conversely, the Korean language itself has also contributed some loanwords to other languages, most notably the Tsushima dialect of Japanese.
The vast majority of loanwords other than Sino-Korean come from modern times, 90% of which are from English. Many words have also been borrowed from Japanese and Western languages such as German (areubaiteu "part-time job", allereugi "allergy", "gibsu" "plaster cast used for broken bones"). Some Western words were borrowed indirectly via Japanese, taking a Japanese sound pattern, for example "dozen" > dÄsu > daseu. Most indirect Western borrowings are now written according to current Hangulization rules for the respective Western language, as if borrowed directly. There are a few more complicated borrowings such as "German(y)" (see Names for Germany), the first part of whose endonym the Japanese approximated using the kanji doitsu that were then accepted into the Korean language by their Sino-Korean pronunciation: dok + il = Dogil. In South Korean official use, a number of other Sino-Korean country names have been replaced with phonetically oriented Hangulizations of the countries' endonyms or English names.
As in Japanese, Korean adapts words in ways that are uncommon in English. For example, in soccer heading ( ) is used to label a head-strike, rather than direction. This is a corrupted loan word from the English header.
North Korean vocabulary shows a tendency to prefer native Korean over Sino-Korean or foreign borrowings, especially with recent political objectives aimed at eliminating foreign (mostly Chinese) influences on the Korean language in the North. By contrast, South Korean may have several Sino-Korean or foreign borrowings which tend to be absent in North Korean.
Formerly the languages of the Korean peninsula were written using Chinese characters, using hyangchal or idu. Such systems relied on principles of rebus, and were lost, later in history. Writing became confined to the ruling elite, who used hanja to write in Classical Chinese.
Korean is now mainly written in Hangul, the Korean alphabet promulgated in 1446 by Sejong the Great; hanja may be mixed in to write Sino-Korean words. While South Korean schools still teach 1,800 hanja characters, North Korea had abolished the use of hanja decades ago.
Below is a chart of the Korean alphabet's symbols and their canonical IPA values:
Modern Korean is written with spaces between words, a feature not found in Chinese or Japanese. Korean punctuation marks are almost identical to Western ones. Traditionally, Korean was written in columns from top to bottom, right to left, but is now usually written in rows from left to right, top to bottom.
The Korean language used in the North and the South exhibits differences in pronunciation, spelling, grammar and vocabulary. Kanno, Hiroomi (ed.) / Society for Korean Linguistics in Japan (1987). ChÅsengo o manabÅ (ãæé®®èªãå¦ã¼ãã), SanshÅ«sha, Tokyo. ISBN 4-384-01506-2
In North Korea, palatalization of is optional, and can be pronounced between vowels.
Words that are written the same way may be pronounced differently, such as the examples below. The pronunciations below are given in Revised Romanization, McCune-Reischauer and Hangul, the last of which represents what the Hangul would be if one writes the word as pronounced.
* Similar pronunciation is used in the North whenever the hanja "ç" is attached to a Sino-Korean word ending in ã´, ã
or ã
. (In the South, this rule only applies when it is attached to any single-character Sino-Korean word.)
Some words are spelled differently by the North and the South, but the pronunciations are the same.
Some words have different spellings and pronunciations in the North and the South, some of which were given in the "Phonology" section above:
In general, when transcribing place names, North Korea tends to use the pronunciation in the original language more than South Korea, which often uses the pronunciation in English. For example:
Some grammatical constructions are also different:
Some vocabulary is different between the North and the South:
In the North, guillemets and are the symbols used for quotes; in the South, quotation marks equivalent to the English ones, â and â, are standard, although and are sometimes used in popular novels.
The United States' Defense Language Institute classifies Korean alongside Arabic, Chinese, and Japanese as a Category IV language, meaning that 63 weeks of instruction (as compared to just 25 weeks for French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian) are required to bring an English-speaking student to a limited working level of proficiency in which he or she has "sufficient capability to meet routine social demands and limited job requirements" and "can deal with concrete topics in past, present, and future tense." As a result, the study of the Korean language in the United States is dominated by Korean American heritage language students; they are estimated to form over 80% of all students of the language at non-military universities.
However, Korean is considerably easier for speakers of certain other languages, such as Japanese ; in Japan, it is more widely studied by non-heritage learners. The Korean Language Proficiency Test, an examination aimed at assessing non-native speakers' competence in Korean, was instituted in 1997; 17,000 people applied for the 2005 sitting of the examination.
*Hangul
*Korean romanization
**Revised romanization of Korean
**McCune-Reischauer
**Yale Romanization#Korean
**SKATS
*Korean numerals
*Korean count word
*Korean language and computers
*Hanja
*Sino-Korean vocabulary
*Korean mixed script
*List of English words of Korean origin
*Altaic languages
*List of Korea-related topics
*Vowel harmony
* (Volume 4 of the London Oriental and African Language Library).
*Hulbert, Homer B. (1905): A Comparative Grammar of the Korean Language and the Dravidian Dialects in India. Seoul.
*Martin, Samuel E. (1966): Lexical Evidence Relating Japanese to Korean. Language 42/2: 185â251.
*Martin, Samuel E. (1990): Morphological clues to the relationship of Japanese and Korean. In: Philip Baldi (ed.): Linguistic Change and Reconstruction Methodology. Trends in Linguistics: Studies and Monographs 45: 483-509.
*Miller, Roy Andrew (1971): Japanese and the Other Altaic Languages. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0226527190.
*Miller, Roy Andrew (1996): Languages and History: Japanese, Korean and Altaic. Oslo: Institute for Comparative Research in Human Culture. ISBN 9748299694.
*Ramstedt, G. J. (1928): Remarks on the Korean language. Mémoires de la Société Finno-Oigrienne 58.
*Rybatzki, Volker (2003): Middle Mongol. In: Juha Janhunen (ed.) (2003): The Mongolic languages. London: Routledge. ISBN 0-7007-1133-3: 47â82.
*Starostin, Sergei A.; Anna V. Dybo; Oleg A. Mudrak (2003): Etymological Dictionary of the Altaic Languages, 3 volumes. Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers. ISBN 9004131531.
*Sohn, H.-M. (1999): The Korean Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Song, J.-J. (2005): The Korean Language: Structure, Use and Context. London: Routledge.
*Trask, R. L. (1996): Historical linguistics. Hodder Arnold.
*Vovin, Alexander: Koreo-Japonica. University of Hawai'i Press.
*Whitman, John B. (1985): The Phonological Basis for the Comparison of Japanese and Korean. Unpublished Harvard University Ph.D. dissertation.
* Ethnologue report for Korean
* Linguistic and Philosophical Origins of the Korean Alphabet (Hangul)
* Free Korean language and culture course online, in English
* Linguistic map of Korea
* Korean - a Category III language Languages which are exceptionally difficult for native English speakers
* dongsa.net A Korean verb conjugation tool that explains the conjugations for learners of Korean
|
Korean_language | About how many Koreans speakers are there? | 78 million Korean speakers | data/set5/a6 | Korean_language
:This article is mainly about the spoken Korean language. See Hangul for details on the native Korean writing system.
Korean ( , see below) is the official language of Korea, both South and North. It is also one of the two official languages in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in China. There are about 78 million Korean speakers. In the 15th century a national writing system was commissioned by Sejong the Great, currently called Hangul. Prior to the development of Hangul, Koreans used Hanja (Chinese characters) to write for over a millennia.
The genealogical classification of the Korean language is debated by a small number of linguists. Most classify it as a language isolate Song, Jae Jung (2005) "The Korean language: structure, use and context" Routledge, p. 15
Lyle Campbell & Mauricio Mixco. 2007. A Glossary of Historical Linguistics. University of Utah Press. while a few consider it to be in the Altaic language family. Stratification in the peopling of China: how far does the linguistic evidence match genetics and archaeology? In; Sanchez-Mazas, Blench, Ross, Lin & Pejros eds. Human migrations in continental East Asia and Taiwan: genetic, linguistic and archaeological evidence. 2008. Taylor & Francis Some believe it to be distantly related to Japanese. Like Japanese it is agglutinative in its morphology and SOV in its syntax.
The Korean names for the language are based on the names for Korea used in North and South Korea.
In South Korea, the language is most often called Hangungmal
( ; ), or more formally, Hangugeo ( ; ) or Gugeo ( ; ; literally "national language").
In North Korea and Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in China, the language is most often called ChosÅnmal ( ; with hanja: ), or more formally, ChosÅnÅ ( ; ).
On the other hand, Korean people in the former USSR, who refer to themselves as Koryo-saram (ê³ ë ¤ì¬ë; also Goryeoin [ ; ; literally, "Goryeo person(s)"]) call the language Goryeomal ( ; ).
In mainland China, following the establishment of diplomatic relations with South Korea in 1992, the term CháoxiÇnyÇ ( or the short form: CháoyÇ ( )) has normally been used to refer to the language spoken in North Korea and Yanbian, while HánguóyÇ ( or the short form: HányÇ ( )) is used to refer to the language spoken in South Korea.
Some older English sources also used the name "Korean" to refer to the language, country, and people. The word "Korean" is derived from Goryeo, which is thought to be the first dynasty known to western countries.
Most modern linguists consider Korean to be a language isolate Song, Jae Jung (2005) "The Korean language: structure, use and context" Routledge, p. 15
Lyle Campbell & Mauricio J. Mixco. 2007. A Glossary of Historical Linguistics. University of Utah Press.
Since the publication of the article of Ramstedt in 1928, some linguists eg Miller 1971, 1996, Starostin et al. 2003 support the hypothesis that Korean can be classified as an Altaic language or as a relative of proto-Altaic. Korean is similar to the Altaic languages in that they both lack certain grammatical elements, including articles, fusional morphology and relative pronouns. However, linguists agree today on the fact that typological resemblances cannot be used to prove genetic relatedness of languages eg Vovin 2008: 1 as these features are typologically connected and easily borrowed. Trask 1996: 147-151 Such factors of typological divergence as Middle Mongolian's exhibition of gender agreement Rybatzki 2003: 57 can be used to argue that a genetic relationship is unlikely. Vovin 2008: 5
The hypothesis that Korean might be related to Japanese has had some more supporters due to some considerable overlap in vocabulary and similar grammatical features that have been elaborated upon by such researchers as Samuel E. Martin eg Martin 1966, 1990 and Roy Andrew Miller. eg Miller 1971, 1996 Sergei Starostin (1991) found about 25% of potential cognates in the Japanese-Korean 100-word Swadesh list, which - if true - would place these two languages closer together than other possible members of the Altaic family.
Other linguists, most notably Alexander Vovin, argue, however, that the similarities are not due to any genetic relationship, but rather to a sprachbund effect and heavy borrowing especially from Korean into Western Old Japanese. Vovin 2008 A good example might be Middle Korean sà m Whitman 1985: 232, also found in Martin 1966: 233 This word seems to be cognate, but while it is well-attested in Western Old Japanese and Northern RyÅ«kyÅ«, in Eastern Old Japanese it only occurs in compounds, and it is only present in three subdialects of the South-RyÅ«kyÅ«an dialect group. Then, the doublet wo âhempâ is attested in Western Old Japanese and Southern RyÅ«kyÅ«. It is thus plausible to assume a borrowed term. Vovin 2008: 211-212 See East Asian languages for morphological features shared among languages of the East Asian sprachbund, and Classification of Japanese for further details on the discussion of a possible relationship.
Korean is descended from Old Korean, Middle Korean and Modern Korean. Controversy remains over the proposed Altaic language family and its inclusion of Proto-Korean. Since the Korean War, contemporary North-South differences in Korean have developed, including variance in pronunciation, verb inflection, and vocabulary.
Korean is spoken by the Korean people in North Korea and South Korea and by the Korean diaspora in many countries including the People's Republic of China, Japan, and the United States. Korean-speaking minorities exist in these states, but because of cultural assimilation into host countries, not all ethnic Korean immigrants may speak it with native fluency.
Korean is the official language of South Korea and North Korea. It is also one of the two official languages of the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in China.
In South Korea, the regulatory body for Korean is the Seoul-based National Institute of the Korean Language ( ), which was created by presidential decree on January 23, 1991. In North Korea, the regulatory body is the Sahoe Kwahagwon Åhak YÅnguso ( ).
Dialects of Korean
Korean has several dialects (called mal [literally "speech"], saturi, or bang-eon in Korean). The standard language (pyojuneo or pyojunmal) of South Korea is based on the dialect of the area around Seoul, and the standard for North Korea is based on the dialect spoken around P'yÅngyang. All dialects of Korean are similar to each other, and are in fact all mutually intelligible, perhaps with the exception of the dialect of Jeju Island (see Jeju dialect). The dialect spoken in Jeju is in fact classified as a different language by some Korean linguists. One of the most notable differences between dialects is the use of stress: speakers of Seoul dialect use very little stress, and standard South Korean has a very flat intonation; on the other hand, speakers of the Gyeongsang dialect have a very pronounced intonation.
It is also worth noting that there is substantial evidence for a history of extensive dialect levelling, or even convergent evolution or intermixture of two or more originally distinct linguistic stocks, within the Korean language and its dialects. Many Korean dialects have basic vocabulary that is etymologically distinct from vocabulary of identical meaning in Standard Korean or other dialects, such as South Jeolla dialect /kur/ vs. Standard Korean ì
"mouth" or Gyeongsang dialect vs. Standard Korean "garlic chives." This suggests that the Korean Peninsula may have at one time been much more linguistically diverse than it is at present. See also the Buyeo languages hypothesis.
There is a very close connection between the dialects of Korean and the regions of Korea, since the boundaries of both are largely determined by mountains and seas. Here is a list of traditional dialect names and locations:
The Korean consonants
The IPA symbol (a subscript double straight quotation mark, shown here with a placeholder circle) is used to denote the tensed consonants . Its official use in the Extensions to the IPA is for 'strong' articulation, but is used in the literature for faucalized voice. The Korean consonants also have elements of stiff voice, but it is not yet known how typical this is of faucalized consonants. They are produced with a partially constricted glottis and additional subglottal pressure in addition to tense vocal tract walls, laryngeal lowering, or other expansion of the larynx.
becomes an alveolo-palatal before or for most speakers (but see Differences in the language between North Korea and South Korea). This occurs with the tense fricative and all the affricates as well. At the end of a syllable, /s/ changes to /t/ (Example: beoseot (ë²ì¯) 'mushroom').
may become a bilabial before or , a palatal before or , a velar before , a voiced between voiced sounds, and a elsewhere.
become voiced between voiced sounds.
becomes alveolar flap between vowels, and or at the end of a syllable or next to another . Note that a written syllable-final 'ã¹', when followed by a vowel or a glide (i.e., when the next character starts with 'ã
'), migrates to the next syllable and thus becomes .
Traditionally, was disallowed at the beginning of a word. It disappeared before , and otherwise became . However, the inflow of western loanword changed the trend, and now word-initial (mostly from English loanwords) are pronounced as a free variation of either or . The traditional prohibition of word-initial became a morphological rule called "initial law" (ëìë²ì¹) in South Korea, which pertains to Sino-Korean vocabulary. Such words retain their word-initial in North Korea.
All obstruents (plosives, affricates, fricatives) are unreleased at the end of a word.
Plosive stops become nasal stops before nasal stops.
Hangul spelling does not reflect these assimilatory pronunciation rules, but rather maintains the underlying, partly historical morphology. Given this, it is sometimes hard to tell which actual phonemes are present in a certain word.
One difference between the pronunciation standards of North and South Korea is the treatment of initial , and initial . For example,
* "labour" - north: rodong (ë¡ë), south: nodong (ë
¸ë)
* "history" - north: ryÅksa (ë ¥ì¬), south: yeoksa (ìì¬)
* "female" - north: nyÅja (ë
ì), south: yeoja (ì¬ì)
Grammatical morphemes may change shape depending on the preceding sounds. Examples include -eun/-neun (-ì/-ë) and -i/-ga (-ì´/-ê°). Sometimes sounds may be inserted instead. Examples include -eul/-reul (-ì/-를), -euro/-ro (-ì¼ë¡/-ë¡), -eseo/-seo (-ìì/-ì), -ideunji/-deunji (-ì´ë ì§/-ë ì§) and -iya/-ya (-ì´ì¼/-ì¼). However, -euro/-ro is somewhat irregular, since it will behave differently after a rieul consonant.
Some verbs may also change shape morphophonemically.
Korean is an agglutinative language. Modifiers generally precede the modified words, and in the case of verb modifiers, can be serially appended. The basic form of a Korean sentence is Subject Object Verb, but the verb is the only required and immovable element.
:"Did [you] go to the store?" ("you" implied in conversation)
:"Yes."
The Korean Language contains nine parts of speech.
Korean verbs ( , tongsa, ) are also known in English as "action verbs" or "dynamic verbs" to distinguish them from [ , hyeong-yongsa, "adjectives"]), which are also known as "descriptive verbs" or "stative verbs". Examples of action/dynamic verbs include (hada, "to do") and (kada, "to go") which constitute an action or movement as opposed to descriptive verbs such as (yehppeuda, "to be beautiful"). For a larger list of Korean verbs, see .
Unlike most of the European languages, Korean does not conjugate verbs using agreement with the subject, and nouns have no gender. Instead, verb conjugations depend upon the verb tense, aspect, mood, and the social relation between the speaker, the subjects, and the listeners.
The system of speech levels and honorifics loosely resembles the T-V distinction of most Indo-European languages. For example, different endings are used depending on the speaker's relation with their subject or audience. Politeness is a critical part of Korean language and Korean culture, therefore, when talking to someone esteemed, the correct verb ending must be chosen to indicate the proper respect.
Words categorized as Korean adjectives ( , hyeong-yongsa, ) conjugate similarly to verbs, so some English texts call them "descriptive verbs" or "stative verbs", but they are distinctly separate from (tongsa).
English does not have an identical grammatical category, so the English translation of Korean adjectives may misleadingly suggest that they are verbs. For example, (pukda) translates literally as "to be red" and (aswipda) often best translates as "to lack" or "to want for", but both are (hyeong-yongsa, "adjectives"). For a larger list of Korean adjectives, see .
Korean pre-nouns ( , gwanhyeongsa, ) are also known in English as "determinatives", "attributives", and "unconjugated adjectives". Examples include (kak, "each"). For a larger list, see .
Core and basic noun words are native to the Korean language, e.g. (nara, country), (nal, day). A large body of Korean nouns ( , myeongsa, ) stem from Chinese characters, e.g. (å±±, san, mountain), (é©, yeok, station), (æå, munhwa, culture), etc. Many Sino-Korean words have a native Korean equivalent and vice versa, but not always. Nouns do not have grammatical gender and can be made plural by adding ë¤ to the end of the word, however in most instances the singular form is used even when in English it would be translated as plural. For example, while in English the sentence "there are three apples" would use the plural "apples" instead of the singular "apple", the Korean sentence ì¬ê³¼ ì¸ê° ììµëë¤ (sagwa segae isssumnida) maintains the word ì¬ê³¼ (sagwa, "apple") in its singular form, thus rendered in English as "apple three(things) exist." For a list of Korean nouns, see .
Korean pronouns ( , daemyeongsa, ) are highly influenced by the honorifics in the language. Pronouns change forms depending on the social status of the person or persons spoken to, e.g. the pronoun for "I" there is both the informal (na) and the honorific/humble (jeo). In general second person singular pronouns are avoided, especially when using honorific forms. For a larger list or Korean pronouns, see .
Korean adverbs ( , busa, ) include (tto, "also") and (gadeuk, "fully"). For a larger list, see .
Korean particles ( , josa, ) are also known in English as "postpositions". Examples include (neun, topic marker) and (reul, object marker). For a larger list, see .
Korean interjections ( , gamtansa, ) are also known in English as "exclamations". Examples include (ani, "no"). For a larger list, see .
Korean numbers or numerals ( , susa, ) constitute two regularly used sets: a native Korean set and a Sino-Korean set. The Sino-Korean system is nearly entirely based on the Chinese numerals. The distinction between the two numeral systems is very important. Everything that can be counted will use one of the two systems, but seldom both. Sino-Korean words are sometimes used to mark ordinal usage: yeol beon (ì´ ë²) means "ten times" while sip beon (ì(å) ë²(çª)) means "number ten." The grouping of large numbers in Korean follow the Chinese tradition of myriads (10000) rather than thousands (1000) as is common in Europe and North America.
The relationship between a speaker or writer and his or her subject and audience is paramount in Korean, and the grammar reflects this. The relationship between speaker/writer and subject referent is reflected in honorifics, while that between speaker/writer and audience is reflected in speech level.
When talking about someone superior in status, a speaker or writer usually uses special nouns or verb endings to indicate the subject's superiority. Generally, someone is superior in status if he/she is an older relative, a stranger of roughly equal or greater age, or an employer, teacher, customer, or the like. Someone is equal or inferior in status if he/she is a younger stranger, student, employee or the like. Nowadays, there are special endings which can be used on declarative, interrogative, and imperative sentences; and both honorific or normal sentences. They are made for easier and faster use of Korean.
There are seven verb paradigms or speech levels in Korean, and each level has its own unique set of verb endings which are used to indicate the level of formality of a situation. Unlike honorificsâwhich are used to show respect towards the referentâspeech levels are used to show respect towards a speaker's or writer's audience. The names of the seven levels are derived from the non-honorific imperative form of the verb íë¤ (hada, "do") in each level, plus the suffix ì²´ ("che", hanja: é« ), which means "style".
The highest six levels are generally grouped together as jondaenmal (ì¡´ëë§), while the lowest level (haeche, í´ì²´) is called banmal (ë°ë§) in Korean.
The core of the Korean vocabulary is made up of native Korean words. Like Japanese and Vietnamese, a significant proportion of the vocabulary, especially words that denote abstract ideas, are Sino-Korean words, Sohn, Ho-Min. The Korean Language (Section 1.5.3 "Korean vocabulary", p.12â13), Cambridge University Press, 2001. ISBN 0521369436. either
* directly borrowed from Written Chinese, or
* coined in Japan or Korea using Chinese characters,
in a similar way European languages borrow from Latin and Greek.
The exact proportion of Sino-Korean vocabulary is a matter of debate. Sohn (2001) stated 50-60%. However, Jeong Jae-do, one of the compilers of the dictionary Urimal Kun Sajeon, asserts that the proportion is not so high. He points out that Korean dictionaries compiled during the period of Japanese occupation include many unused Sino-Korean words. In his estimation, the proportion of native Korean vocabulary in the Korean language might be as high as 70%. . The dictionary mentioned is
Korean has two number systems: one native, and one borrowed from Chinese.
To a much lesser extent, words have also occasionally been borrowed from Mongolian, Sanskrit, and other languages. Conversely, the Korean language itself has also contributed some loanwords to other languages, most notably the Tsushima dialect of Japanese.
The vast majority of loanwords other than Sino-Korean come from modern times, 90% of which are from English. Many words have also been borrowed from Japanese and Western languages such as German (areubaiteu "part-time job", allereugi "allergy", "gibsu" "plaster cast used for broken bones"). Some Western words were borrowed indirectly via Japanese, taking a Japanese sound pattern, for example "dozen" > dÄsu > daseu. Most indirect Western borrowings are now written according to current Hangulization rules for the respective Western language, as if borrowed directly. There are a few more complicated borrowings such as "German(y)" (see Names for Germany), the first part of whose endonym the Japanese approximated using the kanji doitsu that were then accepted into the Korean language by their Sino-Korean pronunciation: dok + il = Dogil. In South Korean official use, a number of other Sino-Korean country names have been replaced with phonetically oriented Hangulizations of the countries' endonyms or English names.
As in Japanese, Korean adapts words in ways that are uncommon in English. For example, in soccer heading ( ) is used to label a head-strike, rather than direction. This is a corrupted loan word from the English header.
North Korean vocabulary shows a tendency to prefer native Korean over Sino-Korean or foreign borrowings, especially with recent political objectives aimed at eliminating foreign (mostly Chinese) influences on the Korean language in the North. By contrast, South Korean may have several Sino-Korean or foreign borrowings which tend to be absent in North Korean.
Formerly the languages of the Korean peninsula were written using Chinese characters, using hyangchal or idu. Such systems relied on principles of rebus, and were lost, later in history. Writing became confined to the ruling elite, who used hanja to write in Classical Chinese.
Korean is now mainly written in Hangul, the Korean alphabet promulgated in 1446 by Sejong the Great; hanja may be mixed in to write Sino-Korean words. While South Korean schools still teach 1,800 hanja characters, North Korea had abolished the use of hanja decades ago.
Below is a chart of the Korean alphabet's symbols and their canonical IPA values:
Modern Korean is written with spaces between words, a feature not found in Chinese or Japanese. Korean punctuation marks are almost identical to Western ones. Traditionally, Korean was written in columns from top to bottom, right to left, but is now usually written in rows from left to right, top to bottom.
The Korean language used in the North and the South exhibits differences in pronunciation, spelling, grammar and vocabulary. Kanno, Hiroomi (ed.) / Society for Korean Linguistics in Japan (1987). ChÅsengo o manabÅ (ãæé®®èªãå¦ã¼ãã), SanshÅ«sha, Tokyo. ISBN 4-384-01506-2
In North Korea, palatalization of is optional, and can be pronounced between vowels.
Words that are written the same way may be pronounced differently, such as the examples below. The pronunciations below are given in Revised Romanization, McCune-Reischauer and Hangul, the last of which represents what the Hangul would be if one writes the word as pronounced.
* Similar pronunciation is used in the North whenever the hanja "ç" is attached to a Sino-Korean word ending in ã´, ã
or ã
. (In the South, this rule only applies when it is attached to any single-character Sino-Korean word.)
Some words are spelled differently by the North and the South, but the pronunciations are the same.
Some words have different spellings and pronunciations in the North and the South, some of which were given in the "Phonology" section above:
In general, when transcribing place names, North Korea tends to use the pronunciation in the original language more than South Korea, which often uses the pronunciation in English. For example:
Some grammatical constructions are also different:
Some vocabulary is different between the North and the South:
In the North, guillemets and are the symbols used for quotes; in the South, quotation marks equivalent to the English ones, â and â, are standard, although and are sometimes used in popular novels.
The United States' Defense Language Institute classifies Korean alongside Arabic, Chinese, and Japanese as a Category IV language, meaning that 63 weeks of instruction (as compared to just 25 weeks for French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian) are required to bring an English-speaking student to a limited working level of proficiency in which he or she has "sufficient capability to meet routine social demands and limited job requirements" and "can deal with concrete topics in past, present, and future tense." As a result, the study of the Korean language in the United States is dominated by Korean American heritage language students; they are estimated to form over 80% of all students of the language at non-military universities.
However, Korean is considerably easier for speakers of certain other languages, such as Japanese ; in Japan, it is more widely studied by non-heritage learners. The Korean Language Proficiency Test, an examination aimed at assessing non-native speakers' competence in Korean, was instituted in 1997; 17,000 people applied for the 2005 sitting of the examination.
*Hangul
*Korean romanization
**Revised romanization of Korean
**McCune-Reischauer
**Yale Romanization#Korean
**SKATS
*Korean numerals
*Korean count word
*Korean language and computers
*Hanja
*Sino-Korean vocabulary
*Korean mixed script
*List of English words of Korean origin
*Altaic languages
*List of Korea-related topics
*Vowel harmony
* (Volume 4 of the London Oriental and African Language Library).
*Hulbert, Homer B. (1905): A Comparative Grammar of the Korean Language and the Dravidian Dialects in India. Seoul.
*Martin, Samuel E. (1966): Lexical Evidence Relating Japanese to Korean. Language 42/2: 185â251.
*Martin, Samuel E. (1990): Morphological clues to the relationship of Japanese and Korean. In: Philip Baldi (ed.): Linguistic Change and Reconstruction Methodology. Trends in Linguistics: Studies and Monographs 45: 483-509.
*Miller, Roy Andrew (1971): Japanese and the Other Altaic Languages. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0226527190.
*Miller, Roy Andrew (1996): Languages and History: Japanese, Korean and Altaic. Oslo: Institute for Comparative Research in Human Culture. ISBN 9748299694.
*Ramstedt, G. J. (1928): Remarks on the Korean language. Mémoires de la Société Finno-Oigrienne 58.
*Rybatzki, Volker (2003): Middle Mongol. In: Juha Janhunen (ed.) (2003): The Mongolic languages. London: Routledge. ISBN 0-7007-1133-3: 47â82.
*Starostin, Sergei A.; Anna V. Dybo; Oleg A. Mudrak (2003): Etymological Dictionary of the Altaic Languages, 3 volumes. Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers. ISBN 9004131531.
*Sohn, H.-M. (1999): The Korean Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Song, J.-J. (2005): The Korean Language: Structure, Use and Context. London: Routledge.
*Trask, R. L. (1996): Historical linguistics. Hodder Arnold.
*Vovin, Alexander: Koreo-Japonica. University of Hawai'i Press.
*Whitman, John B. (1985): The Phonological Basis for the Comparison of Japanese and Korean. Unpublished Harvard University Ph.D. dissertation.
* Ethnologue report for Korean
* Linguistic and Philosophical Origins of the Korean Alphabet (Hangul)
* Free Korean language and culture course online, in English
* Linguistic map of Korea
* Korean - a Category III language Languages which are exceptionally difficult for native English speakers
* dongsa.net A Korean verb conjugation tool that explains the conjugations for learners of Korean
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Korean_language | Older English sources used the name "Korean" to refer to what? | language, country, and people | data/set5/a6 | Korean_language
:This article is mainly about the spoken Korean language. See Hangul for details on the native Korean writing system.
Korean ( , see below) is the official language of Korea, both South and North. It is also one of the two official languages in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in China. There are about 78 million Korean speakers. In the 15th century a national writing system was commissioned by Sejong the Great, currently called Hangul. Prior to the development of Hangul, Koreans used Hanja (Chinese characters) to write for over a millennia.
The genealogical classification of the Korean language is debated by a small number of linguists. Most classify it as a language isolate Song, Jae Jung (2005) "The Korean language: structure, use and context" Routledge, p. 15
Lyle Campbell & Mauricio Mixco. 2007. A Glossary of Historical Linguistics. University of Utah Press. while a few consider it to be in the Altaic language family. Stratification in the peopling of China: how far does the linguistic evidence match genetics and archaeology? In; Sanchez-Mazas, Blench, Ross, Lin & Pejros eds. Human migrations in continental East Asia and Taiwan: genetic, linguistic and archaeological evidence. 2008. Taylor & Francis Some believe it to be distantly related to Japanese. Like Japanese it is agglutinative in its morphology and SOV in its syntax.
The Korean names for the language are based on the names for Korea used in North and South Korea.
In South Korea, the language is most often called Hangungmal
( ; ), or more formally, Hangugeo ( ; ) or Gugeo ( ; ; literally "national language").
In North Korea and Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in China, the language is most often called ChosÅnmal ( ; with hanja: ), or more formally, ChosÅnÅ ( ; ).
On the other hand, Korean people in the former USSR, who refer to themselves as Koryo-saram (ê³ ë ¤ì¬ë; also Goryeoin [ ; ; literally, "Goryeo person(s)"]) call the language Goryeomal ( ; ).
In mainland China, following the establishment of diplomatic relations with South Korea in 1992, the term CháoxiÇnyÇ ( or the short form: CháoyÇ ( )) has normally been used to refer to the language spoken in North Korea and Yanbian, while HánguóyÇ ( or the short form: HányÇ ( )) is used to refer to the language spoken in South Korea.
Some older English sources also used the name "Korean" to refer to the language, country, and people. The word "Korean" is derived from Goryeo, which is thought to be the first dynasty known to western countries.
Most modern linguists consider Korean to be a language isolate Song, Jae Jung (2005) "The Korean language: structure, use and context" Routledge, p. 15
Lyle Campbell & Mauricio J. Mixco. 2007. A Glossary of Historical Linguistics. University of Utah Press.
Since the publication of the article of Ramstedt in 1928, some linguists eg Miller 1971, 1996, Starostin et al. 2003 support the hypothesis that Korean can be classified as an Altaic language or as a relative of proto-Altaic. Korean is similar to the Altaic languages in that they both lack certain grammatical elements, including articles, fusional morphology and relative pronouns. However, linguists agree today on the fact that typological resemblances cannot be used to prove genetic relatedness of languages eg Vovin 2008: 1 as these features are typologically connected and easily borrowed. Trask 1996: 147-151 Such factors of typological divergence as Middle Mongolian's exhibition of gender agreement Rybatzki 2003: 57 can be used to argue that a genetic relationship is unlikely. Vovin 2008: 5
The hypothesis that Korean might be related to Japanese has had some more supporters due to some considerable overlap in vocabulary and similar grammatical features that have been elaborated upon by such researchers as Samuel E. Martin eg Martin 1966, 1990 and Roy Andrew Miller. eg Miller 1971, 1996 Sergei Starostin (1991) found about 25% of potential cognates in the Japanese-Korean 100-word Swadesh list, which - if true - would place these two languages closer together than other possible members of the Altaic family.
Other linguists, most notably Alexander Vovin, argue, however, that the similarities are not due to any genetic relationship, but rather to a sprachbund effect and heavy borrowing especially from Korean into Western Old Japanese. Vovin 2008 A good example might be Middle Korean sà m Whitman 1985: 232, also found in Martin 1966: 233 This word seems to be cognate, but while it is well-attested in Western Old Japanese and Northern RyÅ«kyÅ«, in Eastern Old Japanese it only occurs in compounds, and it is only present in three subdialects of the South-RyÅ«kyÅ«an dialect group. Then, the doublet wo âhempâ is attested in Western Old Japanese and Southern RyÅ«kyÅ«. It is thus plausible to assume a borrowed term. Vovin 2008: 211-212 See East Asian languages for morphological features shared among languages of the East Asian sprachbund, and Classification of Japanese for further details on the discussion of a possible relationship.
Korean is descended from Old Korean, Middle Korean and Modern Korean. Controversy remains over the proposed Altaic language family and its inclusion of Proto-Korean. Since the Korean War, contemporary North-South differences in Korean have developed, including variance in pronunciation, verb inflection, and vocabulary.
Korean is spoken by the Korean people in North Korea and South Korea and by the Korean diaspora in many countries including the People's Republic of China, Japan, and the United States. Korean-speaking minorities exist in these states, but because of cultural assimilation into host countries, not all ethnic Korean immigrants may speak it with native fluency.
Korean is the official language of South Korea and North Korea. It is also one of the two official languages of the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in China.
In South Korea, the regulatory body for Korean is the Seoul-based National Institute of the Korean Language ( ), which was created by presidential decree on January 23, 1991. In North Korea, the regulatory body is the Sahoe Kwahagwon Åhak YÅnguso ( ).
Dialects of Korean
Korean has several dialects (called mal [literally "speech"], saturi, or bang-eon in Korean). The standard language (pyojuneo or pyojunmal) of South Korea is based on the dialect of the area around Seoul, and the standard for North Korea is based on the dialect spoken around P'yÅngyang. All dialects of Korean are similar to each other, and are in fact all mutually intelligible, perhaps with the exception of the dialect of Jeju Island (see Jeju dialect). The dialect spoken in Jeju is in fact classified as a different language by some Korean linguists. One of the most notable differences between dialects is the use of stress: speakers of Seoul dialect use very little stress, and standard South Korean has a very flat intonation; on the other hand, speakers of the Gyeongsang dialect have a very pronounced intonation.
It is also worth noting that there is substantial evidence for a history of extensive dialect levelling, or even convergent evolution or intermixture of two or more originally distinct linguistic stocks, within the Korean language and its dialects. Many Korean dialects have basic vocabulary that is etymologically distinct from vocabulary of identical meaning in Standard Korean or other dialects, such as South Jeolla dialect /kur/ vs. Standard Korean ì
"mouth" or Gyeongsang dialect vs. Standard Korean "garlic chives." This suggests that the Korean Peninsula may have at one time been much more linguistically diverse than it is at present. See also the Buyeo languages hypothesis.
There is a very close connection between the dialects of Korean and the regions of Korea, since the boundaries of both are largely determined by mountains and seas. Here is a list of traditional dialect names and locations:
The Korean consonants
The IPA symbol (a subscript double straight quotation mark, shown here with a placeholder circle) is used to denote the tensed consonants . Its official use in the Extensions to the IPA is for 'strong' articulation, but is used in the literature for faucalized voice. The Korean consonants also have elements of stiff voice, but it is not yet known how typical this is of faucalized consonants. They are produced with a partially constricted glottis and additional subglottal pressure in addition to tense vocal tract walls, laryngeal lowering, or other expansion of the larynx.
becomes an alveolo-palatal before or for most speakers (but see Differences in the language between North Korea and South Korea). This occurs with the tense fricative and all the affricates as well. At the end of a syllable, /s/ changes to /t/ (Example: beoseot (ë²ì¯) 'mushroom').
may become a bilabial before or , a palatal before or , a velar before , a voiced between voiced sounds, and a elsewhere.
become voiced between voiced sounds.
becomes alveolar flap between vowels, and or at the end of a syllable or next to another . Note that a written syllable-final 'ã¹', when followed by a vowel or a glide (i.e., when the next character starts with 'ã
'), migrates to the next syllable and thus becomes .
Traditionally, was disallowed at the beginning of a word. It disappeared before , and otherwise became . However, the inflow of western loanword changed the trend, and now word-initial (mostly from English loanwords) are pronounced as a free variation of either or . The traditional prohibition of word-initial became a morphological rule called "initial law" (ëìë²ì¹) in South Korea, which pertains to Sino-Korean vocabulary. Such words retain their word-initial in North Korea.
All obstruents (plosives, affricates, fricatives) are unreleased at the end of a word.
Plosive stops become nasal stops before nasal stops.
Hangul spelling does not reflect these assimilatory pronunciation rules, but rather maintains the underlying, partly historical morphology. Given this, it is sometimes hard to tell which actual phonemes are present in a certain word.
One difference between the pronunciation standards of North and South Korea is the treatment of initial , and initial . For example,
* "labour" - north: rodong (ë¡ë), south: nodong (ë
¸ë)
* "history" - north: ryÅksa (ë ¥ì¬), south: yeoksa (ìì¬)
* "female" - north: nyÅja (ë
ì), south: yeoja (ì¬ì)
Grammatical morphemes may change shape depending on the preceding sounds. Examples include -eun/-neun (-ì/-ë) and -i/-ga (-ì´/-ê°). Sometimes sounds may be inserted instead. Examples include -eul/-reul (-ì/-를), -euro/-ro (-ì¼ë¡/-ë¡), -eseo/-seo (-ìì/-ì), -ideunji/-deunji (-ì´ë ì§/-ë ì§) and -iya/-ya (-ì´ì¼/-ì¼). However, -euro/-ro is somewhat irregular, since it will behave differently after a rieul consonant.
Some verbs may also change shape morphophonemically.
Korean is an agglutinative language. Modifiers generally precede the modified words, and in the case of verb modifiers, can be serially appended. The basic form of a Korean sentence is Subject Object Verb, but the verb is the only required and immovable element.
:"Did [you] go to the store?" ("you" implied in conversation)
:"Yes."
The Korean Language contains nine parts of speech.
Korean verbs ( , tongsa, ) are also known in English as "action verbs" or "dynamic verbs" to distinguish them from [ , hyeong-yongsa, "adjectives"]), which are also known as "descriptive verbs" or "stative verbs". Examples of action/dynamic verbs include (hada, "to do") and (kada, "to go") which constitute an action or movement as opposed to descriptive verbs such as (yehppeuda, "to be beautiful"). For a larger list of Korean verbs, see .
Unlike most of the European languages, Korean does not conjugate verbs using agreement with the subject, and nouns have no gender. Instead, verb conjugations depend upon the verb tense, aspect, mood, and the social relation between the speaker, the subjects, and the listeners.
The system of speech levels and honorifics loosely resembles the T-V distinction of most Indo-European languages. For example, different endings are used depending on the speaker's relation with their subject or audience. Politeness is a critical part of Korean language and Korean culture, therefore, when talking to someone esteemed, the correct verb ending must be chosen to indicate the proper respect.
Words categorized as Korean adjectives ( , hyeong-yongsa, ) conjugate similarly to verbs, so some English texts call them "descriptive verbs" or "stative verbs", but they are distinctly separate from (tongsa).
English does not have an identical grammatical category, so the English translation of Korean adjectives may misleadingly suggest that they are verbs. For example, (pukda) translates literally as "to be red" and (aswipda) often best translates as "to lack" or "to want for", but both are (hyeong-yongsa, "adjectives"). For a larger list of Korean adjectives, see .
Korean pre-nouns ( , gwanhyeongsa, ) are also known in English as "determinatives", "attributives", and "unconjugated adjectives". Examples include (kak, "each"). For a larger list, see .
Core and basic noun words are native to the Korean language, e.g. (nara, country), (nal, day). A large body of Korean nouns ( , myeongsa, ) stem from Chinese characters, e.g. (å±±, san, mountain), (é©, yeok, station), (æå, munhwa, culture), etc. Many Sino-Korean words have a native Korean equivalent and vice versa, but not always. Nouns do not have grammatical gender and can be made plural by adding ë¤ to the end of the word, however in most instances the singular form is used even when in English it would be translated as plural. For example, while in English the sentence "there are three apples" would use the plural "apples" instead of the singular "apple", the Korean sentence ì¬ê³¼ ì¸ê° ììµëë¤ (sagwa segae isssumnida) maintains the word ì¬ê³¼ (sagwa, "apple") in its singular form, thus rendered in English as "apple three(things) exist." For a list of Korean nouns, see .
Korean pronouns ( , daemyeongsa, ) are highly influenced by the honorifics in the language. Pronouns change forms depending on the social status of the person or persons spoken to, e.g. the pronoun for "I" there is both the informal (na) and the honorific/humble (jeo). In general second person singular pronouns are avoided, especially when using honorific forms. For a larger list or Korean pronouns, see .
Korean adverbs ( , busa, ) include (tto, "also") and (gadeuk, "fully"). For a larger list, see .
Korean particles ( , josa, ) are also known in English as "postpositions". Examples include (neun, topic marker) and (reul, object marker). For a larger list, see .
Korean interjections ( , gamtansa, ) are also known in English as "exclamations". Examples include (ani, "no"). For a larger list, see .
Korean numbers or numerals ( , susa, ) constitute two regularly used sets: a native Korean set and a Sino-Korean set. The Sino-Korean system is nearly entirely based on the Chinese numerals. The distinction between the two numeral systems is very important. Everything that can be counted will use one of the two systems, but seldom both. Sino-Korean words are sometimes used to mark ordinal usage: yeol beon (ì´ ë²) means "ten times" while sip beon (ì(å) ë²(çª)) means "number ten." The grouping of large numbers in Korean follow the Chinese tradition of myriads (10000) rather than thousands (1000) as is common in Europe and North America.
The relationship between a speaker or writer and his or her subject and audience is paramount in Korean, and the grammar reflects this. The relationship between speaker/writer and subject referent is reflected in honorifics, while that between speaker/writer and audience is reflected in speech level.
When talking about someone superior in status, a speaker or writer usually uses special nouns or verb endings to indicate the subject's superiority. Generally, someone is superior in status if he/she is an older relative, a stranger of roughly equal or greater age, or an employer, teacher, customer, or the like. Someone is equal or inferior in status if he/she is a younger stranger, student, employee or the like. Nowadays, there are special endings which can be used on declarative, interrogative, and imperative sentences; and both honorific or normal sentences. They are made for easier and faster use of Korean.
There are seven verb paradigms or speech levels in Korean, and each level has its own unique set of verb endings which are used to indicate the level of formality of a situation. Unlike honorificsâwhich are used to show respect towards the referentâspeech levels are used to show respect towards a speaker's or writer's audience. The names of the seven levels are derived from the non-honorific imperative form of the verb íë¤ (hada, "do") in each level, plus the suffix ì²´ ("che", hanja: é« ), which means "style".
The highest six levels are generally grouped together as jondaenmal (ì¡´ëë§), while the lowest level (haeche, í´ì²´) is called banmal (ë°ë§) in Korean.
The core of the Korean vocabulary is made up of native Korean words. Like Japanese and Vietnamese, a significant proportion of the vocabulary, especially words that denote abstract ideas, are Sino-Korean words, Sohn, Ho-Min. The Korean Language (Section 1.5.3 "Korean vocabulary", p.12â13), Cambridge University Press, 2001. ISBN 0521369436. either
* directly borrowed from Written Chinese, or
* coined in Japan or Korea using Chinese characters,
in a similar way European languages borrow from Latin and Greek.
The exact proportion of Sino-Korean vocabulary is a matter of debate. Sohn (2001) stated 50-60%. However, Jeong Jae-do, one of the compilers of the dictionary Urimal Kun Sajeon, asserts that the proportion is not so high. He points out that Korean dictionaries compiled during the period of Japanese occupation include many unused Sino-Korean words. In his estimation, the proportion of native Korean vocabulary in the Korean language might be as high as 70%. . The dictionary mentioned is
Korean has two number systems: one native, and one borrowed from Chinese.
To a much lesser extent, words have also occasionally been borrowed from Mongolian, Sanskrit, and other languages. Conversely, the Korean language itself has also contributed some loanwords to other languages, most notably the Tsushima dialect of Japanese.
The vast majority of loanwords other than Sino-Korean come from modern times, 90% of which are from English. Many words have also been borrowed from Japanese and Western languages such as German (areubaiteu "part-time job", allereugi "allergy", "gibsu" "plaster cast used for broken bones"). Some Western words were borrowed indirectly via Japanese, taking a Japanese sound pattern, for example "dozen" > dÄsu > daseu. Most indirect Western borrowings are now written according to current Hangulization rules for the respective Western language, as if borrowed directly. There are a few more complicated borrowings such as "German(y)" (see Names for Germany), the first part of whose endonym the Japanese approximated using the kanji doitsu that were then accepted into the Korean language by their Sino-Korean pronunciation: dok + il = Dogil. In South Korean official use, a number of other Sino-Korean country names have been replaced with phonetically oriented Hangulizations of the countries' endonyms or English names.
As in Japanese, Korean adapts words in ways that are uncommon in English. For example, in soccer heading ( ) is used to label a head-strike, rather than direction. This is a corrupted loan word from the English header.
North Korean vocabulary shows a tendency to prefer native Korean over Sino-Korean or foreign borrowings, especially with recent political objectives aimed at eliminating foreign (mostly Chinese) influences on the Korean language in the North. By contrast, South Korean may have several Sino-Korean or foreign borrowings which tend to be absent in North Korean.
Formerly the languages of the Korean peninsula were written using Chinese characters, using hyangchal or idu. Such systems relied on principles of rebus, and were lost, later in history. Writing became confined to the ruling elite, who used hanja to write in Classical Chinese.
Korean is now mainly written in Hangul, the Korean alphabet promulgated in 1446 by Sejong the Great; hanja may be mixed in to write Sino-Korean words. While South Korean schools still teach 1,800 hanja characters, North Korea had abolished the use of hanja decades ago.
Below is a chart of the Korean alphabet's symbols and their canonical IPA values:
Modern Korean is written with spaces between words, a feature not found in Chinese or Japanese. Korean punctuation marks are almost identical to Western ones. Traditionally, Korean was written in columns from top to bottom, right to left, but is now usually written in rows from left to right, top to bottom.
The Korean language used in the North and the South exhibits differences in pronunciation, spelling, grammar and vocabulary. Kanno, Hiroomi (ed.) / Society for Korean Linguistics in Japan (1987). ChÅsengo o manabÅ (ãæé®®èªãå¦ã¼ãã), SanshÅ«sha, Tokyo. ISBN 4-384-01506-2
In North Korea, palatalization of is optional, and can be pronounced between vowels.
Words that are written the same way may be pronounced differently, such as the examples below. The pronunciations below are given in Revised Romanization, McCune-Reischauer and Hangul, the last of which represents what the Hangul would be if one writes the word as pronounced.
* Similar pronunciation is used in the North whenever the hanja "ç" is attached to a Sino-Korean word ending in ã´, ã
or ã
. (In the South, this rule only applies when it is attached to any single-character Sino-Korean word.)
Some words are spelled differently by the North and the South, but the pronunciations are the same.
Some words have different spellings and pronunciations in the North and the South, some of which were given in the "Phonology" section above:
In general, when transcribing place names, North Korea tends to use the pronunciation in the original language more than South Korea, which often uses the pronunciation in English. For example:
Some grammatical constructions are also different:
Some vocabulary is different between the North and the South:
In the North, guillemets and are the symbols used for quotes; in the South, quotation marks equivalent to the English ones, â and â, are standard, although and are sometimes used in popular novels.
The United States' Defense Language Institute classifies Korean alongside Arabic, Chinese, and Japanese as a Category IV language, meaning that 63 weeks of instruction (as compared to just 25 weeks for French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian) are required to bring an English-speaking student to a limited working level of proficiency in which he or she has "sufficient capability to meet routine social demands and limited job requirements" and "can deal with concrete topics in past, present, and future tense." As a result, the study of the Korean language in the United States is dominated by Korean American heritage language students; they are estimated to form over 80% of all students of the language at non-military universities.
However, Korean is considerably easier for speakers of certain other languages, such as Japanese ; in Japan, it is more widely studied by non-heritage learners. The Korean Language Proficiency Test, an examination aimed at assessing non-native speakers' competence in Korean, was instituted in 1997; 17,000 people applied for the 2005 sitting of the examination.
*Hangul
*Korean romanization
**Revised romanization of Korean
**McCune-Reischauer
**Yale Romanization#Korean
**SKATS
*Korean numerals
*Korean count word
*Korean language and computers
*Hanja
*Sino-Korean vocabulary
*Korean mixed script
*List of English words of Korean origin
*Altaic languages
*List of Korea-related topics
*Vowel harmony
* (Volume 4 of the London Oriental and African Language Library).
*Hulbert, Homer B. (1905): A Comparative Grammar of the Korean Language and the Dravidian Dialects in India. Seoul.
*Martin, Samuel E. (1966): Lexical Evidence Relating Japanese to Korean. Language 42/2: 185â251.
*Martin, Samuel E. (1990): Morphological clues to the relationship of Japanese and Korean. In: Philip Baldi (ed.): Linguistic Change and Reconstruction Methodology. Trends in Linguistics: Studies and Monographs 45: 483-509.
*Miller, Roy Andrew (1971): Japanese and the Other Altaic Languages. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0226527190.
*Miller, Roy Andrew (1996): Languages and History: Japanese, Korean and Altaic. Oslo: Institute for Comparative Research in Human Culture. ISBN 9748299694.
*Ramstedt, G. J. (1928): Remarks on the Korean language. Mémoires de la Société Finno-Oigrienne 58.
*Rybatzki, Volker (2003): Middle Mongol. In: Juha Janhunen (ed.) (2003): The Mongolic languages. London: Routledge. ISBN 0-7007-1133-3: 47â82.
*Starostin, Sergei A.; Anna V. Dybo; Oleg A. Mudrak (2003): Etymological Dictionary of the Altaic Languages, 3 volumes. Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers. ISBN 9004131531.
*Sohn, H.-M. (1999): The Korean Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Song, J.-J. (2005): The Korean Language: Structure, Use and Context. London: Routledge.
*Trask, R. L. (1996): Historical linguistics. Hodder Arnold.
*Vovin, Alexander: Koreo-Japonica. University of Hawai'i Press.
*Whitman, John B. (1985): The Phonological Basis for the Comparison of Japanese and Korean. Unpublished Harvard University Ph.D. dissertation.
* Ethnologue report for Korean
* Linguistic and Philosophical Origins of the Korean Alphabet (Hangul)
* Free Korean language and culture course online, in English
* Linguistic map of Korea
* Korean - a Category III language Languages which are exceptionally difficult for native English speakers
* dongsa.net A Korean verb conjugation tool that explains the conjugations for learners of Korean
|
Korean_language | Older English sources used the name "Korean" to refer to what? | language, country, and people | data/set5/a6 | Korean_language
:This article is mainly about the spoken Korean language. See Hangul for details on the native Korean writing system.
Korean ( , see below) is the official language of Korea, both South and North. It is also one of the two official languages in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in China. There are about 78 million Korean speakers. In the 15th century a national writing system was commissioned by Sejong the Great, currently called Hangul. Prior to the development of Hangul, Koreans used Hanja (Chinese characters) to write for over a millennia.
The genealogical classification of the Korean language is debated by a small number of linguists. Most classify it as a language isolate Song, Jae Jung (2005) "The Korean language: structure, use and context" Routledge, p. 15
Lyle Campbell & Mauricio Mixco. 2007. A Glossary of Historical Linguistics. University of Utah Press. while a few consider it to be in the Altaic language family. Stratification in the peopling of China: how far does the linguistic evidence match genetics and archaeology? In; Sanchez-Mazas, Blench, Ross, Lin & Pejros eds. Human migrations in continental East Asia and Taiwan: genetic, linguistic and archaeological evidence. 2008. Taylor & Francis Some believe it to be distantly related to Japanese. Like Japanese it is agglutinative in its morphology and SOV in its syntax.
The Korean names for the language are based on the names for Korea used in North and South Korea.
In South Korea, the language is most often called Hangungmal
( ; ), or more formally, Hangugeo ( ; ) or Gugeo ( ; ; literally "national language").
In North Korea and Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in China, the language is most often called ChosÅnmal ( ; with hanja: ), or more formally, ChosÅnÅ ( ; ).
On the other hand, Korean people in the former USSR, who refer to themselves as Koryo-saram (ê³ ë ¤ì¬ë; also Goryeoin [ ; ; literally, "Goryeo person(s)"]) call the language Goryeomal ( ; ).
In mainland China, following the establishment of diplomatic relations with South Korea in 1992, the term CháoxiÇnyÇ ( or the short form: CháoyÇ ( )) has normally been used to refer to the language spoken in North Korea and Yanbian, while HánguóyÇ ( or the short form: HányÇ ( )) is used to refer to the language spoken in South Korea.
Some older English sources also used the name "Korean" to refer to the language, country, and people. The word "Korean" is derived from Goryeo, which is thought to be the first dynasty known to western countries.
Most modern linguists consider Korean to be a language isolate Song, Jae Jung (2005) "The Korean language: structure, use and context" Routledge, p. 15
Lyle Campbell & Mauricio J. Mixco. 2007. A Glossary of Historical Linguistics. University of Utah Press.
Since the publication of the article of Ramstedt in 1928, some linguists eg Miller 1971, 1996, Starostin et al. 2003 support the hypothesis that Korean can be classified as an Altaic language or as a relative of proto-Altaic. Korean is similar to the Altaic languages in that they both lack certain grammatical elements, including articles, fusional morphology and relative pronouns. However, linguists agree today on the fact that typological resemblances cannot be used to prove genetic relatedness of languages eg Vovin 2008: 1 as these features are typologically connected and easily borrowed. Trask 1996: 147-151 Such factors of typological divergence as Middle Mongolian's exhibition of gender agreement Rybatzki 2003: 57 can be used to argue that a genetic relationship is unlikely. Vovin 2008: 5
The hypothesis that Korean might be related to Japanese has had some more supporters due to some considerable overlap in vocabulary and similar grammatical features that have been elaborated upon by such researchers as Samuel E. Martin eg Martin 1966, 1990 and Roy Andrew Miller. eg Miller 1971, 1996 Sergei Starostin (1991) found about 25% of potential cognates in the Japanese-Korean 100-word Swadesh list, which - if true - would place these two languages closer together than other possible members of the Altaic family.
Other linguists, most notably Alexander Vovin, argue, however, that the similarities are not due to any genetic relationship, but rather to a sprachbund effect and heavy borrowing especially from Korean into Western Old Japanese. Vovin 2008 A good example might be Middle Korean sà m Whitman 1985: 232, also found in Martin 1966: 233 This word seems to be cognate, but while it is well-attested in Western Old Japanese and Northern RyÅ«kyÅ«, in Eastern Old Japanese it only occurs in compounds, and it is only present in three subdialects of the South-RyÅ«kyÅ«an dialect group. Then, the doublet wo âhempâ is attested in Western Old Japanese and Southern RyÅ«kyÅ«. It is thus plausible to assume a borrowed term. Vovin 2008: 211-212 See East Asian languages for morphological features shared among languages of the East Asian sprachbund, and Classification of Japanese for further details on the discussion of a possible relationship.
Korean is descended from Old Korean, Middle Korean and Modern Korean. Controversy remains over the proposed Altaic language family and its inclusion of Proto-Korean. Since the Korean War, contemporary North-South differences in Korean have developed, including variance in pronunciation, verb inflection, and vocabulary.
Korean is spoken by the Korean people in North Korea and South Korea and by the Korean diaspora in many countries including the People's Republic of China, Japan, and the United States. Korean-speaking minorities exist in these states, but because of cultural assimilation into host countries, not all ethnic Korean immigrants may speak it with native fluency.
Korean is the official language of South Korea and North Korea. It is also one of the two official languages of the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in China.
In South Korea, the regulatory body for Korean is the Seoul-based National Institute of the Korean Language ( ), which was created by presidential decree on January 23, 1991. In North Korea, the regulatory body is the Sahoe Kwahagwon Åhak YÅnguso ( ).
Dialects of Korean
Korean has several dialects (called mal [literally "speech"], saturi, or bang-eon in Korean). The standard language (pyojuneo or pyojunmal) of South Korea is based on the dialect of the area around Seoul, and the standard for North Korea is based on the dialect spoken around P'yÅngyang. All dialects of Korean are similar to each other, and are in fact all mutually intelligible, perhaps with the exception of the dialect of Jeju Island (see Jeju dialect). The dialect spoken in Jeju is in fact classified as a different language by some Korean linguists. One of the most notable differences between dialects is the use of stress: speakers of Seoul dialect use very little stress, and standard South Korean has a very flat intonation; on the other hand, speakers of the Gyeongsang dialect have a very pronounced intonation.
It is also worth noting that there is substantial evidence for a history of extensive dialect levelling, or even convergent evolution or intermixture of two or more originally distinct linguistic stocks, within the Korean language and its dialects. Many Korean dialects have basic vocabulary that is etymologically distinct from vocabulary of identical meaning in Standard Korean or other dialects, such as South Jeolla dialect /kur/ vs. Standard Korean ì
"mouth" or Gyeongsang dialect vs. Standard Korean "garlic chives." This suggests that the Korean Peninsula may have at one time been much more linguistically diverse than it is at present. See also the Buyeo languages hypothesis.
There is a very close connection between the dialects of Korean and the regions of Korea, since the boundaries of both are largely determined by mountains and seas. Here is a list of traditional dialect names and locations:
The Korean consonants
The IPA symbol (a subscript double straight quotation mark, shown here with a placeholder circle) is used to denote the tensed consonants . Its official use in the Extensions to the IPA is for 'strong' articulation, but is used in the literature for faucalized voice. The Korean consonants also have elements of stiff voice, but it is not yet known how typical this is of faucalized consonants. They are produced with a partially constricted glottis and additional subglottal pressure in addition to tense vocal tract walls, laryngeal lowering, or other expansion of the larynx.
becomes an alveolo-palatal before or for most speakers (but see Differences in the language between North Korea and South Korea). This occurs with the tense fricative and all the affricates as well. At the end of a syllable, /s/ changes to /t/ (Example: beoseot (ë²ì¯) 'mushroom').
may become a bilabial before or , a palatal before or , a velar before , a voiced between voiced sounds, and a elsewhere.
become voiced between voiced sounds.
becomes alveolar flap between vowels, and or at the end of a syllable or next to another . Note that a written syllable-final 'ã¹', when followed by a vowel or a glide (i.e., when the next character starts with 'ã
'), migrates to the next syllable and thus becomes .
Traditionally, was disallowed at the beginning of a word. It disappeared before , and otherwise became . However, the inflow of western loanword changed the trend, and now word-initial (mostly from English loanwords) are pronounced as a free variation of either or . The traditional prohibition of word-initial became a morphological rule called "initial law" (ëìë²ì¹) in South Korea, which pertains to Sino-Korean vocabulary. Such words retain their word-initial in North Korea.
All obstruents (plosives, affricates, fricatives) are unreleased at the end of a word.
Plosive stops become nasal stops before nasal stops.
Hangul spelling does not reflect these assimilatory pronunciation rules, but rather maintains the underlying, partly historical morphology. Given this, it is sometimes hard to tell which actual phonemes are present in a certain word.
One difference between the pronunciation standards of North and South Korea is the treatment of initial , and initial . For example,
* "labour" - north: rodong (ë¡ë), south: nodong (ë
¸ë)
* "history" - north: ryÅksa (ë ¥ì¬), south: yeoksa (ìì¬)
* "female" - north: nyÅja (ë
ì), south: yeoja (ì¬ì)
Grammatical morphemes may change shape depending on the preceding sounds. Examples include -eun/-neun (-ì/-ë) and -i/-ga (-ì´/-ê°). Sometimes sounds may be inserted instead. Examples include -eul/-reul (-ì/-를), -euro/-ro (-ì¼ë¡/-ë¡), -eseo/-seo (-ìì/-ì), -ideunji/-deunji (-ì´ë ì§/-ë ì§) and -iya/-ya (-ì´ì¼/-ì¼). However, -euro/-ro is somewhat irregular, since it will behave differently after a rieul consonant.
Some verbs may also change shape morphophonemically.
Korean is an agglutinative language. Modifiers generally precede the modified words, and in the case of verb modifiers, can be serially appended. The basic form of a Korean sentence is Subject Object Verb, but the verb is the only required and immovable element.
:"Did [you] go to the store?" ("you" implied in conversation)
:"Yes."
The Korean Language contains nine parts of speech.
Korean verbs ( , tongsa, ) are also known in English as "action verbs" or "dynamic verbs" to distinguish them from [ , hyeong-yongsa, "adjectives"]), which are also known as "descriptive verbs" or "stative verbs". Examples of action/dynamic verbs include (hada, "to do") and (kada, "to go") which constitute an action or movement as opposed to descriptive verbs such as (yehppeuda, "to be beautiful"). For a larger list of Korean verbs, see .
Unlike most of the European languages, Korean does not conjugate verbs using agreement with the subject, and nouns have no gender. Instead, verb conjugations depend upon the verb tense, aspect, mood, and the social relation between the speaker, the subjects, and the listeners.
The system of speech levels and honorifics loosely resembles the T-V distinction of most Indo-European languages. For example, different endings are used depending on the speaker's relation with their subject or audience. Politeness is a critical part of Korean language and Korean culture, therefore, when talking to someone esteemed, the correct verb ending must be chosen to indicate the proper respect.
Words categorized as Korean adjectives ( , hyeong-yongsa, ) conjugate similarly to verbs, so some English texts call them "descriptive verbs" or "stative verbs", but they are distinctly separate from (tongsa).
English does not have an identical grammatical category, so the English translation of Korean adjectives may misleadingly suggest that they are verbs. For example, (pukda) translates literally as "to be red" and (aswipda) often best translates as "to lack" or "to want for", but both are (hyeong-yongsa, "adjectives"). For a larger list of Korean adjectives, see .
Korean pre-nouns ( , gwanhyeongsa, ) are also known in English as "determinatives", "attributives", and "unconjugated adjectives". Examples include (kak, "each"). For a larger list, see .
Core and basic noun words are native to the Korean language, e.g. (nara, country), (nal, day). A large body of Korean nouns ( , myeongsa, ) stem from Chinese characters, e.g. (å±±, san, mountain), (é©, yeok, station), (æå, munhwa, culture), etc. Many Sino-Korean words have a native Korean equivalent and vice versa, but not always. Nouns do not have grammatical gender and can be made plural by adding ë¤ to the end of the word, however in most instances the singular form is used even when in English it would be translated as plural. For example, while in English the sentence "there are three apples" would use the plural "apples" instead of the singular "apple", the Korean sentence ì¬ê³¼ ì¸ê° ììµëë¤ (sagwa segae isssumnida) maintains the word ì¬ê³¼ (sagwa, "apple") in its singular form, thus rendered in English as "apple three(things) exist." For a list of Korean nouns, see .
Korean pronouns ( , daemyeongsa, ) are highly influenced by the honorifics in the language. Pronouns change forms depending on the social status of the person or persons spoken to, e.g. the pronoun for "I" there is both the informal (na) and the honorific/humble (jeo). In general second person singular pronouns are avoided, especially when using honorific forms. For a larger list or Korean pronouns, see .
Korean adverbs ( , busa, ) include (tto, "also") and (gadeuk, "fully"). For a larger list, see .
Korean particles ( , josa, ) are also known in English as "postpositions". Examples include (neun, topic marker) and (reul, object marker). For a larger list, see .
Korean interjections ( , gamtansa, ) are also known in English as "exclamations". Examples include (ani, "no"). For a larger list, see .
Korean numbers or numerals ( , susa, ) constitute two regularly used sets: a native Korean set and a Sino-Korean set. The Sino-Korean system is nearly entirely based on the Chinese numerals. The distinction between the two numeral systems is very important. Everything that can be counted will use one of the two systems, but seldom both. Sino-Korean words are sometimes used to mark ordinal usage: yeol beon (ì´ ë²) means "ten times" while sip beon (ì(å) ë²(çª)) means "number ten." The grouping of large numbers in Korean follow the Chinese tradition of myriads (10000) rather than thousands (1000) as is common in Europe and North America.
The relationship between a speaker or writer and his or her subject and audience is paramount in Korean, and the grammar reflects this. The relationship between speaker/writer and subject referent is reflected in honorifics, while that between speaker/writer and audience is reflected in speech level.
When talking about someone superior in status, a speaker or writer usually uses special nouns or verb endings to indicate the subject's superiority. Generally, someone is superior in status if he/she is an older relative, a stranger of roughly equal or greater age, or an employer, teacher, customer, or the like. Someone is equal or inferior in status if he/she is a younger stranger, student, employee or the like. Nowadays, there are special endings which can be used on declarative, interrogative, and imperative sentences; and both honorific or normal sentences. They are made for easier and faster use of Korean.
There are seven verb paradigms or speech levels in Korean, and each level has its own unique set of verb endings which are used to indicate the level of formality of a situation. Unlike honorificsâwhich are used to show respect towards the referentâspeech levels are used to show respect towards a speaker's or writer's audience. The names of the seven levels are derived from the non-honorific imperative form of the verb íë¤ (hada, "do") in each level, plus the suffix ì²´ ("che", hanja: é« ), which means "style".
The highest six levels are generally grouped together as jondaenmal (ì¡´ëë§), while the lowest level (haeche, í´ì²´) is called banmal (ë°ë§) in Korean.
The core of the Korean vocabulary is made up of native Korean words. Like Japanese and Vietnamese, a significant proportion of the vocabulary, especially words that denote abstract ideas, are Sino-Korean words, Sohn, Ho-Min. The Korean Language (Section 1.5.3 "Korean vocabulary", p.12â13), Cambridge University Press, 2001. ISBN 0521369436. either
* directly borrowed from Written Chinese, or
* coined in Japan or Korea using Chinese characters,
in a similar way European languages borrow from Latin and Greek.
The exact proportion of Sino-Korean vocabulary is a matter of debate. Sohn (2001) stated 50-60%. However, Jeong Jae-do, one of the compilers of the dictionary Urimal Kun Sajeon, asserts that the proportion is not so high. He points out that Korean dictionaries compiled during the period of Japanese occupation include many unused Sino-Korean words. In his estimation, the proportion of native Korean vocabulary in the Korean language might be as high as 70%. . The dictionary mentioned is
Korean has two number systems: one native, and one borrowed from Chinese.
To a much lesser extent, words have also occasionally been borrowed from Mongolian, Sanskrit, and other languages. Conversely, the Korean language itself has also contributed some loanwords to other languages, most notably the Tsushima dialect of Japanese.
The vast majority of loanwords other than Sino-Korean come from modern times, 90% of which are from English. Many words have also been borrowed from Japanese and Western languages such as German (areubaiteu "part-time job", allereugi "allergy", "gibsu" "plaster cast used for broken bones"). Some Western words were borrowed indirectly via Japanese, taking a Japanese sound pattern, for example "dozen" > dÄsu > daseu. Most indirect Western borrowings are now written according to current Hangulization rules for the respective Western language, as if borrowed directly. There are a few more complicated borrowings such as "German(y)" (see Names for Germany), the first part of whose endonym the Japanese approximated using the kanji doitsu that were then accepted into the Korean language by their Sino-Korean pronunciation: dok + il = Dogil. In South Korean official use, a number of other Sino-Korean country names have been replaced with phonetically oriented Hangulizations of the countries' endonyms or English names.
As in Japanese, Korean adapts words in ways that are uncommon in English. For example, in soccer heading ( ) is used to label a head-strike, rather than direction. This is a corrupted loan word from the English header.
North Korean vocabulary shows a tendency to prefer native Korean over Sino-Korean or foreign borrowings, especially with recent political objectives aimed at eliminating foreign (mostly Chinese) influences on the Korean language in the North. By contrast, South Korean may have several Sino-Korean or foreign borrowings which tend to be absent in North Korean.
Formerly the languages of the Korean peninsula were written using Chinese characters, using hyangchal or idu. Such systems relied on principles of rebus, and were lost, later in history. Writing became confined to the ruling elite, who used hanja to write in Classical Chinese.
Korean is now mainly written in Hangul, the Korean alphabet promulgated in 1446 by Sejong the Great; hanja may be mixed in to write Sino-Korean words. While South Korean schools still teach 1,800 hanja characters, North Korea had abolished the use of hanja decades ago.
Below is a chart of the Korean alphabet's symbols and their canonical IPA values:
Modern Korean is written with spaces between words, a feature not found in Chinese or Japanese. Korean punctuation marks are almost identical to Western ones. Traditionally, Korean was written in columns from top to bottom, right to left, but is now usually written in rows from left to right, top to bottom.
The Korean language used in the North and the South exhibits differences in pronunciation, spelling, grammar and vocabulary. Kanno, Hiroomi (ed.) / Society for Korean Linguistics in Japan (1987). ChÅsengo o manabÅ (ãæé®®èªãå¦ã¼ãã), SanshÅ«sha, Tokyo. ISBN 4-384-01506-2
In North Korea, palatalization of is optional, and can be pronounced between vowels.
Words that are written the same way may be pronounced differently, such as the examples below. The pronunciations below are given in Revised Romanization, McCune-Reischauer and Hangul, the last of which represents what the Hangul would be if one writes the word as pronounced.
* Similar pronunciation is used in the North whenever the hanja "ç" is attached to a Sino-Korean word ending in ã´, ã
or ã
. (In the South, this rule only applies when it is attached to any single-character Sino-Korean word.)
Some words are spelled differently by the North and the South, but the pronunciations are the same.
Some words have different spellings and pronunciations in the North and the South, some of which were given in the "Phonology" section above:
In general, when transcribing place names, North Korea tends to use the pronunciation in the original language more than South Korea, which often uses the pronunciation in English. For example:
Some grammatical constructions are also different:
Some vocabulary is different between the North and the South:
In the North, guillemets and are the symbols used for quotes; in the South, quotation marks equivalent to the English ones, â and â, are standard, although and are sometimes used in popular novels.
The United States' Defense Language Institute classifies Korean alongside Arabic, Chinese, and Japanese as a Category IV language, meaning that 63 weeks of instruction (as compared to just 25 weeks for French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian) are required to bring an English-speaking student to a limited working level of proficiency in which he or she has "sufficient capability to meet routine social demands and limited job requirements" and "can deal with concrete topics in past, present, and future tense." As a result, the study of the Korean language in the United States is dominated by Korean American heritage language students; they are estimated to form over 80% of all students of the language at non-military universities.
However, Korean is considerably easier for speakers of certain other languages, such as Japanese ; in Japan, it is more widely studied by non-heritage learners. The Korean Language Proficiency Test, an examination aimed at assessing non-native speakers' competence in Korean, was instituted in 1997; 17,000 people applied for the 2005 sitting of the examination.
*Hangul
*Korean romanization
**Revised romanization of Korean
**McCune-Reischauer
**Yale Romanization#Korean
**SKATS
*Korean numerals
*Korean count word
*Korean language and computers
*Hanja
*Sino-Korean vocabulary
*Korean mixed script
*List of English words of Korean origin
*Altaic languages
*List of Korea-related topics
*Vowel harmony
* (Volume 4 of the London Oriental and African Language Library).
*Hulbert, Homer B. (1905): A Comparative Grammar of the Korean Language and the Dravidian Dialects in India. Seoul.
*Martin, Samuel E. (1966): Lexical Evidence Relating Japanese to Korean. Language 42/2: 185â251.
*Martin, Samuel E. (1990): Morphological clues to the relationship of Japanese and Korean. In: Philip Baldi (ed.): Linguistic Change and Reconstruction Methodology. Trends in Linguistics: Studies and Monographs 45: 483-509.
*Miller, Roy Andrew (1971): Japanese and the Other Altaic Languages. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0226527190.
*Miller, Roy Andrew (1996): Languages and History: Japanese, Korean and Altaic. Oslo: Institute for Comparative Research in Human Culture. ISBN 9748299694.
*Ramstedt, G. J. (1928): Remarks on the Korean language. Mémoires de la Société Finno-Oigrienne 58.
*Rybatzki, Volker (2003): Middle Mongol. In: Juha Janhunen (ed.) (2003): The Mongolic languages. London: Routledge. ISBN 0-7007-1133-3: 47â82.
*Starostin, Sergei A.; Anna V. Dybo; Oleg A. Mudrak (2003): Etymological Dictionary of the Altaic Languages, 3 volumes. Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers. ISBN 9004131531.
*Sohn, H.-M. (1999): The Korean Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Song, J.-J. (2005): The Korean Language: Structure, Use and Context. London: Routledge.
*Trask, R. L. (1996): Historical linguistics. Hodder Arnold.
*Vovin, Alexander: Koreo-Japonica. University of Hawai'i Press.
*Whitman, John B. (1985): The Phonological Basis for the Comparison of Japanese and Korean. Unpublished Harvard University Ph.D. dissertation.
* Ethnologue report for Korean
* Linguistic and Philosophical Origins of the Korean Alphabet (Hangul)
* Free Korean language and culture course online, in English
* Linguistic map of Korea
* Korean - a Category III language Languages which are exceptionally difficult for native English speakers
* dongsa.net A Korean verb conjugation tool that explains the conjugations for learners of Korean
|
Korean_language | What is the official language of North Korea? | Korean | data/set5/a6 | Korean_language
:This article is mainly about the spoken Korean language. See Hangul for details on the native Korean writing system.
Korean ( , see below) is the official language of Korea, both South and North. It is also one of the two official languages in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in China. There are about 78 million Korean speakers. In the 15th century a national writing system was commissioned by Sejong the Great, currently called Hangul. Prior to the development of Hangul, Koreans used Hanja (Chinese characters) to write for over a millennia.
The genealogical classification of the Korean language is debated by a small number of linguists. Most classify it as a language isolate Song, Jae Jung (2005) "The Korean language: structure, use and context" Routledge, p. 15
Lyle Campbell & Mauricio Mixco. 2007. A Glossary of Historical Linguistics. University of Utah Press. while a few consider it to be in the Altaic language family. Stratification in the peopling of China: how far does the linguistic evidence match genetics and archaeology? In; Sanchez-Mazas, Blench, Ross, Lin & Pejros eds. Human migrations in continental East Asia and Taiwan: genetic, linguistic and archaeological evidence. 2008. Taylor & Francis Some believe it to be distantly related to Japanese. Like Japanese it is agglutinative in its morphology and SOV in its syntax.
The Korean names for the language are based on the names for Korea used in North and South Korea.
In South Korea, the language is most often called Hangungmal
( ; ), or more formally, Hangugeo ( ; ) or Gugeo ( ; ; literally "national language").
In North Korea and Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in China, the language is most often called ChosÅnmal ( ; with hanja: ), or more formally, ChosÅnÅ ( ; ).
On the other hand, Korean people in the former USSR, who refer to themselves as Koryo-saram (ê³ ë ¤ì¬ë; also Goryeoin [ ; ; literally, "Goryeo person(s)"]) call the language Goryeomal ( ; ).
In mainland China, following the establishment of diplomatic relations with South Korea in 1992, the term CháoxiÇnyÇ ( or the short form: CháoyÇ ( )) has normally been used to refer to the language spoken in North Korea and Yanbian, while HánguóyÇ ( or the short form: HányÇ ( )) is used to refer to the language spoken in South Korea.
Some older English sources also used the name "Korean" to refer to the language, country, and people. The word "Korean" is derived from Goryeo, which is thought to be the first dynasty known to western countries.
Most modern linguists consider Korean to be a language isolate Song, Jae Jung (2005) "The Korean language: structure, use and context" Routledge, p. 15
Lyle Campbell & Mauricio J. Mixco. 2007. A Glossary of Historical Linguistics. University of Utah Press.
Since the publication of the article of Ramstedt in 1928, some linguists eg Miller 1971, 1996, Starostin et al. 2003 support the hypothesis that Korean can be classified as an Altaic language or as a relative of proto-Altaic. Korean is similar to the Altaic languages in that they both lack certain grammatical elements, including articles, fusional morphology and relative pronouns. However, linguists agree today on the fact that typological resemblances cannot be used to prove genetic relatedness of languages eg Vovin 2008: 1 as these features are typologically connected and easily borrowed. Trask 1996: 147-151 Such factors of typological divergence as Middle Mongolian's exhibition of gender agreement Rybatzki 2003: 57 can be used to argue that a genetic relationship is unlikely. Vovin 2008: 5
The hypothesis that Korean might be related to Japanese has had some more supporters due to some considerable overlap in vocabulary and similar grammatical features that have been elaborated upon by such researchers as Samuel E. Martin eg Martin 1966, 1990 and Roy Andrew Miller. eg Miller 1971, 1996 Sergei Starostin (1991) found about 25% of potential cognates in the Japanese-Korean 100-word Swadesh list, which - if true - would place these two languages closer together than other possible members of the Altaic family.
Other linguists, most notably Alexander Vovin, argue, however, that the similarities are not due to any genetic relationship, but rather to a sprachbund effect and heavy borrowing especially from Korean into Western Old Japanese. Vovin 2008 A good example might be Middle Korean sà m Whitman 1985: 232, also found in Martin 1966: 233 This word seems to be cognate, but while it is well-attested in Western Old Japanese and Northern RyÅ«kyÅ«, in Eastern Old Japanese it only occurs in compounds, and it is only present in three subdialects of the South-RyÅ«kyÅ«an dialect group. Then, the doublet wo âhempâ is attested in Western Old Japanese and Southern RyÅ«kyÅ«. It is thus plausible to assume a borrowed term. Vovin 2008: 211-212 See East Asian languages for morphological features shared among languages of the East Asian sprachbund, and Classification of Japanese for further details on the discussion of a possible relationship.
Korean is descended from Old Korean, Middle Korean and Modern Korean. Controversy remains over the proposed Altaic language family and its inclusion of Proto-Korean. Since the Korean War, contemporary North-South differences in Korean have developed, including variance in pronunciation, verb inflection, and vocabulary.
Korean is spoken by the Korean people in North Korea and South Korea and by the Korean diaspora in many countries including the People's Republic of China, Japan, and the United States. Korean-speaking minorities exist in these states, but because of cultural assimilation into host countries, not all ethnic Korean immigrants may speak it with native fluency.
Korean is the official language of South Korea and North Korea. It is also one of the two official languages of the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in China.
In South Korea, the regulatory body for Korean is the Seoul-based National Institute of the Korean Language ( ), which was created by presidential decree on January 23, 1991. In North Korea, the regulatory body is the Sahoe Kwahagwon Åhak YÅnguso ( ).
Dialects of Korean
Korean has several dialects (called mal [literally "speech"], saturi, or bang-eon in Korean). The standard language (pyojuneo or pyojunmal) of South Korea is based on the dialect of the area around Seoul, and the standard for North Korea is based on the dialect spoken around P'yÅngyang. All dialects of Korean are similar to each other, and are in fact all mutually intelligible, perhaps with the exception of the dialect of Jeju Island (see Jeju dialect). The dialect spoken in Jeju is in fact classified as a different language by some Korean linguists. One of the most notable differences between dialects is the use of stress: speakers of Seoul dialect use very little stress, and standard South Korean has a very flat intonation; on the other hand, speakers of the Gyeongsang dialect have a very pronounced intonation.
It is also worth noting that there is substantial evidence for a history of extensive dialect levelling, or even convergent evolution or intermixture of two or more originally distinct linguistic stocks, within the Korean language and its dialects. Many Korean dialects have basic vocabulary that is etymologically distinct from vocabulary of identical meaning in Standard Korean or other dialects, such as South Jeolla dialect /kur/ vs. Standard Korean ì
"mouth" or Gyeongsang dialect vs. Standard Korean "garlic chives." This suggests that the Korean Peninsula may have at one time been much more linguistically diverse than it is at present. See also the Buyeo languages hypothesis.
There is a very close connection between the dialects of Korean and the regions of Korea, since the boundaries of both are largely determined by mountains and seas. Here is a list of traditional dialect names and locations:
The Korean consonants
The IPA symbol (a subscript double straight quotation mark, shown here with a placeholder circle) is used to denote the tensed consonants . Its official use in the Extensions to the IPA is for 'strong' articulation, but is used in the literature for faucalized voice. The Korean consonants also have elements of stiff voice, but it is not yet known how typical this is of faucalized consonants. They are produced with a partially constricted glottis and additional subglottal pressure in addition to tense vocal tract walls, laryngeal lowering, or other expansion of the larynx.
becomes an alveolo-palatal before or for most speakers (but see Differences in the language between North Korea and South Korea). This occurs with the tense fricative and all the affricates as well. At the end of a syllable, /s/ changes to /t/ (Example: beoseot (ë²ì¯) 'mushroom').
may become a bilabial before or , a palatal before or , a velar before , a voiced between voiced sounds, and a elsewhere.
become voiced between voiced sounds.
becomes alveolar flap between vowels, and or at the end of a syllable or next to another . Note that a written syllable-final 'ã¹', when followed by a vowel or a glide (i.e., when the next character starts with 'ã
'), migrates to the next syllable and thus becomes .
Traditionally, was disallowed at the beginning of a word. It disappeared before , and otherwise became . However, the inflow of western loanword changed the trend, and now word-initial (mostly from English loanwords) are pronounced as a free variation of either or . The traditional prohibition of word-initial became a morphological rule called "initial law" (ëìë²ì¹) in South Korea, which pertains to Sino-Korean vocabulary. Such words retain their word-initial in North Korea.
All obstruents (plosives, affricates, fricatives) are unreleased at the end of a word.
Plosive stops become nasal stops before nasal stops.
Hangul spelling does not reflect these assimilatory pronunciation rules, but rather maintains the underlying, partly historical morphology. Given this, it is sometimes hard to tell which actual phonemes are present in a certain word.
One difference between the pronunciation standards of North and South Korea is the treatment of initial , and initial . For example,
* "labour" - north: rodong (ë¡ë), south: nodong (ë
¸ë)
* "history" - north: ryÅksa (ë ¥ì¬), south: yeoksa (ìì¬)
* "female" - north: nyÅja (ë
ì), south: yeoja (ì¬ì)
Grammatical morphemes may change shape depending on the preceding sounds. Examples include -eun/-neun (-ì/-ë) and -i/-ga (-ì´/-ê°). Sometimes sounds may be inserted instead. Examples include -eul/-reul (-ì/-를), -euro/-ro (-ì¼ë¡/-ë¡), -eseo/-seo (-ìì/-ì), -ideunji/-deunji (-ì´ë ì§/-ë ì§) and -iya/-ya (-ì´ì¼/-ì¼). However, -euro/-ro is somewhat irregular, since it will behave differently after a rieul consonant.
Some verbs may also change shape morphophonemically.
Korean is an agglutinative language. Modifiers generally precede the modified words, and in the case of verb modifiers, can be serially appended. The basic form of a Korean sentence is Subject Object Verb, but the verb is the only required and immovable element.
:"Did [you] go to the store?" ("you" implied in conversation)
:"Yes."
The Korean Language contains nine parts of speech.
Korean verbs ( , tongsa, ) are also known in English as "action verbs" or "dynamic verbs" to distinguish them from [ , hyeong-yongsa, "adjectives"]), which are also known as "descriptive verbs" or "stative verbs". Examples of action/dynamic verbs include (hada, "to do") and (kada, "to go") which constitute an action or movement as opposed to descriptive verbs such as (yehppeuda, "to be beautiful"). For a larger list of Korean verbs, see .
Unlike most of the European languages, Korean does not conjugate verbs using agreement with the subject, and nouns have no gender. Instead, verb conjugations depend upon the verb tense, aspect, mood, and the social relation between the speaker, the subjects, and the listeners.
The system of speech levels and honorifics loosely resembles the T-V distinction of most Indo-European languages. For example, different endings are used depending on the speaker's relation with their subject or audience. Politeness is a critical part of Korean language and Korean culture, therefore, when talking to someone esteemed, the correct verb ending must be chosen to indicate the proper respect.
Words categorized as Korean adjectives ( , hyeong-yongsa, ) conjugate similarly to verbs, so some English texts call them "descriptive verbs" or "stative verbs", but they are distinctly separate from (tongsa).
English does not have an identical grammatical category, so the English translation of Korean adjectives may misleadingly suggest that they are verbs. For example, (pukda) translates literally as "to be red" and (aswipda) often best translates as "to lack" or "to want for", but both are (hyeong-yongsa, "adjectives"). For a larger list of Korean adjectives, see .
Korean pre-nouns ( , gwanhyeongsa, ) are also known in English as "determinatives", "attributives", and "unconjugated adjectives". Examples include (kak, "each"). For a larger list, see .
Core and basic noun words are native to the Korean language, e.g. (nara, country), (nal, day). A large body of Korean nouns ( , myeongsa, ) stem from Chinese characters, e.g. (å±±, san, mountain), (é©, yeok, station), (æå, munhwa, culture), etc. Many Sino-Korean words have a native Korean equivalent and vice versa, but not always. Nouns do not have grammatical gender and can be made plural by adding ë¤ to the end of the word, however in most instances the singular form is used even when in English it would be translated as plural. For example, while in English the sentence "there are three apples" would use the plural "apples" instead of the singular "apple", the Korean sentence ì¬ê³¼ ì¸ê° ììµëë¤ (sagwa segae isssumnida) maintains the word ì¬ê³¼ (sagwa, "apple") in its singular form, thus rendered in English as "apple three(things) exist." For a list of Korean nouns, see .
Korean pronouns ( , daemyeongsa, ) are highly influenced by the honorifics in the language. Pronouns change forms depending on the social status of the person or persons spoken to, e.g. the pronoun for "I" there is both the informal (na) and the honorific/humble (jeo). In general second person singular pronouns are avoided, especially when using honorific forms. For a larger list or Korean pronouns, see .
Korean adverbs ( , busa, ) include (tto, "also") and (gadeuk, "fully"). For a larger list, see .
Korean particles ( , josa, ) are also known in English as "postpositions". Examples include (neun, topic marker) and (reul, object marker). For a larger list, see .
Korean interjections ( , gamtansa, ) are also known in English as "exclamations". Examples include (ani, "no"). For a larger list, see .
Korean numbers or numerals ( , susa, ) constitute two regularly used sets: a native Korean set and a Sino-Korean set. The Sino-Korean system is nearly entirely based on the Chinese numerals. The distinction between the two numeral systems is very important. Everything that can be counted will use one of the two systems, but seldom both. Sino-Korean words are sometimes used to mark ordinal usage: yeol beon (ì´ ë²) means "ten times" while sip beon (ì(å) ë²(çª)) means "number ten." The grouping of large numbers in Korean follow the Chinese tradition of myriads (10000) rather than thousands (1000) as is common in Europe and North America.
The relationship between a speaker or writer and his or her subject and audience is paramount in Korean, and the grammar reflects this. The relationship between speaker/writer and subject referent is reflected in honorifics, while that between speaker/writer and audience is reflected in speech level.
When talking about someone superior in status, a speaker or writer usually uses special nouns or verb endings to indicate the subject's superiority. Generally, someone is superior in status if he/she is an older relative, a stranger of roughly equal or greater age, or an employer, teacher, customer, or the like. Someone is equal or inferior in status if he/she is a younger stranger, student, employee or the like. Nowadays, there are special endings which can be used on declarative, interrogative, and imperative sentences; and both honorific or normal sentences. They are made for easier and faster use of Korean.
There are seven verb paradigms or speech levels in Korean, and each level has its own unique set of verb endings which are used to indicate the level of formality of a situation. Unlike honorificsâwhich are used to show respect towards the referentâspeech levels are used to show respect towards a speaker's or writer's audience. The names of the seven levels are derived from the non-honorific imperative form of the verb íë¤ (hada, "do") in each level, plus the suffix ì²´ ("che", hanja: é« ), which means "style".
The highest six levels are generally grouped together as jondaenmal (ì¡´ëë§), while the lowest level (haeche, í´ì²´) is called banmal (ë°ë§) in Korean.
The core of the Korean vocabulary is made up of native Korean words. Like Japanese and Vietnamese, a significant proportion of the vocabulary, especially words that denote abstract ideas, are Sino-Korean words, Sohn, Ho-Min. The Korean Language (Section 1.5.3 "Korean vocabulary", p.12â13), Cambridge University Press, 2001. ISBN 0521369436. either
* directly borrowed from Written Chinese, or
* coined in Japan or Korea using Chinese characters,
in a similar way European languages borrow from Latin and Greek.
The exact proportion of Sino-Korean vocabulary is a matter of debate. Sohn (2001) stated 50-60%. However, Jeong Jae-do, one of the compilers of the dictionary Urimal Kun Sajeon, asserts that the proportion is not so high. He points out that Korean dictionaries compiled during the period of Japanese occupation include many unused Sino-Korean words. In his estimation, the proportion of native Korean vocabulary in the Korean language might be as high as 70%. . The dictionary mentioned is
Korean has two number systems: one native, and one borrowed from Chinese.
To a much lesser extent, words have also occasionally been borrowed from Mongolian, Sanskrit, and other languages. Conversely, the Korean language itself has also contributed some loanwords to other languages, most notably the Tsushima dialect of Japanese.
The vast majority of loanwords other than Sino-Korean come from modern times, 90% of which are from English. Many words have also been borrowed from Japanese and Western languages such as German (areubaiteu "part-time job", allereugi "allergy", "gibsu" "plaster cast used for broken bones"). Some Western words were borrowed indirectly via Japanese, taking a Japanese sound pattern, for example "dozen" > dÄsu > daseu. Most indirect Western borrowings are now written according to current Hangulization rules for the respective Western language, as if borrowed directly. There are a few more complicated borrowings such as "German(y)" (see Names for Germany), the first part of whose endonym the Japanese approximated using the kanji doitsu that were then accepted into the Korean language by their Sino-Korean pronunciation: dok + il = Dogil. In South Korean official use, a number of other Sino-Korean country names have been replaced with phonetically oriented Hangulizations of the countries' endonyms or English names.
As in Japanese, Korean adapts words in ways that are uncommon in English. For example, in soccer heading ( ) is used to label a head-strike, rather than direction. This is a corrupted loan word from the English header.
North Korean vocabulary shows a tendency to prefer native Korean over Sino-Korean or foreign borrowings, especially with recent political objectives aimed at eliminating foreign (mostly Chinese) influences on the Korean language in the North. By contrast, South Korean may have several Sino-Korean or foreign borrowings which tend to be absent in North Korean.
Formerly the languages of the Korean peninsula were written using Chinese characters, using hyangchal or idu. Such systems relied on principles of rebus, and were lost, later in history. Writing became confined to the ruling elite, who used hanja to write in Classical Chinese.
Korean is now mainly written in Hangul, the Korean alphabet promulgated in 1446 by Sejong the Great; hanja may be mixed in to write Sino-Korean words. While South Korean schools still teach 1,800 hanja characters, North Korea had abolished the use of hanja decades ago.
Below is a chart of the Korean alphabet's symbols and their canonical IPA values:
Modern Korean is written with spaces between words, a feature not found in Chinese or Japanese. Korean punctuation marks are almost identical to Western ones. Traditionally, Korean was written in columns from top to bottom, right to left, but is now usually written in rows from left to right, top to bottom.
The Korean language used in the North and the South exhibits differences in pronunciation, spelling, grammar and vocabulary. Kanno, Hiroomi (ed.) / Society for Korean Linguistics in Japan (1987). ChÅsengo o manabÅ (ãæé®®èªãå¦ã¼ãã), SanshÅ«sha, Tokyo. ISBN 4-384-01506-2
In North Korea, palatalization of is optional, and can be pronounced between vowels.
Words that are written the same way may be pronounced differently, such as the examples below. The pronunciations below are given in Revised Romanization, McCune-Reischauer and Hangul, the last of which represents what the Hangul would be if one writes the word as pronounced.
* Similar pronunciation is used in the North whenever the hanja "ç" is attached to a Sino-Korean word ending in ã´, ã
or ã
. (In the South, this rule only applies when it is attached to any single-character Sino-Korean word.)
Some words are spelled differently by the North and the South, but the pronunciations are the same.
Some words have different spellings and pronunciations in the North and the South, some of which were given in the "Phonology" section above:
In general, when transcribing place names, North Korea tends to use the pronunciation in the original language more than South Korea, which often uses the pronunciation in English. For example:
Some grammatical constructions are also different:
Some vocabulary is different between the North and the South:
In the North, guillemets and are the symbols used for quotes; in the South, quotation marks equivalent to the English ones, â and â, are standard, although and are sometimes used in popular novels.
The United States' Defense Language Institute classifies Korean alongside Arabic, Chinese, and Japanese as a Category IV language, meaning that 63 weeks of instruction (as compared to just 25 weeks for French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian) are required to bring an English-speaking student to a limited working level of proficiency in which he or she has "sufficient capability to meet routine social demands and limited job requirements" and "can deal with concrete topics in past, present, and future tense." As a result, the study of the Korean language in the United States is dominated by Korean American heritage language students; they are estimated to form over 80% of all students of the language at non-military universities.
However, Korean is considerably easier for speakers of certain other languages, such as Japanese ; in Japan, it is more widely studied by non-heritage learners. The Korean Language Proficiency Test, an examination aimed at assessing non-native speakers' competence in Korean, was instituted in 1997; 17,000 people applied for the 2005 sitting of the examination.
*Hangul
*Korean romanization
**Revised romanization of Korean
**McCune-Reischauer
**Yale Romanization#Korean
**SKATS
*Korean numerals
*Korean count word
*Korean language and computers
*Hanja
*Sino-Korean vocabulary
*Korean mixed script
*List of English words of Korean origin
*Altaic languages
*List of Korea-related topics
*Vowel harmony
* (Volume 4 of the London Oriental and African Language Library).
*Hulbert, Homer B. (1905): A Comparative Grammar of the Korean Language and the Dravidian Dialects in India. Seoul.
*Martin, Samuel E. (1966): Lexical Evidence Relating Japanese to Korean. Language 42/2: 185â251.
*Martin, Samuel E. (1990): Morphological clues to the relationship of Japanese and Korean. In: Philip Baldi (ed.): Linguistic Change and Reconstruction Methodology. Trends in Linguistics: Studies and Monographs 45: 483-509.
*Miller, Roy Andrew (1971): Japanese and the Other Altaic Languages. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0226527190.
*Miller, Roy Andrew (1996): Languages and History: Japanese, Korean and Altaic. Oslo: Institute for Comparative Research in Human Culture. ISBN 9748299694.
*Ramstedt, G. J. (1928): Remarks on the Korean language. Mémoires de la Société Finno-Oigrienne 58.
*Rybatzki, Volker (2003): Middle Mongol. In: Juha Janhunen (ed.) (2003): The Mongolic languages. London: Routledge. ISBN 0-7007-1133-3: 47â82.
*Starostin, Sergei A.; Anna V. Dybo; Oleg A. Mudrak (2003): Etymological Dictionary of the Altaic Languages, 3 volumes. Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers. ISBN 9004131531.
*Sohn, H.-M. (1999): The Korean Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Song, J.-J. (2005): The Korean Language: Structure, Use and Context. London: Routledge.
*Trask, R. L. (1996): Historical linguistics. Hodder Arnold.
*Vovin, Alexander: Koreo-Japonica. University of Hawai'i Press.
*Whitman, John B. (1985): The Phonological Basis for the Comparison of Japanese and Korean. Unpublished Harvard University Ph.D. dissertation.
* Ethnologue report for Korean
* Linguistic and Philosophical Origins of the Korean Alphabet (Hangul)
* Free Korean language and culture course online, in English
* Linguistic map of Korea
* Korean - a Category III language Languages which are exceptionally difficult for native English speakers
* dongsa.net A Korean verb conjugation tool that explains the conjugations for learners of Korean
|
Korean_language | What is the official language of North Korea? | Korean | data/set5/a6 | Korean_language
:This article is mainly about the spoken Korean language. See Hangul for details on the native Korean writing system.
Korean ( , see below) is the official language of Korea, both South and North. It is also one of the two official languages in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in China. There are about 78 million Korean speakers. In the 15th century a national writing system was commissioned by Sejong the Great, currently called Hangul. Prior to the development of Hangul, Koreans used Hanja (Chinese characters) to write for over a millennia.
The genealogical classification of the Korean language is debated by a small number of linguists. Most classify it as a language isolate Song, Jae Jung (2005) "The Korean language: structure, use and context" Routledge, p. 15
Lyle Campbell & Mauricio Mixco. 2007. A Glossary of Historical Linguistics. University of Utah Press. while a few consider it to be in the Altaic language family. Stratification in the peopling of China: how far does the linguistic evidence match genetics and archaeology? In; Sanchez-Mazas, Blench, Ross, Lin & Pejros eds. Human migrations in continental East Asia and Taiwan: genetic, linguistic and archaeological evidence. 2008. Taylor & Francis Some believe it to be distantly related to Japanese. Like Japanese it is agglutinative in its morphology and SOV in its syntax.
The Korean names for the language are based on the names for Korea used in North and South Korea.
In South Korea, the language is most often called Hangungmal
( ; ), or more formally, Hangugeo ( ; ) or Gugeo ( ; ; literally "national language").
In North Korea and Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in China, the language is most often called ChosÅnmal ( ; with hanja: ), or more formally, ChosÅnÅ ( ; ).
On the other hand, Korean people in the former USSR, who refer to themselves as Koryo-saram (ê³ ë ¤ì¬ë; also Goryeoin [ ; ; literally, "Goryeo person(s)"]) call the language Goryeomal ( ; ).
In mainland China, following the establishment of diplomatic relations with South Korea in 1992, the term CháoxiÇnyÇ ( or the short form: CháoyÇ ( )) has normally been used to refer to the language spoken in North Korea and Yanbian, while HánguóyÇ ( or the short form: HányÇ ( )) is used to refer to the language spoken in South Korea.
Some older English sources also used the name "Korean" to refer to the language, country, and people. The word "Korean" is derived from Goryeo, which is thought to be the first dynasty known to western countries.
Most modern linguists consider Korean to be a language isolate Song, Jae Jung (2005) "The Korean language: structure, use and context" Routledge, p. 15
Lyle Campbell & Mauricio J. Mixco. 2007. A Glossary of Historical Linguistics. University of Utah Press.
Since the publication of the article of Ramstedt in 1928, some linguists eg Miller 1971, 1996, Starostin et al. 2003 support the hypothesis that Korean can be classified as an Altaic language or as a relative of proto-Altaic. Korean is similar to the Altaic languages in that they both lack certain grammatical elements, including articles, fusional morphology and relative pronouns. However, linguists agree today on the fact that typological resemblances cannot be used to prove genetic relatedness of languages eg Vovin 2008: 1 as these features are typologically connected and easily borrowed. Trask 1996: 147-151 Such factors of typological divergence as Middle Mongolian's exhibition of gender agreement Rybatzki 2003: 57 can be used to argue that a genetic relationship is unlikely. Vovin 2008: 5
The hypothesis that Korean might be related to Japanese has had some more supporters due to some considerable overlap in vocabulary and similar grammatical features that have been elaborated upon by such researchers as Samuel E. Martin eg Martin 1966, 1990 and Roy Andrew Miller. eg Miller 1971, 1996 Sergei Starostin (1991) found about 25% of potential cognates in the Japanese-Korean 100-word Swadesh list, which - if true - would place these two languages closer together than other possible members of the Altaic family.
Other linguists, most notably Alexander Vovin, argue, however, that the similarities are not due to any genetic relationship, but rather to a sprachbund effect and heavy borrowing especially from Korean into Western Old Japanese. Vovin 2008 A good example might be Middle Korean sà m Whitman 1985: 232, also found in Martin 1966: 233 This word seems to be cognate, but while it is well-attested in Western Old Japanese and Northern RyÅ«kyÅ«, in Eastern Old Japanese it only occurs in compounds, and it is only present in three subdialects of the South-RyÅ«kyÅ«an dialect group. Then, the doublet wo âhempâ is attested in Western Old Japanese and Southern RyÅ«kyÅ«. It is thus plausible to assume a borrowed term. Vovin 2008: 211-212 See East Asian languages for morphological features shared among languages of the East Asian sprachbund, and Classification of Japanese for further details on the discussion of a possible relationship.
Korean is descended from Old Korean, Middle Korean and Modern Korean. Controversy remains over the proposed Altaic language family and its inclusion of Proto-Korean. Since the Korean War, contemporary North-South differences in Korean have developed, including variance in pronunciation, verb inflection, and vocabulary.
Korean is spoken by the Korean people in North Korea and South Korea and by the Korean diaspora in many countries including the People's Republic of China, Japan, and the United States. Korean-speaking minorities exist in these states, but because of cultural assimilation into host countries, not all ethnic Korean immigrants may speak it with native fluency.
Korean is the official language of South Korea and North Korea. It is also one of the two official languages of the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in China.
In South Korea, the regulatory body for Korean is the Seoul-based National Institute of the Korean Language ( ), which was created by presidential decree on January 23, 1991. In North Korea, the regulatory body is the Sahoe Kwahagwon Åhak YÅnguso ( ).
Dialects of Korean
Korean has several dialects (called mal [literally "speech"], saturi, or bang-eon in Korean). The standard language (pyojuneo or pyojunmal) of South Korea is based on the dialect of the area around Seoul, and the standard for North Korea is based on the dialect spoken around P'yÅngyang. All dialects of Korean are similar to each other, and are in fact all mutually intelligible, perhaps with the exception of the dialect of Jeju Island (see Jeju dialect). The dialect spoken in Jeju is in fact classified as a different language by some Korean linguists. One of the most notable differences between dialects is the use of stress: speakers of Seoul dialect use very little stress, and standard South Korean has a very flat intonation; on the other hand, speakers of the Gyeongsang dialect have a very pronounced intonation.
It is also worth noting that there is substantial evidence for a history of extensive dialect levelling, or even convergent evolution or intermixture of two or more originally distinct linguistic stocks, within the Korean language and its dialects. Many Korean dialects have basic vocabulary that is etymologically distinct from vocabulary of identical meaning in Standard Korean or other dialects, such as South Jeolla dialect /kur/ vs. Standard Korean ì
"mouth" or Gyeongsang dialect vs. Standard Korean "garlic chives." This suggests that the Korean Peninsula may have at one time been much more linguistically diverse than it is at present. See also the Buyeo languages hypothesis.
There is a very close connection between the dialects of Korean and the regions of Korea, since the boundaries of both are largely determined by mountains and seas. Here is a list of traditional dialect names and locations:
The Korean consonants
The IPA symbol (a subscript double straight quotation mark, shown here with a placeholder circle) is used to denote the tensed consonants . Its official use in the Extensions to the IPA is for 'strong' articulation, but is used in the literature for faucalized voice. The Korean consonants also have elements of stiff voice, but it is not yet known how typical this is of faucalized consonants. They are produced with a partially constricted glottis and additional subglottal pressure in addition to tense vocal tract walls, laryngeal lowering, or other expansion of the larynx.
becomes an alveolo-palatal before or for most speakers (but see Differences in the language between North Korea and South Korea). This occurs with the tense fricative and all the affricates as well. At the end of a syllable, /s/ changes to /t/ (Example: beoseot (ë²ì¯) 'mushroom').
may become a bilabial before or , a palatal before or , a velar before , a voiced between voiced sounds, and a elsewhere.
become voiced between voiced sounds.
becomes alveolar flap between vowels, and or at the end of a syllable or next to another . Note that a written syllable-final 'ã¹', when followed by a vowel or a glide (i.e., when the next character starts with 'ã
'), migrates to the next syllable and thus becomes .
Traditionally, was disallowed at the beginning of a word. It disappeared before , and otherwise became . However, the inflow of western loanword changed the trend, and now word-initial (mostly from English loanwords) are pronounced as a free variation of either or . The traditional prohibition of word-initial became a morphological rule called "initial law" (ëìë²ì¹) in South Korea, which pertains to Sino-Korean vocabulary. Such words retain their word-initial in North Korea.
All obstruents (plosives, affricates, fricatives) are unreleased at the end of a word.
Plosive stops become nasal stops before nasal stops.
Hangul spelling does not reflect these assimilatory pronunciation rules, but rather maintains the underlying, partly historical morphology. Given this, it is sometimes hard to tell which actual phonemes are present in a certain word.
One difference between the pronunciation standards of North and South Korea is the treatment of initial , and initial . For example,
* "labour" - north: rodong (ë¡ë), south: nodong (ë
¸ë)
* "history" - north: ryÅksa (ë ¥ì¬), south: yeoksa (ìì¬)
* "female" - north: nyÅja (ë
ì), south: yeoja (ì¬ì)
Grammatical morphemes may change shape depending on the preceding sounds. Examples include -eun/-neun (-ì/-ë) and -i/-ga (-ì´/-ê°). Sometimes sounds may be inserted instead. Examples include -eul/-reul (-ì/-를), -euro/-ro (-ì¼ë¡/-ë¡), -eseo/-seo (-ìì/-ì), -ideunji/-deunji (-ì´ë ì§/-ë ì§) and -iya/-ya (-ì´ì¼/-ì¼). However, -euro/-ro is somewhat irregular, since it will behave differently after a rieul consonant.
Some verbs may also change shape morphophonemically.
Korean is an agglutinative language. Modifiers generally precede the modified words, and in the case of verb modifiers, can be serially appended. The basic form of a Korean sentence is Subject Object Verb, but the verb is the only required and immovable element.
:"Did [you] go to the store?" ("you" implied in conversation)
:"Yes."
The Korean Language contains nine parts of speech.
Korean verbs ( , tongsa, ) are also known in English as "action verbs" or "dynamic verbs" to distinguish them from [ , hyeong-yongsa, "adjectives"]), which are also known as "descriptive verbs" or "stative verbs". Examples of action/dynamic verbs include (hada, "to do") and (kada, "to go") which constitute an action or movement as opposed to descriptive verbs such as (yehppeuda, "to be beautiful"). For a larger list of Korean verbs, see .
Unlike most of the European languages, Korean does not conjugate verbs using agreement with the subject, and nouns have no gender. Instead, verb conjugations depend upon the verb tense, aspect, mood, and the social relation between the speaker, the subjects, and the listeners.
The system of speech levels and honorifics loosely resembles the T-V distinction of most Indo-European languages. For example, different endings are used depending on the speaker's relation with their subject or audience. Politeness is a critical part of Korean language and Korean culture, therefore, when talking to someone esteemed, the correct verb ending must be chosen to indicate the proper respect.
Words categorized as Korean adjectives ( , hyeong-yongsa, ) conjugate similarly to verbs, so some English texts call them "descriptive verbs" or "stative verbs", but they are distinctly separate from (tongsa).
English does not have an identical grammatical category, so the English translation of Korean adjectives may misleadingly suggest that they are verbs. For example, (pukda) translates literally as "to be red" and (aswipda) often best translates as "to lack" or "to want for", but both are (hyeong-yongsa, "adjectives"). For a larger list of Korean adjectives, see .
Korean pre-nouns ( , gwanhyeongsa, ) are also known in English as "determinatives", "attributives", and "unconjugated adjectives". Examples include (kak, "each"). For a larger list, see .
Core and basic noun words are native to the Korean language, e.g. (nara, country), (nal, day). A large body of Korean nouns ( , myeongsa, ) stem from Chinese characters, e.g. (å±±, san, mountain), (é©, yeok, station), (æå, munhwa, culture), etc. Many Sino-Korean words have a native Korean equivalent and vice versa, but not always. Nouns do not have grammatical gender and can be made plural by adding ë¤ to the end of the word, however in most instances the singular form is used even when in English it would be translated as plural. For example, while in English the sentence "there are three apples" would use the plural "apples" instead of the singular "apple", the Korean sentence ì¬ê³¼ ì¸ê° ììµëë¤ (sagwa segae isssumnida) maintains the word ì¬ê³¼ (sagwa, "apple") in its singular form, thus rendered in English as "apple three(things) exist." For a list of Korean nouns, see .
Korean pronouns ( , daemyeongsa, ) are highly influenced by the honorifics in the language. Pronouns change forms depending on the social status of the person or persons spoken to, e.g. the pronoun for "I" there is both the informal (na) and the honorific/humble (jeo). In general second person singular pronouns are avoided, especially when using honorific forms. For a larger list or Korean pronouns, see .
Korean adverbs ( , busa, ) include (tto, "also") and (gadeuk, "fully"). For a larger list, see .
Korean particles ( , josa, ) are also known in English as "postpositions". Examples include (neun, topic marker) and (reul, object marker). For a larger list, see .
Korean interjections ( , gamtansa, ) are also known in English as "exclamations". Examples include (ani, "no"). For a larger list, see .
Korean numbers or numerals ( , susa, ) constitute two regularly used sets: a native Korean set and a Sino-Korean set. The Sino-Korean system is nearly entirely based on the Chinese numerals. The distinction between the two numeral systems is very important. Everything that can be counted will use one of the two systems, but seldom both. Sino-Korean words are sometimes used to mark ordinal usage: yeol beon (ì´ ë²) means "ten times" while sip beon (ì(å) ë²(çª)) means "number ten." The grouping of large numbers in Korean follow the Chinese tradition of myriads (10000) rather than thousands (1000) as is common in Europe and North America.
The relationship between a speaker or writer and his or her subject and audience is paramount in Korean, and the grammar reflects this. The relationship between speaker/writer and subject referent is reflected in honorifics, while that between speaker/writer and audience is reflected in speech level.
When talking about someone superior in status, a speaker or writer usually uses special nouns or verb endings to indicate the subject's superiority. Generally, someone is superior in status if he/she is an older relative, a stranger of roughly equal or greater age, or an employer, teacher, customer, or the like. Someone is equal or inferior in status if he/she is a younger stranger, student, employee or the like. Nowadays, there are special endings which can be used on declarative, interrogative, and imperative sentences; and both honorific or normal sentences. They are made for easier and faster use of Korean.
There are seven verb paradigms or speech levels in Korean, and each level has its own unique set of verb endings which are used to indicate the level of formality of a situation. Unlike honorificsâwhich are used to show respect towards the referentâspeech levels are used to show respect towards a speaker's or writer's audience. The names of the seven levels are derived from the non-honorific imperative form of the verb íë¤ (hada, "do") in each level, plus the suffix ì²´ ("che", hanja: é« ), which means "style".
The highest six levels are generally grouped together as jondaenmal (ì¡´ëë§), while the lowest level (haeche, í´ì²´) is called banmal (ë°ë§) in Korean.
The core of the Korean vocabulary is made up of native Korean words. Like Japanese and Vietnamese, a significant proportion of the vocabulary, especially words that denote abstract ideas, are Sino-Korean words, Sohn, Ho-Min. The Korean Language (Section 1.5.3 "Korean vocabulary", p.12â13), Cambridge University Press, 2001. ISBN 0521369436. either
* directly borrowed from Written Chinese, or
* coined in Japan or Korea using Chinese characters,
in a similar way European languages borrow from Latin and Greek.
The exact proportion of Sino-Korean vocabulary is a matter of debate. Sohn (2001) stated 50-60%. However, Jeong Jae-do, one of the compilers of the dictionary Urimal Kun Sajeon, asserts that the proportion is not so high. He points out that Korean dictionaries compiled during the period of Japanese occupation include many unused Sino-Korean words. In his estimation, the proportion of native Korean vocabulary in the Korean language might be as high as 70%. . The dictionary mentioned is
Korean has two number systems: one native, and one borrowed from Chinese.
To a much lesser extent, words have also occasionally been borrowed from Mongolian, Sanskrit, and other languages. Conversely, the Korean language itself has also contributed some loanwords to other languages, most notably the Tsushima dialect of Japanese.
The vast majority of loanwords other than Sino-Korean come from modern times, 90% of which are from English. Many words have also been borrowed from Japanese and Western languages such as German (areubaiteu "part-time job", allereugi "allergy", "gibsu" "plaster cast used for broken bones"). Some Western words were borrowed indirectly via Japanese, taking a Japanese sound pattern, for example "dozen" > dÄsu > daseu. Most indirect Western borrowings are now written according to current Hangulization rules for the respective Western language, as if borrowed directly. There are a few more complicated borrowings such as "German(y)" (see Names for Germany), the first part of whose endonym the Japanese approximated using the kanji doitsu that were then accepted into the Korean language by their Sino-Korean pronunciation: dok + il = Dogil. In South Korean official use, a number of other Sino-Korean country names have been replaced with phonetically oriented Hangulizations of the countries' endonyms or English names.
As in Japanese, Korean adapts words in ways that are uncommon in English. For example, in soccer heading ( ) is used to label a head-strike, rather than direction. This is a corrupted loan word from the English header.
North Korean vocabulary shows a tendency to prefer native Korean over Sino-Korean or foreign borrowings, especially with recent political objectives aimed at eliminating foreign (mostly Chinese) influences on the Korean language in the North. By contrast, South Korean may have several Sino-Korean or foreign borrowings which tend to be absent in North Korean.
Formerly the languages of the Korean peninsula were written using Chinese characters, using hyangchal or idu. Such systems relied on principles of rebus, and were lost, later in history. Writing became confined to the ruling elite, who used hanja to write in Classical Chinese.
Korean is now mainly written in Hangul, the Korean alphabet promulgated in 1446 by Sejong the Great; hanja may be mixed in to write Sino-Korean words. While South Korean schools still teach 1,800 hanja characters, North Korea had abolished the use of hanja decades ago.
Below is a chart of the Korean alphabet's symbols and their canonical IPA values:
Modern Korean is written with spaces between words, a feature not found in Chinese or Japanese. Korean punctuation marks are almost identical to Western ones. Traditionally, Korean was written in columns from top to bottom, right to left, but is now usually written in rows from left to right, top to bottom.
The Korean language used in the North and the South exhibits differences in pronunciation, spelling, grammar and vocabulary. Kanno, Hiroomi (ed.) / Society for Korean Linguistics in Japan (1987). ChÅsengo o manabÅ (ãæé®®èªãå¦ã¼ãã), SanshÅ«sha, Tokyo. ISBN 4-384-01506-2
In North Korea, palatalization of is optional, and can be pronounced between vowels.
Words that are written the same way may be pronounced differently, such as the examples below. The pronunciations below are given in Revised Romanization, McCune-Reischauer and Hangul, the last of which represents what the Hangul would be if one writes the word as pronounced.
* Similar pronunciation is used in the North whenever the hanja "ç" is attached to a Sino-Korean word ending in ã´, ã
or ã
. (In the South, this rule only applies when it is attached to any single-character Sino-Korean word.)
Some words are spelled differently by the North and the South, but the pronunciations are the same.
Some words have different spellings and pronunciations in the North and the South, some of which were given in the "Phonology" section above:
In general, when transcribing place names, North Korea tends to use the pronunciation in the original language more than South Korea, which often uses the pronunciation in English. For example:
Some grammatical constructions are also different:
Some vocabulary is different between the North and the South:
In the North, guillemets and are the symbols used for quotes; in the South, quotation marks equivalent to the English ones, â and â, are standard, although and are sometimes used in popular novels.
The United States' Defense Language Institute classifies Korean alongside Arabic, Chinese, and Japanese as a Category IV language, meaning that 63 weeks of instruction (as compared to just 25 weeks for French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian) are required to bring an English-speaking student to a limited working level of proficiency in which he or she has "sufficient capability to meet routine social demands and limited job requirements" and "can deal with concrete topics in past, present, and future tense." As a result, the study of the Korean language in the United States is dominated by Korean American heritage language students; they are estimated to form over 80% of all students of the language at non-military universities.
However, Korean is considerably easier for speakers of certain other languages, such as Japanese ; in Japan, it is more widely studied by non-heritage learners. The Korean Language Proficiency Test, an examination aimed at assessing non-native speakers' competence in Korean, was instituted in 1997; 17,000 people applied for the 2005 sitting of the examination.
*Hangul
*Korean romanization
**Revised romanization of Korean
**McCune-Reischauer
**Yale Romanization#Korean
**SKATS
*Korean numerals
*Korean count word
*Korean language and computers
*Hanja
*Sino-Korean vocabulary
*Korean mixed script
*List of English words of Korean origin
*Altaic languages
*List of Korea-related topics
*Vowel harmony
* (Volume 4 of the London Oriental and African Language Library).
*Hulbert, Homer B. (1905): A Comparative Grammar of the Korean Language and the Dravidian Dialects in India. Seoul.
*Martin, Samuel E. (1966): Lexical Evidence Relating Japanese to Korean. Language 42/2: 185â251.
*Martin, Samuel E. (1990): Morphological clues to the relationship of Japanese and Korean. In: Philip Baldi (ed.): Linguistic Change and Reconstruction Methodology. Trends in Linguistics: Studies and Monographs 45: 483-509.
*Miller, Roy Andrew (1971): Japanese and the Other Altaic Languages. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0226527190.
*Miller, Roy Andrew (1996): Languages and History: Japanese, Korean and Altaic. Oslo: Institute for Comparative Research in Human Culture. ISBN 9748299694.
*Ramstedt, G. J. (1928): Remarks on the Korean language. Mémoires de la Société Finno-Oigrienne 58.
*Rybatzki, Volker (2003): Middle Mongol. In: Juha Janhunen (ed.) (2003): The Mongolic languages. London: Routledge. ISBN 0-7007-1133-3: 47â82.
*Starostin, Sergei A.; Anna V. Dybo; Oleg A. Mudrak (2003): Etymological Dictionary of the Altaic Languages, 3 volumes. Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers. ISBN 9004131531.
*Sohn, H.-M. (1999): The Korean Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Song, J.-J. (2005): The Korean Language: Structure, Use and Context. London: Routledge.
*Trask, R. L. (1996): Historical linguistics. Hodder Arnold.
*Vovin, Alexander: Koreo-Japonica. University of Hawai'i Press.
*Whitman, John B. (1985): The Phonological Basis for the Comparison of Japanese and Korean. Unpublished Harvard University Ph.D. dissertation.
* Ethnologue report for Korean
* Linguistic and Philosophical Origins of the Korean Alphabet (Hangul)
* Free Korean language and culture course online, in English
* Linguistic map of Korea
* Korean - a Category III language Languages which are exceptionally difficult for native English speakers
* dongsa.net A Korean verb conjugation tool that explains the conjugations for learners of Korean
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Korean_language | Why may English translation of Koreans adjectives misleadingly suggest that they are verbs? | English does not have an identical grammatical category | data/set5/a6 | Korean_language
:This article is mainly about the spoken Korean language. See Hangul for details on the native Korean writing system.
Korean ( , see below) is the official language of Korea, both South and North. It is also one of the two official languages in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in China. There are about 78 million Korean speakers. In the 15th century a national writing system was commissioned by Sejong the Great, currently called Hangul. Prior to the development of Hangul, Koreans used Hanja (Chinese characters) to write for over a millennia.
The genealogical classification of the Korean language is debated by a small number of linguists. Most classify it as a language isolate Song, Jae Jung (2005) "The Korean language: structure, use and context" Routledge, p. 15
Lyle Campbell & Mauricio Mixco. 2007. A Glossary of Historical Linguistics. University of Utah Press. while a few consider it to be in the Altaic language family. Stratification in the peopling of China: how far does the linguistic evidence match genetics and archaeology? In; Sanchez-Mazas, Blench, Ross, Lin & Pejros eds. Human migrations in continental East Asia and Taiwan: genetic, linguistic and archaeological evidence. 2008. Taylor & Francis Some believe it to be distantly related to Japanese. Like Japanese it is agglutinative in its morphology and SOV in its syntax.
The Korean names for the language are based on the names for Korea used in North and South Korea.
In South Korea, the language is most often called Hangungmal
( ; ), or more formally, Hangugeo ( ; ) or Gugeo ( ; ; literally "national language").
In North Korea and Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in China, the language is most often called ChosÅnmal ( ; with hanja: ), or more formally, ChosÅnÅ ( ; ).
On the other hand, Korean people in the former USSR, who refer to themselves as Koryo-saram (ê³ ë ¤ì¬ë; also Goryeoin [ ; ; literally, "Goryeo person(s)"]) call the language Goryeomal ( ; ).
In mainland China, following the establishment of diplomatic relations with South Korea in 1992, the term CháoxiÇnyÇ ( or the short form: CháoyÇ ( )) has normally been used to refer to the language spoken in North Korea and Yanbian, while HánguóyÇ ( or the short form: HányÇ ( )) is used to refer to the language spoken in South Korea.
Some older English sources also used the name "Korean" to refer to the language, country, and people. The word "Korean" is derived from Goryeo, which is thought to be the first dynasty known to western countries.
Most modern linguists consider Korean to be a language isolate Song, Jae Jung (2005) "The Korean language: structure, use and context" Routledge, p. 15
Lyle Campbell & Mauricio J. Mixco. 2007. A Glossary of Historical Linguistics. University of Utah Press.
Since the publication of the article of Ramstedt in 1928, some linguists eg Miller 1971, 1996, Starostin et al. 2003 support the hypothesis that Korean can be classified as an Altaic language or as a relative of proto-Altaic. Korean is similar to the Altaic languages in that they both lack certain grammatical elements, including articles, fusional morphology and relative pronouns. However, linguists agree today on the fact that typological resemblances cannot be used to prove genetic relatedness of languages eg Vovin 2008: 1 as these features are typologically connected and easily borrowed. Trask 1996: 147-151 Such factors of typological divergence as Middle Mongolian's exhibition of gender agreement Rybatzki 2003: 57 can be used to argue that a genetic relationship is unlikely. Vovin 2008: 5
The hypothesis that Korean might be related to Japanese has had some more supporters due to some considerable overlap in vocabulary and similar grammatical features that have been elaborated upon by such researchers as Samuel E. Martin eg Martin 1966, 1990 and Roy Andrew Miller. eg Miller 1971, 1996 Sergei Starostin (1991) found about 25% of potential cognates in the Japanese-Korean 100-word Swadesh list, which - if true - would place these two languages closer together than other possible members of the Altaic family.
Other linguists, most notably Alexander Vovin, argue, however, that the similarities are not due to any genetic relationship, but rather to a sprachbund effect and heavy borrowing especially from Korean into Western Old Japanese. Vovin 2008 A good example might be Middle Korean sà m Whitman 1985: 232, also found in Martin 1966: 233 This word seems to be cognate, but while it is well-attested in Western Old Japanese and Northern RyÅ«kyÅ«, in Eastern Old Japanese it only occurs in compounds, and it is only present in three subdialects of the South-RyÅ«kyÅ«an dialect group. Then, the doublet wo âhempâ is attested in Western Old Japanese and Southern RyÅ«kyÅ«. It is thus plausible to assume a borrowed term. Vovin 2008: 211-212 See East Asian languages for morphological features shared among languages of the East Asian sprachbund, and Classification of Japanese for further details on the discussion of a possible relationship.
Korean is descended from Old Korean, Middle Korean and Modern Korean. Controversy remains over the proposed Altaic language family and its inclusion of Proto-Korean. Since the Korean War, contemporary North-South differences in Korean have developed, including variance in pronunciation, verb inflection, and vocabulary.
Korean is spoken by the Korean people in North Korea and South Korea and by the Korean diaspora in many countries including the People's Republic of China, Japan, and the United States. Korean-speaking minorities exist in these states, but because of cultural assimilation into host countries, not all ethnic Korean immigrants may speak it with native fluency.
Korean is the official language of South Korea and North Korea. It is also one of the two official languages of the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in China.
In South Korea, the regulatory body for Korean is the Seoul-based National Institute of the Korean Language ( ), which was created by presidential decree on January 23, 1991. In North Korea, the regulatory body is the Sahoe Kwahagwon Åhak YÅnguso ( ).
Dialects of Korean
Korean has several dialects (called mal [literally "speech"], saturi, or bang-eon in Korean). The standard language (pyojuneo or pyojunmal) of South Korea is based on the dialect of the area around Seoul, and the standard for North Korea is based on the dialect spoken around P'yÅngyang. All dialects of Korean are similar to each other, and are in fact all mutually intelligible, perhaps with the exception of the dialect of Jeju Island (see Jeju dialect). The dialect spoken in Jeju is in fact classified as a different language by some Korean linguists. One of the most notable differences between dialects is the use of stress: speakers of Seoul dialect use very little stress, and standard South Korean has a very flat intonation; on the other hand, speakers of the Gyeongsang dialect have a very pronounced intonation.
It is also worth noting that there is substantial evidence for a history of extensive dialect levelling, or even convergent evolution or intermixture of two or more originally distinct linguistic stocks, within the Korean language and its dialects. Many Korean dialects have basic vocabulary that is etymologically distinct from vocabulary of identical meaning in Standard Korean or other dialects, such as South Jeolla dialect /kur/ vs. Standard Korean ì
"mouth" or Gyeongsang dialect vs. Standard Korean "garlic chives." This suggests that the Korean Peninsula may have at one time been much more linguistically diverse than it is at present. See also the Buyeo languages hypothesis.
There is a very close connection between the dialects of Korean and the regions of Korea, since the boundaries of both are largely determined by mountains and seas. Here is a list of traditional dialect names and locations:
The Korean consonants
The IPA symbol (a subscript double straight quotation mark, shown here with a placeholder circle) is used to denote the tensed consonants . Its official use in the Extensions to the IPA is for 'strong' articulation, but is used in the literature for faucalized voice. The Korean consonants also have elements of stiff voice, but it is not yet known how typical this is of faucalized consonants. They are produced with a partially constricted glottis and additional subglottal pressure in addition to tense vocal tract walls, laryngeal lowering, or other expansion of the larynx.
becomes an alveolo-palatal before or for most speakers (but see Differences in the language between North Korea and South Korea). This occurs with the tense fricative and all the affricates as well. At the end of a syllable, /s/ changes to /t/ (Example: beoseot (ë²ì¯) 'mushroom').
may become a bilabial before or , a palatal before or , a velar before , a voiced between voiced sounds, and a elsewhere.
become voiced between voiced sounds.
becomes alveolar flap between vowels, and or at the end of a syllable or next to another . Note that a written syllable-final 'ã¹', when followed by a vowel or a glide (i.e., when the next character starts with 'ã
'), migrates to the next syllable and thus becomes .
Traditionally, was disallowed at the beginning of a word. It disappeared before , and otherwise became . However, the inflow of western loanword changed the trend, and now word-initial (mostly from English loanwords) are pronounced as a free variation of either or . The traditional prohibition of word-initial became a morphological rule called "initial law" (ëìë²ì¹) in South Korea, which pertains to Sino-Korean vocabulary. Such words retain their word-initial in North Korea.
All obstruents (plosives, affricates, fricatives) are unreleased at the end of a word.
Plosive stops become nasal stops before nasal stops.
Hangul spelling does not reflect these assimilatory pronunciation rules, but rather maintains the underlying, partly historical morphology. Given this, it is sometimes hard to tell which actual phonemes are present in a certain word.
One difference between the pronunciation standards of North and South Korea is the treatment of initial , and initial . For example,
* "labour" - north: rodong (ë¡ë), south: nodong (ë
¸ë)
* "history" - north: ryÅksa (ë ¥ì¬), south: yeoksa (ìì¬)
* "female" - north: nyÅja (ë
ì), south: yeoja (ì¬ì)
Grammatical morphemes may change shape depending on the preceding sounds. Examples include -eun/-neun (-ì/-ë) and -i/-ga (-ì´/-ê°). Sometimes sounds may be inserted instead. Examples include -eul/-reul (-ì/-를), -euro/-ro (-ì¼ë¡/-ë¡), -eseo/-seo (-ìì/-ì), -ideunji/-deunji (-ì´ë ì§/-ë ì§) and -iya/-ya (-ì´ì¼/-ì¼). However, -euro/-ro is somewhat irregular, since it will behave differently after a rieul consonant.
Some verbs may also change shape morphophonemically.
Korean is an agglutinative language. Modifiers generally precede the modified words, and in the case of verb modifiers, can be serially appended. The basic form of a Korean sentence is Subject Object Verb, but the verb is the only required and immovable element.
:"Did [you] go to the store?" ("you" implied in conversation)
:"Yes."
The Korean Language contains nine parts of speech.
Korean verbs ( , tongsa, ) are also known in English as "action verbs" or "dynamic verbs" to distinguish them from [ , hyeong-yongsa, "adjectives"]), which are also known as "descriptive verbs" or "stative verbs". Examples of action/dynamic verbs include (hada, "to do") and (kada, "to go") which constitute an action or movement as opposed to descriptive verbs such as (yehppeuda, "to be beautiful"). For a larger list of Korean verbs, see .
Unlike most of the European languages, Korean does not conjugate verbs using agreement with the subject, and nouns have no gender. Instead, verb conjugations depend upon the verb tense, aspect, mood, and the social relation between the speaker, the subjects, and the listeners.
The system of speech levels and honorifics loosely resembles the T-V distinction of most Indo-European languages. For example, different endings are used depending on the speaker's relation with their subject or audience. Politeness is a critical part of Korean language and Korean culture, therefore, when talking to someone esteemed, the correct verb ending must be chosen to indicate the proper respect.
Words categorized as Korean adjectives ( , hyeong-yongsa, ) conjugate similarly to verbs, so some English texts call them "descriptive verbs" or "stative verbs", but they are distinctly separate from (tongsa).
English does not have an identical grammatical category, so the English translation of Korean adjectives may misleadingly suggest that they are verbs. For example, (pukda) translates literally as "to be red" and (aswipda) often best translates as "to lack" or "to want for", but both are (hyeong-yongsa, "adjectives"). For a larger list of Korean adjectives, see .
Korean pre-nouns ( , gwanhyeongsa, ) are also known in English as "determinatives", "attributives", and "unconjugated adjectives". Examples include (kak, "each"). For a larger list, see .
Core and basic noun words are native to the Korean language, e.g. (nara, country), (nal, day). A large body of Korean nouns ( , myeongsa, ) stem from Chinese characters, e.g. (å±±, san, mountain), (é©, yeok, station), (æå, munhwa, culture), etc. Many Sino-Korean words have a native Korean equivalent and vice versa, but not always. Nouns do not have grammatical gender and can be made plural by adding ë¤ to the end of the word, however in most instances the singular form is used even when in English it would be translated as plural. For example, while in English the sentence "there are three apples" would use the plural "apples" instead of the singular "apple", the Korean sentence ì¬ê³¼ ì¸ê° ììµëë¤ (sagwa segae isssumnida) maintains the word ì¬ê³¼ (sagwa, "apple") in its singular form, thus rendered in English as "apple three(things) exist." For a list of Korean nouns, see .
Korean pronouns ( , daemyeongsa, ) are highly influenced by the honorifics in the language. Pronouns change forms depending on the social status of the person or persons spoken to, e.g. the pronoun for "I" there is both the informal (na) and the honorific/humble (jeo). In general second person singular pronouns are avoided, especially when using honorific forms. For a larger list or Korean pronouns, see .
Korean adverbs ( , busa, ) include (tto, "also") and (gadeuk, "fully"). For a larger list, see .
Korean particles ( , josa, ) are also known in English as "postpositions". Examples include (neun, topic marker) and (reul, object marker). For a larger list, see .
Korean interjections ( , gamtansa, ) are also known in English as "exclamations". Examples include (ani, "no"). For a larger list, see .
Korean numbers or numerals ( , susa, ) constitute two regularly used sets: a native Korean set and a Sino-Korean set. The Sino-Korean system is nearly entirely based on the Chinese numerals. The distinction between the two numeral systems is very important. Everything that can be counted will use one of the two systems, but seldom both. Sino-Korean words are sometimes used to mark ordinal usage: yeol beon (ì´ ë²) means "ten times" while sip beon (ì(å) ë²(çª)) means "number ten." The grouping of large numbers in Korean follow the Chinese tradition of myriads (10000) rather than thousands (1000) as is common in Europe and North America.
The relationship between a speaker or writer and his or her subject and audience is paramount in Korean, and the grammar reflects this. The relationship between speaker/writer and subject referent is reflected in honorifics, while that between speaker/writer and audience is reflected in speech level.
When talking about someone superior in status, a speaker or writer usually uses special nouns or verb endings to indicate the subject's superiority. Generally, someone is superior in status if he/she is an older relative, a stranger of roughly equal or greater age, or an employer, teacher, customer, or the like. Someone is equal or inferior in status if he/she is a younger stranger, student, employee or the like. Nowadays, there are special endings which can be used on declarative, interrogative, and imperative sentences; and both honorific or normal sentences. They are made for easier and faster use of Korean.
There are seven verb paradigms or speech levels in Korean, and each level has its own unique set of verb endings which are used to indicate the level of formality of a situation. Unlike honorificsâwhich are used to show respect towards the referentâspeech levels are used to show respect towards a speaker's or writer's audience. The names of the seven levels are derived from the non-honorific imperative form of the verb íë¤ (hada, "do") in each level, plus the suffix ì²´ ("che", hanja: é« ), which means "style".
The highest six levels are generally grouped together as jondaenmal (ì¡´ëë§), while the lowest level (haeche, í´ì²´) is called banmal (ë°ë§) in Korean.
The core of the Korean vocabulary is made up of native Korean words. Like Japanese and Vietnamese, a significant proportion of the vocabulary, especially words that denote abstract ideas, are Sino-Korean words, Sohn, Ho-Min. The Korean Language (Section 1.5.3 "Korean vocabulary", p.12â13), Cambridge University Press, 2001. ISBN 0521369436. either
* directly borrowed from Written Chinese, or
* coined in Japan or Korea using Chinese characters,
in a similar way European languages borrow from Latin and Greek.
The exact proportion of Sino-Korean vocabulary is a matter of debate. Sohn (2001) stated 50-60%. However, Jeong Jae-do, one of the compilers of the dictionary Urimal Kun Sajeon, asserts that the proportion is not so high. He points out that Korean dictionaries compiled during the period of Japanese occupation include many unused Sino-Korean words. In his estimation, the proportion of native Korean vocabulary in the Korean language might be as high as 70%. . The dictionary mentioned is
Korean has two number systems: one native, and one borrowed from Chinese.
To a much lesser extent, words have also occasionally been borrowed from Mongolian, Sanskrit, and other languages. Conversely, the Korean language itself has also contributed some loanwords to other languages, most notably the Tsushima dialect of Japanese.
The vast majority of loanwords other than Sino-Korean come from modern times, 90% of which are from English. Many words have also been borrowed from Japanese and Western languages such as German (areubaiteu "part-time job", allereugi "allergy", "gibsu" "plaster cast used for broken bones"). Some Western words were borrowed indirectly via Japanese, taking a Japanese sound pattern, for example "dozen" > dÄsu > daseu. Most indirect Western borrowings are now written according to current Hangulization rules for the respective Western language, as if borrowed directly. There are a few more complicated borrowings such as "German(y)" (see Names for Germany), the first part of whose endonym the Japanese approximated using the kanji doitsu that were then accepted into the Korean language by their Sino-Korean pronunciation: dok + il = Dogil. In South Korean official use, a number of other Sino-Korean country names have been replaced with phonetically oriented Hangulizations of the countries' endonyms or English names.
As in Japanese, Korean adapts words in ways that are uncommon in English. For example, in soccer heading ( ) is used to label a head-strike, rather than direction. This is a corrupted loan word from the English header.
North Korean vocabulary shows a tendency to prefer native Korean over Sino-Korean or foreign borrowings, especially with recent political objectives aimed at eliminating foreign (mostly Chinese) influences on the Korean language in the North. By contrast, South Korean may have several Sino-Korean or foreign borrowings which tend to be absent in North Korean.
Formerly the languages of the Korean peninsula were written using Chinese characters, using hyangchal or idu. Such systems relied on principles of rebus, and were lost, later in history. Writing became confined to the ruling elite, who used hanja to write in Classical Chinese.
Korean is now mainly written in Hangul, the Korean alphabet promulgated in 1446 by Sejong the Great; hanja may be mixed in to write Sino-Korean words. While South Korean schools still teach 1,800 hanja characters, North Korea had abolished the use of hanja decades ago.
Below is a chart of the Korean alphabet's symbols and their canonical IPA values:
Modern Korean is written with spaces between words, a feature not found in Chinese or Japanese. Korean punctuation marks are almost identical to Western ones. Traditionally, Korean was written in columns from top to bottom, right to left, but is now usually written in rows from left to right, top to bottom.
The Korean language used in the North and the South exhibits differences in pronunciation, spelling, grammar and vocabulary. Kanno, Hiroomi (ed.) / Society for Korean Linguistics in Japan (1987). ChÅsengo o manabÅ (ãæé®®èªãå¦ã¼ãã), SanshÅ«sha, Tokyo. ISBN 4-384-01506-2
In North Korea, palatalization of is optional, and can be pronounced between vowels.
Words that are written the same way may be pronounced differently, such as the examples below. The pronunciations below are given in Revised Romanization, McCune-Reischauer and Hangul, the last of which represents what the Hangul would be if one writes the word as pronounced.
* Similar pronunciation is used in the North whenever the hanja "ç" is attached to a Sino-Korean word ending in ã´, ã
or ã
. (In the South, this rule only applies when it is attached to any single-character Sino-Korean word.)
Some words are spelled differently by the North and the South, but the pronunciations are the same.
Some words have different spellings and pronunciations in the North and the South, some of which were given in the "Phonology" section above:
In general, when transcribing place names, North Korea tends to use the pronunciation in the original language more than South Korea, which often uses the pronunciation in English. For example:
Some grammatical constructions are also different:
Some vocabulary is different between the North and the South:
In the North, guillemets and are the symbols used for quotes; in the South, quotation marks equivalent to the English ones, â and â, are standard, although and are sometimes used in popular novels.
The United States' Defense Language Institute classifies Korean alongside Arabic, Chinese, and Japanese as a Category IV language, meaning that 63 weeks of instruction (as compared to just 25 weeks for French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian) are required to bring an English-speaking student to a limited working level of proficiency in which he or she has "sufficient capability to meet routine social demands and limited job requirements" and "can deal with concrete topics in past, present, and future tense." As a result, the study of the Korean language in the United States is dominated by Korean American heritage language students; they are estimated to form over 80% of all students of the language at non-military universities.
However, Korean is considerably easier for speakers of certain other languages, such as Japanese ; in Japan, it is more widely studied by non-heritage learners. The Korean Language Proficiency Test, an examination aimed at assessing non-native speakers' competence in Korean, was instituted in 1997; 17,000 people applied for the 2005 sitting of the examination.
*Hangul
*Korean romanization
**Revised romanization of Korean
**McCune-Reischauer
**Yale Romanization#Korean
**SKATS
*Korean numerals
*Korean count word
*Korean language and computers
*Hanja
*Sino-Korean vocabulary
*Korean mixed script
*List of English words of Korean origin
*Altaic languages
*List of Korea-related topics
*Vowel harmony
* (Volume 4 of the London Oriental and African Language Library).
*Hulbert, Homer B. (1905): A Comparative Grammar of the Korean Language and the Dravidian Dialects in India. Seoul.
*Martin, Samuel E. (1966): Lexical Evidence Relating Japanese to Korean. Language 42/2: 185â251.
*Martin, Samuel E. (1990): Morphological clues to the relationship of Japanese and Korean. In: Philip Baldi (ed.): Linguistic Change and Reconstruction Methodology. Trends in Linguistics: Studies and Monographs 45: 483-509.
*Miller, Roy Andrew (1971): Japanese and the Other Altaic Languages. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0226527190.
*Miller, Roy Andrew (1996): Languages and History: Japanese, Korean and Altaic. Oslo: Institute for Comparative Research in Human Culture. ISBN 9748299694.
*Ramstedt, G. J. (1928): Remarks on the Korean language. Mémoires de la Société Finno-Oigrienne 58.
*Rybatzki, Volker (2003): Middle Mongol. In: Juha Janhunen (ed.) (2003): The Mongolic languages. London: Routledge. ISBN 0-7007-1133-3: 47â82.
*Starostin, Sergei A.; Anna V. Dybo; Oleg A. Mudrak (2003): Etymological Dictionary of the Altaic Languages, 3 volumes. Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers. ISBN 9004131531.
*Sohn, H.-M. (1999): The Korean Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Song, J.-J. (2005): The Korean Language: Structure, Use and Context. London: Routledge.
*Trask, R. L. (1996): Historical linguistics. Hodder Arnold.
*Vovin, Alexander: Koreo-Japonica. University of Hawai'i Press.
*Whitman, John B. (1985): The Phonological Basis for the Comparison of Japanese and Korean. Unpublished Harvard University Ph.D. dissertation.
* Ethnologue report for Korean
* Linguistic and Philosophical Origins of the Korean Alphabet (Hangul)
* Free Korean language and culture course online, in English
* Linguistic map of Korea
* Korean - a Category III language Languages which are exceptionally difficult for native English speakers
* dongsa.net A Korean verb conjugation tool that explains the conjugations for learners of Korean
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Korean_language | Why may English translation of Koreans adjectives misleadingly suggest that they are verbs? | English does not have an identical grammatical category | data/set5/a6 | Korean_language
:This article is mainly about the spoken Korean language. See Hangul for details on the native Korean writing system.
Korean ( , see below) is the official language of Korea, both South and North. It is also one of the two official languages in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in China. There are about 78 million Korean speakers. In the 15th century a national writing system was commissioned by Sejong the Great, currently called Hangul. Prior to the development of Hangul, Koreans used Hanja (Chinese characters) to write for over a millennia.
The genealogical classification of the Korean language is debated by a small number of linguists. Most classify it as a language isolate Song, Jae Jung (2005) "The Korean language: structure, use and context" Routledge, p. 15
Lyle Campbell & Mauricio Mixco. 2007. A Glossary of Historical Linguistics. University of Utah Press. while a few consider it to be in the Altaic language family. Stratification in the peopling of China: how far does the linguistic evidence match genetics and archaeology? In; Sanchez-Mazas, Blench, Ross, Lin & Pejros eds. Human migrations in continental East Asia and Taiwan: genetic, linguistic and archaeological evidence. 2008. Taylor & Francis Some believe it to be distantly related to Japanese. Like Japanese it is agglutinative in its morphology and SOV in its syntax.
The Korean names for the language are based on the names for Korea used in North and South Korea.
In South Korea, the language is most often called Hangungmal
( ; ), or more formally, Hangugeo ( ; ) or Gugeo ( ; ; literally "national language").
In North Korea and Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in China, the language is most often called ChosÅnmal ( ; with hanja: ), or more formally, ChosÅnÅ ( ; ).
On the other hand, Korean people in the former USSR, who refer to themselves as Koryo-saram (ê³ ë ¤ì¬ë; also Goryeoin [ ; ; literally, "Goryeo person(s)"]) call the language Goryeomal ( ; ).
In mainland China, following the establishment of diplomatic relations with South Korea in 1992, the term CháoxiÇnyÇ ( or the short form: CháoyÇ ( )) has normally been used to refer to the language spoken in North Korea and Yanbian, while HánguóyÇ ( or the short form: HányÇ ( )) is used to refer to the language spoken in South Korea.
Some older English sources also used the name "Korean" to refer to the language, country, and people. The word "Korean" is derived from Goryeo, which is thought to be the first dynasty known to western countries.
Most modern linguists consider Korean to be a language isolate Song, Jae Jung (2005) "The Korean language: structure, use and context" Routledge, p. 15
Lyle Campbell & Mauricio J. Mixco. 2007. A Glossary of Historical Linguistics. University of Utah Press.
Since the publication of the article of Ramstedt in 1928, some linguists eg Miller 1971, 1996, Starostin et al. 2003 support the hypothesis that Korean can be classified as an Altaic language or as a relative of proto-Altaic. Korean is similar to the Altaic languages in that they both lack certain grammatical elements, including articles, fusional morphology and relative pronouns. However, linguists agree today on the fact that typological resemblances cannot be used to prove genetic relatedness of languages eg Vovin 2008: 1 as these features are typologically connected and easily borrowed. Trask 1996: 147-151 Such factors of typological divergence as Middle Mongolian's exhibition of gender agreement Rybatzki 2003: 57 can be used to argue that a genetic relationship is unlikely. Vovin 2008: 5
The hypothesis that Korean might be related to Japanese has had some more supporters due to some considerable overlap in vocabulary and similar grammatical features that have been elaborated upon by such researchers as Samuel E. Martin eg Martin 1966, 1990 and Roy Andrew Miller. eg Miller 1971, 1996 Sergei Starostin (1991) found about 25% of potential cognates in the Japanese-Korean 100-word Swadesh list, which - if true - would place these two languages closer together than other possible members of the Altaic family.
Other linguists, most notably Alexander Vovin, argue, however, that the similarities are not due to any genetic relationship, but rather to a sprachbund effect and heavy borrowing especially from Korean into Western Old Japanese. Vovin 2008 A good example might be Middle Korean sà m Whitman 1985: 232, also found in Martin 1966: 233 This word seems to be cognate, but while it is well-attested in Western Old Japanese and Northern RyÅ«kyÅ«, in Eastern Old Japanese it only occurs in compounds, and it is only present in three subdialects of the South-RyÅ«kyÅ«an dialect group. Then, the doublet wo âhempâ is attested in Western Old Japanese and Southern RyÅ«kyÅ«. It is thus plausible to assume a borrowed term. Vovin 2008: 211-212 See East Asian languages for morphological features shared among languages of the East Asian sprachbund, and Classification of Japanese for further details on the discussion of a possible relationship.
Korean is descended from Old Korean, Middle Korean and Modern Korean. Controversy remains over the proposed Altaic language family and its inclusion of Proto-Korean. Since the Korean War, contemporary North-South differences in Korean have developed, including variance in pronunciation, verb inflection, and vocabulary.
Korean is spoken by the Korean people in North Korea and South Korea and by the Korean diaspora in many countries including the People's Republic of China, Japan, and the United States. Korean-speaking minorities exist in these states, but because of cultural assimilation into host countries, not all ethnic Korean immigrants may speak it with native fluency.
Korean is the official language of South Korea and North Korea. It is also one of the two official languages of the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in China.
In South Korea, the regulatory body for Korean is the Seoul-based National Institute of the Korean Language ( ), which was created by presidential decree on January 23, 1991. In North Korea, the regulatory body is the Sahoe Kwahagwon Åhak YÅnguso ( ).
Dialects of Korean
Korean has several dialects (called mal [literally "speech"], saturi, or bang-eon in Korean). The standard language (pyojuneo or pyojunmal) of South Korea is based on the dialect of the area around Seoul, and the standard for North Korea is based on the dialect spoken around P'yÅngyang. All dialects of Korean are similar to each other, and are in fact all mutually intelligible, perhaps with the exception of the dialect of Jeju Island (see Jeju dialect). The dialect spoken in Jeju is in fact classified as a different language by some Korean linguists. One of the most notable differences between dialects is the use of stress: speakers of Seoul dialect use very little stress, and standard South Korean has a very flat intonation; on the other hand, speakers of the Gyeongsang dialect have a very pronounced intonation.
It is also worth noting that there is substantial evidence for a history of extensive dialect levelling, or even convergent evolution or intermixture of two or more originally distinct linguistic stocks, within the Korean language and its dialects. Many Korean dialects have basic vocabulary that is etymologically distinct from vocabulary of identical meaning in Standard Korean or other dialects, such as South Jeolla dialect /kur/ vs. Standard Korean ì
"mouth" or Gyeongsang dialect vs. Standard Korean "garlic chives." This suggests that the Korean Peninsula may have at one time been much more linguistically diverse than it is at present. See also the Buyeo languages hypothesis.
There is a very close connection between the dialects of Korean and the regions of Korea, since the boundaries of both are largely determined by mountains and seas. Here is a list of traditional dialect names and locations:
The Korean consonants
The IPA symbol (a subscript double straight quotation mark, shown here with a placeholder circle) is used to denote the tensed consonants . Its official use in the Extensions to the IPA is for 'strong' articulation, but is used in the literature for faucalized voice. The Korean consonants also have elements of stiff voice, but it is not yet known how typical this is of faucalized consonants. They are produced with a partially constricted glottis and additional subglottal pressure in addition to tense vocal tract walls, laryngeal lowering, or other expansion of the larynx.
becomes an alveolo-palatal before or for most speakers (but see Differences in the language between North Korea and South Korea). This occurs with the tense fricative and all the affricates as well. At the end of a syllable, /s/ changes to /t/ (Example: beoseot (ë²ì¯) 'mushroom').
may become a bilabial before or , a palatal before or , a velar before , a voiced between voiced sounds, and a elsewhere.
become voiced between voiced sounds.
becomes alveolar flap between vowels, and or at the end of a syllable or next to another . Note that a written syllable-final 'ã¹', when followed by a vowel or a glide (i.e., when the next character starts with 'ã
'), migrates to the next syllable and thus becomes .
Traditionally, was disallowed at the beginning of a word. It disappeared before , and otherwise became . However, the inflow of western loanword changed the trend, and now word-initial (mostly from English loanwords) are pronounced as a free variation of either or . The traditional prohibition of word-initial became a morphological rule called "initial law" (ëìë²ì¹) in South Korea, which pertains to Sino-Korean vocabulary. Such words retain their word-initial in North Korea.
All obstruents (plosives, affricates, fricatives) are unreleased at the end of a word.
Plosive stops become nasal stops before nasal stops.
Hangul spelling does not reflect these assimilatory pronunciation rules, but rather maintains the underlying, partly historical morphology. Given this, it is sometimes hard to tell which actual phonemes are present in a certain word.
One difference between the pronunciation standards of North and South Korea is the treatment of initial , and initial . For example,
* "labour" - north: rodong (ë¡ë), south: nodong (ë
¸ë)
* "history" - north: ryÅksa (ë ¥ì¬), south: yeoksa (ìì¬)
* "female" - north: nyÅja (ë
ì), south: yeoja (ì¬ì)
Grammatical morphemes may change shape depending on the preceding sounds. Examples include -eun/-neun (-ì/-ë) and -i/-ga (-ì´/-ê°). Sometimes sounds may be inserted instead. Examples include -eul/-reul (-ì/-를), -euro/-ro (-ì¼ë¡/-ë¡), -eseo/-seo (-ìì/-ì), -ideunji/-deunji (-ì´ë ì§/-ë ì§) and -iya/-ya (-ì´ì¼/-ì¼). However, -euro/-ro is somewhat irregular, since it will behave differently after a rieul consonant.
Some verbs may also change shape morphophonemically.
Korean is an agglutinative language. Modifiers generally precede the modified words, and in the case of verb modifiers, can be serially appended. The basic form of a Korean sentence is Subject Object Verb, but the verb is the only required and immovable element.
:"Did [you] go to the store?" ("you" implied in conversation)
:"Yes."
The Korean Language contains nine parts of speech.
Korean verbs ( , tongsa, ) are also known in English as "action verbs" or "dynamic verbs" to distinguish them from [ , hyeong-yongsa, "adjectives"]), which are also known as "descriptive verbs" or "stative verbs". Examples of action/dynamic verbs include (hada, "to do") and (kada, "to go") which constitute an action or movement as opposed to descriptive verbs such as (yehppeuda, "to be beautiful"). For a larger list of Korean verbs, see .
Unlike most of the European languages, Korean does not conjugate verbs using agreement with the subject, and nouns have no gender. Instead, verb conjugations depend upon the verb tense, aspect, mood, and the social relation between the speaker, the subjects, and the listeners.
The system of speech levels and honorifics loosely resembles the T-V distinction of most Indo-European languages. For example, different endings are used depending on the speaker's relation with their subject or audience. Politeness is a critical part of Korean language and Korean culture, therefore, when talking to someone esteemed, the correct verb ending must be chosen to indicate the proper respect.
Words categorized as Korean adjectives ( , hyeong-yongsa, ) conjugate similarly to verbs, so some English texts call them "descriptive verbs" or "stative verbs", but they are distinctly separate from (tongsa).
English does not have an identical grammatical category, so the English translation of Korean adjectives may misleadingly suggest that they are verbs. For example, (pukda) translates literally as "to be red" and (aswipda) often best translates as "to lack" or "to want for", but both are (hyeong-yongsa, "adjectives"). For a larger list of Korean adjectives, see .
Korean pre-nouns ( , gwanhyeongsa, ) are also known in English as "determinatives", "attributives", and "unconjugated adjectives". Examples include (kak, "each"). For a larger list, see .
Core and basic noun words are native to the Korean language, e.g. (nara, country), (nal, day). A large body of Korean nouns ( , myeongsa, ) stem from Chinese characters, e.g. (å±±, san, mountain), (é©, yeok, station), (æå, munhwa, culture), etc. Many Sino-Korean words have a native Korean equivalent and vice versa, but not always. Nouns do not have grammatical gender and can be made plural by adding ë¤ to the end of the word, however in most instances the singular form is used even when in English it would be translated as plural. For example, while in English the sentence "there are three apples" would use the plural "apples" instead of the singular "apple", the Korean sentence ì¬ê³¼ ì¸ê° ììµëë¤ (sagwa segae isssumnida) maintains the word ì¬ê³¼ (sagwa, "apple") in its singular form, thus rendered in English as "apple three(things) exist." For a list of Korean nouns, see .
Korean pronouns ( , daemyeongsa, ) are highly influenced by the honorifics in the language. Pronouns change forms depending on the social status of the person or persons spoken to, e.g. the pronoun for "I" there is both the informal (na) and the honorific/humble (jeo). In general second person singular pronouns are avoided, especially when using honorific forms. For a larger list or Korean pronouns, see .
Korean adverbs ( , busa, ) include (tto, "also") and (gadeuk, "fully"). For a larger list, see .
Korean particles ( , josa, ) are also known in English as "postpositions". Examples include (neun, topic marker) and (reul, object marker). For a larger list, see .
Korean interjections ( , gamtansa, ) are also known in English as "exclamations". Examples include (ani, "no"). For a larger list, see .
Korean numbers or numerals ( , susa, ) constitute two regularly used sets: a native Korean set and a Sino-Korean set. The Sino-Korean system is nearly entirely based on the Chinese numerals. The distinction between the two numeral systems is very important. Everything that can be counted will use one of the two systems, but seldom both. Sino-Korean words are sometimes used to mark ordinal usage: yeol beon (ì´ ë²) means "ten times" while sip beon (ì(å) ë²(çª)) means "number ten." The grouping of large numbers in Korean follow the Chinese tradition of myriads (10000) rather than thousands (1000) as is common in Europe and North America.
The relationship between a speaker or writer and his or her subject and audience is paramount in Korean, and the grammar reflects this. The relationship between speaker/writer and subject referent is reflected in honorifics, while that between speaker/writer and audience is reflected in speech level.
When talking about someone superior in status, a speaker or writer usually uses special nouns or verb endings to indicate the subject's superiority. Generally, someone is superior in status if he/she is an older relative, a stranger of roughly equal or greater age, or an employer, teacher, customer, or the like. Someone is equal or inferior in status if he/she is a younger stranger, student, employee or the like. Nowadays, there are special endings which can be used on declarative, interrogative, and imperative sentences; and both honorific or normal sentences. They are made for easier and faster use of Korean.
There are seven verb paradigms or speech levels in Korean, and each level has its own unique set of verb endings which are used to indicate the level of formality of a situation. Unlike honorificsâwhich are used to show respect towards the referentâspeech levels are used to show respect towards a speaker's or writer's audience. The names of the seven levels are derived from the non-honorific imperative form of the verb íë¤ (hada, "do") in each level, plus the suffix ì²´ ("che", hanja: é« ), which means "style".
The highest six levels are generally grouped together as jondaenmal (ì¡´ëë§), while the lowest level (haeche, í´ì²´) is called banmal (ë°ë§) in Korean.
The core of the Korean vocabulary is made up of native Korean words. Like Japanese and Vietnamese, a significant proportion of the vocabulary, especially words that denote abstract ideas, are Sino-Korean words, Sohn, Ho-Min. The Korean Language (Section 1.5.3 "Korean vocabulary", p.12â13), Cambridge University Press, 2001. ISBN 0521369436. either
* directly borrowed from Written Chinese, or
* coined in Japan or Korea using Chinese characters,
in a similar way European languages borrow from Latin and Greek.
The exact proportion of Sino-Korean vocabulary is a matter of debate. Sohn (2001) stated 50-60%. However, Jeong Jae-do, one of the compilers of the dictionary Urimal Kun Sajeon, asserts that the proportion is not so high. He points out that Korean dictionaries compiled during the period of Japanese occupation include many unused Sino-Korean words. In his estimation, the proportion of native Korean vocabulary in the Korean language might be as high as 70%. . The dictionary mentioned is
Korean has two number systems: one native, and one borrowed from Chinese.
To a much lesser extent, words have also occasionally been borrowed from Mongolian, Sanskrit, and other languages. Conversely, the Korean language itself has also contributed some loanwords to other languages, most notably the Tsushima dialect of Japanese.
The vast majority of loanwords other than Sino-Korean come from modern times, 90% of which are from English. Many words have also been borrowed from Japanese and Western languages such as German (areubaiteu "part-time job", allereugi "allergy", "gibsu" "plaster cast used for broken bones"). Some Western words were borrowed indirectly via Japanese, taking a Japanese sound pattern, for example "dozen" > dÄsu > daseu. Most indirect Western borrowings are now written according to current Hangulization rules for the respective Western language, as if borrowed directly. There are a few more complicated borrowings such as "German(y)" (see Names for Germany), the first part of whose endonym the Japanese approximated using the kanji doitsu that were then accepted into the Korean language by their Sino-Korean pronunciation: dok + il = Dogil. In South Korean official use, a number of other Sino-Korean country names have been replaced with phonetically oriented Hangulizations of the countries' endonyms or English names.
As in Japanese, Korean adapts words in ways that are uncommon in English. For example, in soccer heading ( ) is used to label a head-strike, rather than direction. This is a corrupted loan word from the English header.
North Korean vocabulary shows a tendency to prefer native Korean over Sino-Korean or foreign borrowings, especially with recent political objectives aimed at eliminating foreign (mostly Chinese) influences on the Korean language in the North. By contrast, South Korean may have several Sino-Korean or foreign borrowings which tend to be absent in North Korean.
Formerly the languages of the Korean peninsula were written using Chinese characters, using hyangchal or idu. Such systems relied on principles of rebus, and were lost, later in history. Writing became confined to the ruling elite, who used hanja to write in Classical Chinese.
Korean is now mainly written in Hangul, the Korean alphabet promulgated in 1446 by Sejong the Great; hanja may be mixed in to write Sino-Korean words. While South Korean schools still teach 1,800 hanja characters, North Korea had abolished the use of hanja decades ago.
Below is a chart of the Korean alphabet's symbols and their canonical IPA values:
Modern Korean is written with spaces between words, a feature not found in Chinese or Japanese. Korean punctuation marks are almost identical to Western ones. Traditionally, Korean was written in columns from top to bottom, right to left, but is now usually written in rows from left to right, top to bottom.
The Korean language used in the North and the South exhibits differences in pronunciation, spelling, grammar and vocabulary. Kanno, Hiroomi (ed.) / Society for Korean Linguistics in Japan (1987). ChÅsengo o manabÅ (ãæé®®èªãå¦ã¼ãã), SanshÅ«sha, Tokyo. ISBN 4-384-01506-2
In North Korea, palatalization of is optional, and can be pronounced between vowels.
Words that are written the same way may be pronounced differently, such as the examples below. The pronunciations below are given in Revised Romanization, McCune-Reischauer and Hangul, the last of which represents what the Hangul would be if one writes the word as pronounced.
* Similar pronunciation is used in the North whenever the hanja "ç" is attached to a Sino-Korean word ending in ã´, ã
or ã
. (In the South, this rule only applies when it is attached to any single-character Sino-Korean word.)
Some words are spelled differently by the North and the South, but the pronunciations are the same.
Some words have different spellings and pronunciations in the North and the South, some of which were given in the "Phonology" section above:
In general, when transcribing place names, North Korea tends to use the pronunciation in the original language more than South Korea, which often uses the pronunciation in English. For example:
Some grammatical constructions are also different:
Some vocabulary is different between the North and the South:
In the North, guillemets and are the symbols used for quotes; in the South, quotation marks equivalent to the English ones, â and â, are standard, although and are sometimes used in popular novels.
The United States' Defense Language Institute classifies Korean alongside Arabic, Chinese, and Japanese as a Category IV language, meaning that 63 weeks of instruction (as compared to just 25 weeks for French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian) are required to bring an English-speaking student to a limited working level of proficiency in which he or she has "sufficient capability to meet routine social demands and limited job requirements" and "can deal with concrete topics in past, present, and future tense." As a result, the study of the Korean language in the United States is dominated by Korean American heritage language students; they are estimated to form over 80% of all students of the language at non-military universities.
However, Korean is considerably easier for speakers of certain other languages, such as Japanese ; in Japan, it is more widely studied by non-heritage learners. The Korean Language Proficiency Test, an examination aimed at assessing non-native speakers' competence in Korean, was instituted in 1997; 17,000 people applied for the 2005 sitting of the examination.
*Hangul
*Korean romanization
**Revised romanization of Korean
**McCune-Reischauer
**Yale Romanization#Korean
**SKATS
*Korean numerals
*Korean count word
*Korean language and computers
*Hanja
*Sino-Korean vocabulary
*Korean mixed script
*List of English words of Korean origin
*Altaic languages
*List of Korea-related topics
*Vowel harmony
* (Volume 4 of the London Oriental and African Language Library).
*Hulbert, Homer B. (1905): A Comparative Grammar of the Korean Language and the Dravidian Dialects in India. Seoul.
*Martin, Samuel E. (1966): Lexical Evidence Relating Japanese to Korean. Language 42/2: 185â251.
*Martin, Samuel E. (1990): Morphological clues to the relationship of Japanese and Korean. In: Philip Baldi (ed.): Linguistic Change and Reconstruction Methodology. Trends in Linguistics: Studies and Monographs 45: 483-509.
*Miller, Roy Andrew (1971): Japanese and the Other Altaic Languages. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0226527190.
*Miller, Roy Andrew (1996): Languages and History: Japanese, Korean and Altaic. Oslo: Institute for Comparative Research in Human Culture. ISBN 9748299694.
*Ramstedt, G. J. (1928): Remarks on the Korean language. Mémoires de la Société Finno-Oigrienne 58.
*Rybatzki, Volker (2003): Middle Mongol. In: Juha Janhunen (ed.) (2003): The Mongolic languages. London: Routledge. ISBN 0-7007-1133-3: 47â82.
*Starostin, Sergei A.; Anna V. Dybo; Oleg A. Mudrak (2003): Etymological Dictionary of the Altaic Languages, 3 volumes. Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers. ISBN 9004131531.
*Sohn, H.-M. (1999): The Korean Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Song, J.-J. (2005): The Korean Language: Structure, Use and Context. London: Routledge.
*Trask, R. L. (1996): Historical linguistics. Hodder Arnold.
*Vovin, Alexander: Koreo-Japonica. University of Hawai'i Press.
*Whitman, John B. (1985): The Phonological Basis for the Comparison of Japanese and Korean. Unpublished Harvard University Ph.D. dissertation.
* Ethnologue report for Korean
* Linguistic and Philosophical Origins of the Korean Alphabet (Hangul)
* Free Korean language and culture course online, in English
* Linguistic map of Korea
* Korean - a Category III language Languages which are exceptionally difficult for native English speakers
* dongsa.net A Korean verb conjugation tool that explains the conjugations for learners of Korean
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Korean_language | Where do the majority of loanwords other than Sino-Korean come from? | modern times | data/set5/a6 | Korean_language
:This article is mainly about the spoken Korean language. See Hangul for details on the native Korean writing system.
Korean ( , see below) is the official language of Korea, both South and North. It is also one of the two official languages in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in China. There are about 78 million Korean speakers. In the 15th century a national writing system was commissioned by Sejong the Great, currently called Hangul. Prior to the development of Hangul, Koreans used Hanja (Chinese characters) to write for over a millennia.
The genealogical classification of the Korean language is debated by a small number of linguists. Most classify it as a language isolate Song, Jae Jung (2005) "The Korean language: structure, use and context" Routledge, p. 15
Lyle Campbell & Mauricio Mixco. 2007. A Glossary of Historical Linguistics. University of Utah Press. while a few consider it to be in the Altaic language family. Stratification in the peopling of China: how far does the linguistic evidence match genetics and archaeology? In; Sanchez-Mazas, Blench, Ross, Lin & Pejros eds. Human migrations in continental East Asia and Taiwan: genetic, linguistic and archaeological evidence. 2008. Taylor & Francis Some believe it to be distantly related to Japanese. Like Japanese it is agglutinative in its morphology and SOV in its syntax.
The Korean names for the language are based on the names for Korea used in North and South Korea.
In South Korea, the language is most often called Hangungmal
( ; ), or more formally, Hangugeo ( ; ) or Gugeo ( ; ; literally "national language").
In North Korea and Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in China, the language is most often called ChosÅnmal ( ; with hanja: ), or more formally, ChosÅnÅ ( ; ).
On the other hand, Korean people in the former USSR, who refer to themselves as Koryo-saram (ê³ ë ¤ì¬ë; also Goryeoin [ ; ; literally, "Goryeo person(s)"]) call the language Goryeomal ( ; ).
In mainland China, following the establishment of diplomatic relations with South Korea in 1992, the term CháoxiÇnyÇ ( or the short form: CháoyÇ ( )) has normally been used to refer to the language spoken in North Korea and Yanbian, while HánguóyÇ ( or the short form: HányÇ ( )) is used to refer to the language spoken in South Korea.
Some older English sources also used the name "Korean" to refer to the language, country, and people. The word "Korean" is derived from Goryeo, which is thought to be the first dynasty known to western countries.
Most modern linguists consider Korean to be a language isolate Song, Jae Jung (2005) "The Korean language: structure, use and context" Routledge, p. 15
Lyle Campbell & Mauricio J. Mixco. 2007. A Glossary of Historical Linguistics. University of Utah Press.
Since the publication of the article of Ramstedt in 1928, some linguists eg Miller 1971, 1996, Starostin et al. 2003 support the hypothesis that Korean can be classified as an Altaic language or as a relative of proto-Altaic. Korean is similar to the Altaic languages in that they both lack certain grammatical elements, including articles, fusional morphology and relative pronouns. However, linguists agree today on the fact that typological resemblances cannot be used to prove genetic relatedness of languages eg Vovin 2008: 1 as these features are typologically connected and easily borrowed. Trask 1996: 147-151 Such factors of typological divergence as Middle Mongolian's exhibition of gender agreement Rybatzki 2003: 57 can be used to argue that a genetic relationship is unlikely. Vovin 2008: 5
The hypothesis that Korean might be related to Japanese has had some more supporters due to some considerable overlap in vocabulary and similar grammatical features that have been elaborated upon by such researchers as Samuel E. Martin eg Martin 1966, 1990 and Roy Andrew Miller. eg Miller 1971, 1996 Sergei Starostin (1991) found about 25% of potential cognates in the Japanese-Korean 100-word Swadesh list, which - if true - would place these two languages closer together than other possible members of the Altaic family.
Other linguists, most notably Alexander Vovin, argue, however, that the similarities are not due to any genetic relationship, but rather to a sprachbund effect and heavy borrowing especially from Korean into Western Old Japanese. Vovin 2008 A good example might be Middle Korean sà m Whitman 1985: 232, also found in Martin 1966: 233 This word seems to be cognate, but while it is well-attested in Western Old Japanese and Northern RyÅ«kyÅ«, in Eastern Old Japanese it only occurs in compounds, and it is only present in three subdialects of the South-RyÅ«kyÅ«an dialect group. Then, the doublet wo âhempâ is attested in Western Old Japanese and Southern RyÅ«kyÅ«. It is thus plausible to assume a borrowed term. Vovin 2008: 211-212 See East Asian languages for morphological features shared among languages of the East Asian sprachbund, and Classification of Japanese for further details on the discussion of a possible relationship.
Korean is descended from Old Korean, Middle Korean and Modern Korean. Controversy remains over the proposed Altaic language family and its inclusion of Proto-Korean. Since the Korean War, contemporary North-South differences in Korean have developed, including variance in pronunciation, verb inflection, and vocabulary.
Korean is spoken by the Korean people in North Korea and South Korea and by the Korean diaspora in many countries including the People's Republic of China, Japan, and the United States. Korean-speaking minorities exist in these states, but because of cultural assimilation into host countries, not all ethnic Korean immigrants may speak it with native fluency.
Korean is the official language of South Korea and North Korea. It is also one of the two official languages of the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in China.
In South Korea, the regulatory body for Korean is the Seoul-based National Institute of the Korean Language ( ), which was created by presidential decree on January 23, 1991. In North Korea, the regulatory body is the Sahoe Kwahagwon Åhak YÅnguso ( ).
Dialects of Korean
Korean has several dialects (called mal [literally "speech"], saturi, or bang-eon in Korean). The standard language (pyojuneo or pyojunmal) of South Korea is based on the dialect of the area around Seoul, and the standard for North Korea is based on the dialect spoken around P'yÅngyang. All dialects of Korean are similar to each other, and are in fact all mutually intelligible, perhaps with the exception of the dialect of Jeju Island (see Jeju dialect). The dialect spoken in Jeju is in fact classified as a different language by some Korean linguists. One of the most notable differences between dialects is the use of stress: speakers of Seoul dialect use very little stress, and standard South Korean has a very flat intonation; on the other hand, speakers of the Gyeongsang dialect have a very pronounced intonation.
It is also worth noting that there is substantial evidence for a history of extensive dialect levelling, or even convergent evolution or intermixture of two or more originally distinct linguistic stocks, within the Korean language and its dialects. Many Korean dialects have basic vocabulary that is etymologically distinct from vocabulary of identical meaning in Standard Korean or other dialects, such as South Jeolla dialect /kur/ vs. Standard Korean ì
"mouth" or Gyeongsang dialect vs. Standard Korean "garlic chives." This suggests that the Korean Peninsula may have at one time been much more linguistically diverse than it is at present. See also the Buyeo languages hypothesis.
There is a very close connection between the dialects of Korean and the regions of Korea, since the boundaries of both are largely determined by mountains and seas. Here is a list of traditional dialect names and locations:
The Korean consonants
The IPA symbol (a subscript double straight quotation mark, shown here with a placeholder circle) is used to denote the tensed consonants . Its official use in the Extensions to the IPA is for 'strong' articulation, but is used in the literature for faucalized voice. The Korean consonants also have elements of stiff voice, but it is not yet known how typical this is of faucalized consonants. They are produced with a partially constricted glottis and additional subglottal pressure in addition to tense vocal tract walls, laryngeal lowering, or other expansion of the larynx.
becomes an alveolo-palatal before or for most speakers (but see Differences in the language between North Korea and South Korea). This occurs with the tense fricative and all the affricates as well. At the end of a syllable, /s/ changes to /t/ (Example: beoseot (ë²ì¯) 'mushroom').
may become a bilabial before or , a palatal before or , a velar before , a voiced between voiced sounds, and a elsewhere.
become voiced between voiced sounds.
becomes alveolar flap between vowels, and or at the end of a syllable or next to another . Note that a written syllable-final 'ã¹', when followed by a vowel or a glide (i.e., when the next character starts with 'ã
'), migrates to the next syllable and thus becomes .
Traditionally, was disallowed at the beginning of a word. It disappeared before , and otherwise became . However, the inflow of western loanword changed the trend, and now word-initial (mostly from English loanwords) are pronounced as a free variation of either or . The traditional prohibition of word-initial became a morphological rule called "initial law" (ëìë²ì¹) in South Korea, which pertains to Sino-Korean vocabulary. Such words retain their word-initial in North Korea.
All obstruents (plosives, affricates, fricatives) are unreleased at the end of a word.
Plosive stops become nasal stops before nasal stops.
Hangul spelling does not reflect these assimilatory pronunciation rules, but rather maintains the underlying, partly historical morphology. Given this, it is sometimes hard to tell which actual phonemes are present in a certain word.
One difference between the pronunciation standards of North and South Korea is the treatment of initial , and initial . For example,
* "labour" - north: rodong (ë¡ë), south: nodong (ë
¸ë)
* "history" - north: ryÅksa (ë ¥ì¬), south: yeoksa (ìì¬)
* "female" - north: nyÅja (ë
ì), south: yeoja (ì¬ì)
Grammatical morphemes may change shape depending on the preceding sounds. Examples include -eun/-neun (-ì/-ë) and -i/-ga (-ì´/-ê°). Sometimes sounds may be inserted instead. Examples include -eul/-reul (-ì/-를), -euro/-ro (-ì¼ë¡/-ë¡), -eseo/-seo (-ìì/-ì), -ideunji/-deunji (-ì´ë ì§/-ë ì§) and -iya/-ya (-ì´ì¼/-ì¼). However, -euro/-ro is somewhat irregular, since it will behave differently after a rieul consonant.
Some verbs may also change shape morphophonemically.
Korean is an agglutinative language. Modifiers generally precede the modified words, and in the case of verb modifiers, can be serially appended. The basic form of a Korean sentence is Subject Object Verb, but the verb is the only required and immovable element.
:"Did [you] go to the store?" ("you" implied in conversation)
:"Yes."
The Korean Language contains nine parts of speech.
Korean verbs ( , tongsa, ) are also known in English as "action verbs" or "dynamic verbs" to distinguish them from [ , hyeong-yongsa, "adjectives"]), which are also known as "descriptive verbs" or "stative verbs". Examples of action/dynamic verbs include (hada, "to do") and (kada, "to go") which constitute an action or movement as opposed to descriptive verbs such as (yehppeuda, "to be beautiful"). For a larger list of Korean verbs, see .
Unlike most of the European languages, Korean does not conjugate verbs using agreement with the subject, and nouns have no gender. Instead, verb conjugations depend upon the verb tense, aspect, mood, and the social relation between the speaker, the subjects, and the listeners.
The system of speech levels and honorifics loosely resembles the T-V distinction of most Indo-European languages. For example, different endings are used depending on the speaker's relation with their subject or audience. Politeness is a critical part of Korean language and Korean culture, therefore, when talking to someone esteemed, the correct verb ending must be chosen to indicate the proper respect.
Words categorized as Korean adjectives ( , hyeong-yongsa, ) conjugate similarly to verbs, so some English texts call them "descriptive verbs" or "stative verbs", but they are distinctly separate from (tongsa).
English does not have an identical grammatical category, so the English translation of Korean adjectives may misleadingly suggest that they are verbs. For example, (pukda) translates literally as "to be red" and (aswipda) often best translates as "to lack" or "to want for", but both are (hyeong-yongsa, "adjectives"). For a larger list of Korean adjectives, see .
Korean pre-nouns ( , gwanhyeongsa, ) are also known in English as "determinatives", "attributives", and "unconjugated adjectives". Examples include (kak, "each"). For a larger list, see .
Core and basic noun words are native to the Korean language, e.g. (nara, country), (nal, day). A large body of Korean nouns ( , myeongsa, ) stem from Chinese characters, e.g. (å±±, san, mountain), (é©, yeok, station), (æå, munhwa, culture), etc. Many Sino-Korean words have a native Korean equivalent and vice versa, but not always. Nouns do not have grammatical gender and can be made plural by adding ë¤ to the end of the word, however in most instances the singular form is used even when in English it would be translated as plural. For example, while in English the sentence "there are three apples" would use the plural "apples" instead of the singular "apple", the Korean sentence ì¬ê³¼ ì¸ê° ììµëë¤ (sagwa segae isssumnida) maintains the word ì¬ê³¼ (sagwa, "apple") in its singular form, thus rendered in English as "apple three(things) exist." For a list of Korean nouns, see .
Korean pronouns ( , daemyeongsa, ) are highly influenced by the honorifics in the language. Pronouns change forms depending on the social status of the person or persons spoken to, e.g. the pronoun for "I" there is both the informal (na) and the honorific/humble (jeo). In general second person singular pronouns are avoided, especially when using honorific forms. For a larger list or Korean pronouns, see .
Korean adverbs ( , busa, ) include (tto, "also") and (gadeuk, "fully"). For a larger list, see .
Korean particles ( , josa, ) are also known in English as "postpositions". Examples include (neun, topic marker) and (reul, object marker). For a larger list, see .
Korean interjections ( , gamtansa, ) are also known in English as "exclamations". Examples include (ani, "no"). For a larger list, see .
Korean numbers or numerals ( , susa, ) constitute two regularly used sets: a native Korean set and a Sino-Korean set. The Sino-Korean system is nearly entirely based on the Chinese numerals. The distinction between the two numeral systems is very important. Everything that can be counted will use one of the two systems, but seldom both. Sino-Korean words are sometimes used to mark ordinal usage: yeol beon (ì´ ë²) means "ten times" while sip beon (ì(å) ë²(çª)) means "number ten." The grouping of large numbers in Korean follow the Chinese tradition of myriads (10000) rather than thousands (1000) as is common in Europe and North America.
The relationship between a speaker or writer and his or her subject and audience is paramount in Korean, and the grammar reflects this. The relationship between speaker/writer and subject referent is reflected in honorifics, while that between speaker/writer and audience is reflected in speech level.
When talking about someone superior in status, a speaker or writer usually uses special nouns or verb endings to indicate the subject's superiority. Generally, someone is superior in status if he/she is an older relative, a stranger of roughly equal or greater age, or an employer, teacher, customer, or the like. Someone is equal or inferior in status if he/she is a younger stranger, student, employee or the like. Nowadays, there are special endings which can be used on declarative, interrogative, and imperative sentences; and both honorific or normal sentences. They are made for easier and faster use of Korean.
There are seven verb paradigms or speech levels in Korean, and each level has its own unique set of verb endings which are used to indicate the level of formality of a situation. Unlike honorificsâwhich are used to show respect towards the referentâspeech levels are used to show respect towards a speaker's or writer's audience. The names of the seven levels are derived from the non-honorific imperative form of the verb íë¤ (hada, "do") in each level, plus the suffix ì²´ ("che", hanja: é« ), which means "style".
The highest six levels are generally grouped together as jondaenmal (ì¡´ëë§), while the lowest level (haeche, í´ì²´) is called banmal (ë°ë§) in Korean.
The core of the Korean vocabulary is made up of native Korean words. Like Japanese and Vietnamese, a significant proportion of the vocabulary, especially words that denote abstract ideas, are Sino-Korean words, Sohn, Ho-Min. The Korean Language (Section 1.5.3 "Korean vocabulary", p.12â13), Cambridge University Press, 2001. ISBN 0521369436. either
* directly borrowed from Written Chinese, or
* coined in Japan or Korea using Chinese characters,
in a similar way European languages borrow from Latin and Greek.
The exact proportion of Sino-Korean vocabulary is a matter of debate. Sohn (2001) stated 50-60%. However, Jeong Jae-do, one of the compilers of the dictionary Urimal Kun Sajeon, asserts that the proportion is not so high. He points out that Korean dictionaries compiled during the period of Japanese occupation include many unused Sino-Korean words. In his estimation, the proportion of native Korean vocabulary in the Korean language might be as high as 70%. . The dictionary mentioned is
Korean has two number systems: one native, and one borrowed from Chinese.
To a much lesser extent, words have also occasionally been borrowed from Mongolian, Sanskrit, and other languages. Conversely, the Korean language itself has also contributed some loanwords to other languages, most notably the Tsushima dialect of Japanese.
The vast majority of loanwords other than Sino-Korean come from modern times, 90% of which are from English. Many words have also been borrowed from Japanese and Western languages such as German (areubaiteu "part-time job", allereugi "allergy", "gibsu" "plaster cast used for broken bones"). Some Western words were borrowed indirectly via Japanese, taking a Japanese sound pattern, for example "dozen" > dÄsu > daseu. Most indirect Western borrowings are now written according to current Hangulization rules for the respective Western language, as if borrowed directly. There are a few more complicated borrowings such as "German(y)" (see Names for Germany), the first part of whose endonym the Japanese approximated using the kanji doitsu that were then accepted into the Korean language by their Sino-Korean pronunciation: dok + il = Dogil. In South Korean official use, a number of other Sino-Korean country names have been replaced with phonetically oriented Hangulizations of the countries' endonyms or English names.
As in Japanese, Korean adapts words in ways that are uncommon in English. For example, in soccer heading ( ) is used to label a head-strike, rather than direction. This is a corrupted loan word from the English header.
North Korean vocabulary shows a tendency to prefer native Korean over Sino-Korean or foreign borrowings, especially with recent political objectives aimed at eliminating foreign (mostly Chinese) influences on the Korean language in the North. By contrast, South Korean may have several Sino-Korean or foreign borrowings which tend to be absent in North Korean.
Formerly the languages of the Korean peninsula were written using Chinese characters, using hyangchal or idu. Such systems relied on principles of rebus, and were lost, later in history. Writing became confined to the ruling elite, who used hanja to write in Classical Chinese.
Korean is now mainly written in Hangul, the Korean alphabet promulgated in 1446 by Sejong the Great; hanja may be mixed in to write Sino-Korean words. While South Korean schools still teach 1,800 hanja characters, North Korea had abolished the use of hanja decades ago.
Below is a chart of the Korean alphabet's symbols and their canonical IPA values:
Modern Korean is written with spaces between words, a feature not found in Chinese or Japanese. Korean punctuation marks are almost identical to Western ones. Traditionally, Korean was written in columns from top to bottom, right to left, but is now usually written in rows from left to right, top to bottom.
The Korean language used in the North and the South exhibits differences in pronunciation, spelling, grammar and vocabulary. Kanno, Hiroomi (ed.) / Society for Korean Linguistics in Japan (1987). ChÅsengo o manabÅ (ãæé®®èªãå¦ã¼ãã), SanshÅ«sha, Tokyo. ISBN 4-384-01506-2
In North Korea, palatalization of is optional, and can be pronounced between vowels.
Words that are written the same way may be pronounced differently, such as the examples below. The pronunciations below are given in Revised Romanization, McCune-Reischauer and Hangul, the last of which represents what the Hangul would be if one writes the word as pronounced.
* Similar pronunciation is used in the North whenever the hanja "ç" is attached to a Sino-Korean word ending in ã´, ã
or ã
. (In the South, this rule only applies when it is attached to any single-character Sino-Korean word.)
Some words are spelled differently by the North and the South, but the pronunciations are the same.
Some words have different spellings and pronunciations in the North and the South, some of which were given in the "Phonology" section above:
In general, when transcribing place names, North Korea tends to use the pronunciation in the original language more than South Korea, which often uses the pronunciation in English. For example:
Some grammatical constructions are also different:
Some vocabulary is different between the North and the South:
In the North, guillemets and are the symbols used for quotes; in the South, quotation marks equivalent to the English ones, â and â, are standard, although and are sometimes used in popular novels.
The United States' Defense Language Institute classifies Korean alongside Arabic, Chinese, and Japanese as a Category IV language, meaning that 63 weeks of instruction (as compared to just 25 weeks for French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian) are required to bring an English-speaking student to a limited working level of proficiency in which he or she has "sufficient capability to meet routine social demands and limited job requirements" and "can deal with concrete topics in past, present, and future tense." As a result, the study of the Korean language in the United States is dominated by Korean American heritage language students; they are estimated to form over 80% of all students of the language at non-military universities.
However, Korean is considerably easier for speakers of certain other languages, such as Japanese ; in Japan, it is more widely studied by non-heritage learners. The Korean Language Proficiency Test, an examination aimed at assessing non-native speakers' competence in Korean, was instituted in 1997; 17,000 people applied for the 2005 sitting of the examination.
*Hangul
*Korean romanization
**Revised romanization of Korean
**McCune-Reischauer
**Yale Romanization#Korean
**SKATS
*Korean numerals
*Korean count word
*Korean language and computers
*Hanja
*Sino-Korean vocabulary
*Korean mixed script
*List of English words of Korean origin
*Altaic languages
*List of Korea-related topics
*Vowel harmony
* (Volume 4 of the London Oriental and African Language Library).
*Hulbert, Homer B. (1905): A Comparative Grammar of the Korean Language and the Dravidian Dialects in India. Seoul.
*Martin, Samuel E. (1966): Lexical Evidence Relating Japanese to Korean. Language 42/2: 185â251.
*Martin, Samuel E. (1990): Morphological clues to the relationship of Japanese and Korean. In: Philip Baldi (ed.): Linguistic Change and Reconstruction Methodology. Trends in Linguistics: Studies and Monographs 45: 483-509.
*Miller, Roy Andrew (1971): Japanese and the Other Altaic Languages. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0226527190.
*Miller, Roy Andrew (1996): Languages and History: Japanese, Korean and Altaic. Oslo: Institute for Comparative Research in Human Culture. ISBN 9748299694.
*Ramstedt, G. J. (1928): Remarks on the Korean language. Mémoires de la Société Finno-Oigrienne 58.
*Rybatzki, Volker (2003): Middle Mongol. In: Juha Janhunen (ed.) (2003): The Mongolic languages. London: Routledge. ISBN 0-7007-1133-3: 47â82.
*Starostin, Sergei A.; Anna V. Dybo; Oleg A. Mudrak (2003): Etymological Dictionary of the Altaic Languages, 3 volumes. Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers. ISBN 9004131531.
*Sohn, H.-M. (1999): The Korean Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Song, J.-J. (2005): The Korean Language: Structure, Use and Context. London: Routledge.
*Trask, R. L. (1996): Historical linguistics. Hodder Arnold.
*Vovin, Alexander: Koreo-Japonica. University of Hawai'i Press.
*Whitman, John B. (1985): The Phonological Basis for the Comparison of Japanese and Korean. Unpublished Harvard University Ph.D. dissertation.
* Ethnologue report for Korean
* Linguistic and Philosophical Origins of the Korean Alphabet (Hangul)
* Free Korean language and culture course online, in English
* Linguistic map of Korea
* Korean - a Category III language Languages which are exceptionally difficult for native English speakers
* dongsa.net A Korean verb conjugation tool that explains the conjugations for learners of Korean
|
Korean_language | Where do the majority of loanwords other than Sino-Korean come from? | modern times, 90% of which are from English | data/set5/a6 | Korean_language
:This article is mainly about the spoken Korean language. See Hangul for details on the native Korean writing system.
Korean ( , see below) is the official language of Korea, both South and North. It is also one of the two official languages in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in China. There are about 78 million Korean speakers. In the 15th century a national writing system was commissioned by Sejong the Great, currently called Hangul. Prior to the development of Hangul, Koreans used Hanja (Chinese characters) to write for over a millennia.
The genealogical classification of the Korean language is debated by a small number of linguists. Most classify it as a language isolate Song, Jae Jung (2005) "The Korean language: structure, use and context" Routledge, p. 15
Lyle Campbell & Mauricio Mixco. 2007. A Glossary of Historical Linguistics. University of Utah Press. while a few consider it to be in the Altaic language family. Stratification in the peopling of China: how far does the linguistic evidence match genetics and archaeology? In; Sanchez-Mazas, Blench, Ross, Lin & Pejros eds. Human migrations in continental East Asia and Taiwan: genetic, linguistic and archaeological evidence. 2008. Taylor & Francis Some believe it to be distantly related to Japanese. Like Japanese it is agglutinative in its morphology and SOV in its syntax.
The Korean names for the language are based on the names for Korea used in North and South Korea.
In South Korea, the language is most often called Hangungmal
( ; ), or more formally, Hangugeo ( ; ) or Gugeo ( ; ; literally "national language").
In North Korea and Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in China, the language is most often called ChosÅnmal ( ; with hanja: ), or more formally, ChosÅnÅ ( ; ).
On the other hand, Korean people in the former USSR, who refer to themselves as Koryo-saram (ê³ ë ¤ì¬ë; also Goryeoin [ ; ; literally, "Goryeo person(s)"]) call the language Goryeomal ( ; ).
In mainland China, following the establishment of diplomatic relations with South Korea in 1992, the term CháoxiÇnyÇ ( or the short form: CháoyÇ ( )) has normally been used to refer to the language spoken in North Korea and Yanbian, while HánguóyÇ ( or the short form: HányÇ ( )) is used to refer to the language spoken in South Korea.
Some older English sources also used the name "Korean" to refer to the language, country, and people. The word "Korean" is derived from Goryeo, which is thought to be the first dynasty known to western countries.
Most modern linguists consider Korean to be a language isolate Song, Jae Jung (2005) "The Korean language: structure, use and context" Routledge, p. 15
Lyle Campbell & Mauricio J. Mixco. 2007. A Glossary of Historical Linguistics. University of Utah Press.
Since the publication of the article of Ramstedt in 1928, some linguists eg Miller 1971, 1996, Starostin et al. 2003 support the hypothesis that Korean can be classified as an Altaic language or as a relative of proto-Altaic. Korean is similar to the Altaic languages in that they both lack certain grammatical elements, including articles, fusional morphology and relative pronouns. However, linguists agree today on the fact that typological resemblances cannot be used to prove genetic relatedness of languages eg Vovin 2008: 1 as these features are typologically connected and easily borrowed. Trask 1996: 147-151 Such factors of typological divergence as Middle Mongolian's exhibition of gender agreement Rybatzki 2003: 57 can be used to argue that a genetic relationship is unlikely. Vovin 2008: 5
The hypothesis that Korean might be related to Japanese has had some more supporters due to some considerable overlap in vocabulary and similar grammatical features that have been elaborated upon by such researchers as Samuel E. Martin eg Martin 1966, 1990 and Roy Andrew Miller. eg Miller 1971, 1996 Sergei Starostin (1991) found about 25% of potential cognates in the Japanese-Korean 100-word Swadesh list, which - if true - would place these two languages closer together than other possible members of the Altaic family.
Other linguists, most notably Alexander Vovin, argue, however, that the similarities are not due to any genetic relationship, but rather to a sprachbund effect and heavy borrowing especially from Korean into Western Old Japanese. Vovin 2008 A good example might be Middle Korean sà m Whitman 1985: 232, also found in Martin 1966: 233 This word seems to be cognate, but while it is well-attested in Western Old Japanese and Northern RyÅ«kyÅ«, in Eastern Old Japanese it only occurs in compounds, and it is only present in three subdialects of the South-RyÅ«kyÅ«an dialect group. Then, the doublet wo âhempâ is attested in Western Old Japanese and Southern RyÅ«kyÅ«. It is thus plausible to assume a borrowed term. Vovin 2008: 211-212 See East Asian languages for morphological features shared among languages of the East Asian sprachbund, and Classification of Japanese for further details on the discussion of a possible relationship.
Korean is descended from Old Korean, Middle Korean and Modern Korean. Controversy remains over the proposed Altaic language family and its inclusion of Proto-Korean. Since the Korean War, contemporary North-South differences in Korean have developed, including variance in pronunciation, verb inflection, and vocabulary.
Korean is spoken by the Korean people in North Korea and South Korea and by the Korean diaspora in many countries including the People's Republic of China, Japan, and the United States. Korean-speaking minorities exist in these states, but because of cultural assimilation into host countries, not all ethnic Korean immigrants may speak it with native fluency.
Korean is the official language of South Korea and North Korea. It is also one of the two official languages of the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in China.
In South Korea, the regulatory body for Korean is the Seoul-based National Institute of the Korean Language ( ), which was created by presidential decree on January 23, 1991. In North Korea, the regulatory body is the Sahoe Kwahagwon Åhak YÅnguso ( ).
Dialects of Korean
Korean has several dialects (called mal [literally "speech"], saturi, or bang-eon in Korean). The standard language (pyojuneo or pyojunmal) of South Korea is based on the dialect of the area around Seoul, and the standard for North Korea is based on the dialect spoken around P'yÅngyang. All dialects of Korean are similar to each other, and are in fact all mutually intelligible, perhaps with the exception of the dialect of Jeju Island (see Jeju dialect). The dialect spoken in Jeju is in fact classified as a different language by some Korean linguists. One of the most notable differences between dialects is the use of stress: speakers of Seoul dialect use very little stress, and standard South Korean has a very flat intonation; on the other hand, speakers of the Gyeongsang dialect have a very pronounced intonation.
It is also worth noting that there is substantial evidence for a history of extensive dialect levelling, or even convergent evolution or intermixture of two or more originally distinct linguistic stocks, within the Korean language and its dialects. Many Korean dialects have basic vocabulary that is etymologically distinct from vocabulary of identical meaning in Standard Korean or other dialects, such as South Jeolla dialect /kur/ vs. Standard Korean ì
"mouth" or Gyeongsang dialect vs. Standard Korean "garlic chives." This suggests that the Korean Peninsula may have at one time been much more linguistically diverse than it is at present. See also the Buyeo languages hypothesis.
There is a very close connection between the dialects of Korean and the regions of Korea, since the boundaries of both are largely determined by mountains and seas. Here is a list of traditional dialect names and locations:
The Korean consonants
The IPA symbol (a subscript double straight quotation mark, shown here with a placeholder circle) is used to denote the tensed consonants . Its official use in the Extensions to the IPA is for 'strong' articulation, but is used in the literature for faucalized voice. The Korean consonants also have elements of stiff voice, but it is not yet known how typical this is of faucalized consonants. They are produced with a partially constricted glottis and additional subglottal pressure in addition to tense vocal tract walls, laryngeal lowering, or other expansion of the larynx.
becomes an alveolo-palatal before or for most speakers (but see Differences in the language between North Korea and South Korea). This occurs with the tense fricative and all the affricates as well. At the end of a syllable, /s/ changes to /t/ (Example: beoseot (ë²ì¯) 'mushroom').
may become a bilabial before or , a palatal before or , a velar before , a voiced between voiced sounds, and a elsewhere.
become voiced between voiced sounds.
becomes alveolar flap between vowels, and or at the end of a syllable or next to another . Note that a written syllable-final 'ã¹', when followed by a vowel or a glide (i.e., when the next character starts with 'ã
'), migrates to the next syllable and thus becomes .
Traditionally, was disallowed at the beginning of a word. It disappeared before , and otherwise became . However, the inflow of western loanword changed the trend, and now word-initial (mostly from English loanwords) are pronounced as a free variation of either or . The traditional prohibition of word-initial became a morphological rule called "initial law" (ëìë²ì¹) in South Korea, which pertains to Sino-Korean vocabulary. Such words retain their word-initial in North Korea.
All obstruents (plosives, affricates, fricatives) are unreleased at the end of a word.
Plosive stops become nasal stops before nasal stops.
Hangul spelling does not reflect these assimilatory pronunciation rules, but rather maintains the underlying, partly historical morphology. Given this, it is sometimes hard to tell which actual phonemes are present in a certain word.
One difference between the pronunciation standards of North and South Korea is the treatment of initial , and initial . For example,
* "labour" - north: rodong (ë¡ë), south: nodong (ë
¸ë)
* "history" - north: ryÅksa (ë ¥ì¬), south: yeoksa (ìì¬)
* "female" - north: nyÅja (ë
ì), south: yeoja (ì¬ì)
Grammatical morphemes may change shape depending on the preceding sounds. Examples include -eun/-neun (-ì/-ë) and -i/-ga (-ì´/-ê°). Sometimes sounds may be inserted instead. Examples include -eul/-reul (-ì/-를), -euro/-ro (-ì¼ë¡/-ë¡), -eseo/-seo (-ìì/-ì), -ideunji/-deunji (-ì´ë ì§/-ë ì§) and -iya/-ya (-ì´ì¼/-ì¼). However, -euro/-ro is somewhat irregular, since it will behave differently after a rieul consonant.
Some verbs may also change shape morphophonemically.
Korean is an agglutinative language. Modifiers generally precede the modified words, and in the case of verb modifiers, can be serially appended. The basic form of a Korean sentence is Subject Object Verb, but the verb is the only required and immovable element.
:"Did [you] go to the store?" ("you" implied in conversation)
:"Yes."
The Korean Language contains nine parts of speech.
Korean verbs ( , tongsa, ) are also known in English as "action verbs" or "dynamic verbs" to distinguish them from [ , hyeong-yongsa, "adjectives"]), which are also known as "descriptive verbs" or "stative verbs". Examples of action/dynamic verbs include (hada, "to do") and (kada, "to go") which constitute an action or movement as opposed to descriptive verbs such as (yehppeuda, "to be beautiful"). For a larger list of Korean verbs, see .
Unlike most of the European languages, Korean does not conjugate verbs using agreement with the subject, and nouns have no gender. Instead, verb conjugations depend upon the verb tense, aspect, mood, and the social relation between the speaker, the subjects, and the listeners.
The system of speech levels and honorifics loosely resembles the T-V distinction of most Indo-European languages. For example, different endings are used depending on the speaker's relation with their subject or audience. Politeness is a critical part of Korean language and Korean culture, therefore, when talking to someone esteemed, the correct verb ending must be chosen to indicate the proper respect.
Words categorized as Korean adjectives ( , hyeong-yongsa, ) conjugate similarly to verbs, so some English texts call them "descriptive verbs" or "stative verbs", but they are distinctly separate from (tongsa).
English does not have an identical grammatical category, so the English translation of Korean adjectives may misleadingly suggest that they are verbs. For example, (pukda) translates literally as "to be red" and (aswipda) often best translates as "to lack" or "to want for", but both are (hyeong-yongsa, "adjectives"). For a larger list of Korean adjectives, see .
Korean pre-nouns ( , gwanhyeongsa, ) are also known in English as "determinatives", "attributives", and "unconjugated adjectives". Examples include (kak, "each"). For a larger list, see .
Core and basic noun words are native to the Korean language, e.g. (nara, country), (nal, day). A large body of Korean nouns ( , myeongsa, ) stem from Chinese characters, e.g. (å±±, san, mountain), (é©, yeok, station), (æå, munhwa, culture), etc. Many Sino-Korean words have a native Korean equivalent and vice versa, but not always. Nouns do not have grammatical gender and can be made plural by adding ë¤ to the end of the word, however in most instances the singular form is used even when in English it would be translated as plural. For example, while in English the sentence "there are three apples" would use the plural "apples" instead of the singular "apple", the Korean sentence ì¬ê³¼ ì¸ê° ììµëë¤ (sagwa segae isssumnida) maintains the word ì¬ê³¼ (sagwa, "apple") in its singular form, thus rendered in English as "apple three(things) exist." For a list of Korean nouns, see .
Korean pronouns ( , daemyeongsa, ) are highly influenced by the honorifics in the language. Pronouns change forms depending on the social status of the person or persons spoken to, e.g. the pronoun for "I" there is both the informal (na) and the honorific/humble (jeo). In general second person singular pronouns are avoided, especially when using honorific forms. For a larger list or Korean pronouns, see .
Korean adverbs ( , busa, ) include (tto, "also") and (gadeuk, "fully"). For a larger list, see .
Korean particles ( , josa, ) are also known in English as "postpositions". Examples include (neun, topic marker) and (reul, object marker). For a larger list, see .
Korean interjections ( , gamtansa, ) are also known in English as "exclamations". Examples include (ani, "no"). For a larger list, see .
Korean numbers or numerals ( , susa, ) constitute two regularly used sets: a native Korean set and a Sino-Korean set. The Sino-Korean system is nearly entirely based on the Chinese numerals. The distinction between the two numeral systems is very important. Everything that can be counted will use one of the two systems, but seldom both. Sino-Korean words are sometimes used to mark ordinal usage: yeol beon (ì´ ë²) means "ten times" while sip beon (ì(å) ë²(çª)) means "number ten." The grouping of large numbers in Korean follow the Chinese tradition of myriads (10000) rather than thousands (1000) as is common in Europe and North America.
The relationship between a speaker or writer and his or her subject and audience is paramount in Korean, and the grammar reflects this. The relationship between speaker/writer and subject referent is reflected in honorifics, while that between speaker/writer and audience is reflected in speech level.
When talking about someone superior in status, a speaker or writer usually uses special nouns or verb endings to indicate the subject's superiority. Generally, someone is superior in status if he/she is an older relative, a stranger of roughly equal or greater age, or an employer, teacher, customer, or the like. Someone is equal or inferior in status if he/she is a younger stranger, student, employee or the like. Nowadays, there are special endings which can be used on declarative, interrogative, and imperative sentences; and both honorific or normal sentences. They are made for easier and faster use of Korean.
There are seven verb paradigms or speech levels in Korean, and each level has its own unique set of verb endings which are used to indicate the level of formality of a situation. Unlike honorificsâwhich are used to show respect towards the referentâspeech levels are used to show respect towards a speaker's or writer's audience. The names of the seven levels are derived from the non-honorific imperative form of the verb íë¤ (hada, "do") in each level, plus the suffix ì²´ ("che", hanja: é« ), which means "style".
The highest six levels are generally grouped together as jondaenmal (ì¡´ëë§), while the lowest level (haeche, í´ì²´) is called banmal (ë°ë§) in Korean.
The core of the Korean vocabulary is made up of native Korean words. Like Japanese and Vietnamese, a significant proportion of the vocabulary, especially words that denote abstract ideas, are Sino-Korean words, Sohn, Ho-Min. The Korean Language (Section 1.5.3 "Korean vocabulary", p.12â13), Cambridge University Press, 2001. ISBN 0521369436. either
* directly borrowed from Written Chinese, or
* coined in Japan or Korea using Chinese characters,
in a similar way European languages borrow from Latin and Greek.
The exact proportion of Sino-Korean vocabulary is a matter of debate. Sohn (2001) stated 50-60%. However, Jeong Jae-do, one of the compilers of the dictionary Urimal Kun Sajeon, asserts that the proportion is not so high. He points out that Korean dictionaries compiled during the period of Japanese occupation include many unused Sino-Korean words. In his estimation, the proportion of native Korean vocabulary in the Korean language might be as high as 70%. . The dictionary mentioned is
Korean has two number systems: one native, and one borrowed from Chinese.
To a much lesser extent, words have also occasionally been borrowed from Mongolian, Sanskrit, and other languages. Conversely, the Korean language itself has also contributed some loanwords to other languages, most notably the Tsushima dialect of Japanese.
The vast majority of loanwords other than Sino-Korean come from modern times, 90% of which are from English. Many words have also been borrowed from Japanese and Western languages such as German (areubaiteu "part-time job", allereugi "allergy", "gibsu" "plaster cast used for broken bones"). Some Western words were borrowed indirectly via Japanese, taking a Japanese sound pattern, for example "dozen" > dÄsu > daseu. Most indirect Western borrowings are now written according to current Hangulization rules for the respective Western language, as if borrowed directly. There are a few more complicated borrowings such as "German(y)" (see Names for Germany), the first part of whose endonym the Japanese approximated using the kanji doitsu that were then accepted into the Korean language by their Sino-Korean pronunciation: dok + il = Dogil. In South Korean official use, a number of other Sino-Korean country names have been replaced with phonetically oriented Hangulizations of the countries' endonyms or English names.
As in Japanese, Korean adapts words in ways that are uncommon in English. For example, in soccer heading ( ) is used to label a head-strike, rather than direction. This is a corrupted loan word from the English header.
North Korean vocabulary shows a tendency to prefer native Korean over Sino-Korean or foreign borrowings, especially with recent political objectives aimed at eliminating foreign (mostly Chinese) influences on the Korean language in the North. By contrast, South Korean may have several Sino-Korean or foreign borrowings which tend to be absent in North Korean.
Formerly the languages of the Korean peninsula were written using Chinese characters, using hyangchal or idu. Such systems relied on principles of rebus, and were lost, later in history. Writing became confined to the ruling elite, who used hanja to write in Classical Chinese.
Korean is now mainly written in Hangul, the Korean alphabet promulgated in 1446 by Sejong the Great; hanja may be mixed in to write Sino-Korean words. While South Korean schools still teach 1,800 hanja characters, North Korea had abolished the use of hanja decades ago.
Below is a chart of the Korean alphabet's symbols and their canonical IPA values:
Modern Korean is written with spaces between words, a feature not found in Chinese or Japanese. Korean punctuation marks are almost identical to Western ones. Traditionally, Korean was written in columns from top to bottom, right to left, but is now usually written in rows from left to right, top to bottom.
The Korean language used in the North and the South exhibits differences in pronunciation, spelling, grammar and vocabulary. Kanno, Hiroomi (ed.) / Society for Korean Linguistics in Japan (1987). ChÅsengo o manabÅ (ãæé®®èªãå¦ã¼ãã), SanshÅ«sha, Tokyo. ISBN 4-384-01506-2
In North Korea, palatalization of is optional, and can be pronounced between vowels.
Words that are written the same way may be pronounced differently, such as the examples below. The pronunciations below are given in Revised Romanization, McCune-Reischauer and Hangul, the last of which represents what the Hangul would be if one writes the word as pronounced.
* Similar pronunciation is used in the North whenever the hanja "ç" is attached to a Sino-Korean word ending in ã´, ã
or ã
. (In the South, this rule only applies when it is attached to any single-character Sino-Korean word.)
Some words are spelled differently by the North and the South, but the pronunciations are the same.
Some words have different spellings and pronunciations in the North and the South, some of which were given in the "Phonology" section above:
In general, when transcribing place names, North Korea tends to use the pronunciation in the original language more than South Korea, which often uses the pronunciation in English. For example:
Some grammatical constructions are also different:
Some vocabulary is different between the North and the South:
In the North, guillemets and are the symbols used for quotes; in the South, quotation marks equivalent to the English ones, â and â, are standard, although and are sometimes used in popular novels.
The United States' Defense Language Institute classifies Korean alongside Arabic, Chinese, and Japanese as a Category IV language, meaning that 63 weeks of instruction (as compared to just 25 weeks for French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian) are required to bring an English-speaking student to a limited working level of proficiency in which he or she has "sufficient capability to meet routine social demands and limited job requirements" and "can deal with concrete topics in past, present, and future tense." As a result, the study of the Korean language in the United States is dominated by Korean American heritage language students; they are estimated to form over 80% of all students of the language at non-military universities.
However, Korean is considerably easier for speakers of certain other languages, such as Japanese ; in Japan, it is more widely studied by non-heritage learners. The Korean Language Proficiency Test, an examination aimed at assessing non-native speakers' competence in Korean, was instituted in 1997; 17,000 people applied for the 2005 sitting of the examination.
*Hangul
*Korean romanization
**Revised romanization of Korean
**McCune-Reischauer
**Yale Romanization#Korean
**SKATS
*Korean numerals
*Korean count word
*Korean language and computers
*Hanja
*Sino-Korean vocabulary
*Korean mixed script
*List of English words of Korean origin
*Altaic languages
*List of Korea-related topics
*Vowel harmony
* (Volume 4 of the London Oriental and African Language Library).
*Hulbert, Homer B. (1905): A Comparative Grammar of the Korean Language and the Dravidian Dialects in India. Seoul.
*Martin, Samuel E. (1966): Lexical Evidence Relating Japanese to Korean. Language 42/2: 185â251.
*Martin, Samuel E. (1990): Morphological clues to the relationship of Japanese and Korean. In: Philip Baldi (ed.): Linguistic Change and Reconstruction Methodology. Trends in Linguistics: Studies and Monographs 45: 483-509.
*Miller, Roy Andrew (1971): Japanese and the Other Altaic Languages. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0226527190.
*Miller, Roy Andrew (1996): Languages and History: Japanese, Korean and Altaic. Oslo: Institute for Comparative Research in Human Culture. ISBN 9748299694.
*Ramstedt, G. J. (1928): Remarks on the Korean language. Mémoires de la Société Finno-Oigrienne 58.
*Rybatzki, Volker (2003): Middle Mongol. In: Juha Janhunen (ed.) (2003): The Mongolic languages. London: Routledge. ISBN 0-7007-1133-3: 47â82.
*Starostin, Sergei A.; Anna V. Dybo; Oleg A. Mudrak (2003): Etymological Dictionary of the Altaic Languages, 3 volumes. Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers. ISBN 9004131531.
*Sohn, H.-M. (1999): The Korean Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Song, J.-J. (2005): The Korean Language: Structure, Use and Context. London: Routledge.
*Trask, R. L. (1996): Historical linguistics. Hodder Arnold.
*Vovin, Alexander: Koreo-Japonica. University of Hawai'i Press.
*Whitman, John B. (1985): The Phonological Basis for the Comparison of Japanese and Korean. Unpublished Harvard University Ph.D. dissertation.
* Ethnologue report for Korean
* Linguistic and Philosophical Origins of the Korean Alphabet (Hangul)
* Free Korean language and culture course online, in English
* Linguistic map of Korea
* Korean - a Category III language Languages which are exceptionally difficult for native English speakers
* dongsa.net A Korean verb conjugation tool that explains the conjugations for learners of Korean
|
Korean_language | How many Korean speakers are there? | There are about 78 million Korean speakers. | data/set5/a6 | Korean_language
:This article is mainly about the spoken Korean language. See Hangul for details on the native Korean writing system.
Korean ( , see below) is the official language of Korea, both South and North. It is also one of the two official languages in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in China. There are about 78 million Korean speakers. In the 15th century a national writing system was commissioned by Sejong the Great, currently called Hangul. Prior to the development of Hangul, Koreans used Hanja (Chinese characters) to write for over a millennia.
The genealogical classification of the Korean language is debated by a small number of linguists. Most classify it as a language isolate Song, Jae Jung (2005) "The Korean language: structure, use and context" Routledge, p. 15
Lyle Campbell & Mauricio Mixco. 2007. A Glossary of Historical Linguistics. University of Utah Press. while a few consider it to be in the Altaic language family. Stratification in the peopling of China: how far does the linguistic evidence match genetics and archaeology? In; Sanchez-Mazas, Blench, Ross, Lin & Pejros eds. Human migrations in continental East Asia and Taiwan: genetic, linguistic and archaeological evidence. 2008. Taylor & Francis Some believe it to be distantly related to Japanese. Like Japanese it is agglutinative in its morphology and SOV in its syntax.
The Korean names for the language are based on the names for Korea used in North and South Korea.
In South Korea, the language is most often called Hangungmal
( ; ), or more formally, Hangugeo ( ; ) or Gugeo ( ; ; literally "national language").
In North Korea and Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in China, the language is most often called ChosÅnmal ( ; with hanja: ), or more formally, ChosÅnÅ ( ; ).
On the other hand, Korean people in the former USSR, who refer to themselves as Koryo-saram (ê³ ë ¤ì¬ë; also Goryeoin [ ; ; literally, "Goryeo person(s)"]) call the language Goryeomal ( ; ).
In mainland China, following the establishment of diplomatic relations with South Korea in 1992, the term CháoxiÇnyÇ ( or the short form: CháoyÇ ( )) has normally been used to refer to the language spoken in North Korea and Yanbian, while HánguóyÇ ( or the short form: HányÇ ( )) is used to refer to the language spoken in South Korea.
Some older English sources also used the name "Korean" to refer to the language, country, and people. The word "Korean" is derived from Goryeo, which is thought to be the first dynasty known to western countries.
Most modern linguists consider Korean to be a language isolate Song, Jae Jung (2005) "The Korean language: structure, use and context" Routledge, p. 15
Lyle Campbell & Mauricio J. Mixco. 2007. A Glossary of Historical Linguistics. University of Utah Press.
Since the publication of the article of Ramstedt in 1928, some linguists eg Miller 1971, 1996, Starostin et al. 2003 support the hypothesis that Korean can be classified as an Altaic language or as a relative of proto-Altaic. Korean is similar to the Altaic languages in that they both lack certain grammatical elements, including articles, fusional morphology and relative pronouns. However, linguists agree today on the fact that typological resemblances cannot be used to prove genetic relatedness of languages eg Vovin 2008: 1 as these features are typologically connected and easily borrowed. Trask 1996: 147-151 Such factors of typological divergence as Middle Mongolian's exhibition of gender agreement Rybatzki 2003: 57 can be used to argue that a genetic relationship is unlikely. Vovin 2008: 5
The hypothesis that Korean might be related to Japanese has had some more supporters due to some considerable overlap in vocabulary and similar grammatical features that have been elaborated upon by such researchers as Samuel E. Martin eg Martin 1966, 1990 and Roy Andrew Miller. eg Miller 1971, 1996 Sergei Starostin (1991) found about 25% of potential cognates in the Japanese-Korean 100-word Swadesh list, which - if true - would place these two languages closer together than other possible members of the Altaic family.
Other linguists, most notably Alexander Vovin, argue, however, that the similarities are not due to any genetic relationship, but rather to a sprachbund effect and heavy borrowing especially from Korean into Western Old Japanese. Vovin 2008 A good example might be Middle Korean sà m Whitman 1985: 232, also found in Martin 1966: 233 This word seems to be cognate, but while it is well-attested in Western Old Japanese and Northern RyÅ«kyÅ«, in Eastern Old Japanese it only occurs in compounds, and it is only present in three subdialects of the South-RyÅ«kyÅ«an dialect group. Then, the doublet wo âhempâ is attested in Western Old Japanese and Southern RyÅ«kyÅ«. It is thus plausible to assume a borrowed term. Vovin 2008: 211-212 See East Asian languages for morphological features shared among languages of the East Asian sprachbund, and Classification of Japanese for further details on the discussion of a possible relationship.
Korean is descended from Old Korean, Middle Korean and Modern Korean. Controversy remains over the proposed Altaic language family and its inclusion of Proto-Korean. Since the Korean War, contemporary North-South differences in Korean have developed, including variance in pronunciation, verb inflection, and vocabulary.
Korean is spoken by the Korean people in North Korea and South Korea and by the Korean diaspora in many countries including the People's Republic of China, Japan, and the United States. Korean-speaking minorities exist in these states, but because of cultural assimilation into host countries, not all ethnic Korean immigrants may speak it with native fluency.
Korean is the official language of South Korea and North Korea. It is also one of the two official languages of the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in China.
In South Korea, the regulatory body for Korean is the Seoul-based National Institute of the Korean Language ( ), which was created by presidential decree on January 23, 1991. In North Korea, the regulatory body is the Sahoe Kwahagwon Åhak YÅnguso ( ).
Dialects of Korean
Korean has several dialects (called mal [literally "speech"], saturi, or bang-eon in Korean). The standard language (pyojuneo or pyojunmal) of South Korea is based on the dialect of the area around Seoul, and the standard for North Korea is based on the dialect spoken around P'yÅngyang. All dialects of Korean are similar to each other, and are in fact all mutually intelligible, perhaps with the exception of the dialect of Jeju Island (see Jeju dialect). The dialect spoken in Jeju is in fact classified as a different language by some Korean linguists. One of the most notable differences between dialects is the use of stress: speakers of Seoul dialect use very little stress, and standard South Korean has a very flat intonation; on the other hand, speakers of the Gyeongsang dialect have a very pronounced intonation.
It is also worth noting that there is substantial evidence for a history of extensive dialect levelling, or even convergent evolution or intermixture of two or more originally distinct linguistic stocks, within the Korean language and its dialects. Many Korean dialects have basic vocabulary that is etymologically distinct from vocabulary of identical meaning in Standard Korean or other dialects, such as South Jeolla dialect /kur/ vs. Standard Korean ì
"mouth" or Gyeongsang dialect vs. Standard Korean "garlic chives." This suggests that the Korean Peninsula may have at one time been much more linguistically diverse than it is at present. See also the Buyeo languages hypothesis.
There is a very close connection between the dialects of Korean and the regions of Korea, since the boundaries of both are largely determined by mountains and seas. Here is a list of traditional dialect names and locations:
The Korean consonants
The IPA symbol (a subscript double straight quotation mark, shown here with a placeholder circle) is used to denote the tensed consonants . Its official use in the Extensions to the IPA is for 'strong' articulation, but is used in the literature for faucalized voice. The Korean consonants also have elements of stiff voice, but it is not yet known how typical this is of faucalized consonants. They are produced with a partially constricted glottis and additional subglottal pressure in addition to tense vocal tract walls, laryngeal lowering, or other expansion of the larynx.
becomes an alveolo-palatal before or for most speakers (but see Differences in the language between North Korea and South Korea). This occurs with the tense fricative and all the affricates as well. At the end of a syllable, /s/ changes to /t/ (Example: beoseot (ë²ì¯) 'mushroom').
may become a bilabial before or , a palatal before or , a velar before , a voiced between voiced sounds, and a elsewhere.
become voiced between voiced sounds.
becomes alveolar flap between vowels, and or at the end of a syllable or next to another . Note that a written syllable-final 'ã¹', when followed by a vowel or a glide (i.e., when the next character starts with 'ã
'), migrates to the next syllable and thus becomes .
Traditionally, was disallowed at the beginning of a word. It disappeared before , and otherwise became . However, the inflow of western loanword changed the trend, and now word-initial (mostly from English loanwords) are pronounced as a free variation of either or . The traditional prohibition of word-initial became a morphological rule called "initial law" (ëìë²ì¹) in South Korea, which pertains to Sino-Korean vocabulary. Such words retain their word-initial in North Korea.
All obstruents (plosives, affricates, fricatives) are unreleased at the end of a word.
Plosive stops become nasal stops before nasal stops.
Hangul spelling does not reflect these assimilatory pronunciation rules, but rather maintains the underlying, partly historical morphology. Given this, it is sometimes hard to tell which actual phonemes are present in a certain word.
One difference between the pronunciation standards of North and South Korea is the treatment of initial , and initial . For example,
* "labour" - north: rodong (ë¡ë), south: nodong (ë
¸ë)
* "history" - north: ryÅksa (ë ¥ì¬), south: yeoksa (ìì¬)
* "female" - north: nyÅja (ë
ì), south: yeoja (ì¬ì)
Grammatical morphemes may change shape depending on the preceding sounds. Examples include -eun/-neun (-ì/-ë) and -i/-ga (-ì´/-ê°). Sometimes sounds may be inserted instead. Examples include -eul/-reul (-ì/-를), -euro/-ro (-ì¼ë¡/-ë¡), -eseo/-seo (-ìì/-ì), -ideunji/-deunji (-ì´ë ì§/-ë ì§) and -iya/-ya (-ì´ì¼/-ì¼). However, -euro/-ro is somewhat irregular, since it will behave differently after a rieul consonant.
Some verbs may also change shape morphophonemically.
Korean is an agglutinative language. Modifiers generally precede the modified words, and in the case of verb modifiers, can be serially appended. The basic form of a Korean sentence is Subject Object Verb, but the verb is the only required and immovable element.
:"Did [you] go to the store?" ("you" implied in conversation)
:"Yes."
The Korean Language contains nine parts of speech.
Korean verbs ( , tongsa, ) are also known in English as "action verbs" or "dynamic verbs" to distinguish them from [ , hyeong-yongsa, "adjectives"]), which are also known as "descriptive verbs" or "stative verbs". Examples of action/dynamic verbs include (hada, "to do") and (kada, "to go") which constitute an action or movement as opposed to descriptive verbs such as (yehppeuda, "to be beautiful"). For a larger list of Korean verbs, see .
Unlike most of the European languages, Korean does not conjugate verbs using agreement with the subject, and nouns have no gender. Instead, verb conjugations depend upon the verb tense, aspect, mood, and the social relation between the speaker, the subjects, and the listeners.
The system of speech levels and honorifics loosely resembles the T-V distinction of most Indo-European languages. For example, different endings are used depending on the speaker's relation with their subject or audience. Politeness is a critical part of Korean language and Korean culture, therefore, when talking to someone esteemed, the correct verb ending must be chosen to indicate the proper respect.
Words categorized as Korean adjectives ( , hyeong-yongsa, ) conjugate similarly to verbs, so some English texts call them "descriptive verbs" or "stative verbs", but they are distinctly separate from (tongsa).
English does not have an identical grammatical category, so the English translation of Korean adjectives may misleadingly suggest that they are verbs. For example, (pukda) translates literally as "to be red" and (aswipda) often best translates as "to lack" or "to want for", but both are (hyeong-yongsa, "adjectives"). For a larger list of Korean adjectives, see .
Korean pre-nouns ( , gwanhyeongsa, ) are also known in English as "determinatives", "attributives", and "unconjugated adjectives". Examples include (kak, "each"). For a larger list, see .
Core and basic noun words are native to the Korean language, e.g. (nara, country), (nal, day). A large body of Korean nouns ( , myeongsa, ) stem from Chinese characters, e.g. (å±±, san, mountain), (é©, yeok, station), (æå, munhwa, culture), etc. Many Sino-Korean words have a native Korean equivalent and vice versa, but not always. Nouns do not have grammatical gender and can be made plural by adding ë¤ to the end of the word, however in most instances the singular form is used even when in English it would be translated as plural. For example, while in English the sentence "there are three apples" would use the plural "apples" instead of the singular "apple", the Korean sentence ì¬ê³¼ ì¸ê° ììµëë¤ (sagwa segae isssumnida) maintains the word ì¬ê³¼ (sagwa, "apple") in its singular form, thus rendered in English as "apple three(things) exist." For a list of Korean nouns, see .
Korean pronouns ( , daemyeongsa, ) are highly influenced by the honorifics in the language. Pronouns change forms depending on the social status of the person or persons spoken to, e.g. the pronoun for "I" there is both the informal (na) and the honorific/humble (jeo). In general second person singular pronouns are avoided, especially when using honorific forms. For a larger list or Korean pronouns, see .
Korean adverbs ( , busa, ) include (tto, "also") and (gadeuk, "fully"). For a larger list, see .
Korean particles ( , josa, ) are also known in English as "postpositions". Examples include (neun, topic marker) and (reul, object marker). For a larger list, see .
Korean interjections ( , gamtansa, ) are also known in English as "exclamations". Examples include (ani, "no"). For a larger list, see .
Korean numbers or numerals ( , susa, ) constitute two regularly used sets: a native Korean set and a Sino-Korean set. The Sino-Korean system is nearly entirely based on the Chinese numerals. The distinction between the two numeral systems is very important. Everything that can be counted will use one of the two systems, but seldom both. Sino-Korean words are sometimes used to mark ordinal usage: yeol beon (ì´ ë²) means "ten times" while sip beon (ì(å) ë²(çª)) means "number ten." The grouping of large numbers in Korean follow the Chinese tradition of myriads (10000) rather than thousands (1000) as is common in Europe and North America.
The relationship between a speaker or writer and his or her subject and audience is paramount in Korean, and the grammar reflects this. The relationship between speaker/writer and subject referent is reflected in honorifics, while that between speaker/writer and audience is reflected in speech level.
When talking about someone superior in status, a speaker or writer usually uses special nouns or verb endings to indicate the subject's superiority. Generally, someone is superior in status if he/she is an older relative, a stranger of roughly equal or greater age, or an employer, teacher, customer, or the like. Someone is equal or inferior in status if he/she is a younger stranger, student, employee or the like. Nowadays, there are special endings which can be used on declarative, interrogative, and imperative sentences; and both honorific or normal sentences. They are made for easier and faster use of Korean.
There are seven verb paradigms or speech levels in Korean, and each level has its own unique set of verb endings which are used to indicate the level of formality of a situation. Unlike honorificsâwhich are used to show respect towards the referentâspeech levels are used to show respect towards a speaker's or writer's audience. The names of the seven levels are derived from the non-honorific imperative form of the verb íë¤ (hada, "do") in each level, plus the suffix ì²´ ("che", hanja: é« ), which means "style".
The highest six levels are generally grouped together as jondaenmal (ì¡´ëë§), while the lowest level (haeche, í´ì²´) is called banmal (ë°ë§) in Korean.
The core of the Korean vocabulary is made up of native Korean words. Like Japanese and Vietnamese, a significant proportion of the vocabulary, especially words that denote abstract ideas, are Sino-Korean words, Sohn, Ho-Min. The Korean Language (Section 1.5.3 "Korean vocabulary", p.12â13), Cambridge University Press, 2001. ISBN 0521369436. either
* directly borrowed from Written Chinese, or
* coined in Japan or Korea using Chinese characters,
in a similar way European languages borrow from Latin and Greek.
The exact proportion of Sino-Korean vocabulary is a matter of debate. Sohn (2001) stated 50-60%. However, Jeong Jae-do, one of the compilers of the dictionary Urimal Kun Sajeon, asserts that the proportion is not so high. He points out that Korean dictionaries compiled during the period of Japanese occupation include many unused Sino-Korean words. In his estimation, the proportion of native Korean vocabulary in the Korean language might be as high as 70%. . The dictionary mentioned is
Korean has two number systems: one native, and one borrowed from Chinese.
To a much lesser extent, words have also occasionally been borrowed from Mongolian, Sanskrit, and other languages. Conversely, the Korean language itself has also contributed some loanwords to other languages, most notably the Tsushima dialect of Japanese.
The vast majority of loanwords other than Sino-Korean come from modern times, 90% of which are from English. Many words have also been borrowed from Japanese and Western languages such as German (areubaiteu "part-time job", allereugi "allergy", "gibsu" "plaster cast used for broken bones"). Some Western words were borrowed indirectly via Japanese, taking a Japanese sound pattern, for example "dozen" > dÄsu > daseu. Most indirect Western borrowings are now written according to current Hangulization rules for the respective Western language, as if borrowed directly. There are a few more complicated borrowings such as "German(y)" (see Names for Germany), the first part of whose endonym the Japanese approximated using the kanji doitsu that were then accepted into the Korean language by their Sino-Korean pronunciation: dok + il = Dogil. In South Korean official use, a number of other Sino-Korean country names have been replaced with phonetically oriented Hangulizations of the countries' endonyms or English names.
As in Japanese, Korean adapts words in ways that are uncommon in English. For example, in soccer heading ( ) is used to label a head-strike, rather than direction. This is a corrupted loan word from the English header.
North Korean vocabulary shows a tendency to prefer native Korean over Sino-Korean or foreign borrowings, especially with recent political objectives aimed at eliminating foreign (mostly Chinese) influences on the Korean language in the North. By contrast, South Korean may have several Sino-Korean or foreign borrowings which tend to be absent in North Korean.
Formerly the languages of the Korean peninsula were written using Chinese characters, using hyangchal or idu. Such systems relied on principles of rebus, and were lost, later in history. Writing became confined to the ruling elite, who used hanja to write in Classical Chinese.
Korean is now mainly written in Hangul, the Korean alphabet promulgated in 1446 by Sejong the Great; hanja may be mixed in to write Sino-Korean words. While South Korean schools still teach 1,800 hanja characters, North Korea had abolished the use of hanja decades ago.
Below is a chart of the Korean alphabet's symbols and their canonical IPA values:
Modern Korean is written with spaces between words, a feature not found in Chinese or Japanese. Korean punctuation marks are almost identical to Western ones. Traditionally, Korean was written in columns from top to bottom, right to left, but is now usually written in rows from left to right, top to bottom.
The Korean language used in the North and the South exhibits differences in pronunciation, spelling, grammar and vocabulary. Kanno, Hiroomi (ed.) / Society for Korean Linguistics in Japan (1987). ChÅsengo o manabÅ (ãæé®®èªãå¦ã¼ãã), SanshÅ«sha, Tokyo. ISBN 4-384-01506-2
In North Korea, palatalization of is optional, and can be pronounced between vowels.
Words that are written the same way may be pronounced differently, such as the examples below. The pronunciations below are given in Revised Romanization, McCune-Reischauer and Hangul, the last of which represents what the Hangul would be if one writes the word as pronounced.
* Similar pronunciation is used in the North whenever the hanja "ç" is attached to a Sino-Korean word ending in ã´, ã
or ã
. (In the South, this rule only applies when it is attached to any single-character Sino-Korean word.)
Some words are spelled differently by the North and the South, but the pronunciations are the same.
Some words have different spellings and pronunciations in the North and the South, some of which were given in the "Phonology" section above:
In general, when transcribing place names, North Korea tends to use the pronunciation in the original language more than South Korea, which often uses the pronunciation in English. For example:
Some grammatical constructions are also different:
Some vocabulary is different between the North and the South:
In the North, guillemets and are the symbols used for quotes; in the South, quotation marks equivalent to the English ones, â and â, are standard, although and are sometimes used in popular novels.
The United States' Defense Language Institute classifies Korean alongside Arabic, Chinese, and Japanese as a Category IV language, meaning that 63 weeks of instruction (as compared to just 25 weeks for French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian) are required to bring an English-speaking student to a limited working level of proficiency in which he or she has "sufficient capability to meet routine social demands and limited job requirements" and "can deal with concrete topics in past, present, and future tense." As a result, the study of the Korean language in the United States is dominated by Korean American heritage language students; they are estimated to form over 80% of all students of the language at non-military universities.
However, Korean is considerably easier for speakers of certain other languages, such as Japanese ; in Japan, it is more widely studied by non-heritage learners. The Korean Language Proficiency Test, an examination aimed at assessing non-native speakers' competence in Korean, was instituted in 1997; 17,000 people applied for the 2005 sitting of the examination.
*Hangul
*Korean romanization
**Revised romanization of Korean
**McCune-Reischauer
**Yale Romanization#Korean
**SKATS
*Korean numerals
*Korean count word
*Korean language and computers
*Hanja
*Sino-Korean vocabulary
*Korean mixed script
*List of English words of Korean origin
*Altaic languages
*List of Korea-related topics
*Vowel harmony
* (Volume 4 of the London Oriental and African Language Library).
*Hulbert, Homer B. (1905): A Comparative Grammar of the Korean Language and the Dravidian Dialects in India. Seoul.
*Martin, Samuel E. (1966): Lexical Evidence Relating Japanese to Korean. Language 42/2: 185â251.
*Martin, Samuel E. (1990): Morphological clues to the relationship of Japanese and Korean. In: Philip Baldi (ed.): Linguistic Change and Reconstruction Methodology. Trends in Linguistics: Studies and Monographs 45: 483-509.
*Miller, Roy Andrew (1971): Japanese and the Other Altaic Languages. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0226527190.
*Miller, Roy Andrew (1996): Languages and History: Japanese, Korean and Altaic. Oslo: Institute for Comparative Research in Human Culture. ISBN 9748299694.
*Ramstedt, G. J. (1928): Remarks on the Korean language. Mémoires de la Société Finno-Oigrienne 58.
*Rybatzki, Volker (2003): Middle Mongol. In: Juha Janhunen (ed.) (2003): The Mongolic languages. London: Routledge. ISBN 0-7007-1133-3: 47â82.
*Starostin, Sergei A.; Anna V. Dybo; Oleg A. Mudrak (2003): Etymological Dictionary of the Altaic Languages, 3 volumes. Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers. ISBN 9004131531.
*Sohn, H.-M. (1999): The Korean Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Song, J.-J. (2005): The Korean Language: Structure, Use and Context. London: Routledge.
*Trask, R. L. (1996): Historical linguistics. Hodder Arnold.
*Vovin, Alexander: Koreo-Japonica. University of Hawai'i Press.
*Whitman, John B. (1985): The Phonological Basis for the Comparison of Japanese and Korean. Unpublished Harvard University Ph.D. dissertation.
* Ethnologue report for Korean
* Linguistic and Philosophical Origins of the Korean Alphabet (Hangul)
* Free Korean language and culture course online, in English
* Linguistic map of Korea
* Korean - a Category III language Languages which are exceptionally difficult for native English speakers
* dongsa.net A Korean verb conjugation tool that explains the conjugations for learners of Korean
|
Korean_language | How many Korean speakers are there? | null | data/set5/a6 | Korean_language
:This article is mainly about the spoken Korean language. See Hangul for details on the native Korean writing system.
Korean ( , see below) is the official language of Korea, both South and North. It is also one of the two official languages in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in China. There are about 78 million Korean speakers. In the 15th century a national writing system was commissioned by Sejong the Great, currently called Hangul. Prior to the development of Hangul, Koreans used Hanja (Chinese characters) to write for over a millennia.
The genealogical classification of the Korean language is debated by a small number of linguists. Most classify it as a language isolate Song, Jae Jung (2005) "The Korean language: structure, use and context" Routledge, p. 15
Lyle Campbell & Mauricio Mixco. 2007. A Glossary of Historical Linguistics. University of Utah Press. while a few consider it to be in the Altaic language family. Stratification in the peopling of China: how far does the linguistic evidence match genetics and archaeology? In; Sanchez-Mazas, Blench, Ross, Lin & Pejros eds. Human migrations in continental East Asia and Taiwan: genetic, linguistic and archaeological evidence. 2008. Taylor & Francis Some believe it to be distantly related to Japanese. Like Japanese it is agglutinative in its morphology and SOV in its syntax.
The Korean names for the language are based on the names for Korea used in North and South Korea.
In South Korea, the language is most often called Hangungmal
( ; ), or more formally, Hangugeo ( ; ) or Gugeo ( ; ; literally "national language").
In North Korea and Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in China, the language is most often called ChosÅnmal ( ; with hanja: ), or more formally, ChosÅnÅ ( ; ).
On the other hand, Korean people in the former USSR, who refer to themselves as Koryo-saram (ê³ ë ¤ì¬ë; also Goryeoin [ ; ; literally, "Goryeo person(s)"]) call the language Goryeomal ( ; ).
In mainland China, following the establishment of diplomatic relations with South Korea in 1992, the term CháoxiÇnyÇ ( or the short form: CháoyÇ ( )) has normally been used to refer to the language spoken in North Korea and Yanbian, while HánguóyÇ ( or the short form: HányÇ ( )) is used to refer to the language spoken in South Korea.
Some older English sources also used the name "Korean" to refer to the language, country, and people. The word "Korean" is derived from Goryeo, which is thought to be the first dynasty known to western countries.
Most modern linguists consider Korean to be a language isolate Song, Jae Jung (2005) "The Korean language: structure, use and context" Routledge, p. 15
Lyle Campbell & Mauricio J. Mixco. 2007. A Glossary of Historical Linguistics. University of Utah Press.
Since the publication of the article of Ramstedt in 1928, some linguists eg Miller 1971, 1996, Starostin et al. 2003 support the hypothesis that Korean can be classified as an Altaic language or as a relative of proto-Altaic. Korean is similar to the Altaic languages in that they both lack certain grammatical elements, including articles, fusional morphology and relative pronouns. However, linguists agree today on the fact that typological resemblances cannot be used to prove genetic relatedness of languages eg Vovin 2008: 1 as these features are typologically connected and easily borrowed. Trask 1996: 147-151 Such factors of typological divergence as Middle Mongolian's exhibition of gender agreement Rybatzki 2003: 57 can be used to argue that a genetic relationship is unlikely. Vovin 2008: 5
The hypothesis that Korean might be related to Japanese has had some more supporters due to some considerable overlap in vocabulary and similar grammatical features that have been elaborated upon by such researchers as Samuel E. Martin eg Martin 1966, 1990 and Roy Andrew Miller. eg Miller 1971, 1996 Sergei Starostin (1991) found about 25% of potential cognates in the Japanese-Korean 100-word Swadesh list, which - if true - would place these two languages closer together than other possible members of the Altaic family.
Other linguists, most notably Alexander Vovin, argue, however, that the similarities are not due to any genetic relationship, but rather to a sprachbund effect and heavy borrowing especially from Korean into Western Old Japanese. Vovin 2008 A good example might be Middle Korean sà m Whitman 1985: 232, also found in Martin 1966: 233 This word seems to be cognate, but while it is well-attested in Western Old Japanese and Northern RyÅ«kyÅ«, in Eastern Old Japanese it only occurs in compounds, and it is only present in three subdialects of the South-RyÅ«kyÅ«an dialect group. Then, the doublet wo âhempâ is attested in Western Old Japanese and Southern RyÅ«kyÅ«. It is thus plausible to assume a borrowed term. Vovin 2008: 211-212 See East Asian languages for morphological features shared among languages of the East Asian sprachbund, and Classification of Japanese for further details on the discussion of a possible relationship.
Korean is descended from Old Korean, Middle Korean and Modern Korean. Controversy remains over the proposed Altaic language family and its inclusion of Proto-Korean. Since the Korean War, contemporary North-South differences in Korean have developed, including variance in pronunciation, verb inflection, and vocabulary.
Korean is spoken by the Korean people in North Korea and South Korea and by the Korean diaspora in many countries including the People's Republic of China, Japan, and the United States. Korean-speaking minorities exist in these states, but because of cultural assimilation into host countries, not all ethnic Korean immigrants may speak it with native fluency.
Korean is the official language of South Korea and North Korea. It is also one of the two official languages of the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in China.
In South Korea, the regulatory body for Korean is the Seoul-based National Institute of the Korean Language ( ), which was created by presidential decree on January 23, 1991. In North Korea, the regulatory body is the Sahoe Kwahagwon Åhak YÅnguso ( ).
Dialects of Korean
Korean has several dialects (called mal [literally "speech"], saturi, or bang-eon in Korean). The standard language (pyojuneo or pyojunmal) of South Korea is based on the dialect of the area around Seoul, and the standard for North Korea is based on the dialect spoken around P'yÅngyang. All dialects of Korean are similar to each other, and are in fact all mutually intelligible, perhaps with the exception of the dialect of Jeju Island (see Jeju dialect). The dialect spoken in Jeju is in fact classified as a different language by some Korean linguists. One of the most notable differences between dialects is the use of stress: speakers of Seoul dialect use very little stress, and standard South Korean has a very flat intonation; on the other hand, speakers of the Gyeongsang dialect have a very pronounced intonation.
It is also worth noting that there is substantial evidence for a history of extensive dialect levelling, or even convergent evolution or intermixture of two or more originally distinct linguistic stocks, within the Korean language and its dialects. Many Korean dialects have basic vocabulary that is etymologically distinct from vocabulary of identical meaning in Standard Korean or other dialects, such as South Jeolla dialect /kur/ vs. Standard Korean ì
"mouth" or Gyeongsang dialect vs. Standard Korean "garlic chives." This suggests that the Korean Peninsula may have at one time been much more linguistically diverse than it is at present. See also the Buyeo languages hypothesis.
There is a very close connection between the dialects of Korean and the regions of Korea, since the boundaries of both are largely determined by mountains and seas. Here is a list of traditional dialect names and locations:
The Korean consonants
The IPA symbol (a subscript double straight quotation mark, shown here with a placeholder circle) is used to denote the tensed consonants . Its official use in the Extensions to the IPA is for 'strong' articulation, but is used in the literature for faucalized voice. The Korean consonants also have elements of stiff voice, but it is not yet known how typical this is of faucalized consonants. They are produced with a partially constricted glottis and additional subglottal pressure in addition to tense vocal tract walls, laryngeal lowering, or other expansion of the larynx.
becomes an alveolo-palatal before or for most speakers (but see Differences in the language between North Korea and South Korea). This occurs with the tense fricative and all the affricates as well. At the end of a syllable, /s/ changes to /t/ (Example: beoseot (ë²ì¯) 'mushroom').
may become a bilabial before or , a palatal before or , a velar before , a voiced between voiced sounds, and a elsewhere.
become voiced between voiced sounds.
becomes alveolar flap between vowels, and or at the end of a syllable or next to another . Note that a written syllable-final 'ã¹', when followed by a vowel or a glide (i.e., when the next character starts with 'ã
'), migrates to the next syllable and thus becomes .
Traditionally, was disallowed at the beginning of a word. It disappeared before , and otherwise became . However, the inflow of western loanword changed the trend, and now word-initial (mostly from English loanwords) are pronounced as a free variation of either or . The traditional prohibition of word-initial became a morphological rule called "initial law" (ëìë²ì¹) in South Korea, which pertains to Sino-Korean vocabulary. Such words retain their word-initial in North Korea.
All obstruents (plosives, affricates, fricatives) are unreleased at the end of a word.
Plosive stops become nasal stops before nasal stops.
Hangul spelling does not reflect these assimilatory pronunciation rules, but rather maintains the underlying, partly historical morphology. Given this, it is sometimes hard to tell which actual phonemes are present in a certain word.
One difference between the pronunciation standards of North and South Korea is the treatment of initial , and initial . For example,
* "labour" - north: rodong (ë¡ë), south: nodong (ë
¸ë)
* "history" - north: ryÅksa (ë ¥ì¬), south: yeoksa (ìì¬)
* "female" - north: nyÅja (ë
ì), south: yeoja (ì¬ì)
Grammatical morphemes may change shape depending on the preceding sounds. Examples include -eun/-neun (-ì/-ë) and -i/-ga (-ì´/-ê°). Sometimes sounds may be inserted instead. Examples include -eul/-reul (-ì/-를), -euro/-ro (-ì¼ë¡/-ë¡), -eseo/-seo (-ìì/-ì), -ideunji/-deunji (-ì´ë ì§/-ë ì§) and -iya/-ya (-ì´ì¼/-ì¼). However, -euro/-ro is somewhat irregular, since it will behave differently after a rieul consonant.
Some verbs may also change shape morphophonemically.
Korean is an agglutinative language. Modifiers generally precede the modified words, and in the case of verb modifiers, can be serially appended. The basic form of a Korean sentence is Subject Object Verb, but the verb is the only required and immovable element.
:"Did [you] go to the store?" ("you" implied in conversation)
:"Yes."
The Korean Language contains nine parts of speech.
Korean verbs ( , tongsa, ) are also known in English as "action verbs" or "dynamic verbs" to distinguish them from [ , hyeong-yongsa, "adjectives"]), which are also known as "descriptive verbs" or "stative verbs". Examples of action/dynamic verbs include (hada, "to do") and (kada, "to go") which constitute an action or movement as opposed to descriptive verbs such as (yehppeuda, "to be beautiful"). For a larger list of Korean verbs, see .
Unlike most of the European languages, Korean does not conjugate verbs using agreement with the subject, and nouns have no gender. Instead, verb conjugations depend upon the verb tense, aspect, mood, and the social relation between the speaker, the subjects, and the listeners.
The system of speech levels and honorifics loosely resembles the T-V distinction of most Indo-European languages. For example, different endings are used depending on the speaker's relation with their subject or audience. Politeness is a critical part of Korean language and Korean culture, therefore, when talking to someone esteemed, the correct verb ending must be chosen to indicate the proper respect.
Words categorized as Korean adjectives ( , hyeong-yongsa, ) conjugate similarly to verbs, so some English texts call them "descriptive verbs" or "stative verbs", but they are distinctly separate from (tongsa).
English does not have an identical grammatical category, so the English translation of Korean adjectives may misleadingly suggest that they are verbs. For example, (pukda) translates literally as "to be red" and (aswipda) often best translates as "to lack" or "to want for", but both are (hyeong-yongsa, "adjectives"). For a larger list of Korean adjectives, see .
Korean pre-nouns ( , gwanhyeongsa, ) are also known in English as "determinatives", "attributives", and "unconjugated adjectives". Examples include (kak, "each"). For a larger list, see .
Core and basic noun words are native to the Korean language, e.g. (nara, country), (nal, day). A large body of Korean nouns ( , myeongsa, ) stem from Chinese characters, e.g. (å±±, san, mountain), (é©, yeok, station), (æå, munhwa, culture), etc. Many Sino-Korean words have a native Korean equivalent and vice versa, but not always. Nouns do not have grammatical gender and can be made plural by adding ë¤ to the end of the word, however in most instances the singular form is used even when in English it would be translated as plural. For example, while in English the sentence "there are three apples" would use the plural "apples" instead of the singular "apple", the Korean sentence ì¬ê³¼ ì¸ê° ììµëë¤ (sagwa segae isssumnida) maintains the word ì¬ê³¼ (sagwa, "apple") in its singular form, thus rendered in English as "apple three(things) exist." For a list of Korean nouns, see .
Korean pronouns ( , daemyeongsa, ) are highly influenced by the honorifics in the language. Pronouns change forms depending on the social status of the person or persons spoken to, e.g. the pronoun for "I" there is both the informal (na) and the honorific/humble (jeo). In general second person singular pronouns are avoided, especially when using honorific forms. For a larger list or Korean pronouns, see .
Korean adverbs ( , busa, ) include (tto, "also") and (gadeuk, "fully"). For a larger list, see .
Korean particles ( , josa, ) are also known in English as "postpositions". Examples include (neun, topic marker) and (reul, object marker). For a larger list, see .
Korean interjections ( , gamtansa, ) are also known in English as "exclamations". Examples include (ani, "no"). For a larger list, see .
Korean numbers or numerals ( , susa, ) constitute two regularly used sets: a native Korean set and a Sino-Korean set. The Sino-Korean system is nearly entirely based on the Chinese numerals. The distinction between the two numeral systems is very important. Everything that can be counted will use one of the two systems, but seldom both. Sino-Korean words are sometimes used to mark ordinal usage: yeol beon (ì´ ë²) means "ten times" while sip beon (ì(å) ë²(çª)) means "number ten." The grouping of large numbers in Korean follow the Chinese tradition of myriads (10000) rather than thousands (1000) as is common in Europe and North America.
The relationship between a speaker or writer and his or her subject and audience is paramount in Korean, and the grammar reflects this. The relationship between speaker/writer and subject referent is reflected in honorifics, while that between speaker/writer and audience is reflected in speech level.
When talking about someone superior in status, a speaker or writer usually uses special nouns or verb endings to indicate the subject's superiority. Generally, someone is superior in status if he/she is an older relative, a stranger of roughly equal or greater age, or an employer, teacher, customer, or the like. Someone is equal or inferior in status if he/she is a younger stranger, student, employee or the like. Nowadays, there are special endings which can be used on declarative, interrogative, and imperative sentences; and both honorific or normal sentences. They are made for easier and faster use of Korean.
There are seven verb paradigms or speech levels in Korean, and each level has its own unique set of verb endings which are used to indicate the level of formality of a situation. Unlike honorificsâwhich are used to show respect towards the referentâspeech levels are used to show respect towards a speaker's or writer's audience. The names of the seven levels are derived from the non-honorific imperative form of the verb íë¤ (hada, "do") in each level, plus the suffix ì²´ ("che", hanja: é« ), which means "style".
The highest six levels are generally grouped together as jondaenmal (ì¡´ëë§), while the lowest level (haeche, í´ì²´) is called banmal (ë°ë§) in Korean.
The core of the Korean vocabulary is made up of native Korean words. Like Japanese and Vietnamese, a significant proportion of the vocabulary, especially words that denote abstract ideas, are Sino-Korean words, Sohn, Ho-Min. The Korean Language (Section 1.5.3 "Korean vocabulary", p.12â13), Cambridge University Press, 2001. ISBN 0521369436. either
* directly borrowed from Written Chinese, or
* coined in Japan or Korea using Chinese characters,
in a similar way European languages borrow from Latin and Greek.
The exact proportion of Sino-Korean vocabulary is a matter of debate. Sohn (2001) stated 50-60%. However, Jeong Jae-do, one of the compilers of the dictionary Urimal Kun Sajeon, asserts that the proportion is not so high. He points out that Korean dictionaries compiled during the period of Japanese occupation include many unused Sino-Korean words. In his estimation, the proportion of native Korean vocabulary in the Korean language might be as high as 70%. . The dictionary mentioned is
Korean has two number systems: one native, and one borrowed from Chinese.
To a much lesser extent, words have also occasionally been borrowed from Mongolian, Sanskrit, and other languages. Conversely, the Korean language itself has also contributed some loanwords to other languages, most notably the Tsushima dialect of Japanese.
The vast majority of loanwords other than Sino-Korean come from modern times, 90% of which are from English. Many words have also been borrowed from Japanese and Western languages such as German (areubaiteu "part-time job", allereugi "allergy", "gibsu" "plaster cast used for broken bones"). Some Western words were borrowed indirectly via Japanese, taking a Japanese sound pattern, for example "dozen" > dÄsu > daseu. Most indirect Western borrowings are now written according to current Hangulization rules for the respective Western language, as if borrowed directly. There are a few more complicated borrowings such as "German(y)" (see Names for Germany), the first part of whose endonym the Japanese approximated using the kanji doitsu that were then accepted into the Korean language by their Sino-Korean pronunciation: dok + il = Dogil. In South Korean official use, a number of other Sino-Korean country names have been replaced with phonetically oriented Hangulizations of the countries' endonyms or English names.
As in Japanese, Korean adapts words in ways that are uncommon in English. For example, in soccer heading ( ) is used to label a head-strike, rather than direction. This is a corrupted loan word from the English header.
North Korean vocabulary shows a tendency to prefer native Korean over Sino-Korean or foreign borrowings, especially with recent political objectives aimed at eliminating foreign (mostly Chinese) influences on the Korean language in the North. By contrast, South Korean may have several Sino-Korean or foreign borrowings which tend to be absent in North Korean.
Formerly the languages of the Korean peninsula were written using Chinese characters, using hyangchal or idu. Such systems relied on principles of rebus, and were lost, later in history. Writing became confined to the ruling elite, who used hanja to write in Classical Chinese.
Korean is now mainly written in Hangul, the Korean alphabet promulgated in 1446 by Sejong the Great; hanja may be mixed in to write Sino-Korean words. While South Korean schools still teach 1,800 hanja characters, North Korea had abolished the use of hanja decades ago.
Below is a chart of the Korean alphabet's symbols and their canonical IPA values:
Modern Korean is written with spaces between words, a feature not found in Chinese or Japanese. Korean punctuation marks are almost identical to Western ones. Traditionally, Korean was written in columns from top to bottom, right to left, but is now usually written in rows from left to right, top to bottom.
The Korean language used in the North and the South exhibits differences in pronunciation, spelling, grammar and vocabulary. Kanno, Hiroomi (ed.) / Society for Korean Linguistics in Japan (1987). ChÅsengo o manabÅ (ãæé®®èªãå¦ã¼ãã), SanshÅ«sha, Tokyo. ISBN 4-384-01506-2
In North Korea, palatalization of is optional, and can be pronounced between vowels.
Words that are written the same way may be pronounced differently, such as the examples below. The pronunciations below are given in Revised Romanization, McCune-Reischauer and Hangul, the last of which represents what the Hangul would be if one writes the word as pronounced.
* Similar pronunciation is used in the North whenever the hanja "ç" is attached to a Sino-Korean word ending in ã´, ã
or ã
. (In the South, this rule only applies when it is attached to any single-character Sino-Korean word.)
Some words are spelled differently by the North and the South, but the pronunciations are the same.
Some words have different spellings and pronunciations in the North and the South, some of which were given in the "Phonology" section above:
In general, when transcribing place names, North Korea tends to use the pronunciation in the original language more than South Korea, which often uses the pronunciation in English. For example:
Some grammatical constructions are also different:
Some vocabulary is different between the North and the South:
In the North, guillemets and are the symbols used for quotes; in the South, quotation marks equivalent to the English ones, â and â, are standard, although and are sometimes used in popular novels.
The United States' Defense Language Institute classifies Korean alongside Arabic, Chinese, and Japanese as a Category IV language, meaning that 63 weeks of instruction (as compared to just 25 weeks for French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian) are required to bring an English-speaking student to a limited working level of proficiency in which he or she has "sufficient capability to meet routine social demands and limited job requirements" and "can deal with concrete topics in past, present, and future tense." As a result, the study of the Korean language in the United States is dominated by Korean American heritage language students; they are estimated to form over 80% of all students of the language at non-military universities.
However, Korean is considerably easier for speakers of certain other languages, such as Japanese ; in Japan, it is more widely studied by non-heritage learners. The Korean Language Proficiency Test, an examination aimed at assessing non-native speakers' competence in Korean, was instituted in 1997; 17,000 people applied for the 2005 sitting of the examination.
*Hangul
*Korean romanization
**Revised romanization of Korean
**McCune-Reischauer
**Yale Romanization#Korean
**SKATS
*Korean numerals
*Korean count word
*Korean language and computers
*Hanja
*Sino-Korean vocabulary
*Korean mixed script
*List of English words of Korean origin
*Altaic languages
*List of Korea-related topics
*Vowel harmony
* (Volume 4 of the London Oriental and African Language Library).
*Hulbert, Homer B. (1905): A Comparative Grammar of the Korean Language and the Dravidian Dialects in India. Seoul.
*Martin, Samuel E. (1966): Lexical Evidence Relating Japanese to Korean. Language 42/2: 185â251.
*Martin, Samuel E. (1990): Morphological clues to the relationship of Japanese and Korean. In: Philip Baldi (ed.): Linguistic Change and Reconstruction Methodology. Trends in Linguistics: Studies and Monographs 45: 483-509.
*Miller, Roy Andrew (1971): Japanese and the Other Altaic Languages. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0226527190.
*Miller, Roy Andrew (1996): Languages and History: Japanese, Korean and Altaic. Oslo: Institute for Comparative Research in Human Culture. ISBN 9748299694.
*Ramstedt, G. J. (1928): Remarks on the Korean language. Mémoires de la Société Finno-Oigrienne 58.
*Rybatzki, Volker (2003): Middle Mongol. In: Juha Janhunen (ed.) (2003): The Mongolic languages. London: Routledge. ISBN 0-7007-1133-3: 47â82.
*Starostin, Sergei A.; Anna V. Dybo; Oleg A. Mudrak (2003): Etymological Dictionary of the Altaic Languages, 3 volumes. Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers. ISBN 9004131531.
*Sohn, H.-M. (1999): The Korean Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Song, J.-J. (2005): The Korean Language: Structure, Use and Context. London: Routledge.
*Trask, R. L. (1996): Historical linguistics. Hodder Arnold.
*Vovin, Alexander: Koreo-Japonica. University of Hawai'i Press.
*Whitman, John B. (1985): The Phonological Basis for the Comparison of Japanese and Korean. Unpublished Harvard University Ph.D. dissertation.
* Ethnologue report for Korean
* Linguistic and Philosophical Origins of the Korean Alphabet (Hangul)
* Free Korean language and culture course online, in English
* Linguistic map of Korea
* Korean - a Category III language Languages which are exceptionally difficult for native English speakers
* dongsa.net A Korean verb conjugation tool that explains the conjugations for learners of Korean
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Korean_language | How many parts of speech does the Korean language contain? | The Korean Language contains nine parts of speech. | data/set5/a6 | Korean_language
:This article is mainly about the spoken Korean language. See Hangul for details on the native Korean writing system.
Korean ( , see below) is the official language of Korea, both South and North. It is also one of the two official languages in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in China. There are about 78 million Korean speakers. In the 15th century a national writing system was commissioned by Sejong the Great, currently called Hangul. Prior to the development of Hangul, Koreans used Hanja (Chinese characters) to write for over a millennia.
The genealogical classification of the Korean language is debated by a small number of linguists. Most classify it as a language isolate Song, Jae Jung (2005) "The Korean language: structure, use and context" Routledge, p. 15
Lyle Campbell & Mauricio Mixco. 2007. A Glossary of Historical Linguistics. University of Utah Press. while a few consider it to be in the Altaic language family. Stratification in the peopling of China: how far does the linguistic evidence match genetics and archaeology? In; Sanchez-Mazas, Blench, Ross, Lin & Pejros eds. Human migrations in continental East Asia and Taiwan: genetic, linguistic and archaeological evidence. 2008. Taylor & Francis Some believe it to be distantly related to Japanese. Like Japanese it is agglutinative in its morphology and SOV in its syntax.
The Korean names for the language are based on the names for Korea used in North and South Korea.
In South Korea, the language is most often called Hangungmal
( ; ), or more formally, Hangugeo ( ; ) or Gugeo ( ; ; literally "national language").
In North Korea and Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in China, the language is most often called ChosÅnmal ( ; with hanja: ), or more formally, ChosÅnÅ ( ; ).
On the other hand, Korean people in the former USSR, who refer to themselves as Koryo-saram (ê³ ë ¤ì¬ë; also Goryeoin [ ; ; literally, "Goryeo person(s)"]) call the language Goryeomal ( ; ).
In mainland China, following the establishment of diplomatic relations with South Korea in 1992, the term CháoxiÇnyÇ ( or the short form: CháoyÇ ( )) has normally been used to refer to the language spoken in North Korea and Yanbian, while HánguóyÇ ( or the short form: HányÇ ( )) is used to refer to the language spoken in South Korea.
Some older English sources also used the name "Korean" to refer to the language, country, and people. The word "Korean" is derived from Goryeo, which is thought to be the first dynasty known to western countries.
Most modern linguists consider Korean to be a language isolate Song, Jae Jung (2005) "The Korean language: structure, use and context" Routledge, p. 15
Lyle Campbell & Mauricio J. Mixco. 2007. A Glossary of Historical Linguistics. University of Utah Press.
Since the publication of the article of Ramstedt in 1928, some linguists eg Miller 1971, 1996, Starostin et al. 2003 support the hypothesis that Korean can be classified as an Altaic language or as a relative of proto-Altaic. Korean is similar to the Altaic languages in that they both lack certain grammatical elements, including articles, fusional morphology and relative pronouns. However, linguists agree today on the fact that typological resemblances cannot be used to prove genetic relatedness of languages eg Vovin 2008: 1 as these features are typologically connected and easily borrowed. Trask 1996: 147-151 Such factors of typological divergence as Middle Mongolian's exhibition of gender agreement Rybatzki 2003: 57 can be used to argue that a genetic relationship is unlikely. Vovin 2008: 5
The hypothesis that Korean might be related to Japanese has had some more supporters due to some considerable overlap in vocabulary and similar grammatical features that have been elaborated upon by such researchers as Samuel E. Martin eg Martin 1966, 1990 and Roy Andrew Miller. eg Miller 1971, 1996 Sergei Starostin (1991) found about 25% of potential cognates in the Japanese-Korean 100-word Swadesh list, which - if true - would place these two languages closer together than other possible members of the Altaic family.
Other linguists, most notably Alexander Vovin, argue, however, that the similarities are not due to any genetic relationship, but rather to a sprachbund effect and heavy borrowing especially from Korean into Western Old Japanese. Vovin 2008 A good example might be Middle Korean sà m Whitman 1985: 232, also found in Martin 1966: 233 This word seems to be cognate, but while it is well-attested in Western Old Japanese and Northern RyÅ«kyÅ«, in Eastern Old Japanese it only occurs in compounds, and it is only present in three subdialects of the South-RyÅ«kyÅ«an dialect group. Then, the doublet wo âhempâ is attested in Western Old Japanese and Southern RyÅ«kyÅ«. It is thus plausible to assume a borrowed term. Vovin 2008: 211-212 See East Asian languages for morphological features shared among languages of the East Asian sprachbund, and Classification of Japanese for further details on the discussion of a possible relationship.
Korean is descended from Old Korean, Middle Korean and Modern Korean. Controversy remains over the proposed Altaic language family and its inclusion of Proto-Korean. Since the Korean War, contemporary North-South differences in Korean have developed, including variance in pronunciation, verb inflection, and vocabulary.
Korean is spoken by the Korean people in North Korea and South Korea and by the Korean diaspora in many countries including the People's Republic of China, Japan, and the United States. Korean-speaking minorities exist in these states, but because of cultural assimilation into host countries, not all ethnic Korean immigrants may speak it with native fluency.
Korean is the official language of South Korea and North Korea. It is also one of the two official languages of the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in China.
In South Korea, the regulatory body for Korean is the Seoul-based National Institute of the Korean Language ( ), which was created by presidential decree on January 23, 1991. In North Korea, the regulatory body is the Sahoe Kwahagwon Åhak YÅnguso ( ).
Dialects of Korean
Korean has several dialects (called mal [literally "speech"], saturi, or bang-eon in Korean). The standard language (pyojuneo or pyojunmal) of South Korea is based on the dialect of the area around Seoul, and the standard for North Korea is based on the dialect spoken around P'yÅngyang. All dialects of Korean are similar to each other, and are in fact all mutually intelligible, perhaps with the exception of the dialect of Jeju Island (see Jeju dialect). The dialect spoken in Jeju is in fact classified as a different language by some Korean linguists. One of the most notable differences between dialects is the use of stress: speakers of Seoul dialect use very little stress, and standard South Korean has a very flat intonation; on the other hand, speakers of the Gyeongsang dialect have a very pronounced intonation.
It is also worth noting that there is substantial evidence for a history of extensive dialect levelling, or even convergent evolution or intermixture of two or more originally distinct linguistic stocks, within the Korean language and its dialects. Many Korean dialects have basic vocabulary that is etymologically distinct from vocabulary of identical meaning in Standard Korean or other dialects, such as South Jeolla dialect /kur/ vs. Standard Korean ì
"mouth" or Gyeongsang dialect vs. Standard Korean "garlic chives." This suggests that the Korean Peninsula may have at one time been much more linguistically diverse than it is at present. See also the Buyeo languages hypothesis.
There is a very close connection between the dialects of Korean and the regions of Korea, since the boundaries of both are largely determined by mountains and seas. Here is a list of traditional dialect names and locations:
The Korean consonants
The IPA symbol (a subscript double straight quotation mark, shown here with a placeholder circle) is used to denote the tensed consonants . Its official use in the Extensions to the IPA is for 'strong' articulation, but is used in the literature for faucalized voice. The Korean consonants also have elements of stiff voice, but it is not yet known how typical this is of faucalized consonants. They are produced with a partially constricted glottis and additional subglottal pressure in addition to tense vocal tract walls, laryngeal lowering, or other expansion of the larynx.
becomes an alveolo-palatal before or for most speakers (but see Differences in the language between North Korea and South Korea). This occurs with the tense fricative and all the affricates as well. At the end of a syllable, /s/ changes to /t/ (Example: beoseot (ë²ì¯) 'mushroom').
may become a bilabial before or , a palatal before or , a velar before , a voiced between voiced sounds, and a elsewhere.
become voiced between voiced sounds.
becomes alveolar flap between vowels, and or at the end of a syllable or next to another . Note that a written syllable-final 'ã¹', when followed by a vowel or a glide (i.e., when the next character starts with 'ã
'), migrates to the next syllable and thus becomes .
Traditionally, was disallowed at the beginning of a word. It disappeared before , and otherwise became . However, the inflow of western loanword changed the trend, and now word-initial (mostly from English loanwords) are pronounced as a free variation of either or . The traditional prohibition of word-initial became a morphological rule called "initial law" (ëìë²ì¹) in South Korea, which pertains to Sino-Korean vocabulary. Such words retain their word-initial in North Korea.
All obstruents (plosives, affricates, fricatives) are unreleased at the end of a word.
Plosive stops become nasal stops before nasal stops.
Hangul spelling does not reflect these assimilatory pronunciation rules, but rather maintains the underlying, partly historical morphology. Given this, it is sometimes hard to tell which actual phonemes are present in a certain word.
One difference between the pronunciation standards of North and South Korea is the treatment of initial , and initial . For example,
* "labour" - north: rodong (ë¡ë), south: nodong (ë
¸ë)
* "history" - north: ryÅksa (ë ¥ì¬), south: yeoksa (ìì¬)
* "female" - north: nyÅja (ë
ì), south: yeoja (ì¬ì)
Grammatical morphemes may change shape depending on the preceding sounds. Examples include -eun/-neun (-ì/-ë) and -i/-ga (-ì´/-ê°). Sometimes sounds may be inserted instead. Examples include -eul/-reul (-ì/-를), -euro/-ro (-ì¼ë¡/-ë¡), -eseo/-seo (-ìì/-ì), -ideunji/-deunji (-ì´ë ì§/-ë ì§) and -iya/-ya (-ì´ì¼/-ì¼). However, -euro/-ro is somewhat irregular, since it will behave differently after a rieul consonant.
Some verbs may also change shape morphophonemically.
Korean is an agglutinative language. Modifiers generally precede the modified words, and in the case of verb modifiers, can be serially appended. The basic form of a Korean sentence is Subject Object Verb, but the verb is the only required and immovable element.
:"Did [you] go to the store?" ("you" implied in conversation)
:"Yes."
The Korean Language contains nine parts of speech.
Korean verbs ( , tongsa, ) are also known in English as "action verbs" or "dynamic verbs" to distinguish them from [ , hyeong-yongsa, "adjectives"]), which are also known as "descriptive verbs" or "stative verbs". Examples of action/dynamic verbs include (hada, "to do") and (kada, "to go") which constitute an action or movement as opposed to descriptive verbs such as (yehppeuda, "to be beautiful"). For a larger list of Korean verbs, see .
Unlike most of the European languages, Korean does not conjugate verbs using agreement with the subject, and nouns have no gender. Instead, verb conjugations depend upon the verb tense, aspect, mood, and the social relation between the speaker, the subjects, and the listeners.
The system of speech levels and honorifics loosely resembles the T-V distinction of most Indo-European languages. For example, different endings are used depending on the speaker's relation with their subject or audience. Politeness is a critical part of Korean language and Korean culture, therefore, when talking to someone esteemed, the correct verb ending must be chosen to indicate the proper respect.
Words categorized as Korean adjectives ( , hyeong-yongsa, ) conjugate similarly to verbs, so some English texts call them "descriptive verbs" or "stative verbs", but they are distinctly separate from (tongsa).
English does not have an identical grammatical category, so the English translation of Korean adjectives may misleadingly suggest that they are verbs. For example, (pukda) translates literally as "to be red" and (aswipda) often best translates as "to lack" or "to want for", but both are (hyeong-yongsa, "adjectives"). For a larger list of Korean adjectives, see .
Korean pre-nouns ( , gwanhyeongsa, ) are also known in English as "determinatives", "attributives", and "unconjugated adjectives". Examples include (kak, "each"). For a larger list, see .
Core and basic noun words are native to the Korean language, e.g. (nara, country), (nal, day). A large body of Korean nouns ( , myeongsa, ) stem from Chinese characters, e.g. (å±±, san, mountain), (é©, yeok, station), (æå, munhwa, culture), etc. Many Sino-Korean words have a native Korean equivalent and vice versa, but not always. Nouns do not have grammatical gender and can be made plural by adding ë¤ to the end of the word, however in most instances the singular form is used even when in English it would be translated as plural. For example, while in English the sentence "there are three apples" would use the plural "apples" instead of the singular "apple", the Korean sentence ì¬ê³¼ ì¸ê° ììµëë¤ (sagwa segae isssumnida) maintains the word ì¬ê³¼ (sagwa, "apple") in its singular form, thus rendered in English as "apple three(things) exist." For a list of Korean nouns, see .
Korean pronouns ( , daemyeongsa, ) are highly influenced by the honorifics in the language. Pronouns change forms depending on the social status of the person or persons spoken to, e.g. the pronoun for "I" there is both the informal (na) and the honorific/humble (jeo). In general second person singular pronouns are avoided, especially when using honorific forms. For a larger list or Korean pronouns, see .
Korean adverbs ( , busa, ) include (tto, "also") and (gadeuk, "fully"). For a larger list, see .
Korean particles ( , josa, ) are also known in English as "postpositions". Examples include (neun, topic marker) and (reul, object marker). For a larger list, see .
Korean interjections ( , gamtansa, ) are also known in English as "exclamations". Examples include (ani, "no"). For a larger list, see .
Korean numbers or numerals ( , susa, ) constitute two regularly used sets: a native Korean set and a Sino-Korean set. The Sino-Korean system is nearly entirely based on the Chinese numerals. The distinction between the two numeral systems is very important. Everything that can be counted will use one of the two systems, but seldom both. Sino-Korean words are sometimes used to mark ordinal usage: yeol beon (ì´ ë²) means "ten times" while sip beon (ì(å) ë²(çª)) means "number ten." The grouping of large numbers in Korean follow the Chinese tradition of myriads (10000) rather than thousands (1000) as is common in Europe and North America.
The relationship between a speaker or writer and his or her subject and audience is paramount in Korean, and the grammar reflects this. The relationship between speaker/writer and subject referent is reflected in honorifics, while that between speaker/writer and audience is reflected in speech level.
When talking about someone superior in status, a speaker or writer usually uses special nouns or verb endings to indicate the subject's superiority. Generally, someone is superior in status if he/she is an older relative, a stranger of roughly equal or greater age, or an employer, teacher, customer, or the like. Someone is equal or inferior in status if he/she is a younger stranger, student, employee or the like. Nowadays, there are special endings which can be used on declarative, interrogative, and imperative sentences; and both honorific or normal sentences. They are made for easier and faster use of Korean.
There are seven verb paradigms or speech levels in Korean, and each level has its own unique set of verb endings which are used to indicate the level of formality of a situation. Unlike honorificsâwhich are used to show respect towards the referentâspeech levels are used to show respect towards a speaker's or writer's audience. The names of the seven levels are derived from the non-honorific imperative form of the verb íë¤ (hada, "do") in each level, plus the suffix ì²´ ("che", hanja: é« ), which means "style".
The highest six levels are generally grouped together as jondaenmal (ì¡´ëë§), while the lowest level (haeche, í´ì²´) is called banmal (ë°ë§) in Korean.
The core of the Korean vocabulary is made up of native Korean words. Like Japanese and Vietnamese, a significant proportion of the vocabulary, especially words that denote abstract ideas, are Sino-Korean words, Sohn, Ho-Min. The Korean Language (Section 1.5.3 "Korean vocabulary", p.12â13), Cambridge University Press, 2001. ISBN 0521369436. either
* directly borrowed from Written Chinese, or
* coined in Japan or Korea using Chinese characters,
in a similar way European languages borrow from Latin and Greek.
The exact proportion of Sino-Korean vocabulary is a matter of debate. Sohn (2001) stated 50-60%. However, Jeong Jae-do, one of the compilers of the dictionary Urimal Kun Sajeon, asserts that the proportion is not so high. He points out that Korean dictionaries compiled during the period of Japanese occupation include many unused Sino-Korean words. In his estimation, the proportion of native Korean vocabulary in the Korean language might be as high as 70%. . The dictionary mentioned is
Korean has two number systems: one native, and one borrowed from Chinese.
To a much lesser extent, words have also occasionally been borrowed from Mongolian, Sanskrit, and other languages. Conversely, the Korean language itself has also contributed some loanwords to other languages, most notably the Tsushima dialect of Japanese.
The vast majority of loanwords other than Sino-Korean come from modern times, 90% of which are from English. Many words have also been borrowed from Japanese and Western languages such as German (areubaiteu "part-time job", allereugi "allergy", "gibsu" "plaster cast used for broken bones"). Some Western words were borrowed indirectly via Japanese, taking a Japanese sound pattern, for example "dozen" > dÄsu > daseu. Most indirect Western borrowings are now written according to current Hangulization rules for the respective Western language, as if borrowed directly. There are a few more complicated borrowings such as "German(y)" (see Names for Germany), the first part of whose endonym the Japanese approximated using the kanji doitsu that were then accepted into the Korean language by their Sino-Korean pronunciation: dok + il = Dogil. In South Korean official use, a number of other Sino-Korean country names have been replaced with phonetically oriented Hangulizations of the countries' endonyms or English names.
As in Japanese, Korean adapts words in ways that are uncommon in English. For example, in soccer heading ( ) is used to label a head-strike, rather than direction. This is a corrupted loan word from the English header.
North Korean vocabulary shows a tendency to prefer native Korean over Sino-Korean or foreign borrowings, especially with recent political objectives aimed at eliminating foreign (mostly Chinese) influences on the Korean language in the North. By contrast, South Korean may have several Sino-Korean or foreign borrowings which tend to be absent in North Korean.
Formerly the languages of the Korean peninsula were written using Chinese characters, using hyangchal or idu. Such systems relied on principles of rebus, and were lost, later in history. Writing became confined to the ruling elite, who used hanja to write in Classical Chinese.
Korean is now mainly written in Hangul, the Korean alphabet promulgated in 1446 by Sejong the Great; hanja may be mixed in to write Sino-Korean words. While South Korean schools still teach 1,800 hanja characters, North Korea had abolished the use of hanja decades ago.
Below is a chart of the Korean alphabet's symbols and their canonical IPA values:
Modern Korean is written with spaces between words, a feature not found in Chinese or Japanese. Korean punctuation marks are almost identical to Western ones. Traditionally, Korean was written in columns from top to bottom, right to left, but is now usually written in rows from left to right, top to bottom.
The Korean language used in the North and the South exhibits differences in pronunciation, spelling, grammar and vocabulary. Kanno, Hiroomi (ed.) / Society for Korean Linguistics in Japan (1987). ChÅsengo o manabÅ (ãæé®®èªãå¦ã¼ãã), SanshÅ«sha, Tokyo. ISBN 4-384-01506-2
In North Korea, palatalization of is optional, and can be pronounced between vowels.
Words that are written the same way may be pronounced differently, such as the examples below. The pronunciations below are given in Revised Romanization, McCune-Reischauer and Hangul, the last of which represents what the Hangul would be if one writes the word as pronounced.
* Similar pronunciation is used in the North whenever the hanja "ç" is attached to a Sino-Korean word ending in ã´, ã
or ã
. (In the South, this rule only applies when it is attached to any single-character Sino-Korean word.)
Some words are spelled differently by the North and the South, but the pronunciations are the same.
Some words have different spellings and pronunciations in the North and the South, some of which were given in the "Phonology" section above:
In general, when transcribing place names, North Korea tends to use the pronunciation in the original language more than South Korea, which often uses the pronunciation in English. For example:
Some grammatical constructions are also different:
Some vocabulary is different between the North and the South:
In the North, guillemets and are the symbols used for quotes; in the South, quotation marks equivalent to the English ones, â and â, are standard, although and are sometimes used in popular novels.
The United States' Defense Language Institute classifies Korean alongside Arabic, Chinese, and Japanese as a Category IV language, meaning that 63 weeks of instruction (as compared to just 25 weeks for French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian) are required to bring an English-speaking student to a limited working level of proficiency in which he or she has "sufficient capability to meet routine social demands and limited job requirements" and "can deal with concrete topics in past, present, and future tense." As a result, the study of the Korean language in the United States is dominated by Korean American heritage language students; they are estimated to form over 80% of all students of the language at non-military universities.
However, Korean is considerably easier for speakers of certain other languages, such as Japanese ; in Japan, it is more widely studied by non-heritage learners. The Korean Language Proficiency Test, an examination aimed at assessing non-native speakers' competence in Korean, was instituted in 1997; 17,000 people applied for the 2005 sitting of the examination.
*Hangul
*Korean romanization
**Revised romanization of Korean
**McCune-Reischauer
**Yale Romanization#Korean
**SKATS
*Korean numerals
*Korean count word
*Korean language and computers
*Hanja
*Sino-Korean vocabulary
*Korean mixed script
*List of English words of Korean origin
*Altaic languages
*List of Korea-related topics
*Vowel harmony
* (Volume 4 of the London Oriental and African Language Library).
*Hulbert, Homer B. (1905): A Comparative Grammar of the Korean Language and the Dravidian Dialects in India. Seoul.
*Martin, Samuel E. (1966): Lexical Evidence Relating Japanese to Korean. Language 42/2: 185â251.
*Martin, Samuel E. (1990): Morphological clues to the relationship of Japanese and Korean. In: Philip Baldi (ed.): Linguistic Change and Reconstruction Methodology. Trends in Linguistics: Studies and Monographs 45: 483-509.
*Miller, Roy Andrew (1971): Japanese and the Other Altaic Languages. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0226527190.
*Miller, Roy Andrew (1996): Languages and History: Japanese, Korean and Altaic. Oslo: Institute for Comparative Research in Human Culture. ISBN 9748299694.
*Ramstedt, G. J. (1928): Remarks on the Korean language. Mémoires de la Société Finno-Oigrienne 58.
*Rybatzki, Volker (2003): Middle Mongol. In: Juha Janhunen (ed.) (2003): The Mongolic languages. London: Routledge. ISBN 0-7007-1133-3: 47â82.
*Starostin, Sergei A.; Anna V. Dybo; Oleg A. Mudrak (2003): Etymological Dictionary of the Altaic Languages, 3 volumes. Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers. ISBN 9004131531.
*Sohn, H.-M. (1999): The Korean Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Song, J.-J. (2005): The Korean Language: Structure, Use and Context. London: Routledge.
*Trask, R. L. (1996): Historical linguistics. Hodder Arnold.
*Vovin, Alexander: Koreo-Japonica. University of Hawai'i Press.
*Whitman, John B. (1985): The Phonological Basis for the Comparison of Japanese and Korean. Unpublished Harvard University Ph.D. dissertation.
* Ethnologue report for Korean
* Linguistic and Philosophical Origins of the Korean Alphabet (Hangul)
* Free Korean language and culture course online, in English
* Linguistic map of Korea
* Korean - a Category III language Languages which are exceptionally difficult for native English speakers
* dongsa.net A Korean verb conjugation tool that explains the conjugations for learners of Korean
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Korean_language | How many parts of speech does the Korean language contain? | null | data/set5/a6 | Korean_language
:This article is mainly about the spoken Korean language. See Hangul for details on the native Korean writing system.
Korean ( , see below) is the official language of Korea, both South and North. It is also one of the two official languages in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in China. There are about 78 million Korean speakers. In the 15th century a national writing system was commissioned by Sejong the Great, currently called Hangul. Prior to the development of Hangul, Koreans used Hanja (Chinese characters) to write for over a millennia.
The genealogical classification of the Korean language is debated by a small number of linguists. Most classify it as a language isolate Song, Jae Jung (2005) "The Korean language: structure, use and context" Routledge, p. 15
Lyle Campbell & Mauricio Mixco. 2007. A Glossary of Historical Linguistics. University of Utah Press. while a few consider it to be in the Altaic language family. Stratification in the peopling of China: how far does the linguistic evidence match genetics and archaeology? In; Sanchez-Mazas, Blench, Ross, Lin & Pejros eds. Human migrations in continental East Asia and Taiwan: genetic, linguistic and archaeological evidence. 2008. Taylor & Francis Some believe it to be distantly related to Japanese. Like Japanese it is agglutinative in its morphology and SOV in its syntax.
The Korean names for the language are based on the names for Korea used in North and South Korea.
In South Korea, the language is most often called Hangungmal
( ; ), or more formally, Hangugeo ( ; ) or Gugeo ( ; ; literally "national language").
In North Korea and Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in China, the language is most often called ChosÅnmal ( ; with hanja: ), or more formally, ChosÅnÅ ( ; ).
On the other hand, Korean people in the former USSR, who refer to themselves as Koryo-saram (ê³ ë ¤ì¬ë; also Goryeoin [ ; ; literally, "Goryeo person(s)"]) call the language Goryeomal ( ; ).
In mainland China, following the establishment of diplomatic relations with South Korea in 1992, the term CháoxiÇnyÇ ( or the short form: CháoyÇ ( )) has normally been used to refer to the language spoken in North Korea and Yanbian, while HánguóyÇ ( or the short form: HányÇ ( )) is used to refer to the language spoken in South Korea.
Some older English sources also used the name "Korean" to refer to the language, country, and people. The word "Korean" is derived from Goryeo, which is thought to be the first dynasty known to western countries.
Most modern linguists consider Korean to be a language isolate Song, Jae Jung (2005) "The Korean language: structure, use and context" Routledge, p. 15
Lyle Campbell & Mauricio J. Mixco. 2007. A Glossary of Historical Linguistics. University of Utah Press.
Since the publication of the article of Ramstedt in 1928, some linguists eg Miller 1971, 1996, Starostin et al. 2003 support the hypothesis that Korean can be classified as an Altaic language or as a relative of proto-Altaic. Korean is similar to the Altaic languages in that they both lack certain grammatical elements, including articles, fusional morphology and relative pronouns. However, linguists agree today on the fact that typological resemblances cannot be used to prove genetic relatedness of languages eg Vovin 2008: 1 as these features are typologically connected and easily borrowed. Trask 1996: 147-151 Such factors of typological divergence as Middle Mongolian's exhibition of gender agreement Rybatzki 2003: 57 can be used to argue that a genetic relationship is unlikely. Vovin 2008: 5
The hypothesis that Korean might be related to Japanese has had some more supporters due to some considerable overlap in vocabulary and similar grammatical features that have been elaborated upon by such researchers as Samuel E. Martin eg Martin 1966, 1990 and Roy Andrew Miller. eg Miller 1971, 1996 Sergei Starostin (1991) found about 25% of potential cognates in the Japanese-Korean 100-word Swadesh list, which - if true - would place these two languages closer together than other possible members of the Altaic family.
Other linguists, most notably Alexander Vovin, argue, however, that the similarities are not due to any genetic relationship, but rather to a sprachbund effect and heavy borrowing especially from Korean into Western Old Japanese. Vovin 2008 A good example might be Middle Korean sà m Whitman 1985: 232, also found in Martin 1966: 233 This word seems to be cognate, but while it is well-attested in Western Old Japanese and Northern RyÅ«kyÅ«, in Eastern Old Japanese it only occurs in compounds, and it is only present in three subdialects of the South-RyÅ«kyÅ«an dialect group. Then, the doublet wo âhempâ is attested in Western Old Japanese and Southern RyÅ«kyÅ«. It is thus plausible to assume a borrowed term. Vovin 2008: 211-212 See East Asian languages for morphological features shared among languages of the East Asian sprachbund, and Classification of Japanese for further details on the discussion of a possible relationship.
Korean is descended from Old Korean, Middle Korean and Modern Korean. Controversy remains over the proposed Altaic language family and its inclusion of Proto-Korean. Since the Korean War, contemporary North-South differences in Korean have developed, including variance in pronunciation, verb inflection, and vocabulary.
Korean is spoken by the Korean people in North Korea and South Korea and by the Korean diaspora in many countries including the People's Republic of China, Japan, and the United States. Korean-speaking minorities exist in these states, but because of cultural assimilation into host countries, not all ethnic Korean immigrants may speak it with native fluency.
Korean is the official language of South Korea and North Korea. It is also one of the two official languages of the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in China.
In South Korea, the regulatory body for Korean is the Seoul-based National Institute of the Korean Language ( ), which was created by presidential decree on January 23, 1991. In North Korea, the regulatory body is the Sahoe Kwahagwon Åhak YÅnguso ( ).
Dialects of Korean
Korean has several dialects (called mal [literally "speech"], saturi, or bang-eon in Korean). The standard language (pyojuneo or pyojunmal) of South Korea is based on the dialect of the area around Seoul, and the standard for North Korea is based on the dialect spoken around P'yÅngyang. All dialects of Korean are similar to each other, and are in fact all mutually intelligible, perhaps with the exception of the dialect of Jeju Island (see Jeju dialect). The dialect spoken in Jeju is in fact classified as a different language by some Korean linguists. One of the most notable differences between dialects is the use of stress: speakers of Seoul dialect use very little stress, and standard South Korean has a very flat intonation; on the other hand, speakers of the Gyeongsang dialect have a very pronounced intonation.
It is also worth noting that there is substantial evidence for a history of extensive dialect levelling, or even convergent evolution or intermixture of two or more originally distinct linguistic stocks, within the Korean language and its dialects. Many Korean dialects have basic vocabulary that is etymologically distinct from vocabulary of identical meaning in Standard Korean or other dialects, such as South Jeolla dialect /kur/ vs. Standard Korean ì
"mouth" or Gyeongsang dialect vs. Standard Korean "garlic chives." This suggests that the Korean Peninsula may have at one time been much more linguistically diverse than it is at present. See also the Buyeo languages hypothesis.
There is a very close connection between the dialects of Korean and the regions of Korea, since the boundaries of both are largely determined by mountains and seas. Here is a list of traditional dialect names and locations:
The Korean consonants
The IPA symbol (a subscript double straight quotation mark, shown here with a placeholder circle) is used to denote the tensed consonants . Its official use in the Extensions to the IPA is for 'strong' articulation, but is used in the literature for faucalized voice. The Korean consonants also have elements of stiff voice, but it is not yet known how typical this is of faucalized consonants. They are produced with a partially constricted glottis and additional subglottal pressure in addition to tense vocal tract walls, laryngeal lowering, or other expansion of the larynx.
becomes an alveolo-palatal before or for most speakers (but see Differences in the language between North Korea and South Korea). This occurs with the tense fricative and all the affricates as well. At the end of a syllable, /s/ changes to /t/ (Example: beoseot (ë²ì¯) 'mushroom').
may become a bilabial before or , a palatal before or , a velar before , a voiced between voiced sounds, and a elsewhere.
become voiced between voiced sounds.
becomes alveolar flap between vowels, and or at the end of a syllable or next to another . Note that a written syllable-final 'ã¹', when followed by a vowel or a glide (i.e., when the next character starts with 'ã
'), migrates to the next syllable and thus becomes .
Traditionally, was disallowed at the beginning of a word. It disappeared before , and otherwise became . However, the inflow of western loanword changed the trend, and now word-initial (mostly from English loanwords) are pronounced as a free variation of either or . The traditional prohibition of word-initial became a morphological rule called "initial law" (ëìë²ì¹) in South Korea, which pertains to Sino-Korean vocabulary. Such words retain their word-initial in North Korea.
All obstruents (plosives, affricates, fricatives) are unreleased at the end of a word.
Plosive stops become nasal stops before nasal stops.
Hangul spelling does not reflect these assimilatory pronunciation rules, but rather maintains the underlying, partly historical morphology. Given this, it is sometimes hard to tell which actual phonemes are present in a certain word.
One difference between the pronunciation standards of North and South Korea is the treatment of initial , and initial . For example,
* "labour" - north: rodong (ë¡ë), south: nodong (ë
¸ë)
* "history" - north: ryÅksa (ë ¥ì¬), south: yeoksa (ìì¬)
* "female" - north: nyÅja (ë
ì), south: yeoja (ì¬ì)
Grammatical morphemes may change shape depending on the preceding sounds. Examples include -eun/-neun (-ì/-ë) and -i/-ga (-ì´/-ê°). Sometimes sounds may be inserted instead. Examples include -eul/-reul (-ì/-를), -euro/-ro (-ì¼ë¡/-ë¡), -eseo/-seo (-ìì/-ì), -ideunji/-deunji (-ì´ë ì§/-ë ì§) and -iya/-ya (-ì´ì¼/-ì¼). However, -euro/-ro is somewhat irregular, since it will behave differently after a rieul consonant.
Some verbs may also change shape morphophonemically.
Korean is an agglutinative language. Modifiers generally precede the modified words, and in the case of verb modifiers, can be serially appended. The basic form of a Korean sentence is Subject Object Verb, but the verb is the only required and immovable element.
:"Did [you] go to the store?" ("you" implied in conversation)
:"Yes."
The Korean Language contains nine parts of speech.
Korean verbs ( , tongsa, ) are also known in English as "action verbs" or "dynamic verbs" to distinguish them from [ , hyeong-yongsa, "adjectives"]), which are also known as "descriptive verbs" or "stative verbs". Examples of action/dynamic verbs include (hada, "to do") and (kada, "to go") which constitute an action or movement as opposed to descriptive verbs such as (yehppeuda, "to be beautiful"). For a larger list of Korean verbs, see .
Unlike most of the European languages, Korean does not conjugate verbs using agreement with the subject, and nouns have no gender. Instead, verb conjugations depend upon the verb tense, aspect, mood, and the social relation between the speaker, the subjects, and the listeners.
The system of speech levels and honorifics loosely resembles the T-V distinction of most Indo-European languages. For example, different endings are used depending on the speaker's relation with their subject or audience. Politeness is a critical part of Korean language and Korean culture, therefore, when talking to someone esteemed, the correct verb ending must be chosen to indicate the proper respect.
Words categorized as Korean adjectives ( , hyeong-yongsa, ) conjugate similarly to verbs, so some English texts call them "descriptive verbs" or "stative verbs", but they are distinctly separate from (tongsa).
English does not have an identical grammatical category, so the English translation of Korean adjectives may misleadingly suggest that they are verbs. For example, (pukda) translates literally as "to be red" and (aswipda) often best translates as "to lack" or "to want for", but both are (hyeong-yongsa, "adjectives"). For a larger list of Korean adjectives, see .
Korean pre-nouns ( , gwanhyeongsa, ) are also known in English as "determinatives", "attributives", and "unconjugated adjectives". Examples include (kak, "each"). For a larger list, see .
Core and basic noun words are native to the Korean language, e.g. (nara, country), (nal, day). A large body of Korean nouns ( , myeongsa, ) stem from Chinese characters, e.g. (å±±, san, mountain), (é©, yeok, station), (æå, munhwa, culture), etc. Many Sino-Korean words have a native Korean equivalent and vice versa, but not always. Nouns do not have grammatical gender and can be made plural by adding ë¤ to the end of the word, however in most instances the singular form is used even when in English it would be translated as plural. For example, while in English the sentence "there are three apples" would use the plural "apples" instead of the singular "apple", the Korean sentence ì¬ê³¼ ì¸ê° ììµëë¤ (sagwa segae isssumnida) maintains the word ì¬ê³¼ (sagwa, "apple") in its singular form, thus rendered in English as "apple three(things) exist." For a list of Korean nouns, see .
Korean pronouns ( , daemyeongsa, ) are highly influenced by the honorifics in the language. Pronouns change forms depending on the social status of the person or persons spoken to, e.g. the pronoun for "I" there is both the informal (na) and the honorific/humble (jeo). In general second person singular pronouns are avoided, especially when using honorific forms. For a larger list or Korean pronouns, see .
Korean adverbs ( , busa, ) include (tto, "also") and (gadeuk, "fully"). For a larger list, see .
Korean particles ( , josa, ) are also known in English as "postpositions". Examples include (neun, topic marker) and (reul, object marker). For a larger list, see .
Korean interjections ( , gamtansa, ) are also known in English as "exclamations". Examples include (ani, "no"). For a larger list, see .
Korean numbers or numerals ( , susa, ) constitute two regularly used sets: a native Korean set and a Sino-Korean set. The Sino-Korean system is nearly entirely based on the Chinese numerals. The distinction between the two numeral systems is very important. Everything that can be counted will use one of the two systems, but seldom both. Sino-Korean words are sometimes used to mark ordinal usage: yeol beon (ì´ ë²) means "ten times" while sip beon (ì(å) ë²(çª)) means "number ten." The grouping of large numbers in Korean follow the Chinese tradition of myriads (10000) rather than thousands (1000) as is common in Europe and North America.
The relationship between a speaker or writer and his or her subject and audience is paramount in Korean, and the grammar reflects this. The relationship between speaker/writer and subject referent is reflected in honorifics, while that between speaker/writer and audience is reflected in speech level.
When talking about someone superior in status, a speaker or writer usually uses special nouns or verb endings to indicate the subject's superiority. Generally, someone is superior in status if he/she is an older relative, a stranger of roughly equal or greater age, or an employer, teacher, customer, or the like. Someone is equal or inferior in status if he/she is a younger stranger, student, employee or the like. Nowadays, there are special endings which can be used on declarative, interrogative, and imperative sentences; and both honorific or normal sentences. They are made for easier and faster use of Korean.
There are seven verb paradigms or speech levels in Korean, and each level has its own unique set of verb endings which are used to indicate the level of formality of a situation. Unlike honorificsâwhich are used to show respect towards the referentâspeech levels are used to show respect towards a speaker's or writer's audience. The names of the seven levels are derived from the non-honorific imperative form of the verb íë¤ (hada, "do") in each level, plus the suffix ì²´ ("che", hanja: é« ), which means "style".
The highest six levels are generally grouped together as jondaenmal (ì¡´ëë§), while the lowest level (haeche, í´ì²´) is called banmal (ë°ë§) in Korean.
The core of the Korean vocabulary is made up of native Korean words. Like Japanese and Vietnamese, a significant proportion of the vocabulary, especially words that denote abstract ideas, are Sino-Korean words, Sohn, Ho-Min. The Korean Language (Section 1.5.3 "Korean vocabulary", p.12â13), Cambridge University Press, 2001. ISBN 0521369436. either
* directly borrowed from Written Chinese, or
* coined in Japan or Korea using Chinese characters,
in a similar way European languages borrow from Latin and Greek.
The exact proportion of Sino-Korean vocabulary is a matter of debate. Sohn (2001) stated 50-60%. However, Jeong Jae-do, one of the compilers of the dictionary Urimal Kun Sajeon, asserts that the proportion is not so high. He points out that Korean dictionaries compiled during the period of Japanese occupation include many unused Sino-Korean words. In his estimation, the proportion of native Korean vocabulary in the Korean language might be as high as 70%. . The dictionary mentioned is
Korean has two number systems: one native, and one borrowed from Chinese.
To a much lesser extent, words have also occasionally been borrowed from Mongolian, Sanskrit, and other languages. Conversely, the Korean language itself has also contributed some loanwords to other languages, most notably the Tsushima dialect of Japanese.
The vast majority of loanwords other than Sino-Korean come from modern times, 90% of which are from English. Many words have also been borrowed from Japanese and Western languages such as German (areubaiteu "part-time job", allereugi "allergy", "gibsu" "plaster cast used for broken bones"). Some Western words were borrowed indirectly via Japanese, taking a Japanese sound pattern, for example "dozen" > dÄsu > daseu. Most indirect Western borrowings are now written according to current Hangulization rules for the respective Western language, as if borrowed directly. There are a few more complicated borrowings such as "German(y)" (see Names for Germany), the first part of whose endonym the Japanese approximated using the kanji doitsu that were then accepted into the Korean language by their Sino-Korean pronunciation: dok + il = Dogil. In South Korean official use, a number of other Sino-Korean country names have been replaced with phonetically oriented Hangulizations of the countries' endonyms or English names.
As in Japanese, Korean adapts words in ways that are uncommon in English. For example, in soccer heading ( ) is used to label a head-strike, rather than direction. This is a corrupted loan word from the English header.
North Korean vocabulary shows a tendency to prefer native Korean over Sino-Korean or foreign borrowings, especially with recent political objectives aimed at eliminating foreign (mostly Chinese) influences on the Korean language in the North. By contrast, South Korean may have several Sino-Korean or foreign borrowings which tend to be absent in North Korean.
Formerly the languages of the Korean peninsula were written using Chinese characters, using hyangchal or idu. Such systems relied on principles of rebus, and were lost, later in history. Writing became confined to the ruling elite, who used hanja to write in Classical Chinese.
Korean is now mainly written in Hangul, the Korean alphabet promulgated in 1446 by Sejong the Great; hanja may be mixed in to write Sino-Korean words. While South Korean schools still teach 1,800 hanja characters, North Korea had abolished the use of hanja decades ago.
Below is a chart of the Korean alphabet's symbols and their canonical IPA values:
Modern Korean is written with spaces between words, a feature not found in Chinese or Japanese. Korean punctuation marks are almost identical to Western ones. Traditionally, Korean was written in columns from top to bottom, right to left, but is now usually written in rows from left to right, top to bottom.
The Korean language used in the North and the South exhibits differences in pronunciation, spelling, grammar and vocabulary. Kanno, Hiroomi (ed.) / Society for Korean Linguistics in Japan (1987). ChÅsengo o manabÅ (ãæé®®èªãå¦ã¼ãã), SanshÅ«sha, Tokyo. ISBN 4-384-01506-2
In North Korea, palatalization of is optional, and can be pronounced between vowels.
Words that are written the same way may be pronounced differently, such as the examples below. The pronunciations below are given in Revised Romanization, McCune-Reischauer and Hangul, the last of which represents what the Hangul would be if one writes the word as pronounced.
* Similar pronunciation is used in the North whenever the hanja "ç" is attached to a Sino-Korean word ending in ã´, ã
or ã
. (In the South, this rule only applies when it is attached to any single-character Sino-Korean word.)
Some words are spelled differently by the North and the South, but the pronunciations are the same.
Some words have different spellings and pronunciations in the North and the South, some of which were given in the "Phonology" section above:
In general, when transcribing place names, North Korea tends to use the pronunciation in the original language more than South Korea, which often uses the pronunciation in English. For example:
Some grammatical constructions are also different:
Some vocabulary is different between the North and the South:
In the North, guillemets and are the symbols used for quotes; in the South, quotation marks equivalent to the English ones, â and â, are standard, although and are sometimes used in popular novels.
The United States' Defense Language Institute classifies Korean alongside Arabic, Chinese, and Japanese as a Category IV language, meaning that 63 weeks of instruction (as compared to just 25 weeks for French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian) are required to bring an English-speaking student to a limited working level of proficiency in which he or she has "sufficient capability to meet routine social demands and limited job requirements" and "can deal with concrete topics in past, present, and future tense." As a result, the study of the Korean language in the United States is dominated by Korean American heritage language students; they are estimated to form over 80% of all students of the language at non-military universities.
However, Korean is considerably easier for speakers of certain other languages, such as Japanese ; in Japan, it is more widely studied by non-heritage learners. The Korean Language Proficiency Test, an examination aimed at assessing non-native speakers' competence in Korean, was instituted in 1997; 17,000 people applied for the 2005 sitting of the examination.
*Hangul
*Korean romanization
**Revised romanization of Korean
**McCune-Reischauer
**Yale Romanization#Korean
**SKATS
*Korean numerals
*Korean count word
*Korean language and computers
*Hanja
*Sino-Korean vocabulary
*Korean mixed script
*List of English words of Korean origin
*Altaic languages
*List of Korea-related topics
*Vowel harmony
* (Volume 4 of the London Oriental and African Language Library).
*Hulbert, Homer B. (1905): A Comparative Grammar of the Korean Language and the Dravidian Dialects in India. Seoul.
*Martin, Samuel E. (1966): Lexical Evidence Relating Japanese to Korean. Language 42/2: 185â251.
*Martin, Samuel E. (1990): Morphological clues to the relationship of Japanese and Korean. In: Philip Baldi (ed.): Linguistic Change and Reconstruction Methodology. Trends in Linguistics: Studies and Monographs 45: 483-509.
*Miller, Roy Andrew (1971): Japanese and the Other Altaic Languages. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0226527190.
*Miller, Roy Andrew (1996): Languages and History: Japanese, Korean and Altaic. Oslo: Institute for Comparative Research in Human Culture. ISBN 9748299694.
*Ramstedt, G. J. (1928): Remarks on the Korean language. Mémoires de la Société Finno-Oigrienne 58.
*Rybatzki, Volker (2003): Middle Mongol. In: Juha Janhunen (ed.) (2003): The Mongolic languages. London: Routledge. ISBN 0-7007-1133-3: 47â82.
*Starostin, Sergei A.; Anna V. Dybo; Oleg A. Mudrak (2003): Etymological Dictionary of the Altaic Languages, 3 volumes. Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers. ISBN 9004131531.
*Sohn, H.-M. (1999): The Korean Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Song, J.-J. (2005): The Korean Language: Structure, Use and Context. London: Routledge.
*Trask, R. L. (1996): Historical linguistics. Hodder Arnold.
*Vovin, Alexander: Koreo-Japonica. University of Hawai'i Press.
*Whitman, John B. (1985): The Phonological Basis for the Comparison of Japanese and Korean. Unpublished Harvard University Ph.D. dissertation.
* Ethnologue report for Korean
* Linguistic and Philosophical Origins of the Korean Alphabet (Hangul)
* Free Korean language and culture course online, in English
* Linguistic map of Korea
* Korean - a Category III language Languages which are exceptionally difficult for native English speakers
* dongsa.net A Korean verb conjugation tool that explains the conjugations for learners of Korean
|
Korean_language | How many verb paradigms are there in Korean? | There are seven verb paradigms or speech levels in Korean. | data/set5/a6 | Korean_language
:This article is mainly about the spoken Korean language. See Hangul for details on the native Korean writing system.
Korean ( , see below) is the official language of Korea, both South and North. It is also one of the two official languages in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in China. There are about 78 million Korean speakers. In the 15th century a national writing system was commissioned by Sejong the Great, currently called Hangul. Prior to the development of Hangul, Koreans used Hanja (Chinese characters) to write for over a millennia.
The genealogical classification of the Korean language is debated by a small number of linguists. Most classify it as a language isolate Song, Jae Jung (2005) "The Korean language: structure, use and context" Routledge, p. 15
Lyle Campbell & Mauricio Mixco. 2007. A Glossary of Historical Linguistics. University of Utah Press. while a few consider it to be in the Altaic language family. Stratification in the peopling of China: how far does the linguistic evidence match genetics and archaeology? In; Sanchez-Mazas, Blench, Ross, Lin & Pejros eds. Human migrations in continental East Asia and Taiwan: genetic, linguistic and archaeological evidence. 2008. Taylor & Francis Some believe it to be distantly related to Japanese. Like Japanese it is agglutinative in its morphology and SOV in its syntax.
The Korean names for the language are based on the names for Korea used in North and South Korea.
In South Korea, the language is most often called Hangungmal
( ; ), or more formally, Hangugeo ( ; ) or Gugeo ( ; ; literally "national language").
In North Korea and Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in China, the language is most often called ChosÅnmal ( ; with hanja: ), or more formally, ChosÅnÅ ( ; ).
On the other hand, Korean people in the former USSR, who refer to themselves as Koryo-saram (ê³ ë ¤ì¬ë; also Goryeoin [ ; ; literally, "Goryeo person(s)"]) call the language Goryeomal ( ; ).
In mainland China, following the establishment of diplomatic relations with South Korea in 1992, the term CháoxiÇnyÇ ( or the short form: CháoyÇ ( )) has normally been used to refer to the language spoken in North Korea and Yanbian, while HánguóyÇ ( or the short form: HányÇ ( )) is used to refer to the language spoken in South Korea.
Some older English sources also used the name "Korean" to refer to the language, country, and people. The word "Korean" is derived from Goryeo, which is thought to be the first dynasty known to western countries.
Most modern linguists consider Korean to be a language isolate Song, Jae Jung (2005) "The Korean language: structure, use and context" Routledge, p. 15
Lyle Campbell & Mauricio J. Mixco. 2007. A Glossary of Historical Linguistics. University of Utah Press.
Since the publication of the article of Ramstedt in 1928, some linguists eg Miller 1971, 1996, Starostin et al. 2003 support the hypothesis that Korean can be classified as an Altaic language or as a relative of proto-Altaic. Korean is similar to the Altaic languages in that they both lack certain grammatical elements, including articles, fusional morphology and relative pronouns. However, linguists agree today on the fact that typological resemblances cannot be used to prove genetic relatedness of languages eg Vovin 2008: 1 as these features are typologically connected and easily borrowed. Trask 1996: 147-151 Such factors of typological divergence as Middle Mongolian's exhibition of gender agreement Rybatzki 2003: 57 can be used to argue that a genetic relationship is unlikely. Vovin 2008: 5
The hypothesis that Korean might be related to Japanese has had some more supporters due to some considerable overlap in vocabulary and similar grammatical features that have been elaborated upon by such researchers as Samuel E. Martin eg Martin 1966, 1990 and Roy Andrew Miller. eg Miller 1971, 1996 Sergei Starostin (1991) found about 25% of potential cognates in the Japanese-Korean 100-word Swadesh list, which - if true - would place these two languages closer together than other possible members of the Altaic family.
Other linguists, most notably Alexander Vovin, argue, however, that the similarities are not due to any genetic relationship, but rather to a sprachbund effect and heavy borrowing especially from Korean into Western Old Japanese. Vovin 2008 A good example might be Middle Korean sà m Whitman 1985: 232, also found in Martin 1966: 233 This word seems to be cognate, but while it is well-attested in Western Old Japanese and Northern RyÅ«kyÅ«, in Eastern Old Japanese it only occurs in compounds, and it is only present in three subdialects of the South-RyÅ«kyÅ«an dialect group. Then, the doublet wo âhempâ is attested in Western Old Japanese and Southern RyÅ«kyÅ«. It is thus plausible to assume a borrowed term. Vovin 2008: 211-212 See East Asian languages for morphological features shared among languages of the East Asian sprachbund, and Classification of Japanese for further details on the discussion of a possible relationship.
Korean is descended from Old Korean, Middle Korean and Modern Korean. Controversy remains over the proposed Altaic language family and its inclusion of Proto-Korean. Since the Korean War, contemporary North-South differences in Korean have developed, including variance in pronunciation, verb inflection, and vocabulary.
Korean is spoken by the Korean people in North Korea and South Korea and by the Korean diaspora in many countries including the People's Republic of China, Japan, and the United States. Korean-speaking minorities exist in these states, but because of cultural assimilation into host countries, not all ethnic Korean immigrants may speak it with native fluency.
Korean is the official language of South Korea and North Korea. It is also one of the two official languages of the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in China.
In South Korea, the regulatory body for Korean is the Seoul-based National Institute of the Korean Language ( ), which was created by presidential decree on January 23, 1991. In North Korea, the regulatory body is the Sahoe Kwahagwon Åhak YÅnguso ( ).
Dialects of Korean
Korean has several dialects (called mal [literally "speech"], saturi, or bang-eon in Korean). The standard language (pyojuneo or pyojunmal) of South Korea is based on the dialect of the area around Seoul, and the standard for North Korea is based on the dialect spoken around P'yÅngyang. All dialects of Korean are similar to each other, and are in fact all mutually intelligible, perhaps with the exception of the dialect of Jeju Island (see Jeju dialect). The dialect spoken in Jeju is in fact classified as a different language by some Korean linguists. One of the most notable differences between dialects is the use of stress: speakers of Seoul dialect use very little stress, and standard South Korean has a very flat intonation; on the other hand, speakers of the Gyeongsang dialect have a very pronounced intonation.
It is also worth noting that there is substantial evidence for a history of extensive dialect levelling, or even convergent evolution or intermixture of two or more originally distinct linguistic stocks, within the Korean language and its dialects. Many Korean dialects have basic vocabulary that is etymologically distinct from vocabulary of identical meaning in Standard Korean or other dialects, such as South Jeolla dialect /kur/ vs. Standard Korean ì
"mouth" or Gyeongsang dialect vs. Standard Korean "garlic chives." This suggests that the Korean Peninsula may have at one time been much more linguistically diverse than it is at present. See also the Buyeo languages hypothesis.
There is a very close connection between the dialects of Korean and the regions of Korea, since the boundaries of both are largely determined by mountains and seas. Here is a list of traditional dialect names and locations:
The Korean consonants
The IPA symbol (a subscript double straight quotation mark, shown here with a placeholder circle) is used to denote the tensed consonants . Its official use in the Extensions to the IPA is for 'strong' articulation, but is used in the literature for faucalized voice. The Korean consonants also have elements of stiff voice, but it is not yet known how typical this is of faucalized consonants. They are produced with a partially constricted glottis and additional subglottal pressure in addition to tense vocal tract walls, laryngeal lowering, or other expansion of the larynx.
becomes an alveolo-palatal before or for most speakers (but see Differences in the language between North Korea and South Korea). This occurs with the tense fricative and all the affricates as well. At the end of a syllable, /s/ changes to /t/ (Example: beoseot (ë²ì¯) 'mushroom').
may become a bilabial before or , a palatal before or , a velar before , a voiced between voiced sounds, and a elsewhere.
become voiced between voiced sounds.
becomes alveolar flap between vowels, and or at the end of a syllable or next to another . Note that a written syllable-final 'ã¹', when followed by a vowel or a glide (i.e., when the next character starts with 'ã
'), migrates to the next syllable and thus becomes .
Traditionally, was disallowed at the beginning of a word. It disappeared before , and otherwise became . However, the inflow of western loanword changed the trend, and now word-initial (mostly from English loanwords) are pronounced as a free variation of either or . The traditional prohibition of word-initial became a morphological rule called "initial law" (ëìë²ì¹) in South Korea, which pertains to Sino-Korean vocabulary. Such words retain their word-initial in North Korea.
All obstruents (plosives, affricates, fricatives) are unreleased at the end of a word.
Plosive stops become nasal stops before nasal stops.
Hangul spelling does not reflect these assimilatory pronunciation rules, but rather maintains the underlying, partly historical morphology. Given this, it is sometimes hard to tell which actual phonemes are present in a certain word.
One difference between the pronunciation standards of North and South Korea is the treatment of initial , and initial . For example,
* "labour" - north: rodong (ë¡ë), south: nodong (ë
¸ë)
* "history" - north: ryÅksa (ë ¥ì¬), south: yeoksa (ìì¬)
* "female" - north: nyÅja (ë
ì), south: yeoja (ì¬ì)
Grammatical morphemes may change shape depending on the preceding sounds. Examples include -eun/-neun (-ì/-ë) and -i/-ga (-ì´/-ê°). Sometimes sounds may be inserted instead. Examples include -eul/-reul (-ì/-를), -euro/-ro (-ì¼ë¡/-ë¡), -eseo/-seo (-ìì/-ì), -ideunji/-deunji (-ì´ë ì§/-ë ì§) and -iya/-ya (-ì´ì¼/-ì¼). However, -euro/-ro is somewhat irregular, since it will behave differently after a rieul consonant.
Some verbs may also change shape morphophonemically.
Korean is an agglutinative language. Modifiers generally precede the modified words, and in the case of verb modifiers, can be serially appended. The basic form of a Korean sentence is Subject Object Verb, but the verb is the only required and immovable element.
:"Did [you] go to the store?" ("you" implied in conversation)
:"Yes."
The Korean Language contains nine parts of speech.
Korean verbs ( , tongsa, ) are also known in English as "action verbs" or "dynamic verbs" to distinguish them from [ , hyeong-yongsa, "adjectives"]), which are also known as "descriptive verbs" or "stative verbs". Examples of action/dynamic verbs include (hada, "to do") and (kada, "to go") which constitute an action or movement as opposed to descriptive verbs such as (yehppeuda, "to be beautiful"). For a larger list of Korean verbs, see .
Unlike most of the European languages, Korean does not conjugate verbs using agreement with the subject, and nouns have no gender. Instead, verb conjugations depend upon the verb tense, aspect, mood, and the social relation between the speaker, the subjects, and the listeners.
The system of speech levels and honorifics loosely resembles the T-V distinction of most Indo-European languages. For example, different endings are used depending on the speaker's relation with their subject or audience. Politeness is a critical part of Korean language and Korean culture, therefore, when talking to someone esteemed, the correct verb ending must be chosen to indicate the proper respect.
Words categorized as Korean adjectives ( , hyeong-yongsa, ) conjugate similarly to verbs, so some English texts call them "descriptive verbs" or "stative verbs", but they are distinctly separate from (tongsa).
English does not have an identical grammatical category, so the English translation of Korean adjectives may misleadingly suggest that they are verbs. For example, (pukda) translates literally as "to be red" and (aswipda) often best translates as "to lack" or "to want for", but both are (hyeong-yongsa, "adjectives"). For a larger list of Korean adjectives, see .
Korean pre-nouns ( , gwanhyeongsa, ) are also known in English as "determinatives", "attributives", and "unconjugated adjectives". Examples include (kak, "each"). For a larger list, see .
Core and basic noun words are native to the Korean language, e.g. (nara, country), (nal, day). A large body of Korean nouns ( , myeongsa, ) stem from Chinese characters, e.g. (å±±, san, mountain), (é©, yeok, station), (æå, munhwa, culture), etc. Many Sino-Korean words have a native Korean equivalent and vice versa, but not always. Nouns do not have grammatical gender and can be made plural by adding ë¤ to the end of the word, however in most instances the singular form is used even when in English it would be translated as plural. For example, while in English the sentence "there are three apples" would use the plural "apples" instead of the singular "apple", the Korean sentence ì¬ê³¼ ì¸ê° ììµëë¤ (sagwa segae isssumnida) maintains the word ì¬ê³¼ (sagwa, "apple") in its singular form, thus rendered in English as "apple three(things) exist." For a list of Korean nouns, see .
Korean pronouns ( , daemyeongsa, ) are highly influenced by the honorifics in the language. Pronouns change forms depending on the social status of the person or persons spoken to, e.g. the pronoun for "I" there is both the informal (na) and the honorific/humble (jeo). In general second person singular pronouns are avoided, especially when using honorific forms. For a larger list or Korean pronouns, see .
Korean adverbs ( , busa, ) include (tto, "also") and (gadeuk, "fully"). For a larger list, see .
Korean particles ( , josa, ) are also known in English as "postpositions". Examples include (neun, topic marker) and (reul, object marker). For a larger list, see .
Korean interjections ( , gamtansa, ) are also known in English as "exclamations". Examples include (ani, "no"). For a larger list, see .
Korean numbers or numerals ( , susa, ) constitute two regularly used sets: a native Korean set and a Sino-Korean set. The Sino-Korean system is nearly entirely based on the Chinese numerals. The distinction between the two numeral systems is very important. Everything that can be counted will use one of the two systems, but seldom both. Sino-Korean words are sometimes used to mark ordinal usage: yeol beon (ì´ ë²) means "ten times" while sip beon (ì(å) ë²(çª)) means "number ten." The grouping of large numbers in Korean follow the Chinese tradition of myriads (10000) rather than thousands (1000) as is common in Europe and North America.
The relationship between a speaker or writer and his or her subject and audience is paramount in Korean, and the grammar reflects this. The relationship between speaker/writer and subject referent is reflected in honorifics, while that between speaker/writer and audience is reflected in speech level.
When talking about someone superior in status, a speaker or writer usually uses special nouns or verb endings to indicate the subject's superiority. Generally, someone is superior in status if he/she is an older relative, a stranger of roughly equal or greater age, or an employer, teacher, customer, or the like. Someone is equal or inferior in status if he/she is a younger stranger, student, employee or the like. Nowadays, there are special endings which can be used on declarative, interrogative, and imperative sentences; and both honorific or normal sentences. They are made for easier and faster use of Korean.
There are seven verb paradigms or speech levels in Korean, and each level has its own unique set of verb endings which are used to indicate the level of formality of a situation. Unlike honorificsâwhich are used to show respect towards the referentâspeech levels are used to show respect towards a speaker's or writer's audience. The names of the seven levels are derived from the non-honorific imperative form of the verb íë¤ (hada, "do") in each level, plus the suffix ì²´ ("che", hanja: é« ), which means "style".
The highest six levels are generally grouped together as jondaenmal (ì¡´ëë§), while the lowest level (haeche, í´ì²´) is called banmal (ë°ë§) in Korean.
The core of the Korean vocabulary is made up of native Korean words. Like Japanese and Vietnamese, a significant proportion of the vocabulary, especially words that denote abstract ideas, are Sino-Korean words, Sohn, Ho-Min. The Korean Language (Section 1.5.3 "Korean vocabulary", p.12â13), Cambridge University Press, 2001. ISBN 0521369436. either
* directly borrowed from Written Chinese, or
* coined in Japan or Korea using Chinese characters,
in a similar way European languages borrow from Latin and Greek.
The exact proportion of Sino-Korean vocabulary is a matter of debate. Sohn (2001) stated 50-60%. However, Jeong Jae-do, one of the compilers of the dictionary Urimal Kun Sajeon, asserts that the proportion is not so high. He points out that Korean dictionaries compiled during the period of Japanese occupation include many unused Sino-Korean words. In his estimation, the proportion of native Korean vocabulary in the Korean language might be as high as 70%. . The dictionary mentioned is
Korean has two number systems: one native, and one borrowed from Chinese.
To a much lesser extent, words have also occasionally been borrowed from Mongolian, Sanskrit, and other languages. Conversely, the Korean language itself has also contributed some loanwords to other languages, most notably the Tsushima dialect of Japanese.
The vast majority of loanwords other than Sino-Korean come from modern times, 90% of which are from English. Many words have also been borrowed from Japanese and Western languages such as German (areubaiteu "part-time job", allereugi "allergy", "gibsu" "plaster cast used for broken bones"). Some Western words were borrowed indirectly via Japanese, taking a Japanese sound pattern, for example "dozen" > dÄsu > daseu. Most indirect Western borrowings are now written according to current Hangulization rules for the respective Western language, as if borrowed directly. There are a few more complicated borrowings such as "German(y)" (see Names for Germany), the first part of whose endonym the Japanese approximated using the kanji doitsu that were then accepted into the Korean language by their Sino-Korean pronunciation: dok + il = Dogil. In South Korean official use, a number of other Sino-Korean country names have been replaced with phonetically oriented Hangulizations of the countries' endonyms or English names.
As in Japanese, Korean adapts words in ways that are uncommon in English. For example, in soccer heading ( ) is used to label a head-strike, rather than direction. This is a corrupted loan word from the English header.
North Korean vocabulary shows a tendency to prefer native Korean over Sino-Korean or foreign borrowings, especially with recent political objectives aimed at eliminating foreign (mostly Chinese) influences on the Korean language in the North. By contrast, South Korean may have several Sino-Korean or foreign borrowings which tend to be absent in North Korean.
Formerly the languages of the Korean peninsula were written using Chinese characters, using hyangchal or idu. Such systems relied on principles of rebus, and were lost, later in history. Writing became confined to the ruling elite, who used hanja to write in Classical Chinese.
Korean is now mainly written in Hangul, the Korean alphabet promulgated in 1446 by Sejong the Great; hanja may be mixed in to write Sino-Korean words. While South Korean schools still teach 1,800 hanja characters, North Korea had abolished the use of hanja decades ago.
Below is a chart of the Korean alphabet's symbols and their canonical IPA values:
Modern Korean is written with spaces between words, a feature not found in Chinese or Japanese. Korean punctuation marks are almost identical to Western ones. Traditionally, Korean was written in columns from top to bottom, right to left, but is now usually written in rows from left to right, top to bottom.
The Korean language used in the North and the South exhibits differences in pronunciation, spelling, grammar and vocabulary. Kanno, Hiroomi (ed.) / Society for Korean Linguistics in Japan (1987). ChÅsengo o manabÅ (ãæé®®èªãå¦ã¼ãã), SanshÅ«sha, Tokyo. ISBN 4-384-01506-2
In North Korea, palatalization of is optional, and can be pronounced between vowels.
Words that are written the same way may be pronounced differently, such as the examples below. The pronunciations below are given in Revised Romanization, McCune-Reischauer and Hangul, the last of which represents what the Hangul would be if one writes the word as pronounced.
* Similar pronunciation is used in the North whenever the hanja "ç" is attached to a Sino-Korean word ending in ã´, ã
or ã
. (In the South, this rule only applies when it is attached to any single-character Sino-Korean word.)
Some words are spelled differently by the North and the South, but the pronunciations are the same.
Some words have different spellings and pronunciations in the North and the South, some of which were given in the "Phonology" section above:
In general, when transcribing place names, North Korea tends to use the pronunciation in the original language more than South Korea, which often uses the pronunciation in English. For example:
Some grammatical constructions are also different:
Some vocabulary is different between the North and the South:
In the North, guillemets and are the symbols used for quotes; in the South, quotation marks equivalent to the English ones, â and â, are standard, although and are sometimes used in popular novels.
The United States' Defense Language Institute classifies Korean alongside Arabic, Chinese, and Japanese as a Category IV language, meaning that 63 weeks of instruction (as compared to just 25 weeks for French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian) are required to bring an English-speaking student to a limited working level of proficiency in which he or she has "sufficient capability to meet routine social demands and limited job requirements" and "can deal with concrete topics in past, present, and future tense." As a result, the study of the Korean language in the United States is dominated by Korean American heritage language students; they are estimated to form over 80% of all students of the language at non-military universities.
However, Korean is considerably easier for speakers of certain other languages, such as Japanese ; in Japan, it is more widely studied by non-heritage learners. The Korean Language Proficiency Test, an examination aimed at assessing non-native speakers' competence in Korean, was instituted in 1997; 17,000 people applied for the 2005 sitting of the examination.
*Hangul
*Korean romanization
**Revised romanization of Korean
**McCune-Reischauer
**Yale Romanization#Korean
**SKATS
*Korean numerals
*Korean count word
*Korean language and computers
*Hanja
*Sino-Korean vocabulary
*Korean mixed script
*List of English words of Korean origin
*Altaic languages
*List of Korea-related topics
*Vowel harmony
* (Volume 4 of the London Oriental and African Language Library).
*Hulbert, Homer B. (1905): A Comparative Grammar of the Korean Language and the Dravidian Dialects in India. Seoul.
*Martin, Samuel E. (1966): Lexical Evidence Relating Japanese to Korean. Language 42/2: 185â251.
*Martin, Samuel E. (1990): Morphological clues to the relationship of Japanese and Korean. In: Philip Baldi (ed.): Linguistic Change and Reconstruction Methodology. Trends in Linguistics: Studies and Monographs 45: 483-509.
*Miller, Roy Andrew (1971): Japanese and the Other Altaic Languages. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0226527190.
*Miller, Roy Andrew (1996): Languages and History: Japanese, Korean and Altaic. Oslo: Institute for Comparative Research in Human Culture. ISBN 9748299694.
*Ramstedt, G. J. (1928): Remarks on the Korean language. Mémoires de la Société Finno-Oigrienne 58.
*Rybatzki, Volker (2003): Middle Mongol. In: Juha Janhunen (ed.) (2003): The Mongolic languages. London: Routledge. ISBN 0-7007-1133-3: 47â82.
*Starostin, Sergei A.; Anna V. Dybo; Oleg A. Mudrak (2003): Etymological Dictionary of the Altaic Languages, 3 volumes. Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers. ISBN 9004131531.
*Sohn, H.-M. (1999): The Korean Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Song, J.-J. (2005): The Korean Language: Structure, Use and Context. London: Routledge.
*Trask, R. L. (1996): Historical linguistics. Hodder Arnold.
*Vovin, Alexander: Koreo-Japonica. University of Hawai'i Press.
*Whitman, John B. (1985): The Phonological Basis for the Comparison of Japanese and Korean. Unpublished Harvard University Ph.D. dissertation.
* Ethnologue report for Korean
* Linguistic and Philosophical Origins of the Korean Alphabet (Hangul)
* Free Korean language and culture course online, in English
* Linguistic map of Korea
* Korean - a Category III language Languages which are exceptionally difficult for native English speakers
* dongsa.net A Korean verb conjugation tool that explains the conjugations for learners of Korean
|
Korean_language | How many verb paradigms are there in Korean? | null | data/set5/a6 | Korean_language
:This article is mainly about the spoken Korean language. See Hangul for details on the native Korean writing system.
Korean ( , see below) is the official language of Korea, both South and North. It is also one of the two official languages in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in China. There are about 78 million Korean speakers. In the 15th century a national writing system was commissioned by Sejong the Great, currently called Hangul. Prior to the development of Hangul, Koreans used Hanja (Chinese characters) to write for over a millennia.
The genealogical classification of the Korean language is debated by a small number of linguists. Most classify it as a language isolate Song, Jae Jung (2005) "The Korean language: structure, use and context" Routledge, p. 15
Lyle Campbell & Mauricio Mixco. 2007. A Glossary of Historical Linguistics. University of Utah Press. while a few consider it to be in the Altaic language family. Stratification in the peopling of China: how far does the linguistic evidence match genetics and archaeology? In; Sanchez-Mazas, Blench, Ross, Lin & Pejros eds. Human migrations in continental East Asia and Taiwan: genetic, linguistic and archaeological evidence. 2008. Taylor & Francis Some believe it to be distantly related to Japanese. Like Japanese it is agglutinative in its morphology and SOV in its syntax.
The Korean names for the language are based on the names for Korea used in North and South Korea.
In South Korea, the language is most often called Hangungmal
( ; ), or more formally, Hangugeo ( ; ) or Gugeo ( ; ; literally "national language").
In North Korea and Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in China, the language is most often called ChosÅnmal ( ; with hanja: ), or more formally, ChosÅnÅ ( ; ).
On the other hand, Korean people in the former USSR, who refer to themselves as Koryo-saram (ê³ ë ¤ì¬ë; also Goryeoin [ ; ; literally, "Goryeo person(s)"]) call the language Goryeomal ( ; ).
In mainland China, following the establishment of diplomatic relations with South Korea in 1992, the term CháoxiÇnyÇ ( or the short form: CháoyÇ ( )) has normally been used to refer to the language spoken in North Korea and Yanbian, while HánguóyÇ ( or the short form: HányÇ ( )) is used to refer to the language spoken in South Korea.
Some older English sources also used the name "Korean" to refer to the language, country, and people. The word "Korean" is derived from Goryeo, which is thought to be the first dynasty known to western countries.
Most modern linguists consider Korean to be a language isolate Song, Jae Jung (2005) "The Korean language: structure, use and context" Routledge, p. 15
Lyle Campbell & Mauricio J. Mixco. 2007. A Glossary of Historical Linguistics. University of Utah Press.
Since the publication of the article of Ramstedt in 1928, some linguists eg Miller 1971, 1996, Starostin et al. 2003 support the hypothesis that Korean can be classified as an Altaic language or as a relative of proto-Altaic. Korean is similar to the Altaic languages in that they both lack certain grammatical elements, including articles, fusional morphology and relative pronouns. However, linguists agree today on the fact that typological resemblances cannot be used to prove genetic relatedness of languages eg Vovin 2008: 1 as these features are typologically connected and easily borrowed. Trask 1996: 147-151 Such factors of typological divergence as Middle Mongolian's exhibition of gender agreement Rybatzki 2003: 57 can be used to argue that a genetic relationship is unlikely. Vovin 2008: 5
The hypothesis that Korean might be related to Japanese has had some more supporters due to some considerable overlap in vocabulary and similar grammatical features that have been elaborated upon by such researchers as Samuel E. Martin eg Martin 1966, 1990 and Roy Andrew Miller. eg Miller 1971, 1996 Sergei Starostin (1991) found about 25% of potential cognates in the Japanese-Korean 100-word Swadesh list, which - if true - would place these two languages closer together than other possible members of the Altaic family.
Other linguists, most notably Alexander Vovin, argue, however, that the similarities are not due to any genetic relationship, but rather to a sprachbund effect and heavy borrowing especially from Korean into Western Old Japanese. Vovin 2008 A good example might be Middle Korean sà m Whitman 1985: 232, also found in Martin 1966: 233 This word seems to be cognate, but while it is well-attested in Western Old Japanese and Northern RyÅ«kyÅ«, in Eastern Old Japanese it only occurs in compounds, and it is only present in three subdialects of the South-RyÅ«kyÅ«an dialect group. Then, the doublet wo âhempâ is attested in Western Old Japanese and Southern RyÅ«kyÅ«. It is thus plausible to assume a borrowed term. Vovin 2008: 211-212 See East Asian languages for morphological features shared among languages of the East Asian sprachbund, and Classification of Japanese for further details on the discussion of a possible relationship.
Korean is descended from Old Korean, Middle Korean and Modern Korean. Controversy remains over the proposed Altaic language family and its inclusion of Proto-Korean. Since the Korean War, contemporary North-South differences in Korean have developed, including variance in pronunciation, verb inflection, and vocabulary.
Korean is spoken by the Korean people in North Korea and South Korea and by the Korean diaspora in many countries including the People's Republic of China, Japan, and the United States. Korean-speaking minorities exist in these states, but because of cultural assimilation into host countries, not all ethnic Korean immigrants may speak it with native fluency.
Korean is the official language of South Korea and North Korea. It is also one of the two official languages of the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in China.
In South Korea, the regulatory body for Korean is the Seoul-based National Institute of the Korean Language ( ), which was created by presidential decree on January 23, 1991. In North Korea, the regulatory body is the Sahoe Kwahagwon Åhak YÅnguso ( ).
Dialects of Korean
Korean has several dialects (called mal [literally "speech"], saturi, or bang-eon in Korean). The standard language (pyojuneo or pyojunmal) of South Korea is based on the dialect of the area around Seoul, and the standard for North Korea is based on the dialect spoken around P'yÅngyang. All dialects of Korean are similar to each other, and are in fact all mutually intelligible, perhaps with the exception of the dialect of Jeju Island (see Jeju dialect). The dialect spoken in Jeju is in fact classified as a different language by some Korean linguists. One of the most notable differences between dialects is the use of stress: speakers of Seoul dialect use very little stress, and standard South Korean has a very flat intonation; on the other hand, speakers of the Gyeongsang dialect have a very pronounced intonation.
It is also worth noting that there is substantial evidence for a history of extensive dialect levelling, or even convergent evolution or intermixture of two or more originally distinct linguistic stocks, within the Korean language and its dialects. Many Korean dialects have basic vocabulary that is etymologically distinct from vocabulary of identical meaning in Standard Korean or other dialects, such as South Jeolla dialect /kur/ vs. Standard Korean ì
"mouth" or Gyeongsang dialect vs. Standard Korean "garlic chives." This suggests that the Korean Peninsula may have at one time been much more linguistically diverse than it is at present. See also the Buyeo languages hypothesis.
There is a very close connection between the dialects of Korean and the regions of Korea, since the boundaries of both are largely determined by mountains and seas. Here is a list of traditional dialect names and locations:
The Korean consonants
The IPA symbol (a subscript double straight quotation mark, shown here with a placeholder circle) is used to denote the tensed consonants . Its official use in the Extensions to the IPA is for 'strong' articulation, but is used in the literature for faucalized voice. The Korean consonants also have elements of stiff voice, but it is not yet known how typical this is of faucalized consonants. They are produced with a partially constricted glottis and additional subglottal pressure in addition to tense vocal tract walls, laryngeal lowering, or other expansion of the larynx.
becomes an alveolo-palatal before or for most speakers (but see Differences in the language between North Korea and South Korea). This occurs with the tense fricative and all the affricates as well. At the end of a syllable, /s/ changes to /t/ (Example: beoseot (ë²ì¯) 'mushroom').
may become a bilabial before or , a palatal before or , a velar before , a voiced between voiced sounds, and a elsewhere.
become voiced between voiced sounds.
becomes alveolar flap between vowels, and or at the end of a syllable or next to another . Note that a written syllable-final 'ã¹', when followed by a vowel or a glide (i.e., when the next character starts with 'ã
'), migrates to the next syllable and thus becomes .
Traditionally, was disallowed at the beginning of a word. It disappeared before , and otherwise became . However, the inflow of western loanword changed the trend, and now word-initial (mostly from English loanwords) are pronounced as a free variation of either or . The traditional prohibition of word-initial became a morphological rule called "initial law" (ëìë²ì¹) in South Korea, which pertains to Sino-Korean vocabulary. Such words retain their word-initial in North Korea.
All obstruents (plosives, affricates, fricatives) are unreleased at the end of a word.
Plosive stops become nasal stops before nasal stops.
Hangul spelling does not reflect these assimilatory pronunciation rules, but rather maintains the underlying, partly historical morphology. Given this, it is sometimes hard to tell which actual phonemes are present in a certain word.
One difference between the pronunciation standards of North and South Korea is the treatment of initial , and initial . For example,
* "labour" - north: rodong (ë¡ë), south: nodong (ë
¸ë)
* "history" - north: ryÅksa (ë ¥ì¬), south: yeoksa (ìì¬)
* "female" - north: nyÅja (ë
ì), south: yeoja (ì¬ì)
Grammatical morphemes may change shape depending on the preceding sounds. Examples include -eun/-neun (-ì/-ë) and -i/-ga (-ì´/-ê°). Sometimes sounds may be inserted instead. Examples include -eul/-reul (-ì/-를), -euro/-ro (-ì¼ë¡/-ë¡), -eseo/-seo (-ìì/-ì), -ideunji/-deunji (-ì´ë ì§/-ë ì§) and -iya/-ya (-ì´ì¼/-ì¼). However, -euro/-ro is somewhat irregular, since it will behave differently after a rieul consonant.
Some verbs may also change shape morphophonemically.
Korean is an agglutinative language. Modifiers generally precede the modified words, and in the case of verb modifiers, can be serially appended. The basic form of a Korean sentence is Subject Object Verb, but the verb is the only required and immovable element.
:"Did [you] go to the store?" ("you" implied in conversation)
:"Yes."
The Korean Language contains nine parts of speech.
Korean verbs ( , tongsa, ) are also known in English as "action verbs" or "dynamic verbs" to distinguish them from [ , hyeong-yongsa, "adjectives"]), which are also known as "descriptive verbs" or "stative verbs". Examples of action/dynamic verbs include (hada, "to do") and (kada, "to go") which constitute an action or movement as opposed to descriptive verbs such as (yehppeuda, "to be beautiful"). For a larger list of Korean verbs, see .
Unlike most of the European languages, Korean does not conjugate verbs using agreement with the subject, and nouns have no gender. Instead, verb conjugations depend upon the verb tense, aspect, mood, and the social relation between the speaker, the subjects, and the listeners.
The system of speech levels and honorifics loosely resembles the T-V distinction of most Indo-European languages. For example, different endings are used depending on the speaker's relation with their subject or audience. Politeness is a critical part of Korean language and Korean culture, therefore, when talking to someone esteemed, the correct verb ending must be chosen to indicate the proper respect.
Words categorized as Korean adjectives ( , hyeong-yongsa, ) conjugate similarly to verbs, so some English texts call them "descriptive verbs" or "stative verbs", but they are distinctly separate from (tongsa).
English does not have an identical grammatical category, so the English translation of Korean adjectives may misleadingly suggest that they are verbs. For example, (pukda) translates literally as "to be red" and (aswipda) often best translates as "to lack" or "to want for", but both are (hyeong-yongsa, "adjectives"). For a larger list of Korean adjectives, see .
Korean pre-nouns ( , gwanhyeongsa, ) are also known in English as "determinatives", "attributives", and "unconjugated adjectives". Examples include (kak, "each"). For a larger list, see .
Core and basic noun words are native to the Korean language, e.g. (nara, country), (nal, day). A large body of Korean nouns ( , myeongsa, ) stem from Chinese characters, e.g. (å±±, san, mountain), (é©, yeok, station), (æå, munhwa, culture), etc. Many Sino-Korean words have a native Korean equivalent and vice versa, but not always. Nouns do not have grammatical gender and can be made plural by adding ë¤ to the end of the word, however in most instances the singular form is used even when in English it would be translated as plural. For example, while in English the sentence "there are three apples" would use the plural "apples" instead of the singular "apple", the Korean sentence ì¬ê³¼ ì¸ê° ììµëë¤ (sagwa segae isssumnida) maintains the word ì¬ê³¼ (sagwa, "apple") in its singular form, thus rendered in English as "apple three(things) exist." For a list of Korean nouns, see .
Korean pronouns ( , daemyeongsa, ) are highly influenced by the honorifics in the language. Pronouns change forms depending on the social status of the person or persons spoken to, e.g. the pronoun for "I" there is both the informal (na) and the honorific/humble (jeo). In general second person singular pronouns are avoided, especially when using honorific forms. For a larger list or Korean pronouns, see .
Korean adverbs ( , busa, ) include (tto, "also") and (gadeuk, "fully"). For a larger list, see .
Korean particles ( , josa, ) are also known in English as "postpositions". Examples include (neun, topic marker) and (reul, object marker). For a larger list, see .
Korean interjections ( , gamtansa, ) are also known in English as "exclamations". Examples include (ani, "no"). For a larger list, see .
Korean numbers or numerals ( , susa, ) constitute two regularly used sets: a native Korean set and a Sino-Korean set. The Sino-Korean system is nearly entirely based on the Chinese numerals. The distinction between the two numeral systems is very important. Everything that can be counted will use one of the two systems, but seldom both. Sino-Korean words are sometimes used to mark ordinal usage: yeol beon (ì´ ë²) means "ten times" while sip beon (ì(å) ë²(çª)) means "number ten." The grouping of large numbers in Korean follow the Chinese tradition of myriads (10000) rather than thousands (1000) as is common in Europe and North America.
The relationship between a speaker or writer and his or her subject and audience is paramount in Korean, and the grammar reflects this. The relationship between speaker/writer and subject referent is reflected in honorifics, while that between speaker/writer and audience is reflected in speech level.
When talking about someone superior in status, a speaker or writer usually uses special nouns or verb endings to indicate the subject's superiority. Generally, someone is superior in status if he/she is an older relative, a stranger of roughly equal or greater age, or an employer, teacher, customer, or the like. Someone is equal or inferior in status if he/she is a younger stranger, student, employee or the like. Nowadays, there are special endings which can be used on declarative, interrogative, and imperative sentences; and both honorific or normal sentences. They are made for easier and faster use of Korean.
There are seven verb paradigms or speech levels in Korean, and each level has its own unique set of verb endings which are used to indicate the level of formality of a situation. Unlike honorificsâwhich are used to show respect towards the referentâspeech levels are used to show respect towards a speaker's or writer's audience. The names of the seven levels are derived from the non-honorific imperative form of the verb íë¤ (hada, "do") in each level, plus the suffix ì²´ ("che", hanja: é« ), which means "style".
The highest six levels are generally grouped together as jondaenmal (ì¡´ëë§), while the lowest level (haeche, í´ì²´) is called banmal (ë°ë§) in Korean.
The core of the Korean vocabulary is made up of native Korean words. Like Japanese and Vietnamese, a significant proportion of the vocabulary, especially words that denote abstract ideas, are Sino-Korean words, Sohn, Ho-Min. The Korean Language (Section 1.5.3 "Korean vocabulary", p.12â13), Cambridge University Press, 2001. ISBN 0521369436. either
* directly borrowed from Written Chinese, or
* coined in Japan or Korea using Chinese characters,
in a similar way European languages borrow from Latin and Greek.
The exact proportion of Sino-Korean vocabulary is a matter of debate. Sohn (2001) stated 50-60%. However, Jeong Jae-do, one of the compilers of the dictionary Urimal Kun Sajeon, asserts that the proportion is not so high. He points out that Korean dictionaries compiled during the period of Japanese occupation include many unused Sino-Korean words. In his estimation, the proportion of native Korean vocabulary in the Korean language might be as high as 70%. . The dictionary mentioned is
Korean has two number systems: one native, and one borrowed from Chinese.
To a much lesser extent, words have also occasionally been borrowed from Mongolian, Sanskrit, and other languages. Conversely, the Korean language itself has also contributed some loanwords to other languages, most notably the Tsushima dialect of Japanese.
The vast majority of loanwords other than Sino-Korean come from modern times, 90% of which are from English. Many words have also been borrowed from Japanese and Western languages such as German (areubaiteu "part-time job", allereugi "allergy", "gibsu" "plaster cast used for broken bones"). Some Western words were borrowed indirectly via Japanese, taking a Japanese sound pattern, for example "dozen" > dÄsu > daseu. Most indirect Western borrowings are now written according to current Hangulization rules for the respective Western language, as if borrowed directly. There are a few more complicated borrowings such as "German(y)" (see Names for Germany), the first part of whose endonym the Japanese approximated using the kanji doitsu that were then accepted into the Korean language by their Sino-Korean pronunciation: dok + il = Dogil. In South Korean official use, a number of other Sino-Korean country names have been replaced with phonetically oriented Hangulizations of the countries' endonyms or English names.
As in Japanese, Korean adapts words in ways that are uncommon in English. For example, in soccer heading ( ) is used to label a head-strike, rather than direction. This is a corrupted loan word from the English header.
North Korean vocabulary shows a tendency to prefer native Korean over Sino-Korean or foreign borrowings, especially with recent political objectives aimed at eliminating foreign (mostly Chinese) influences on the Korean language in the North. By contrast, South Korean may have several Sino-Korean or foreign borrowings which tend to be absent in North Korean.
Formerly the languages of the Korean peninsula were written using Chinese characters, using hyangchal or idu. Such systems relied on principles of rebus, and were lost, later in history. Writing became confined to the ruling elite, who used hanja to write in Classical Chinese.
Korean is now mainly written in Hangul, the Korean alphabet promulgated in 1446 by Sejong the Great; hanja may be mixed in to write Sino-Korean words. While South Korean schools still teach 1,800 hanja characters, North Korea had abolished the use of hanja decades ago.
Below is a chart of the Korean alphabet's symbols and their canonical IPA values:
Modern Korean is written with spaces between words, a feature not found in Chinese or Japanese. Korean punctuation marks are almost identical to Western ones. Traditionally, Korean was written in columns from top to bottom, right to left, but is now usually written in rows from left to right, top to bottom.
The Korean language used in the North and the South exhibits differences in pronunciation, spelling, grammar and vocabulary. Kanno, Hiroomi (ed.) / Society for Korean Linguistics in Japan (1987). ChÅsengo o manabÅ (ãæé®®èªãå¦ã¼ãã), SanshÅ«sha, Tokyo. ISBN 4-384-01506-2
In North Korea, palatalization of is optional, and can be pronounced between vowels.
Words that are written the same way may be pronounced differently, such as the examples below. The pronunciations below are given in Revised Romanization, McCune-Reischauer and Hangul, the last of which represents what the Hangul would be if one writes the word as pronounced.
* Similar pronunciation is used in the North whenever the hanja "ç" is attached to a Sino-Korean word ending in ã´, ã
or ã
. (In the South, this rule only applies when it is attached to any single-character Sino-Korean word.)
Some words are spelled differently by the North and the South, but the pronunciations are the same.
Some words have different spellings and pronunciations in the North and the South, some of which were given in the "Phonology" section above:
In general, when transcribing place names, North Korea tends to use the pronunciation in the original language more than South Korea, which often uses the pronunciation in English. For example:
Some grammatical constructions are also different:
Some vocabulary is different between the North and the South:
In the North, guillemets and are the symbols used for quotes; in the South, quotation marks equivalent to the English ones, â and â, are standard, although and are sometimes used in popular novels.
The United States' Defense Language Institute classifies Korean alongside Arabic, Chinese, and Japanese as a Category IV language, meaning that 63 weeks of instruction (as compared to just 25 weeks for French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian) are required to bring an English-speaking student to a limited working level of proficiency in which he or she has "sufficient capability to meet routine social demands and limited job requirements" and "can deal with concrete topics in past, present, and future tense." As a result, the study of the Korean language in the United States is dominated by Korean American heritage language students; they are estimated to form over 80% of all students of the language at non-military universities.
However, Korean is considerably easier for speakers of certain other languages, such as Japanese ; in Japan, it is more widely studied by non-heritage learners. The Korean Language Proficiency Test, an examination aimed at assessing non-native speakers' competence in Korean, was instituted in 1997; 17,000 people applied for the 2005 sitting of the examination.
*Hangul
*Korean romanization
**Revised romanization of Korean
**McCune-Reischauer
**Yale Romanization#Korean
**SKATS
*Korean numerals
*Korean count word
*Korean language and computers
*Hanja
*Sino-Korean vocabulary
*Korean mixed script
*List of English words of Korean origin
*Altaic languages
*List of Korea-related topics
*Vowel harmony
* (Volume 4 of the London Oriental and African Language Library).
*Hulbert, Homer B. (1905): A Comparative Grammar of the Korean Language and the Dravidian Dialects in India. Seoul.
*Martin, Samuel E. (1966): Lexical Evidence Relating Japanese to Korean. Language 42/2: 185â251.
*Martin, Samuel E. (1990): Morphological clues to the relationship of Japanese and Korean. In: Philip Baldi (ed.): Linguistic Change and Reconstruction Methodology. Trends in Linguistics: Studies and Monographs 45: 483-509.
*Miller, Roy Andrew (1971): Japanese and the Other Altaic Languages. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0226527190.
*Miller, Roy Andrew (1996): Languages and History: Japanese, Korean and Altaic. Oslo: Institute for Comparative Research in Human Culture. ISBN 9748299694.
*Ramstedt, G. J. (1928): Remarks on the Korean language. Mémoires de la Société Finno-Oigrienne 58.
*Rybatzki, Volker (2003): Middle Mongol. In: Juha Janhunen (ed.) (2003): The Mongolic languages. London: Routledge. ISBN 0-7007-1133-3: 47â82.
*Starostin, Sergei A.; Anna V. Dybo; Oleg A. Mudrak (2003): Etymological Dictionary of the Altaic Languages, 3 volumes. Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers. ISBN 9004131531.
*Sohn, H.-M. (1999): The Korean Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Song, J.-J. (2005): The Korean Language: Structure, Use and Context. London: Routledge.
*Trask, R. L. (1996): Historical linguistics. Hodder Arnold.
*Vovin, Alexander: Koreo-Japonica. University of Hawai'i Press.
*Whitman, John B. (1985): The Phonological Basis for the Comparison of Japanese and Korean. Unpublished Harvard University Ph.D. dissertation.
* Ethnologue report for Korean
* Linguistic and Philosophical Origins of the Korean Alphabet (Hangul)
* Free Korean language and culture course online, in English
* Linguistic map of Korea
* Korean - a Category III language Languages which are exceptionally difficult for native English speakers
* dongsa.net A Korean verb conjugation tool that explains the conjugations for learners of Korean
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Korean_language | What is the Sino-Korean system of numbers based on? | The Sino-Korean system is nearly entirely based on the Chinese numerals. | data/set5/a6 | Korean_language
:This article is mainly about the spoken Korean language. See Hangul for details on the native Korean writing system.
Korean ( , see below) is the official language of Korea, both South and North. It is also one of the two official languages in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in China. There are about 78 million Korean speakers. In the 15th century a national writing system was commissioned by Sejong the Great, currently called Hangul. Prior to the development of Hangul, Koreans used Hanja (Chinese characters) to write for over a millennia.
The genealogical classification of the Korean language is debated by a small number of linguists. Most classify it as a language isolate Song, Jae Jung (2005) "The Korean language: structure, use and context" Routledge, p. 15
Lyle Campbell & Mauricio Mixco. 2007. A Glossary of Historical Linguistics. University of Utah Press. while a few consider it to be in the Altaic language family. Stratification in the peopling of China: how far does the linguistic evidence match genetics and archaeology? In; Sanchez-Mazas, Blench, Ross, Lin & Pejros eds. Human migrations in continental East Asia and Taiwan: genetic, linguistic and archaeological evidence. 2008. Taylor & Francis Some believe it to be distantly related to Japanese. Like Japanese it is agglutinative in its morphology and SOV in its syntax.
The Korean names for the language are based on the names for Korea used in North and South Korea.
In South Korea, the language is most often called Hangungmal
( ; ), or more formally, Hangugeo ( ; ) or Gugeo ( ; ; literally "national language").
In North Korea and Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in China, the language is most often called ChosÅnmal ( ; with hanja: ), or more formally, ChosÅnÅ ( ; ).
On the other hand, Korean people in the former USSR, who refer to themselves as Koryo-saram (ê³ ë ¤ì¬ë; also Goryeoin [ ; ; literally, "Goryeo person(s)"]) call the language Goryeomal ( ; ).
In mainland China, following the establishment of diplomatic relations with South Korea in 1992, the term CháoxiÇnyÇ ( or the short form: CháoyÇ ( )) has normally been used to refer to the language spoken in North Korea and Yanbian, while HánguóyÇ ( or the short form: HányÇ ( )) is used to refer to the language spoken in South Korea.
Some older English sources also used the name "Korean" to refer to the language, country, and people. The word "Korean" is derived from Goryeo, which is thought to be the first dynasty known to western countries.
Most modern linguists consider Korean to be a language isolate Song, Jae Jung (2005) "The Korean language: structure, use and context" Routledge, p. 15
Lyle Campbell & Mauricio J. Mixco. 2007. A Glossary of Historical Linguistics. University of Utah Press.
Since the publication of the article of Ramstedt in 1928, some linguists eg Miller 1971, 1996, Starostin et al. 2003 support the hypothesis that Korean can be classified as an Altaic language or as a relative of proto-Altaic. Korean is similar to the Altaic languages in that they both lack certain grammatical elements, including articles, fusional morphology and relative pronouns. However, linguists agree today on the fact that typological resemblances cannot be used to prove genetic relatedness of languages eg Vovin 2008: 1 as these features are typologically connected and easily borrowed. Trask 1996: 147-151 Such factors of typological divergence as Middle Mongolian's exhibition of gender agreement Rybatzki 2003: 57 can be used to argue that a genetic relationship is unlikely. Vovin 2008: 5
The hypothesis that Korean might be related to Japanese has had some more supporters due to some considerable overlap in vocabulary and similar grammatical features that have been elaborated upon by such researchers as Samuel E. Martin eg Martin 1966, 1990 and Roy Andrew Miller. eg Miller 1971, 1996 Sergei Starostin (1991) found about 25% of potential cognates in the Japanese-Korean 100-word Swadesh list, which - if true - would place these two languages closer together than other possible members of the Altaic family.
Other linguists, most notably Alexander Vovin, argue, however, that the similarities are not due to any genetic relationship, but rather to a sprachbund effect and heavy borrowing especially from Korean into Western Old Japanese. Vovin 2008 A good example might be Middle Korean sà m Whitman 1985: 232, also found in Martin 1966: 233 This word seems to be cognate, but while it is well-attested in Western Old Japanese and Northern RyÅ«kyÅ«, in Eastern Old Japanese it only occurs in compounds, and it is only present in three subdialects of the South-RyÅ«kyÅ«an dialect group. Then, the doublet wo âhempâ is attested in Western Old Japanese and Southern RyÅ«kyÅ«. It is thus plausible to assume a borrowed term. Vovin 2008: 211-212 See East Asian languages for morphological features shared among languages of the East Asian sprachbund, and Classification of Japanese for further details on the discussion of a possible relationship.
Korean is descended from Old Korean, Middle Korean and Modern Korean. Controversy remains over the proposed Altaic language family and its inclusion of Proto-Korean. Since the Korean War, contemporary North-South differences in Korean have developed, including variance in pronunciation, verb inflection, and vocabulary.
Korean is spoken by the Korean people in North Korea and South Korea and by the Korean diaspora in many countries including the People's Republic of China, Japan, and the United States. Korean-speaking minorities exist in these states, but because of cultural assimilation into host countries, not all ethnic Korean immigrants may speak it with native fluency.
Korean is the official language of South Korea and North Korea. It is also one of the two official languages of the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in China.
In South Korea, the regulatory body for Korean is the Seoul-based National Institute of the Korean Language ( ), which was created by presidential decree on January 23, 1991. In North Korea, the regulatory body is the Sahoe Kwahagwon Åhak YÅnguso ( ).
Dialects of Korean
Korean has several dialects (called mal [literally "speech"], saturi, or bang-eon in Korean). The standard language (pyojuneo or pyojunmal) of South Korea is based on the dialect of the area around Seoul, and the standard for North Korea is based on the dialect spoken around P'yÅngyang. All dialects of Korean are similar to each other, and are in fact all mutually intelligible, perhaps with the exception of the dialect of Jeju Island (see Jeju dialect). The dialect spoken in Jeju is in fact classified as a different language by some Korean linguists. One of the most notable differences between dialects is the use of stress: speakers of Seoul dialect use very little stress, and standard South Korean has a very flat intonation; on the other hand, speakers of the Gyeongsang dialect have a very pronounced intonation.
It is also worth noting that there is substantial evidence for a history of extensive dialect levelling, or even convergent evolution or intermixture of two or more originally distinct linguistic stocks, within the Korean language and its dialects. Many Korean dialects have basic vocabulary that is etymologically distinct from vocabulary of identical meaning in Standard Korean or other dialects, such as South Jeolla dialect /kur/ vs. Standard Korean ì
"mouth" or Gyeongsang dialect vs. Standard Korean "garlic chives." This suggests that the Korean Peninsula may have at one time been much more linguistically diverse than it is at present. See also the Buyeo languages hypothesis.
There is a very close connection between the dialects of Korean and the regions of Korea, since the boundaries of both are largely determined by mountains and seas. Here is a list of traditional dialect names and locations:
The Korean consonants
The IPA symbol (a subscript double straight quotation mark, shown here with a placeholder circle) is used to denote the tensed consonants . Its official use in the Extensions to the IPA is for 'strong' articulation, but is used in the literature for faucalized voice. The Korean consonants also have elements of stiff voice, but it is not yet known how typical this is of faucalized consonants. They are produced with a partially constricted glottis and additional subglottal pressure in addition to tense vocal tract walls, laryngeal lowering, or other expansion of the larynx.
becomes an alveolo-palatal before or for most speakers (but see Differences in the language between North Korea and South Korea). This occurs with the tense fricative and all the affricates as well. At the end of a syllable, /s/ changes to /t/ (Example: beoseot (ë²ì¯) 'mushroom').
may become a bilabial before or , a palatal before or , a velar before , a voiced between voiced sounds, and a elsewhere.
become voiced between voiced sounds.
becomes alveolar flap between vowels, and or at the end of a syllable or next to another . Note that a written syllable-final 'ã¹', when followed by a vowel or a glide (i.e., when the next character starts with 'ã
'), migrates to the next syllable and thus becomes .
Traditionally, was disallowed at the beginning of a word. It disappeared before , and otherwise became . However, the inflow of western loanword changed the trend, and now word-initial (mostly from English loanwords) are pronounced as a free variation of either or . The traditional prohibition of word-initial became a morphological rule called "initial law" (ëìë²ì¹) in South Korea, which pertains to Sino-Korean vocabulary. Such words retain their word-initial in North Korea.
All obstruents (plosives, affricates, fricatives) are unreleased at the end of a word.
Plosive stops become nasal stops before nasal stops.
Hangul spelling does not reflect these assimilatory pronunciation rules, but rather maintains the underlying, partly historical morphology. Given this, it is sometimes hard to tell which actual phonemes are present in a certain word.
One difference between the pronunciation standards of North and South Korea is the treatment of initial , and initial . For example,
* "labour" - north: rodong (ë¡ë), south: nodong (ë
¸ë)
* "history" - north: ryÅksa (ë ¥ì¬), south: yeoksa (ìì¬)
* "female" - north: nyÅja (ë
ì), south: yeoja (ì¬ì)
Grammatical morphemes may change shape depending on the preceding sounds. Examples include -eun/-neun (-ì/-ë) and -i/-ga (-ì´/-ê°). Sometimes sounds may be inserted instead. Examples include -eul/-reul (-ì/-를), -euro/-ro (-ì¼ë¡/-ë¡), -eseo/-seo (-ìì/-ì), -ideunji/-deunji (-ì´ë ì§/-ë ì§) and -iya/-ya (-ì´ì¼/-ì¼). However, -euro/-ro is somewhat irregular, since it will behave differently after a rieul consonant.
Some verbs may also change shape morphophonemically.
Korean is an agglutinative language. Modifiers generally precede the modified words, and in the case of verb modifiers, can be serially appended. The basic form of a Korean sentence is Subject Object Verb, but the verb is the only required and immovable element.
:"Did [you] go to the store?" ("you" implied in conversation)
:"Yes."
The Korean Language contains nine parts of speech.
Korean verbs ( , tongsa, ) are also known in English as "action verbs" or "dynamic verbs" to distinguish them from [ , hyeong-yongsa, "adjectives"]), which are also known as "descriptive verbs" or "stative verbs". Examples of action/dynamic verbs include (hada, "to do") and (kada, "to go") which constitute an action or movement as opposed to descriptive verbs such as (yehppeuda, "to be beautiful"). For a larger list of Korean verbs, see .
Unlike most of the European languages, Korean does not conjugate verbs using agreement with the subject, and nouns have no gender. Instead, verb conjugations depend upon the verb tense, aspect, mood, and the social relation between the speaker, the subjects, and the listeners.
The system of speech levels and honorifics loosely resembles the T-V distinction of most Indo-European languages. For example, different endings are used depending on the speaker's relation with their subject or audience. Politeness is a critical part of Korean language and Korean culture, therefore, when talking to someone esteemed, the correct verb ending must be chosen to indicate the proper respect.
Words categorized as Korean adjectives ( , hyeong-yongsa, ) conjugate similarly to verbs, so some English texts call them "descriptive verbs" or "stative verbs", but they are distinctly separate from (tongsa).
English does not have an identical grammatical category, so the English translation of Korean adjectives may misleadingly suggest that they are verbs. For example, (pukda) translates literally as "to be red" and (aswipda) often best translates as "to lack" or "to want for", but both are (hyeong-yongsa, "adjectives"). For a larger list of Korean adjectives, see .
Korean pre-nouns ( , gwanhyeongsa, ) are also known in English as "determinatives", "attributives", and "unconjugated adjectives". Examples include (kak, "each"). For a larger list, see .
Core and basic noun words are native to the Korean language, e.g. (nara, country), (nal, day). A large body of Korean nouns ( , myeongsa, ) stem from Chinese characters, e.g. (å±±, san, mountain), (é©, yeok, station), (æå, munhwa, culture), etc. Many Sino-Korean words have a native Korean equivalent and vice versa, but not always. Nouns do not have grammatical gender and can be made plural by adding ë¤ to the end of the word, however in most instances the singular form is used even when in English it would be translated as plural. For example, while in English the sentence "there are three apples" would use the plural "apples" instead of the singular "apple", the Korean sentence ì¬ê³¼ ì¸ê° ììµëë¤ (sagwa segae isssumnida) maintains the word ì¬ê³¼ (sagwa, "apple") in its singular form, thus rendered in English as "apple three(things) exist." For a list of Korean nouns, see .
Korean pronouns ( , daemyeongsa, ) are highly influenced by the honorifics in the language. Pronouns change forms depending on the social status of the person or persons spoken to, e.g. the pronoun for "I" there is both the informal (na) and the honorific/humble (jeo). In general second person singular pronouns are avoided, especially when using honorific forms. For a larger list or Korean pronouns, see .
Korean adverbs ( , busa, ) include (tto, "also") and (gadeuk, "fully"). For a larger list, see .
Korean particles ( , josa, ) are also known in English as "postpositions". Examples include (neun, topic marker) and (reul, object marker). For a larger list, see .
Korean interjections ( , gamtansa, ) are also known in English as "exclamations". Examples include (ani, "no"). For a larger list, see .
Korean numbers or numerals ( , susa, ) constitute two regularly used sets: a native Korean set and a Sino-Korean set. The Sino-Korean system is nearly entirely based on the Chinese numerals. The distinction between the two numeral systems is very important. Everything that can be counted will use one of the two systems, but seldom both. Sino-Korean words are sometimes used to mark ordinal usage: yeol beon (ì´ ë²) means "ten times" while sip beon (ì(å) ë²(çª)) means "number ten." The grouping of large numbers in Korean follow the Chinese tradition of myriads (10000) rather than thousands (1000) as is common in Europe and North America.
The relationship between a speaker or writer and his or her subject and audience is paramount in Korean, and the grammar reflects this. The relationship between speaker/writer and subject referent is reflected in honorifics, while that between speaker/writer and audience is reflected in speech level.
When talking about someone superior in status, a speaker or writer usually uses special nouns or verb endings to indicate the subject's superiority. Generally, someone is superior in status if he/she is an older relative, a stranger of roughly equal or greater age, or an employer, teacher, customer, or the like. Someone is equal or inferior in status if he/she is a younger stranger, student, employee or the like. Nowadays, there are special endings which can be used on declarative, interrogative, and imperative sentences; and both honorific or normal sentences. They are made for easier and faster use of Korean.
There are seven verb paradigms or speech levels in Korean, and each level has its own unique set of verb endings which are used to indicate the level of formality of a situation. Unlike honorificsâwhich are used to show respect towards the referentâspeech levels are used to show respect towards a speaker's or writer's audience. The names of the seven levels are derived from the non-honorific imperative form of the verb íë¤ (hada, "do") in each level, plus the suffix ì²´ ("che", hanja: é« ), which means "style".
The highest six levels are generally grouped together as jondaenmal (ì¡´ëë§), while the lowest level (haeche, í´ì²´) is called banmal (ë°ë§) in Korean.
The core of the Korean vocabulary is made up of native Korean words. Like Japanese and Vietnamese, a significant proportion of the vocabulary, especially words that denote abstract ideas, are Sino-Korean words, Sohn, Ho-Min. The Korean Language (Section 1.5.3 "Korean vocabulary", p.12â13), Cambridge University Press, 2001. ISBN 0521369436. either
* directly borrowed from Written Chinese, or
* coined in Japan or Korea using Chinese characters,
in a similar way European languages borrow from Latin and Greek.
The exact proportion of Sino-Korean vocabulary is a matter of debate. Sohn (2001) stated 50-60%. However, Jeong Jae-do, one of the compilers of the dictionary Urimal Kun Sajeon, asserts that the proportion is not so high. He points out that Korean dictionaries compiled during the period of Japanese occupation include many unused Sino-Korean words. In his estimation, the proportion of native Korean vocabulary in the Korean language might be as high as 70%. . The dictionary mentioned is
Korean has two number systems: one native, and one borrowed from Chinese.
To a much lesser extent, words have also occasionally been borrowed from Mongolian, Sanskrit, and other languages. Conversely, the Korean language itself has also contributed some loanwords to other languages, most notably the Tsushima dialect of Japanese.
The vast majority of loanwords other than Sino-Korean come from modern times, 90% of which are from English. Many words have also been borrowed from Japanese and Western languages such as German (areubaiteu "part-time job", allereugi "allergy", "gibsu" "plaster cast used for broken bones"). Some Western words were borrowed indirectly via Japanese, taking a Japanese sound pattern, for example "dozen" > dÄsu > daseu. Most indirect Western borrowings are now written according to current Hangulization rules for the respective Western language, as if borrowed directly. There are a few more complicated borrowings such as "German(y)" (see Names for Germany), the first part of whose endonym the Japanese approximated using the kanji doitsu that were then accepted into the Korean language by their Sino-Korean pronunciation: dok + il = Dogil. In South Korean official use, a number of other Sino-Korean country names have been replaced with phonetically oriented Hangulizations of the countries' endonyms or English names.
As in Japanese, Korean adapts words in ways that are uncommon in English. For example, in soccer heading ( ) is used to label a head-strike, rather than direction. This is a corrupted loan word from the English header.
North Korean vocabulary shows a tendency to prefer native Korean over Sino-Korean or foreign borrowings, especially with recent political objectives aimed at eliminating foreign (mostly Chinese) influences on the Korean language in the North. By contrast, South Korean may have several Sino-Korean or foreign borrowings which tend to be absent in North Korean.
Formerly the languages of the Korean peninsula were written using Chinese characters, using hyangchal or idu. Such systems relied on principles of rebus, and were lost, later in history. Writing became confined to the ruling elite, who used hanja to write in Classical Chinese.
Korean is now mainly written in Hangul, the Korean alphabet promulgated in 1446 by Sejong the Great; hanja may be mixed in to write Sino-Korean words. While South Korean schools still teach 1,800 hanja characters, North Korea had abolished the use of hanja decades ago.
Below is a chart of the Korean alphabet's symbols and their canonical IPA values:
Modern Korean is written with spaces between words, a feature not found in Chinese or Japanese. Korean punctuation marks are almost identical to Western ones. Traditionally, Korean was written in columns from top to bottom, right to left, but is now usually written in rows from left to right, top to bottom.
The Korean language used in the North and the South exhibits differences in pronunciation, spelling, grammar and vocabulary. Kanno, Hiroomi (ed.) / Society for Korean Linguistics in Japan (1987). ChÅsengo o manabÅ (ãæé®®èªãå¦ã¼ãã), SanshÅ«sha, Tokyo. ISBN 4-384-01506-2
In North Korea, palatalization of is optional, and can be pronounced between vowels.
Words that are written the same way may be pronounced differently, such as the examples below. The pronunciations below are given in Revised Romanization, McCune-Reischauer and Hangul, the last of which represents what the Hangul would be if one writes the word as pronounced.
* Similar pronunciation is used in the North whenever the hanja "ç" is attached to a Sino-Korean word ending in ã´, ã
or ã
. (In the South, this rule only applies when it is attached to any single-character Sino-Korean word.)
Some words are spelled differently by the North and the South, but the pronunciations are the same.
Some words have different spellings and pronunciations in the North and the South, some of which were given in the "Phonology" section above:
In general, when transcribing place names, North Korea tends to use the pronunciation in the original language more than South Korea, which often uses the pronunciation in English. For example:
Some grammatical constructions are also different:
Some vocabulary is different between the North and the South:
In the North, guillemets and are the symbols used for quotes; in the South, quotation marks equivalent to the English ones, â and â, are standard, although and are sometimes used in popular novels.
The United States' Defense Language Institute classifies Korean alongside Arabic, Chinese, and Japanese as a Category IV language, meaning that 63 weeks of instruction (as compared to just 25 weeks for French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian) are required to bring an English-speaking student to a limited working level of proficiency in which he or she has "sufficient capability to meet routine social demands and limited job requirements" and "can deal with concrete topics in past, present, and future tense." As a result, the study of the Korean language in the United States is dominated by Korean American heritage language students; they are estimated to form over 80% of all students of the language at non-military universities.
However, Korean is considerably easier for speakers of certain other languages, such as Japanese ; in Japan, it is more widely studied by non-heritage learners. The Korean Language Proficiency Test, an examination aimed at assessing non-native speakers' competence in Korean, was instituted in 1997; 17,000 people applied for the 2005 sitting of the examination.
*Hangul
*Korean romanization
**Revised romanization of Korean
**McCune-Reischauer
**Yale Romanization#Korean
**SKATS
*Korean numerals
*Korean count word
*Korean language and computers
*Hanja
*Sino-Korean vocabulary
*Korean mixed script
*List of English words of Korean origin
*Altaic languages
*List of Korea-related topics
*Vowel harmony
* (Volume 4 of the London Oriental and African Language Library).
*Hulbert, Homer B. (1905): A Comparative Grammar of the Korean Language and the Dravidian Dialects in India. Seoul.
*Martin, Samuel E. (1966): Lexical Evidence Relating Japanese to Korean. Language 42/2: 185â251.
*Martin, Samuel E. (1990): Morphological clues to the relationship of Japanese and Korean. In: Philip Baldi (ed.): Linguistic Change and Reconstruction Methodology. Trends in Linguistics: Studies and Monographs 45: 483-509.
*Miller, Roy Andrew (1971): Japanese and the Other Altaic Languages. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0226527190.
*Miller, Roy Andrew (1996): Languages and History: Japanese, Korean and Altaic. Oslo: Institute for Comparative Research in Human Culture. ISBN 9748299694.
*Ramstedt, G. J. (1928): Remarks on the Korean language. Mémoires de la Société Finno-Oigrienne 58.
*Rybatzki, Volker (2003): Middle Mongol. In: Juha Janhunen (ed.) (2003): The Mongolic languages. London: Routledge. ISBN 0-7007-1133-3: 47â82.
*Starostin, Sergei A.; Anna V. Dybo; Oleg A. Mudrak (2003): Etymological Dictionary of the Altaic Languages, 3 volumes. Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers. ISBN 9004131531.
*Sohn, H.-M. (1999): The Korean Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Song, J.-J. (2005): The Korean Language: Structure, Use and Context. London: Routledge.
*Trask, R. L. (1996): Historical linguistics. Hodder Arnold.
*Vovin, Alexander: Koreo-Japonica. University of Hawai'i Press.
*Whitman, John B. (1985): The Phonological Basis for the Comparison of Japanese and Korean. Unpublished Harvard University Ph.D. dissertation.
* Ethnologue report for Korean
* Linguistic and Philosophical Origins of the Korean Alphabet (Hangul)
* Free Korean language and culture course online, in English
* Linguistic map of Korea
* Korean - a Category III language Languages which are exceptionally difficult for native English speakers
* dongsa.net A Korean verb conjugation tool that explains the conjugations for learners of Korean
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Korean_language | What is the Sino-Korean system of numbers based on? | null | data/set5/a6 | Korean_language
:This article is mainly about the spoken Korean language. See Hangul for details on the native Korean writing system.
Korean ( , see below) is the official language of Korea, both South and North. It is also one of the two official languages in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in China. There are about 78 million Korean speakers. In the 15th century a national writing system was commissioned by Sejong the Great, currently called Hangul. Prior to the development of Hangul, Koreans used Hanja (Chinese characters) to write for over a millennia.
The genealogical classification of the Korean language is debated by a small number of linguists. Most classify it as a language isolate Song, Jae Jung (2005) "The Korean language: structure, use and context" Routledge, p. 15
Lyle Campbell & Mauricio Mixco. 2007. A Glossary of Historical Linguistics. University of Utah Press. while a few consider it to be in the Altaic language family. Stratification in the peopling of China: how far does the linguistic evidence match genetics and archaeology? In; Sanchez-Mazas, Blench, Ross, Lin & Pejros eds. Human migrations in continental East Asia and Taiwan: genetic, linguistic and archaeological evidence. 2008. Taylor & Francis Some believe it to be distantly related to Japanese. Like Japanese it is agglutinative in its morphology and SOV in its syntax.
The Korean names for the language are based on the names for Korea used in North and South Korea.
In South Korea, the language is most often called Hangungmal
( ; ), or more formally, Hangugeo ( ; ) or Gugeo ( ; ; literally "national language").
In North Korea and Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in China, the language is most often called ChosÅnmal ( ; with hanja: ), or more formally, ChosÅnÅ ( ; ).
On the other hand, Korean people in the former USSR, who refer to themselves as Koryo-saram (ê³ ë ¤ì¬ë; also Goryeoin [ ; ; literally, "Goryeo person(s)"]) call the language Goryeomal ( ; ).
In mainland China, following the establishment of diplomatic relations with South Korea in 1992, the term CháoxiÇnyÇ ( or the short form: CháoyÇ ( )) has normally been used to refer to the language spoken in North Korea and Yanbian, while HánguóyÇ ( or the short form: HányÇ ( )) is used to refer to the language spoken in South Korea.
Some older English sources also used the name "Korean" to refer to the language, country, and people. The word "Korean" is derived from Goryeo, which is thought to be the first dynasty known to western countries.
Most modern linguists consider Korean to be a language isolate Song, Jae Jung (2005) "The Korean language: structure, use and context" Routledge, p. 15
Lyle Campbell & Mauricio J. Mixco. 2007. A Glossary of Historical Linguistics. University of Utah Press.
Since the publication of the article of Ramstedt in 1928, some linguists eg Miller 1971, 1996, Starostin et al. 2003 support the hypothesis that Korean can be classified as an Altaic language or as a relative of proto-Altaic. Korean is similar to the Altaic languages in that they both lack certain grammatical elements, including articles, fusional morphology and relative pronouns. However, linguists agree today on the fact that typological resemblances cannot be used to prove genetic relatedness of languages eg Vovin 2008: 1 as these features are typologically connected and easily borrowed. Trask 1996: 147-151 Such factors of typological divergence as Middle Mongolian's exhibition of gender agreement Rybatzki 2003: 57 can be used to argue that a genetic relationship is unlikely. Vovin 2008: 5
The hypothesis that Korean might be related to Japanese has had some more supporters due to some considerable overlap in vocabulary and similar grammatical features that have been elaborated upon by such researchers as Samuel E. Martin eg Martin 1966, 1990 and Roy Andrew Miller. eg Miller 1971, 1996 Sergei Starostin (1991) found about 25% of potential cognates in the Japanese-Korean 100-word Swadesh list, which - if true - would place these two languages closer together than other possible members of the Altaic family.
Other linguists, most notably Alexander Vovin, argue, however, that the similarities are not due to any genetic relationship, but rather to a sprachbund effect and heavy borrowing especially from Korean into Western Old Japanese. Vovin 2008 A good example might be Middle Korean sà m Whitman 1985: 232, also found in Martin 1966: 233 This word seems to be cognate, but while it is well-attested in Western Old Japanese and Northern RyÅ«kyÅ«, in Eastern Old Japanese it only occurs in compounds, and it is only present in three subdialects of the South-RyÅ«kyÅ«an dialect group. Then, the doublet wo âhempâ is attested in Western Old Japanese and Southern RyÅ«kyÅ«. It is thus plausible to assume a borrowed term. Vovin 2008: 211-212 See East Asian languages for morphological features shared among languages of the East Asian sprachbund, and Classification of Japanese for further details on the discussion of a possible relationship.
Korean is descended from Old Korean, Middle Korean and Modern Korean. Controversy remains over the proposed Altaic language family and its inclusion of Proto-Korean. Since the Korean War, contemporary North-South differences in Korean have developed, including variance in pronunciation, verb inflection, and vocabulary.
Korean is spoken by the Korean people in North Korea and South Korea and by the Korean diaspora in many countries including the People's Republic of China, Japan, and the United States. Korean-speaking minorities exist in these states, but because of cultural assimilation into host countries, not all ethnic Korean immigrants may speak it with native fluency.
Korean is the official language of South Korea and North Korea. It is also one of the two official languages of the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in China.
In South Korea, the regulatory body for Korean is the Seoul-based National Institute of the Korean Language ( ), which was created by presidential decree on January 23, 1991. In North Korea, the regulatory body is the Sahoe Kwahagwon Åhak YÅnguso ( ).
Dialects of Korean
Korean has several dialects (called mal [literally "speech"], saturi, or bang-eon in Korean). The standard language (pyojuneo or pyojunmal) of South Korea is based on the dialect of the area around Seoul, and the standard for North Korea is based on the dialect spoken around P'yÅngyang. All dialects of Korean are similar to each other, and are in fact all mutually intelligible, perhaps with the exception of the dialect of Jeju Island (see Jeju dialect). The dialect spoken in Jeju is in fact classified as a different language by some Korean linguists. One of the most notable differences between dialects is the use of stress: speakers of Seoul dialect use very little stress, and standard South Korean has a very flat intonation; on the other hand, speakers of the Gyeongsang dialect have a very pronounced intonation.
It is also worth noting that there is substantial evidence for a history of extensive dialect levelling, or even convergent evolution or intermixture of two or more originally distinct linguistic stocks, within the Korean language and its dialects. Many Korean dialects have basic vocabulary that is etymologically distinct from vocabulary of identical meaning in Standard Korean or other dialects, such as South Jeolla dialect /kur/ vs. Standard Korean ì
"mouth" or Gyeongsang dialect vs. Standard Korean "garlic chives." This suggests that the Korean Peninsula may have at one time been much more linguistically diverse than it is at present. See also the Buyeo languages hypothesis.
There is a very close connection between the dialects of Korean and the regions of Korea, since the boundaries of both are largely determined by mountains and seas. Here is a list of traditional dialect names and locations:
The Korean consonants
The IPA symbol (a subscript double straight quotation mark, shown here with a placeholder circle) is used to denote the tensed consonants . Its official use in the Extensions to the IPA is for 'strong' articulation, but is used in the literature for faucalized voice. The Korean consonants also have elements of stiff voice, but it is not yet known how typical this is of faucalized consonants. They are produced with a partially constricted glottis and additional subglottal pressure in addition to tense vocal tract walls, laryngeal lowering, or other expansion of the larynx.
becomes an alveolo-palatal before or for most speakers (but see Differences in the language between North Korea and South Korea). This occurs with the tense fricative and all the affricates as well. At the end of a syllable, /s/ changes to /t/ (Example: beoseot (ë²ì¯) 'mushroom').
may become a bilabial before or , a palatal before or , a velar before , a voiced between voiced sounds, and a elsewhere.
become voiced between voiced sounds.
becomes alveolar flap between vowels, and or at the end of a syllable or next to another . Note that a written syllable-final 'ã¹', when followed by a vowel or a glide (i.e., when the next character starts with 'ã
'), migrates to the next syllable and thus becomes .
Traditionally, was disallowed at the beginning of a word. It disappeared before , and otherwise became . However, the inflow of western loanword changed the trend, and now word-initial (mostly from English loanwords) are pronounced as a free variation of either or . The traditional prohibition of word-initial became a morphological rule called "initial law" (ëìë²ì¹) in South Korea, which pertains to Sino-Korean vocabulary. Such words retain their word-initial in North Korea.
All obstruents (plosives, affricates, fricatives) are unreleased at the end of a word.
Plosive stops become nasal stops before nasal stops.
Hangul spelling does not reflect these assimilatory pronunciation rules, but rather maintains the underlying, partly historical morphology. Given this, it is sometimes hard to tell which actual phonemes are present in a certain word.
One difference between the pronunciation standards of North and South Korea is the treatment of initial , and initial . For example,
* "labour" - north: rodong (ë¡ë), south: nodong (ë
¸ë)
* "history" - north: ryÅksa (ë ¥ì¬), south: yeoksa (ìì¬)
* "female" - north: nyÅja (ë
ì), south: yeoja (ì¬ì)
Grammatical morphemes may change shape depending on the preceding sounds. Examples include -eun/-neun (-ì/-ë) and -i/-ga (-ì´/-ê°). Sometimes sounds may be inserted instead. Examples include -eul/-reul (-ì/-를), -euro/-ro (-ì¼ë¡/-ë¡), -eseo/-seo (-ìì/-ì), -ideunji/-deunji (-ì´ë ì§/-ë ì§) and -iya/-ya (-ì´ì¼/-ì¼). However, -euro/-ro is somewhat irregular, since it will behave differently after a rieul consonant.
Some verbs may also change shape morphophonemically.
Korean is an agglutinative language. Modifiers generally precede the modified words, and in the case of verb modifiers, can be serially appended. The basic form of a Korean sentence is Subject Object Verb, but the verb is the only required and immovable element.
:"Did [you] go to the store?" ("you" implied in conversation)
:"Yes."
The Korean Language contains nine parts of speech.
Korean verbs ( , tongsa, ) are also known in English as "action verbs" or "dynamic verbs" to distinguish them from [ , hyeong-yongsa, "adjectives"]), which are also known as "descriptive verbs" or "stative verbs". Examples of action/dynamic verbs include (hada, "to do") and (kada, "to go") which constitute an action or movement as opposed to descriptive verbs such as (yehppeuda, "to be beautiful"). For a larger list of Korean verbs, see .
Unlike most of the European languages, Korean does not conjugate verbs using agreement with the subject, and nouns have no gender. Instead, verb conjugations depend upon the verb tense, aspect, mood, and the social relation between the speaker, the subjects, and the listeners.
The system of speech levels and honorifics loosely resembles the T-V distinction of most Indo-European languages. For example, different endings are used depending on the speaker's relation with their subject or audience. Politeness is a critical part of Korean language and Korean culture, therefore, when talking to someone esteemed, the correct verb ending must be chosen to indicate the proper respect.
Words categorized as Korean adjectives ( , hyeong-yongsa, ) conjugate similarly to verbs, so some English texts call them "descriptive verbs" or "stative verbs", but they are distinctly separate from (tongsa).
English does not have an identical grammatical category, so the English translation of Korean adjectives may misleadingly suggest that they are verbs. For example, (pukda) translates literally as "to be red" and (aswipda) often best translates as "to lack" or "to want for", but both are (hyeong-yongsa, "adjectives"). For a larger list of Korean adjectives, see .
Korean pre-nouns ( , gwanhyeongsa, ) are also known in English as "determinatives", "attributives", and "unconjugated adjectives". Examples include (kak, "each"). For a larger list, see .
Core and basic noun words are native to the Korean language, e.g. (nara, country), (nal, day). A large body of Korean nouns ( , myeongsa, ) stem from Chinese characters, e.g. (å±±, san, mountain), (é©, yeok, station), (æå, munhwa, culture), etc. Many Sino-Korean words have a native Korean equivalent and vice versa, but not always. Nouns do not have grammatical gender and can be made plural by adding ë¤ to the end of the word, however in most instances the singular form is used even when in English it would be translated as plural. For example, while in English the sentence "there are three apples" would use the plural "apples" instead of the singular "apple", the Korean sentence ì¬ê³¼ ì¸ê° ììµëë¤ (sagwa segae isssumnida) maintains the word ì¬ê³¼ (sagwa, "apple") in its singular form, thus rendered in English as "apple three(things) exist." For a list of Korean nouns, see .
Korean pronouns ( , daemyeongsa, ) are highly influenced by the honorifics in the language. Pronouns change forms depending on the social status of the person or persons spoken to, e.g. the pronoun for "I" there is both the informal (na) and the honorific/humble (jeo). In general second person singular pronouns are avoided, especially when using honorific forms. For a larger list or Korean pronouns, see .
Korean adverbs ( , busa, ) include (tto, "also") and (gadeuk, "fully"). For a larger list, see .
Korean particles ( , josa, ) are also known in English as "postpositions". Examples include (neun, topic marker) and (reul, object marker). For a larger list, see .
Korean interjections ( , gamtansa, ) are also known in English as "exclamations". Examples include (ani, "no"). For a larger list, see .
Korean numbers or numerals ( , susa, ) constitute two regularly used sets: a native Korean set and a Sino-Korean set. The Sino-Korean system is nearly entirely based on the Chinese numerals. The distinction between the two numeral systems is very important. Everything that can be counted will use one of the two systems, but seldom both. Sino-Korean words are sometimes used to mark ordinal usage: yeol beon (ì´ ë²) means "ten times" while sip beon (ì(å) ë²(çª)) means "number ten." The grouping of large numbers in Korean follow the Chinese tradition of myriads (10000) rather than thousands (1000) as is common in Europe and North America.
The relationship between a speaker or writer and his or her subject and audience is paramount in Korean, and the grammar reflects this. The relationship between speaker/writer and subject referent is reflected in honorifics, while that between speaker/writer and audience is reflected in speech level.
When talking about someone superior in status, a speaker or writer usually uses special nouns or verb endings to indicate the subject's superiority. Generally, someone is superior in status if he/she is an older relative, a stranger of roughly equal or greater age, or an employer, teacher, customer, or the like. Someone is equal or inferior in status if he/she is a younger stranger, student, employee or the like. Nowadays, there are special endings which can be used on declarative, interrogative, and imperative sentences; and both honorific or normal sentences. They are made for easier and faster use of Korean.
There are seven verb paradigms or speech levels in Korean, and each level has its own unique set of verb endings which are used to indicate the level of formality of a situation. Unlike honorificsâwhich are used to show respect towards the referentâspeech levels are used to show respect towards a speaker's or writer's audience. The names of the seven levels are derived from the non-honorific imperative form of the verb íë¤ (hada, "do") in each level, plus the suffix ì²´ ("che", hanja: é« ), which means "style".
The highest six levels are generally grouped together as jondaenmal (ì¡´ëë§), while the lowest level (haeche, í´ì²´) is called banmal (ë°ë§) in Korean.
The core of the Korean vocabulary is made up of native Korean words. Like Japanese and Vietnamese, a significant proportion of the vocabulary, especially words that denote abstract ideas, are Sino-Korean words, Sohn, Ho-Min. The Korean Language (Section 1.5.3 "Korean vocabulary", p.12â13), Cambridge University Press, 2001. ISBN 0521369436. either
* directly borrowed from Written Chinese, or
* coined in Japan or Korea using Chinese characters,
in a similar way European languages borrow from Latin and Greek.
The exact proportion of Sino-Korean vocabulary is a matter of debate. Sohn (2001) stated 50-60%. However, Jeong Jae-do, one of the compilers of the dictionary Urimal Kun Sajeon, asserts that the proportion is not so high. He points out that Korean dictionaries compiled during the period of Japanese occupation include many unused Sino-Korean words. In his estimation, the proportion of native Korean vocabulary in the Korean language might be as high as 70%. . The dictionary mentioned is
Korean has two number systems: one native, and one borrowed from Chinese.
To a much lesser extent, words have also occasionally been borrowed from Mongolian, Sanskrit, and other languages. Conversely, the Korean language itself has also contributed some loanwords to other languages, most notably the Tsushima dialect of Japanese.
The vast majority of loanwords other than Sino-Korean come from modern times, 90% of which are from English. Many words have also been borrowed from Japanese and Western languages such as German (areubaiteu "part-time job", allereugi "allergy", "gibsu" "plaster cast used for broken bones"). Some Western words were borrowed indirectly via Japanese, taking a Japanese sound pattern, for example "dozen" > dÄsu > daseu. Most indirect Western borrowings are now written according to current Hangulization rules for the respective Western language, as if borrowed directly. There are a few more complicated borrowings such as "German(y)" (see Names for Germany), the first part of whose endonym the Japanese approximated using the kanji doitsu that were then accepted into the Korean language by their Sino-Korean pronunciation: dok + il = Dogil. In South Korean official use, a number of other Sino-Korean country names have been replaced with phonetically oriented Hangulizations of the countries' endonyms or English names.
As in Japanese, Korean adapts words in ways that are uncommon in English. For example, in soccer heading ( ) is used to label a head-strike, rather than direction. This is a corrupted loan word from the English header.
North Korean vocabulary shows a tendency to prefer native Korean over Sino-Korean or foreign borrowings, especially with recent political objectives aimed at eliminating foreign (mostly Chinese) influences on the Korean language in the North. By contrast, South Korean may have several Sino-Korean or foreign borrowings which tend to be absent in North Korean.
Formerly the languages of the Korean peninsula were written using Chinese characters, using hyangchal or idu. Such systems relied on principles of rebus, and were lost, later in history. Writing became confined to the ruling elite, who used hanja to write in Classical Chinese.
Korean is now mainly written in Hangul, the Korean alphabet promulgated in 1446 by Sejong the Great; hanja may be mixed in to write Sino-Korean words. While South Korean schools still teach 1,800 hanja characters, North Korea had abolished the use of hanja decades ago.
Below is a chart of the Korean alphabet's symbols and their canonical IPA values:
Modern Korean is written with spaces between words, a feature not found in Chinese or Japanese. Korean punctuation marks are almost identical to Western ones. Traditionally, Korean was written in columns from top to bottom, right to left, but is now usually written in rows from left to right, top to bottom.
The Korean language used in the North and the South exhibits differences in pronunciation, spelling, grammar and vocabulary. Kanno, Hiroomi (ed.) / Society for Korean Linguistics in Japan (1987). ChÅsengo o manabÅ (ãæé®®èªãå¦ã¼ãã), SanshÅ«sha, Tokyo. ISBN 4-384-01506-2
In North Korea, palatalization of is optional, and can be pronounced between vowels.
Words that are written the same way may be pronounced differently, such as the examples below. The pronunciations below are given in Revised Romanization, McCune-Reischauer and Hangul, the last of which represents what the Hangul would be if one writes the word as pronounced.
* Similar pronunciation is used in the North whenever the hanja "ç" is attached to a Sino-Korean word ending in ã´, ã
or ã
. (In the South, this rule only applies when it is attached to any single-character Sino-Korean word.)
Some words are spelled differently by the North and the South, but the pronunciations are the same.
Some words have different spellings and pronunciations in the North and the South, some of which were given in the "Phonology" section above:
In general, when transcribing place names, North Korea tends to use the pronunciation in the original language more than South Korea, which often uses the pronunciation in English. For example:
Some grammatical constructions are also different:
Some vocabulary is different between the North and the South:
In the North, guillemets and are the symbols used for quotes; in the South, quotation marks equivalent to the English ones, â and â, are standard, although and are sometimes used in popular novels.
The United States' Defense Language Institute classifies Korean alongside Arabic, Chinese, and Japanese as a Category IV language, meaning that 63 weeks of instruction (as compared to just 25 weeks for French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian) are required to bring an English-speaking student to a limited working level of proficiency in which he or she has "sufficient capability to meet routine social demands and limited job requirements" and "can deal with concrete topics in past, present, and future tense." As a result, the study of the Korean language in the United States is dominated by Korean American heritage language students; they are estimated to form over 80% of all students of the language at non-military universities.
However, Korean is considerably easier for speakers of certain other languages, such as Japanese ; in Japan, it is more widely studied by non-heritage learners. The Korean Language Proficiency Test, an examination aimed at assessing non-native speakers' competence in Korean, was instituted in 1997; 17,000 people applied for the 2005 sitting of the examination.
*Hangul
*Korean romanization
**Revised romanization of Korean
**McCune-Reischauer
**Yale Romanization#Korean
**SKATS
*Korean numerals
*Korean count word
*Korean language and computers
*Hanja
*Sino-Korean vocabulary
*Korean mixed script
*List of English words of Korean origin
*Altaic languages
*List of Korea-related topics
*Vowel harmony
* (Volume 4 of the London Oriental and African Language Library).
*Hulbert, Homer B. (1905): A Comparative Grammar of the Korean Language and the Dravidian Dialects in India. Seoul.
*Martin, Samuel E. (1966): Lexical Evidence Relating Japanese to Korean. Language 42/2: 185â251.
*Martin, Samuel E. (1990): Morphological clues to the relationship of Japanese and Korean. In: Philip Baldi (ed.): Linguistic Change and Reconstruction Methodology. Trends in Linguistics: Studies and Monographs 45: 483-509.
*Miller, Roy Andrew (1971): Japanese and the Other Altaic Languages. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0226527190.
*Miller, Roy Andrew (1996): Languages and History: Japanese, Korean and Altaic. Oslo: Institute for Comparative Research in Human Culture. ISBN 9748299694.
*Ramstedt, G. J. (1928): Remarks on the Korean language. Mémoires de la Société Finno-Oigrienne 58.
*Rybatzki, Volker (2003): Middle Mongol. In: Juha Janhunen (ed.) (2003): The Mongolic languages. London: Routledge. ISBN 0-7007-1133-3: 47â82.
*Starostin, Sergei A.; Anna V. Dybo; Oleg A. Mudrak (2003): Etymological Dictionary of the Altaic Languages, 3 volumes. Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers. ISBN 9004131531.
*Sohn, H.-M. (1999): The Korean Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Song, J.-J. (2005): The Korean Language: Structure, Use and Context. London: Routledge.
*Trask, R. L. (1996): Historical linguistics. Hodder Arnold.
*Vovin, Alexander: Koreo-Japonica. University of Hawai'i Press.
*Whitman, John B. (1985): The Phonological Basis for the Comparison of Japanese and Korean. Unpublished Harvard University Ph.D. dissertation.
* Ethnologue report for Korean
* Linguistic and Philosophical Origins of the Korean Alphabet (Hangul)
* Free Korean language and culture course online, in English
* Linguistic map of Korea
* Korean - a Category III language Languages which are exceptionally difficult for native English speakers
* dongsa.net A Korean verb conjugation tool that explains the conjugations for learners of Korean
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Korean_language | What is another term for Korean adjectives? | Adjectives are also known as "descriptive verbs" or "stative verbs". | data/set5/a6 | Korean_language
:This article is mainly about the spoken Korean language. See Hangul for details on the native Korean writing system.
Korean ( , see below) is the official language of Korea, both South and North. It is also one of the two official languages in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in China. There are about 78 million Korean speakers. In the 15th century a national writing system was commissioned by Sejong the Great, currently called Hangul. Prior to the development of Hangul, Koreans used Hanja (Chinese characters) to write for over a millennia.
The genealogical classification of the Korean language is debated by a small number of linguists. Most classify it as a language isolate Song, Jae Jung (2005) "The Korean language: structure, use and context" Routledge, p. 15
Lyle Campbell & Mauricio Mixco. 2007. A Glossary of Historical Linguistics. University of Utah Press. while a few consider it to be in the Altaic language family. Stratification in the peopling of China: how far does the linguistic evidence match genetics and archaeology? In; Sanchez-Mazas, Blench, Ross, Lin & Pejros eds. Human migrations in continental East Asia and Taiwan: genetic, linguistic and archaeological evidence. 2008. Taylor & Francis Some believe it to be distantly related to Japanese. Like Japanese it is agglutinative in its morphology and SOV in its syntax.
The Korean names for the language are based on the names for Korea used in North and South Korea.
In South Korea, the language is most often called Hangungmal
( ; ), or more formally, Hangugeo ( ; ) or Gugeo ( ; ; literally "national language").
In North Korea and Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in China, the language is most often called ChosÅnmal ( ; with hanja: ), or more formally, ChosÅnÅ ( ; ).
On the other hand, Korean people in the former USSR, who refer to themselves as Koryo-saram (ê³ ë ¤ì¬ë; also Goryeoin [ ; ; literally, "Goryeo person(s)"]) call the language Goryeomal ( ; ).
In mainland China, following the establishment of diplomatic relations with South Korea in 1992, the term CháoxiÇnyÇ ( or the short form: CháoyÇ ( )) has normally been used to refer to the language spoken in North Korea and Yanbian, while HánguóyÇ ( or the short form: HányÇ ( )) is used to refer to the language spoken in South Korea.
Some older English sources also used the name "Korean" to refer to the language, country, and people. The word "Korean" is derived from Goryeo, which is thought to be the first dynasty known to western countries.
Most modern linguists consider Korean to be a language isolate Song, Jae Jung (2005) "The Korean language: structure, use and context" Routledge, p. 15
Lyle Campbell & Mauricio J. Mixco. 2007. A Glossary of Historical Linguistics. University of Utah Press.
Since the publication of the article of Ramstedt in 1928, some linguists eg Miller 1971, 1996, Starostin et al. 2003 support the hypothesis that Korean can be classified as an Altaic language or as a relative of proto-Altaic. Korean is similar to the Altaic languages in that they both lack certain grammatical elements, including articles, fusional morphology and relative pronouns. However, linguists agree today on the fact that typological resemblances cannot be used to prove genetic relatedness of languages eg Vovin 2008: 1 as these features are typologically connected and easily borrowed. Trask 1996: 147-151 Such factors of typological divergence as Middle Mongolian's exhibition of gender agreement Rybatzki 2003: 57 can be used to argue that a genetic relationship is unlikely. Vovin 2008: 5
The hypothesis that Korean might be related to Japanese has had some more supporters due to some considerable overlap in vocabulary and similar grammatical features that have been elaborated upon by such researchers as Samuel E. Martin eg Martin 1966, 1990 and Roy Andrew Miller. eg Miller 1971, 1996 Sergei Starostin (1991) found about 25% of potential cognates in the Japanese-Korean 100-word Swadesh list, which - if true - would place these two languages closer together than other possible members of the Altaic family.
Other linguists, most notably Alexander Vovin, argue, however, that the similarities are not due to any genetic relationship, but rather to a sprachbund effect and heavy borrowing especially from Korean into Western Old Japanese. Vovin 2008 A good example might be Middle Korean sà m Whitman 1985: 232, also found in Martin 1966: 233 This word seems to be cognate, but while it is well-attested in Western Old Japanese and Northern RyÅ«kyÅ«, in Eastern Old Japanese it only occurs in compounds, and it is only present in three subdialects of the South-RyÅ«kyÅ«an dialect group. Then, the doublet wo âhempâ is attested in Western Old Japanese and Southern RyÅ«kyÅ«. It is thus plausible to assume a borrowed term. Vovin 2008: 211-212 See East Asian languages for morphological features shared among languages of the East Asian sprachbund, and Classification of Japanese for further details on the discussion of a possible relationship.
Korean is descended from Old Korean, Middle Korean and Modern Korean. Controversy remains over the proposed Altaic language family and its inclusion of Proto-Korean. Since the Korean War, contemporary North-South differences in Korean have developed, including variance in pronunciation, verb inflection, and vocabulary.
Korean is spoken by the Korean people in North Korea and South Korea and by the Korean diaspora in many countries including the People's Republic of China, Japan, and the United States. Korean-speaking minorities exist in these states, but because of cultural assimilation into host countries, not all ethnic Korean immigrants may speak it with native fluency.
Korean is the official language of South Korea and North Korea. It is also one of the two official languages of the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in China.
In South Korea, the regulatory body for Korean is the Seoul-based National Institute of the Korean Language ( ), which was created by presidential decree on January 23, 1991. In North Korea, the regulatory body is the Sahoe Kwahagwon Åhak YÅnguso ( ).
Dialects of Korean
Korean has several dialects (called mal [literally "speech"], saturi, or bang-eon in Korean). The standard language (pyojuneo or pyojunmal) of South Korea is based on the dialect of the area around Seoul, and the standard for North Korea is based on the dialect spoken around P'yÅngyang. All dialects of Korean are similar to each other, and are in fact all mutually intelligible, perhaps with the exception of the dialect of Jeju Island (see Jeju dialect). The dialect spoken in Jeju is in fact classified as a different language by some Korean linguists. One of the most notable differences between dialects is the use of stress: speakers of Seoul dialect use very little stress, and standard South Korean has a very flat intonation; on the other hand, speakers of the Gyeongsang dialect have a very pronounced intonation.
It is also worth noting that there is substantial evidence for a history of extensive dialect levelling, or even convergent evolution or intermixture of two or more originally distinct linguistic stocks, within the Korean language and its dialects. Many Korean dialects have basic vocabulary that is etymologically distinct from vocabulary of identical meaning in Standard Korean or other dialects, such as South Jeolla dialect /kur/ vs. Standard Korean ì
"mouth" or Gyeongsang dialect vs. Standard Korean "garlic chives." This suggests that the Korean Peninsula may have at one time been much more linguistically diverse than it is at present. See also the Buyeo languages hypothesis.
There is a very close connection between the dialects of Korean and the regions of Korea, since the boundaries of both are largely determined by mountains and seas. Here is a list of traditional dialect names and locations:
The Korean consonants
The IPA symbol (a subscript double straight quotation mark, shown here with a placeholder circle) is used to denote the tensed consonants . Its official use in the Extensions to the IPA is for 'strong' articulation, but is used in the literature for faucalized voice. The Korean consonants also have elements of stiff voice, but it is not yet known how typical this is of faucalized consonants. They are produced with a partially constricted glottis and additional subglottal pressure in addition to tense vocal tract walls, laryngeal lowering, or other expansion of the larynx.
becomes an alveolo-palatal before or for most speakers (but see Differences in the language between North Korea and South Korea). This occurs with the tense fricative and all the affricates as well. At the end of a syllable, /s/ changes to /t/ (Example: beoseot (ë²ì¯) 'mushroom').
may become a bilabial before or , a palatal before or , a velar before , a voiced between voiced sounds, and a elsewhere.
become voiced between voiced sounds.
becomes alveolar flap between vowels, and or at the end of a syllable or next to another . Note that a written syllable-final 'ã¹', when followed by a vowel or a glide (i.e., when the next character starts with 'ã
'), migrates to the next syllable and thus becomes .
Traditionally, was disallowed at the beginning of a word. It disappeared before , and otherwise became . However, the inflow of western loanword changed the trend, and now word-initial (mostly from English loanwords) are pronounced as a free variation of either or . The traditional prohibition of word-initial became a morphological rule called "initial law" (ëìë²ì¹) in South Korea, which pertains to Sino-Korean vocabulary. Such words retain their word-initial in North Korea.
All obstruents (plosives, affricates, fricatives) are unreleased at the end of a word.
Plosive stops become nasal stops before nasal stops.
Hangul spelling does not reflect these assimilatory pronunciation rules, but rather maintains the underlying, partly historical morphology. Given this, it is sometimes hard to tell which actual phonemes are present in a certain word.
One difference between the pronunciation standards of North and South Korea is the treatment of initial , and initial . For example,
* "labour" - north: rodong (ë¡ë), south: nodong (ë
¸ë)
* "history" - north: ryÅksa (ë ¥ì¬), south: yeoksa (ìì¬)
* "female" - north: nyÅja (ë
ì), south: yeoja (ì¬ì)
Grammatical morphemes may change shape depending on the preceding sounds. Examples include -eun/-neun (-ì/-ë) and -i/-ga (-ì´/-ê°). Sometimes sounds may be inserted instead. Examples include -eul/-reul (-ì/-를), -euro/-ro (-ì¼ë¡/-ë¡), -eseo/-seo (-ìì/-ì), -ideunji/-deunji (-ì´ë ì§/-ë ì§) and -iya/-ya (-ì´ì¼/-ì¼). However, -euro/-ro is somewhat irregular, since it will behave differently after a rieul consonant.
Some verbs may also change shape morphophonemically.
Korean is an agglutinative language. Modifiers generally precede the modified words, and in the case of verb modifiers, can be serially appended. The basic form of a Korean sentence is Subject Object Verb, but the verb is the only required and immovable element.
:"Did [you] go to the store?" ("you" implied in conversation)
:"Yes."
The Korean Language contains nine parts of speech.
Korean verbs ( , tongsa, ) are also known in English as "action verbs" or "dynamic verbs" to distinguish them from [ , hyeong-yongsa, "adjectives"]), which are also known as "descriptive verbs" or "stative verbs". Examples of action/dynamic verbs include (hada, "to do") and (kada, "to go") which constitute an action or movement as opposed to descriptive verbs such as (yehppeuda, "to be beautiful"). For a larger list of Korean verbs, see .
Unlike most of the European languages, Korean does not conjugate verbs using agreement with the subject, and nouns have no gender. Instead, verb conjugations depend upon the verb tense, aspect, mood, and the social relation between the speaker, the subjects, and the listeners.
The system of speech levels and honorifics loosely resembles the T-V distinction of most Indo-European languages. For example, different endings are used depending on the speaker's relation with their subject or audience. Politeness is a critical part of Korean language and Korean culture, therefore, when talking to someone esteemed, the correct verb ending must be chosen to indicate the proper respect.
Words categorized as Korean adjectives ( , hyeong-yongsa, ) conjugate similarly to verbs, so some English texts call them "descriptive verbs" or "stative verbs", but they are distinctly separate from (tongsa).
English does not have an identical grammatical category, so the English translation of Korean adjectives may misleadingly suggest that they are verbs. For example, (pukda) translates literally as "to be red" and (aswipda) often best translates as "to lack" or "to want for", but both are (hyeong-yongsa, "adjectives"). For a larger list of Korean adjectives, see .
Korean pre-nouns ( , gwanhyeongsa, ) are also known in English as "determinatives", "attributives", and "unconjugated adjectives". Examples include (kak, "each"). For a larger list, see .
Core and basic noun words are native to the Korean language, e.g. (nara, country), (nal, day). A large body of Korean nouns ( , myeongsa, ) stem from Chinese characters, e.g. (å±±, san, mountain), (é©, yeok, station), (æå, munhwa, culture), etc. Many Sino-Korean words have a native Korean equivalent and vice versa, but not always. Nouns do not have grammatical gender and can be made plural by adding ë¤ to the end of the word, however in most instances the singular form is used even when in English it would be translated as plural. For example, while in English the sentence "there are three apples" would use the plural "apples" instead of the singular "apple", the Korean sentence ì¬ê³¼ ì¸ê° ììµëë¤ (sagwa segae isssumnida) maintains the word ì¬ê³¼ (sagwa, "apple") in its singular form, thus rendered in English as "apple three(things) exist." For a list of Korean nouns, see .
Korean pronouns ( , daemyeongsa, ) are highly influenced by the honorifics in the language. Pronouns change forms depending on the social status of the person or persons spoken to, e.g. the pronoun for "I" there is both the informal (na) and the honorific/humble (jeo). In general second person singular pronouns are avoided, especially when using honorific forms. For a larger list or Korean pronouns, see .
Korean adverbs ( , busa, ) include (tto, "also") and (gadeuk, "fully"). For a larger list, see .
Korean particles ( , josa, ) are also known in English as "postpositions". Examples include (neun, topic marker) and (reul, object marker). For a larger list, see .
Korean interjections ( , gamtansa, ) are also known in English as "exclamations". Examples include (ani, "no"). For a larger list, see .
Korean numbers or numerals ( , susa, ) constitute two regularly used sets: a native Korean set and a Sino-Korean set. The Sino-Korean system is nearly entirely based on the Chinese numerals. The distinction between the two numeral systems is very important. Everything that can be counted will use one of the two systems, but seldom both. Sino-Korean words are sometimes used to mark ordinal usage: yeol beon (ì´ ë²) means "ten times" while sip beon (ì(å) ë²(çª)) means "number ten." The grouping of large numbers in Korean follow the Chinese tradition of myriads (10000) rather than thousands (1000) as is common in Europe and North America.
The relationship between a speaker or writer and his or her subject and audience is paramount in Korean, and the grammar reflects this. The relationship between speaker/writer and subject referent is reflected in honorifics, while that between speaker/writer and audience is reflected in speech level.
When talking about someone superior in status, a speaker or writer usually uses special nouns or verb endings to indicate the subject's superiority. Generally, someone is superior in status if he/she is an older relative, a stranger of roughly equal or greater age, or an employer, teacher, customer, or the like. Someone is equal or inferior in status if he/she is a younger stranger, student, employee or the like. Nowadays, there are special endings which can be used on declarative, interrogative, and imperative sentences; and both honorific or normal sentences. They are made for easier and faster use of Korean.
There are seven verb paradigms or speech levels in Korean, and each level has its own unique set of verb endings which are used to indicate the level of formality of a situation. Unlike honorificsâwhich are used to show respect towards the referentâspeech levels are used to show respect towards a speaker's or writer's audience. The names of the seven levels are derived from the non-honorific imperative form of the verb íë¤ (hada, "do") in each level, plus the suffix ì²´ ("che", hanja: é« ), which means "style".
The highest six levels are generally grouped together as jondaenmal (ì¡´ëë§), while the lowest level (haeche, í´ì²´) is called banmal (ë°ë§) in Korean.
The core of the Korean vocabulary is made up of native Korean words. Like Japanese and Vietnamese, a significant proportion of the vocabulary, especially words that denote abstract ideas, are Sino-Korean words, Sohn, Ho-Min. The Korean Language (Section 1.5.3 "Korean vocabulary", p.12â13), Cambridge University Press, 2001. ISBN 0521369436. either
* directly borrowed from Written Chinese, or
* coined in Japan or Korea using Chinese characters,
in a similar way European languages borrow from Latin and Greek.
The exact proportion of Sino-Korean vocabulary is a matter of debate. Sohn (2001) stated 50-60%. However, Jeong Jae-do, one of the compilers of the dictionary Urimal Kun Sajeon, asserts that the proportion is not so high. He points out that Korean dictionaries compiled during the period of Japanese occupation include many unused Sino-Korean words. In his estimation, the proportion of native Korean vocabulary in the Korean language might be as high as 70%. . The dictionary mentioned is
Korean has two number systems: one native, and one borrowed from Chinese.
To a much lesser extent, words have also occasionally been borrowed from Mongolian, Sanskrit, and other languages. Conversely, the Korean language itself has also contributed some loanwords to other languages, most notably the Tsushima dialect of Japanese.
The vast majority of loanwords other than Sino-Korean come from modern times, 90% of which are from English. Many words have also been borrowed from Japanese and Western languages such as German (areubaiteu "part-time job", allereugi "allergy", "gibsu" "plaster cast used for broken bones"). Some Western words were borrowed indirectly via Japanese, taking a Japanese sound pattern, for example "dozen" > dÄsu > daseu. Most indirect Western borrowings are now written according to current Hangulization rules for the respective Western language, as if borrowed directly. There are a few more complicated borrowings such as "German(y)" (see Names for Germany), the first part of whose endonym the Japanese approximated using the kanji doitsu that were then accepted into the Korean language by their Sino-Korean pronunciation: dok + il = Dogil. In South Korean official use, a number of other Sino-Korean country names have been replaced with phonetically oriented Hangulizations of the countries' endonyms or English names.
As in Japanese, Korean adapts words in ways that are uncommon in English. For example, in soccer heading ( ) is used to label a head-strike, rather than direction. This is a corrupted loan word from the English header.
North Korean vocabulary shows a tendency to prefer native Korean over Sino-Korean or foreign borrowings, especially with recent political objectives aimed at eliminating foreign (mostly Chinese) influences on the Korean language in the North. By contrast, South Korean may have several Sino-Korean or foreign borrowings which tend to be absent in North Korean.
Formerly the languages of the Korean peninsula were written using Chinese characters, using hyangchal or idu. Such systems relied on principles of rebus, and were lost, later in history. Writing became confined to the ruling elite, who used hanja to write in Classical Chinese.
Korean is now mainly written in Hangul, the Korean alphabet promulgated in 1446 by Sejong the Great; hanja may be mixed in to write Sino-Korean words. While South Korean schools still teach 1,800 hanja characters, North Korea had abolished the use of hanja decades ago.
Below is a chart of the Korean alphabet's symbols and their canonical IPA values:
Modern Korean is written with spaces between words, a feature not found in Chinese or Japanese. Korean punctuation marks are almost identical to Western ones. Traditionally, Korean was written in columns from top to bottom, right to left, but is now usually written in rows from left to right, top to bottom.
The Korean language used in the North and the South exhibits differences in pronunciation, spelling, grammar and vocabulary. Kanno, Hiroomi (ed.) / Society for Korean Linguistics in Japan (1987). ChÅsengo o manabÅ (ãæé®®èªãå¦ã¼ãã), SanshÅ«sha, Tokyo. ISBN 4-384-01506-2
In North Korea, palatalization of is optional, and can be pronounced between vowels.
Words that are written the same way may be pronounced differently, such as the examples below. The pronunciations below are given in Revised Romanization, McCune-Reischauer and Hangul, the last of which represents what the Hangul would be if one writes the word as pronounced.
* Similar pronunciation is used in the North whenever the hanja "ç" is attached to a Sino-Korean word ending in ã´, ã
or ã
. (In the South, this rule only applies when it is attached to any single-character Sino-Korean word.)
Some words are spelled differently by the North and the South, but the pronunciations are the same.
Some words have different spellings and pronunciations in the North and the South, some of which were given in the "Phonology" section above:
In general, when transcribing place names, North Korea tends to use the pronunciation in the original language more than South Korea, which often uses the pronunciation in English. For example:
Some grammatical constructions are also different:
Some vocabulary is different between the North and the South:
In the North, guillemets and are the symbols used for quotes; in the South, quotation marks equivalent to the English ones, â and â, are standard, although and are sometimes used in popular novels.
The United States' Defense Language Institute classifies Korean alongside Arabic, Chinese, and Japanese as a Category IV language, meaning that 63 weeks of instruction (as compared to just 25 weeks for French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian) are required to bring an English-speaking student to a limited working level of proficiency in which he or she has "sufficient capability to meet routine social demands and limited job requirements" and "can deal with concrete topics in past, present, and future tense." As a result, the study of the Korean language in the United States is dominated by Korean American heritage language students; they are estimated to form over 80% of all students of the language at non-military universities.
However, Korean is considerably easier for speakers of certain other languages, such as Japanese ; in Japan, it is more widely studied by non-heritage learners. The Korean Language Proficiency Test, an examination aimed at assessing non-native speakers' competence in Korean, was instituted in 1997; 17,000 people applied for the 2005 sitting of the examination.
*Hangul
*Korean romanization
**Revised romanization of Korean
**McCune-Reischauer
**Yale Romanization#Korean
**SKATS
*Korean numerals
*Korean count word
*Korean language and computers
*Hanja
*Sino-Korean vocabulary
*Korean mixed script
*List of English words of Korean origin
*Altaic languages
*List of Korea-related topics
*Vowel harmony
* (Volume 4 of the London Oriental and African Language Library).
*Hulbert, Homer B. (1905): A Comparative Grammar of the Korean Language and the Dravidian Dialects in India. Seoul.
*Martin, Samuel E. (1966): Lexical Evidence Relating Japanese to Korean. Language 42/2: 185â251.
*Martin, Samuel E. (1990): Morphological clues to the relationship of Japanese and Korean. In: Philip Baldi (ed.): Linguistic Change and Reconstruction Methodology. Trends in Linguistics: Studies and Monographs 45: 483-509.
*Miller, Roy Andrew (1971): Japanese and the Other Altaic Languages. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0226527190.
*Miller, Roy Andrew (1996): Languages and History: Japanese, Korean and Altaic. Oslo: Institute for Comparative Research in Human Culture. ISBN 9748299694.
*Ramstedt, G. J. (1928): Remarks on the Korean language. Mémoires de la Société Finno-Oigrienne 58.
*Rybatzki, Volker (2003): Middle Mongol. In: Juha Janhunen (ed.) (2003): The Mongolic languages. London: Routledge. ISBN 0-7007-1133-3: 47â82.
*Starostin, Sergei A.; Anna V. Dybo; Oleg A. Mudrak (2003): Etymological Dictionary of the Altaic Languages, 3 volumes. Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers. ISBN 9004131531.
*Sohn, H.-M. (1999): The Korean Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Song, J.-J. (2005): The Korean Language: Structure, Use and Context. London: Routledge.
*Trask, R. L. (1996): Historical linguistics. Hodder Arnold.
*Vovin, Alexander: Koreo-Japonica. University of Hawai'i Press.
*Whitman, John B. (1985): The Phonological Basis for the Comparison of Japanese and Korean. Unpublished Harvard University Ph.D. dissertation.
* Ethnologue report for Korean
* Linguistic and Philosophical Origins of the Korean Alphabet (Hangul)
* Free Korean language and culture course online, in English
* Linguistic map of Korea
* Korean - a Category III language Languages which are exceptionally difficult for native English speakers
* dongsa.net A Korean verb conjugation tool that explains the conjugations for learners of Korean
|
Korean_language | What is another term for Korean adjectives? | null | data/set5/a6 | Korean_language
:This article is mainly about the spoken Korean language. See Hangul for details on the native Korean writing system.
Korean ( , see below) is the official language of Korea, both South and North. It is also one of the two official languages in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in China. There are about 78 million Korean speakers. In the 15th century a national writing system was commissioned by Sejong the Great, currently called Hangul. Prior to the development of Hangul, Koreans used Hanja (Chinese characters) to write for over a millennia.
The genealogical classification of the Korean language is debated by a small number of linguists. Most classify it as a language isolate Song, Jae Jung (2005) "The Korean language: structure, use and context" Routledge, p. 15
Lyle Campbell & Mauricio Mixco. 2007. A Glossary of Historical Linguistics. University of Utah Press. while a few consider it to be in the Altaic language family. Stratification in the peopling of China: how far does the linguistic evidence match genetics and archaeology? In; Sanchez-Mazas, Blench, Ross, Lin & Pejros eds. Human migrations in continental East Asia and Taiwan: genetic, linguistic and archaeological evidence. 2008. Taylor & Francis Some believe it to be distantly related to Japanese. Like Japanese it is agglutinative in its morphology and SOV in its syntax.
The Korean names for the language are based on the names for Korea used in North and South Korea.
In South Korea, the language is most often called Hangungmal
( ; ), or more formally, Hangugeo ( ; ) or Gugeo ( ; ; literally "national language").
In North Korea and Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in China, the language is most often called ChosÅnmal ( ; with hanja: ), or more formally, ChosÅnÅ ( ; ).
On the other hand, Korean people in the former USSR, who refer to themselves as Koryo-saram (ê³ ë ¤ì¬ë; also Goryeoin [ ; ; literally, "Goryeo person(s)"]) call the language Goryeomal ( ; ).
In mainland China, following the establishment of diplomatic relations with South Korea in 1992, the term CháoxiÇnyÇ ( or the short form: CháoyÇ ( )) has normally been used to refer to the language spoken in North Korea and Yanbian, while HánguóyÇ ( or the short form: HányÇ ( )) is used to refer to the language spoken in South Korea.
Some older English sources also used the name "Korean" to refer to the language, country, and people. The word "Korean" is derived from Goryeo, which is thought to be the first dynasty known to western countries.
Most modern linguists consider Korean to be a language isolate Song, Jae Jung (2005) "The Korean language: structure, use and context" Routledge, p. 15
Lyle Campbell & Mauricio J. Mixco. 2007. A Glossary of Historical Linguistics. University of Utah Press.
Since the publication of the article of Ramstedt in 1928, some linguists eg Miller 1971, 1996, Starostin et al. 2003 support the hypothesis that Korean can be classified as an Altaic language or as a relative of proto-Altaic. Korean is similar to the Altaic languages in that they both lack certain grammatical elements, including articles, fusional morphology and relative pronouns. However, linguists agree today on the fact that typological resemblances cannot be used to prove genetic relatedness of languages eg Vovin 2008: 1 as these features are typologically connected and easily borrowed. Trask 1996: 147-151 Such factors of typological divergence as Middle Mongolian's exhibition of gender agreement Rybatzki 2003: 57 can be used to argue that a genetic relationship is unlikely. Vovin 2008: 5
The hypothesis that Korean might be related to Japanese has had some more supporters due to some considerable overlap in vocabulary and similar grammatical features that have been elaborated upon by such researchers as Samuel E. Martin eg Martin 1966, 1990 and Roy Andrew Miller. eg Miller 1971, 1996 Sergei Starostin (1991) found about 25% of potential cognates in the Japanese-Korean 100-word Swadesh list, which - if true - would place these two languages closer together than other possible members of the Altaic family.
Other linguists, most notably Alexander Vovin, argue, however, that the similarities are not due to any genetic relationship, but rather to a sprachbund effect and heavy borrowing especially from Korean into Western Old Japanese. Vovin 2008 A good example might be Middle Korean sà m Whitman 1985: 232, also found in Martin 1966: 233 This word seems to be cognate, but while it is well-attested in Western Old Japanese and Northern RyÅ«kyÅ«, in Eastern Old Japanese it only occurs in compounds, and it is only present in three subdialects of the South-RyÅ«kyÅ«an dialect group. Then, the doublet wo âhempâ is attested in Western Old Japanese and Southern RyÅ«kyÅ«. It is thus plausible to assume a borrowed term. Vovin 2008: 211-212 See East Asian languages for morphological features shared among languages of the East Asian sprachbund, and Classification of Japanese for further details on the discussion of a possible relationship.
Korean is descended from Old Korean, Middle Korean and Modern Korean. Controversy remains over the proposed Altaic language family and its inclusion of Proto-Korean. Since the Korean War, contemporary North-South differences in Korean have developed, including variance in pronunciation, verb inflection, and vocabulary.
Korean is spoken by the Korean people in North Korea and South Korea and by the Korean diaspora in many countries including the People's Republic of China, Japan, and the United States. Korean-speaking minorities exist in these states, but because of cultural assimilation into host countries, not all ethnic Korean immigrants may speak it with native fluency.
Korean is the official language of South Korea and North Korea. It is also one of the two official languages of the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in China.
In South Korea, the regulatory body for Korean is the Seoul-based National Institute of the Korean Language ( ), which was created by presidential decree on January 23, 1991. In North Korea, the regulatory body is the Sahoe Kwahagwon Åhak YÅnguso ( ).
Dialects of Korean
Korean has several dialects (called mal [literally "speech"], saturi, or bang-eon in Korean). The standard language (pyojuneo or pyojunmal) of South Korea is based on the dialect of the area around Seoul, and the standard for North Korea is based on the dialect spoken around P'yÅngyang. All dialects of Korean are similar to each other, and are in fact all mutually intelligible, perhaps with the exception of the dialect of Jeju Island (see Jeju dialect). The dialect spoken in Jeju is in fact classified as a different language by some Korean linguists. One of the most notable differences between dialects is the use of stress: speakers of Seoul dialect use very little stress, and standard South Korean has a very flat intonation; on the other hand, speakers of the Gyeongsang dialect have a very pronounced intonation.
It is also worth noting that there is substantial evidence for a history of extensive dialect levelling, or even convergent evolution or intermixture of two or more originally distinct linguistic stocks, within the Korean language and its dialects. Many Korean dialects have basic vocabulary that is etymologically distinct from vocabulary of identical meaning in Standard Korean or other dialects, such as South Jeolla dialect /kur/ vs. Standard Korean ì
"mouth" or Gyeongsang dialect vs. Standard Korean "garlic chives." This suggests that the Korean Peninsula may have at one time been much more linguistically diverse than it is at present. See also the Buyeo languages hypothesis.
There is a very close connection between the dialects of Korean and the regions of Korea, since the boundaries of both are largely determined by mountains and seas. Here is a list of traditional dialect names and locations:
The Korean consonants
The IPA symbol (a subscript double straight quotation mark, shown here with a placeholder circle) is used to denote the tensed consonants . Its official use in the Extensions to the IPA is for 'strong' articulation, but is used in the literature for faucalized voice. The Korean consonants also have elements of stiff voice, but it is not yet known how typical this is of faucalized consonants. They are produced with a partially constricted glottis and additional subglottal pressure in addition to tense vocal tract walls, laryngeal lowering, or other expansion of the larynx.
becomes an alveolo-palatal before or for most speakers (but see Differences in the language between North Korea and South Korea). This occurs with the tense fricative and all the affricates as well. At the end of a syllable, /s/ changes to /t/ (Example: beoseot (ë²ì¯) 'mushroom').
may become a bilabial before or , a palatal before or , a velar before , a voiced between voiced sounds, and a elsewhere.
become voiced between voiced sounds.
becomes alveolar flap between vowels, and or at the end of a syllable or next to another . Note that a written syllable-final 'ã¹', when followed by a vowel or a glide (i.e., when the next character starts with 'ã
'), migrates to the next syllable and thus becomes .
Traditionally, was disallowed at the beginning of a word. It disappeared before , and otherwise became . However, the inflow of western loanword changed the trend, and now word-initial (mostly from English loanwords) are pronounced as a free variation of either or . The traditional prohibition of word-initial became a morphological rule called "initial law" (ëìë²ì¹) in South Korea, which pertains to Sino-Korean vocabulary. Such words retain their word-initial in North Korea.
All obstruents (plosives, affricates, fricatives) are unreleased at the end of a word.
Plosive stops become nasal stops before nasal stops.
Hangul spelling does not reflect these assimilatory pronunciation rules, but rather maintains the underlying, partly historical morphology. Given this, it is sometimes hard to tell which actual phonemes are present in a certain word.
One difference between the pronunciation standards of North and South Korea is the treatment of initial , and initial . For example,
* "labour" - north: rodong (ë¡ë), south: nodong (ë
¸ë)
* "history" - north: ryÅksa (ë ¥ì¬), south: yeoksa (ìì¬)
* "female" - north: nyÅja (ë
ì), south: yeoja (ì¬ì)
Grammatical morphemes may change shape depending on the preceding sounds. Examples include -eun/-neun (-ì/-ë) and -i/-ga (-ì´/-ê°). Sometimes sounds may be inserted instead. Examples include -eul/-reul (-ì/-를), -euro/-ro (-ì¼ë¡/-ë¡), -eseo/-seo (-ìì/-ì), -ideunji/-deunji (-ì´ë ì§/-ë ì§) and -iya/-ya (-ì´ì¼/-ì¼). However, -euro/-ro is somewhat irregular, since it will behave differently after a rieul consonant.
Some verbs may also change shape morphophonemically.
Korean is an agglutinative language. Modifiers generally precede the modified words, and in the case of verb modifiers, can be serially appended. The basic form of a Korean sentence is Subject Object Verb, but the verb is the only required and immovable element.
:"Did [you] go to the store?" ("you" implied in conversation)
:"Yes."
The Korean Language contains nine parts of speech.
Korean verbs ( , tongsa, ) are also known in English as "action verbs" or "dynamic verbs" to distinguish them from [ , hyeong-yongsa, "adjectives"]), which are also known as "descriptive verbs" or "stative verbs". Examples of action/dynamic verbs include (hada, "to do") and (kada, "to go") which constitute an action or movement as opposed to descriptive verbs such as (yehppeuda, "to be beautiful"). For a larger list of Korean verbs, see .
Unlike most of the European languages, Korean does not conjugate verbs using agreement with the subject, and nouns have no gender. Instead, verb conjugations depend upon the verb tense, aspect, mood, and the social relation between the speaker, the subjects, and the listeners.
The system of speech levels and honorifics loosely resembles the T-V distinction of most Indo-European languages. For example, different endings are used depending on the speaker's relation with their subject or audience. Politeness is a critical part of Korean language and Korean culture, therefore, when talking to someone esteemed, the correct verb ending must be chosen to indicate the proper respect.
Words categorized as Korean adjectives ( , hyeong-yongsa, ) conjugate similarly to verbs, so some English texts call them "descriptive verbs" or "stative verbs", but they are distinctly separate from (tongsa).
English does not have an identical grammatical category, so the English translation of Korean adjectives may misleadingly suggest that they are verbs. For example, (pukda) translates literally as "to be red" and (aswipda) often best translates as "to lack" or "to want for", but both are (hyeong-yongsa, "adjectives"). For a larger list of Korean adjectives, see .
Korean pre-nouns ( , gwanhyeongsa, ) are also known in English as "determinatives", "attributives", and "unconjugated adjectives". Examples include (kak, "each"). For a larger list, see .
Core and basic noun words are native to the Korean language, e.g. (nara, country), (nal, day). A large body of Korean nouns ( , myeongsa, ) stem from Chinese characters, e.g. (å±±, san, mountain), (é©, yeok, station), (æå, munhwa, culture), etc. Many Sino-Korean words have a native Korean equivalent and vice versa, but not always. Nouns do not have grammatical gender and can be made plural by adding ë¤ to the end of the word, however in most instances the singular form is used even when in English it would be translated as plural. For example, while in English the sentence "there are three apples" would use the plural "apples" instead of the singular "apple", the Korean sentence ì¬ê³¼ ì¸ê° ììµëë¤ (sagwa segae isssumnida) maintains the word ì¬ê³¼ (sagwa, "apple") in its singular form, thus rendered in English as "apple three(things) exist." For a list of Korean nouns, see .
Korean pronouns ( , daemyeongsa, ) are highly influenced by the honorifics in the language. Pronouns change forms depending on the social status of the person or persons spoken to, e.g. the pronoun for "I" there is both the informal (na) and the honorific/humble (jeo). In general second person singular pronouns are avoided, especially when using honorific forms. For a larger list or Korean pronouns, see .
Korean adverbs ( , busa, ) include (tto, "also") and (gadeuk, "fully"). For a larger list, see .
Korean particles ( , josa, ) are also known in English as "postpositions". Examples include (neun, topic marker) and (reul, object marker). For a larger list, see .
Korean interjections ( , gamtansa, ) are also known in English as "exclamations". Examples include (ani, "no"). For a larger list, see .
Korean numbers or numerals ( , susa, ) constitute two regularly used sets: a native Korean set and a Sino-Korean set. The Sino-Korean system is nearly entirely based on the Chinese numerals. The distinction between the two numeral systems is very important. Everything that can be counted will use one of the two systems, but seldom both. Sino-Korean words are sometimes used to mark ordinal usage: yeol beon (ì´ ë²) means "ten times" while sip beon (ì(å) ë²(çª)) means "number ten." The grouping of large numbers in Korean follow the Chinese tradition of myriads (10000) rather than thousands (1000) as is common in Europe and North America.
The relationship between a speaker or writer and his or her subject and audience is paramount in Korean, and the grammar reflects this. The relationship between speaker/writer and subject referent is reflected in honorifics, while that between speaker/writer and audience is reflected in speech level.
When talking about someone superior in status, a speaker or writer usually uses special nouns or verb endings to indicate the subject's superiority. Generally, someone is superior in status if he/she is an older relative, a stranger of roughly equal or greater age, or an employer, teacher, customer, or the like. Someone is equal or inferior in status if he/she is a younger stranger, student, employee or the like. Nowadays, there are special endings which can be used on declarative, interrogative, and imperative sentences; and both honorific or normal sentences. They are made for easier and faster use of Korean.
There are seven verb paradigms or speech levels in Korean, and each level has its own unique set of verb endings which are used to indicate the level of formality of a situation. Unlike honorificsâwhich are used to show respect towards the referentâspeech levels are used to show respect towards a speaker's or writer's audience. The names of the seven levels are derived from the non-honorific imperative form of the verb íë¤ (hada, "do") in each level, plus the suffix ì²´ ("che", hanja: é« ), which means "style".
The highest six levels are generally grouped together as jondaenmal (ì¡´ëë§), while the lowest level (haeche, í´ì²´) is called banmal (ë°ë§) in Korean.
The core of the Korean vocabulary is made up of native Korean words. Like Japanese and Vietnamese, a significant proportion of the vocabulary, especially words that denote abstract ideas, are Sino-Korean words, Sohn, Ho-Min. The Korean Language (Section 1.5.3 "Korean vocabulary", p.12â13), Cambridge University Press, 2001. ISBN 0521369436. either
* directly borrowed from Written Chinese, or
* coined in Japan or Korea using Chinese characters,
in a similar way European languages borrow from Latin and Greek.
The exact proportion of Sino-Korean vocabulary is a matter of debate. Sohn (2001) stated 50-60%. However, Jeong Jae-do, one of the compilers of the dictionary Urimal Kun Sajeon, asserts that the proportion is not so high. He points out that Korean dictionaries compiled during the period of Japanese occupation include many unused Sino-Korean words. In his estimation, the proportion of native Korean vocabulary in the Korean language might be as high as 70%. . The dictionary mentioned is
Korean has two number systems: one native, and one borrowed from Chinese.
To a much lesser extent, words have also occasionally been borrowed from Mongolian, Sanskrit, and other languages. Conversely, the Korean language itself has also contributed some loanwords to other languages, most notably the Tsushima dialect of Japanese.
The vast majority of loanwords other than Sino-Korean come from modern times, 90% of which are from English. Many words have also been borrowed from Japanese and Western languages such as German (areubaiteu "part-time job", allereugi "allergy", "gibsu" "plaster cast used for broken bones"). Some Western words were borrowed indirectly via Japanese, taking a Japanese sound pattern, for example "dozen" > dÄsu > daseu. Most indirect Western borrowings are now written according to current Hangulization rules for the respective Western language, as if borrowed directly. There are a few more complicated borrowings such as "German(y)" (see Names for Germany), the first part of whose endonym the Japanese approximated using the kanji doitsu that were then accepted into the Korean language by their Sino-Korean pronunciation: dok + il = Dogil. In South Korean official use, a number of other Sino-Korean country names have been replaced with phonetically oriented Hangulizations of the countries' endonyms or English names.
As in Japanese, Korean adapts words in ways that are uncommon in English. For example, in soccer heading ( ) is used to label a head-strike, rather than direction. This is a corrupted loan word from the English header.
North Korean vocabulary shows a tendency to prefer native Korean over Sino-Korean or foreign borrowings, especially with recent political objectives aimed at eliminating foreign (mostly Chinese) influences on the Korean language in the North. By contrast, South Korean may have several Sino-Korean or foreign borrowings which tend to be absent in North Korean.
Formerly the languages of the Korean peninsula were written using Chinese characters, using hyangchal or idu. Such systems relied on principles of rebus, and were lost, later in history. Writing became confined to the ruling elite, who used hanja to write in Classical Chinese.
Korean is now mainly written in Hangul, the Korean alphabet promulgated in 1446 by Sejong the Great; hanja may be mixed in to write Sino-Korean words. While South Korean schools still teach 1,800 hanja characters, North Korea had abolished the use of hanja decades ago.
Below is a chart of the Korean alphabet's symbols and their canonical IPA values:
Modern Korean is written with spaces between words, a feature not found in Chinese or Japanese. Korean punctuation marks are almost identical to Western ones. Traditionally, Korean was written in columns from top to bottom, right to left, but is now usually written in rows from left to right, top to bottom.
The Korean language used in the North and the South exhibits differences in pronunciation, spelling, grammar and vocabulary. Kanno, Hiroomi (ed.) / Society for Korean Linguistics in Japan (1987). ChÅsengo o manabÅ (ãæé®®èªãå¦ã¼ãã), SanshÅ«sha, Tokyo. ISBN 4-384-01506-2
In North Korea, palatalization of is optional, and can be pronounced between vowels.
Words that are written the same way may be pronounced differently, such as the examples below. The pronunciations below are given in Revised Romanization, McCune-Reischauer and Hangul, the last of which represents what the Hangul would be if one writes the word as pronounced.
* Similar pronunciation is used in the North whenever the hanja "ç" is attached to a Sino-Korean word ending in ã´, ã
or ã
. (In the South, this rule only applies when it is attached to any single-character Sino-Korean word.)
Some words are spelled differently by the North and the South, but the pronunciations are the same.
Some words have different spellings and pronunciations in the North and the South, some of which were given in the "Phonology" section above:
In general, when transcribing place names, North Korea tends to use the pronunciation in the original language more than South Korea, which often uses the pronunciation in English. For example:
Some grammatical constructions are also different:
Some vocabulary is different between the North and the South:
In the North, guillemets and are the symbols used for quotes; in the South, quotation marks equivalent to the English ones, â and â, are standard, although and are sometimes used in popular novels.
The United States' Defense Language Institute classifies Korean alongside Arabic, Chinese, and Japanese as a Category IV language, meaning that 63 weeks of instruction (as compared to just 25 weeks for French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian) are required to bring an English-speaking student to a limited working level of proficiency in which he or she has "sufficient capability to meet routine social demands and limited job requirements" and "can deal with concrete topics in past, present, and future tense." As a result, the study of the Korean language in the United States is dominated by Korean American heritage language students; they are estimated to form over 80% of all students of the language at non-military universities.
However, Korean is considerably easier for speakers of certain other languages, such as Japanese ; in Japan, it is more widely studied by non-heritage learners. The Korean Language Proficiency Test, an examination aimed at assessing non-native speakers' competence in Korean, was instituted in 1997; 17,000 people applied for the 2005 sitting of the examination.
*Hangul
*Korean romanization
**Revised romanization of Korean
**McCune-Reischauer
**Yale Romanization#Korean
**SKATS
*Korean numerals
*Korean count word
*Korean language and computers
*Hanja
*Sino-Korean vocabulary
*Korean mixed script
*List of English words of Korean origin
*Altaic languages
*List of Korea-related topics
*Vowel harmony
* (Volume 4 of the London Oriental and African Language Library).
*Hulbert, Homer B. (1905): A Comparative Grammar of the Korean Language and the Dravidian Dialects in India. Seoul.
*Martin, Samuel E. (1966): Lexical Evidence Relating Japanese to Korean. Language 42/2: 185â251.
*Martin, Samuel E. (1990): Morphological clues to the relationship of Japanese and Korean. In: Philip Baldi (ed.): Linguistic Change and Reconstruction Methodology. Trends in Linguistics: Studies and Monographs 45: 483-509.
*Miller, Roy Andrew (1971): Japanese and the Other Altaic Languages. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0226527190.
*Miller, Roy Andrew (1996): Languages and History: Japanese, Korean and Altaic. Oslo: Institute for Comparative Research in Human Culture. ISBN 9748299694.
*Ramstedt, G. J. (1928): Remarks on the Korean language. Mémoires de la Société Finno-Oigrienne 58.
*Rybatzki, Volker (2003): Middle Mongol. In: Juha Janhunen (ed.) (2003): The Mongolic languages. London: Routledge. ISBN 0-7007-1133-3: 47â82.
*Starostin, Sergei A.; Anna V. Dybo; Oleg A. Mudrak (2003): Etymological Dictionary of the Altaic Languages, 3 volumes. Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers. ISBN 9004131531.
*Sohn, H.-M. (1999): The Korean Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Song, J.-J. (2005): The Korean Language: Structure, Use and Context. London: Routledge.
*Trask, R. L. (1996): Historical linguistics. Hodder Arnold.
*Vovin, Alexander: Koreo-Japonica. University of Hawai'i Press.
*Whitman, John B. (1985): The Phonological Basis for the Comparison of Japanese and Korean. Unpublished Harvard University Ph.D. dissertation.
* Ethnologue report for Korean
* Linguistic and Philosophical Origins of the Korean Alphabet (Hangul)
* Free Korean language and culture course online, in English
* Linguistic map of Korea
* Korean - a Category III language Languages which are exceptionally difficult for native English speakers
* dongsa.net A Korean verb conjugation tool that explains the conjugations for learners of Korean
|
Korean_language | Is modern Korean written in columns or rows? | It is written in rows. | data/set5/a6 | Korean_language
:This article is mainly about the spoken Korean language. See Hangul for details on the native Korean writing system.
Korean ( , see below) is the official language of Korea, both South and North. It is also one of the two official languages in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in China. There are about 78 million Korean speakers. In the 15th century a national writing system was commissioned by Sejong the Great, currently called Hangul. Prior to the development of Hangul, Koreans used Hanja (Chinese characters) to write for over a millennia.
The genealogical classification of the Korean language is debated by a small number of linguists. Most classify it as a language isolate Song, Jae Jung (2005) "The Korean language: structure, use and context" Routledge, p. 15
Lyle Campbell & Mauricio Mixco. 2007. A Glossary of Historical Linguistics. University of Utah Press. while a few consider it to be in the Altaic language family. Stratification in the peopling of China: how far does the linguistic evidence match genetics and archaeology? In; Sanchez-Mazas, Blench, Ross, Lin & Pejros eds. Human migrations in continental East Asia and Taiwan: genetic, linguistic and archaeological evidence. 2008. Taylor & Francis Some believe it to be distantly related to Japanese. Like Japanese it is agglutinative in its morphology and SOV in its syntax.
The Korean names for the language are based on the names for Korea used in North and South Korea.
In South Korea, the language is most often called Hangungmal
( ; ), or more formally, Hangugeo ( ; ) or Gugeo ( ; ; literally "national language").
In North Korea and Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in China, the language is most often called ChosÅnmal ( ; with hanja: ), or more formally, ChosÅnÅ ( ; ).
On the other hand, Korean people in the former USSR, who refer to themselves as Koryo-saram (ê³ ë ¤ì¬ë; also Goryeoin [ ; ; literally, "Goryeo person(s)"]) call the language Goryeomal ( ; ).
In mainland China, following the establishment of diplomatic relations with South Korea in 1992, the term CháoxiÇnyÇ ( or the short form: CháoyÇ ( )) has normally been used to refer to the language spoken in North Korea and Yanbian, while HánguóyÇ ( or the short form: HányÇ ( )) is used to refer to the language spoken in South Korea.
Some older English sources also used the name "Korean" to refer to the language, country, and people. The word "Korean" is derived from Goryeo, which is thought to be the first dynasty known to western countries.
Most modern linguists consider Korean to be a language isolate Song, Jae Jung (2005) "The Korean language: structure, use and context" Routledge, p. 15
Lyle Campbell & Mauricio J. Mixco. 2007. A Glossary of Historical Linguistics. University of Utah Press.
Since the publication of the article of Ramstedt in 1928, some linguists eg Miller 1971, 1996, Starostin et al. 2003 support the hypothesis that Korean can be classified as an Altaic language or as a relative of proto-Altaic. Korean is similar to the Altaic languages in that they both lack certain grammatical elements, including articles, fusional morphology and relative pronouns. However, linguists agree today on the fact that typological resemblances cannot be used to prove genetic relatedness of languages eg Vovin 2008: 1 as these features are typologically connected and easily borrowed. Trask 1996: 147-151 Such factors of typological divergence as Middle Mongolian's exhibition of gender agreement Rybatzki 2003: 57 can be used to argue that a genetic relationship is unlikely. Vovin 2008: 5
The hypothesis that Korean might be related to Japanese has had some more supporters due to some considerable overlap in vocabulary and similar grammatical features that have been elaborated upon by such researchers as Samuel E. Martin eg Martin 1966, 1990 and Roy Andrew Miller. eg Miller 1971, 1996 Sergei Starostin (1991) found about 25% of potential cognates in the Japanese-Korean 100-word Swadesh list, which - if true - would place these two languages closer together than other possible members of the Altaic family.
Other linguists, most notably Alexander Vovin, argue, however, that the similarities are not due to any genetic relationship, but rather to a sprachbund effect and heavy borrowing especially from Korean into Western Old Japanese. Vovin 2008 A good example might be Middle Korean sà m Whitman 1985: 232, also found in Martin 1966: 233 This word seems to be cognate, but while it is well-attested in Western Old Japanese and Northern RyÅ«kyÅ«, in Eastern Old Japanese it only occurs in compounds, and it is only present in three subdialects of the South-RyÅ«kyÅ«an dialect group. Then, the doublet wo âhempâ is attested in Western Old Japanese and Southern RyÅ«kyÅ«. It is thus plausible to assume a borrowed term. Vovin 2008: 211-212 See East Asian languages for morphological features shared among languages of the East Asian sprachbund, and Classification of Japanese for further details on the discussion of a possible relationship.
Korean is descended from Old Korean, Middle Korean and Modern Korean. Controversy remains over the proposed Altaic language family and its inclusion of Proto-Korean. Since the Korean War, contemporary North-South differences in Korean have developed, including variance in pronunciation, verb inflection, and vocabulary.
Korean is spoken by the Korean people in North Korea and South Korea and by the Korean diaspora in many countries including the People's Republic of China, Japan, and the United States. Korean-speaking minorities exist in these states, but because of cultural assimilation into host countries, not all ethnic Korean immigrants may speak it with native fluency.
Korean is the official language of South Korea and North Korea. It is also one of the two official languages of the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in China.
In South Korea, the regulatory body for Korean is the Seoul-based National Institute of the Korean Language ( ), which was created by presidential decree on January 23, 1991. In North Korea, the regulatory body is the Sahoe Kwahagwon Åhak YÅnguso ( ).
Dialects of Korean
Korean has several dialects (called mal [literally "speech"], saturi, or bang-eon in Korean). The standard language (pyojuneo or pyojunmal) of South Korea is based on the dialect of the area around Seoul, and the standard for North Korea is based on the dialect spoken around P'yÅngyang. All dialects of Korean are similar to each other, and are in fact all mutually intelligible, perhaps with the exception of the dialect of Jeju Island (see Jeju dialect). The dialect spoken in Jeju is in fact classified as a different language by some Korean linguists. One of the most notable differences between dialects is the use of stress: speakers of Seoul dialect use very little stress, and standard South Korean has a very flat intonation; on the other hand, speakers of the Gyeongsang dialect have a very pronounced intonation.
It is also worth noting that there is substantial evidence for a history of extensive dialect levelling, or even convergent evolution or intermixture of two or more originally distinct linguistic stocks, within the Korean language and its dialects. Many Korean dialects have basic vocabulary that is etymologically distinct from vocabulary of identical meaning in Standard Korean or other dialects, such as South Jeolla dialect /kur/ vs. Standard Korean ì
"mouth" or Gyeongsang dialect vs. Standard Korean "garlic chives." This suggests that the Korean Peninsula may have at one time been much more linguistically diverse than it is at present. See also the Buyeo languages hypothesis.
There is a very close connection between the dialects of Korean and the regions of Korea, since the boundaries of both are largely determined by mountains and seas. Here is a list of traditional dialect names and locations:
The Korean consonants
The IPA symbol (a subscript double straight quotation mark, shown here with a placeholder circle) is used to denote the tensed consonants . Its official use in the Extensions to the IPA is for 'strong' articulation, but is used in the literature for faucalized voice. The Korean consonants also have elements of stiff voice, but it is not yet known how typical this is of faucalized consonants. They are produced with a partially constricted glottis and additional subglottal pressure in addition to tense vocal tract walls, laryngeal lowering, or other expansion of the larynx.
becomes an alveolo-palatal before or for most speakers (but see Differences in the language between North Korea and South Korea). This occurs with the tense fricative and all the affricates as well. At the end of a syllable, /s/ changes to /t/ (Example: beoseot (ë²ì¯) 'mushroom').
may become a bilabial before or , a palatal before or , a velar before , a voiced between voiced sounds, and a elsewhere.
become voiced between voiced sounds.
becomes alveolar flap between vowels, and or at the end of a syllable or next to another . Note that a written syllable-final 'ã¹', when followed by a vowel or a glide (i.e., when the next character starts with 'ã
'), migrates to the next syllable and thus becomes .
Traditionally, was disallowed at the beginning of a word. It disappeared before , and otherwise became . However, the inflow of western loanword changed the trend, and now word-initial (mostly from English loanwords) are pronounced as a free variation of either or . The traditional prohibition of word-initial became a morphological rule called "initial law" (ëìë²ì¹) in South Korea, which pertains to Sino-Korean vocabulary. Such words retain their word-initial in North Korea.
All obstruents (plosives, affricates, fricatives) are unreleased at the end of a word.
Plosive stops become nasal stops before nasal stops.
Hangul spelling does not reflect these assimilatory pronunciation rules, but rather maintains the underlying, partly historical morphology. Given this, it is sometimes hard to tell which actual phonemes are present in a certain word.
One difference between the pronunciation standards of North and South Korea is the treatment of initial , and initial . For example,
* "labour" - north: rodong (ë¡ë), south: nodong (ë
¸ë)
* "history" - north: ryÅksa (ë ¥ì¬), south: yeoksa (ìì¬)
* "female" - north: nyÅja (ë
ì), south: yeoja (ì¬ì)
Grammatical morphemes may change shape depending on the preceding sounds. Examples include -eun/-neun (-ì/-ë) and -i/-ga (-ì´/-ê°). Sometimes sounds may be inserted instead. Examples include -eul/-reul (-ì/-를), -euro/-ro (-ì¼ë¡/-ë¡), -eseo/-seo (-ìì/-ì), -ideunji/-deunji (-ì´ë ì§/-ë ì§) and -iya/-ya (-ì´ì¼/-ì¼). However, -euro/-ro is somewhat irregular, since it will behave differently after a rieul consonant.
Some verbs may also change shape morphophonemically.
Korean is an agglutinative language. Modifiers generally precede the modified words, and in the case of verb modifiers, can be serially appended. The basic form of a Korean sentence is Subject Object Verb, but the verb is the only required and immovable element.
:"Did [you] go to the store?" ("you" implied in conversation)
:"Yes."
The Korean Language contains nine parts of speech.
Korean verbs ( , tongsa, ) are also known in English as "action verbs" or "dynamic verbs" to distinguish them from [ , hyeong-yongsa, "adjectives"]), which are also known as "descriptive verbs" or "stative verbs". Examples of action/dynamic verbs include (hada, "to do") and (kada, "to go") which constitute an action or movement as opposed to descriptive verbs such as (yehppeuda, "to be beautiful"). For a larger list of Korean verbs, see .
Unlike most of the European languages, Korean does not conjugate verbs using agreement with the subject, and nouns have no gender. Instead, verb conjugations depend upon the verb tense, aspect, mood, and the social relation between the speaker, the subjects, and the listeners.
The system of speech levels and honorifics loosely resembles the T-V distinction of most Indo-European languages. For example, different endings are used depending on the speaker's relation with their subject or audience. Politeness is a critical part of Korean language and Korean culture, therefore, when talking to someone esteemed, the correct verb ending must be chosen to indicate the proper respect.
Words categorized as Korean adjectives ( , hyeong-yongsa, ) conjugate similarly to verbs, so some English texts call them "descriptive verbs" or "stative verbs", but they are distinctly separate from (tongsa).
English does not have an identical grammatical category, so the English translation of Korean adjectives may misleadingly suggest that they are verbs. For example, (pukda) translates literally as "to be red" and (aswipda) often best translates as "to lack" or "to want for", but both are (hyeong-yongsa, "adjectives"). For a larger list of Korean adjectives, see .
Korean pre-nouns ( , gwanhyeongsa, ) are also known in English as "determinatives", "attributives", and "unconjugated adjectives". Examples include (kak, "each"). For a larger list, see .
Core and basic noun words are native to the Korean language, e.g. (nara, country), (nal, day). A large body of Korean nouns ( , myeongsa, ) stem from Chinese characters, e.g. (å±±, san, mountain), (é©, yeok, station), (æå, munhwa, culture), etc. Many Sino-Korean words have a native Korean equivalent and vice versa, but not always. Nouns do not have grammatical gender and can be made plural by adding ë¤ to the end of the word, however in most instances the singular form is used even when in English it would be translated as plural. For example, while in English the sentence "there are three apples" would use the plural "apples" instead of the singular "apple", the Korean sentence ì¬ê³¼ ì¸ê° ììµëë¤ (sagwa segae isssumnida) maintains the word ì¬ê³¼ (sagwa, "apple") in its singular form, thus rendered in English as "apple three(things) exist." For a list of Korean nouns, see .
Korean pronouns ( , daemyeongsa, ) are highly influenced by the honorifics in the language. Pronouns change forms depending on the social status of the person or persons spoken to, e.g. the pronoun for "I" there is both the informal (na) and the honorific/humble (jeo). In general second person singular pronouns are avoided, especially when using honorific forms. For a larger list or Korean pronouns, see .
Korean adverbs ( , busa, ) include (tto, "also") and (gadeuk, "fully"). For a larger list, see .
Korean particles ( , josa, ) are also known in English as "postpositions". Examples include (neun, topic marker) and (reul, object marker). For a larger list, see .
Korean interjections ( , gamtansa, ) are also known in English as "exclamations". Examples include (ani, "no"). For a larger list, see .
Korean numbers or numerals ( , susa, ) constitute two regularly used sets: a native Korean set and a Sino-Korean set. The Sino-Korean system is nearly entirely based on the Chinese numerals. The distinction between the two numeral systems is very important. Everything that can be counted will use one of the two systems, but seldom both. Sino-Korean words are sometimes used to mark ordinal usage: yeol beon (ì´ ë²) means "ten times" while sip beon (ì(å) ë²(çª)) means "number ten." The grouping of large numbers in Korean follow the Chinese tradition of myriads (10000) rather than thousands (1000) as is common in Europe and North America.
The relationship between a speaker or writer and his or her subject and audience is paramount in Korean, and the grammar reflects this. The relationship between speaker/writer and subject referent is reflected in honorifics, while that between speaker/writer and audience is reflected in speech level.
When talking about someone superior in status, a speaker or writer usually uses special nouns or verb endings to indicate the subject's superiority. Generally, someone is superior in status if he/she is an older relative, a stranger of roughly equal or greater age, or an employer, teacher, customer, or the like. Someone is equal or inferior in status if he/she is a younger stranger, student, employee or the like. Nowadays, there are special endings which can be used on declarative, interrogative, and imperative sentences; and both honorific or normal sentences. They are made for easier and faster use of Korean.
There are seven verb paradigms or speech levels in Korean, and each level has its own unique set of verb endings which are used to indicate the level of formality of a situation. Unlike honorificsâwhich are used to show respect towards the referentâspeech levels are used to show respect towards a speaker's or writer's audience. The names of the seven levels are derived from the non-honorific imperative form of the verb íë¤ (hada, "do") in each level, plus the suffix ì²´ ("che", hanja: é« ), which means "style".
The highest six levels are generally grouped together as jondaenmal (ì¡´ëë§), while the lowest level (haeche, í´ì²´) is called banmal (ë°ë§) in Korean.
The core of the Korean vocabulary is made up of native Korean words. Like Japanese and Vietnamese, a significant proportion of the vocabulary, especially words that denote abstract ideas, are Sino-Korean words, Sohn, Ho-Min. The Korean Language (Section 1.5.3 "Korean vocabulary", p.12â13), Cambridge University Press, 2001. ISBN 0521369436. either
* directly borrowed from Written Chinese, or
* coined in Japan or Korea using Chinese characters,
in a similar way European languages borrow from Latin and Greek.
The exact proportion of Sino-Korean vocabulary is a matter of debate. Sohn (2001) stated 50-60%. However, Jeong Jae-do, one of the compilers of the dictionary Urimal Kun Sajeon, asserts that the proportion is not so high. He points out that Korean dictionaries compiled during the period of Japanese occupation include many unused Sino-Korean words. In his estimation, the proportion of native Korean vocabulary in the Korean language might be as high as 70%. . The dictionary mentioned is
Korean has two number systems: one native, and one borrowed from Chinese.
To a much lesser extent, words have also occasionally been borrowed from Mongolian, Sanskrit, and other languages. Conversely, the Korean language itself has also contributed some loanwords to other languages, most notably the Tsushima dialect of Japanese.
The vast majority of loanwords other than Sino-Korean come from modern times, 90% of which are from English. Many words have also been borrowed from Japanese and Western languages such as German (areubaiteu "part-time job", allereugi "allergy", "gibsu" "plaster cast used for broken bones"). Some Western words were borrowed indirectly via Japanese, taking a Japanese sound pattern, for example "dozen" > dÄsu > daseu. Most indirect Western borrowings are now written according to current Hangulization rules for the respective Western language, as if borrowed directly. There are a few more complicated borrowings such as "German(y)" (see Names for Germany), the first part of whose endonym the Japanese approximated using the kanji doitsu that were then accepted into the Korean language by their Sino-Korean pronunciation: dok + il = Dogil. In South Korean official use, a number of other Sino-Korean country names have been replaced with phonetically oriented Hangulizations of the countries' endonyms or English names.
As in Japanese, Korean adapts words in ways that are uncommon in English. For example, in soccer heading ( ) is used to label a head-strike, rather than direction. This is a corrupted loan word from the English header.
North Korean vocabulary shows a tendency to prefer native Korean over Sino-Korean or foreign borrowings, especially with recent political objectives aimed at eliminating foreign (mostly Chinese) influences on the Korean language in the North. By contrast, South Korean may have several Sino-Korean or foreign borrowings which tend to be absent in North Korean.
Formerly the languages of the Korean peninsula were written using Chinese characters, using hyangchal or idu. Such systems relied on principles of rebus, and were lost, later in history. Writing became confined to the ruling elite, who used hanja to write in Classical Chinese.
Korean is now mainly written in Hangul, the Korean alphabet promulgated in 1446 by Sejong the Great; hanja may be mixed in to write Sino-Korean words. While South Korean schools still teach 1,800 hanja characters, North Korea had abolished the use of hanja decades ago.
Below is a chart of the Korean alphabet's symbols and their canonical IPA values:
Modern Korean is written with spaces between words, a feature not found in Chinese or Japanese. Korean punctuation marks are almost identical to Western ones. Traditionally, Korean was written in columns from top to bottom, right to left, but is now usually written in rows from left to right, top to bottom.
The Korean language used in the North and the South exhibits differences in pronunciation, spelling, grammar and vocabulary. Kanno, Hiroomi (ed.) / Society for Korean Linguistics in Japan (1987). ChÅsengo o manabÅ (ãæé®®èªãå¦ã¼ãã), SanshÅ«sha, Tokyo. ISBN 4-384-01506-2
In North Korea, palatalization of is optional, and can be pronounced between vowels.
Words that are written the same way may be pronounced differently, such as the examples below. The pronunciations below are given in Revised Romanization, McCune-Reischauer and Hangul, the last of which represents what the Hangul would be if one writes the word as pronounced.
* Similar pronunciation is used in the North whenever the hanja "ç" is attached to a Sino-Korean word ending in ã´, ã
or ã
. (In the South, this rule only applies when it is attached to any single-character Sino-Korean word.)
Some words are spelled differently by the North and the South, but the pronunciations are the same.
Some words have different spellings and pronunciations in the North and the South, some of which were given in the "Phonology" section above:
In general, when transcribing place names, North Korea tends to use the pronunciation in the original language more than South Korea, which often uses the pronunciation in English. For example:
Some grammatical constructions are also different:
Some vocabulary is different between the North and the South:
In the North, guillemets and are the symbols used for quotes; in the South, quotation marks equivalent to the English ones, â and â, are standard, although and are sometimes used in popular novels.
The United States' Defense Language Institute classifies Korean alongside Arabic, Chinese, and Japanese as a Category IV language, meaning that 63 weeks of instruction (as compared to just 25 weeks for French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian) are required to bring an English-speaking student to a limited working level of proficiency in which he or she has "sufficient capability to meet routine social demands and limited job requirements" and "can deal with concrete topics in past, present, and future tense." As a result, the study of the Korean language in the United States is dominated by Korean American heritage language students; they are estimated to form over 80% of all students of the language at non-military universities.
However, Korean is considerably easier for speakers of certain other languages, such as Japanese ; in Japan, it is more widely studied by non-heritage learners. The Korean Language Proficiency Test, an examination aimed at assessing non-native speakers' competence in Korean, was instituted in 1997; 17,000 people applied for the 2005 sitting of the examination.
*Hangul
*Korean romanization
**Revised romanization of Korean
**McCune-Reischauer
**Yale Romanization#Korean
**SKATS
*Korean numerals
*Korean count word
*Korean language and computers
*Hanja
*Sino-Korean vocabulary
*Korean mixed script
*List of English words of Korean origin
*Altaic languages
*List of Korea-related topics
*Vowel harmony
* (Volume 4 of the London Oriental and African Language Library).
*Hulbert, Homer B. (1905): A Comparative Grammar of the Korean Language and the Dravidian Dialects in India. Seoul.
*Martin, Samuel E. (1966): Lexical Evidence Relating Japanese to Korean. Language 42/2: 185â251.
*Martin, Samuel E. (1990): Morphological clues to the relationship of Japanese and Korean. In: Philip Baldi (ed.): Linguistic Change and Reconstruction Methodology. Trends in Linguistics: Studies and Monographs 45: 483-509.
*Miller, Roy Andrew (1971): Japanese and the Other Altaic Languages. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0226527190.
*Miller, Roy Andrew (1996): Languages and History: Japanese, Korean and Altaic. Oslo: Institute for Comparative Research in Human Culture. ISBN 9748299694.
*Ramstedt, G. J. (1928): Remarks on the Korean language. Mémoires de la Société Finno-Oigrienne 58.
*Rybatzki, Volker (2003): Middle Mongol. In: Juha Janhunen (ed.) (2003): The Mongolic languages. London: Routledge. ISBN 0-7007-1133-3: 47â82.
*Starostin, Sergei A.; Anna V. Dybo; Oleg A. Mudrak (2003): Etymological Dictionary of the Altaic Languages, 3 volumes. Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers. ISBN 9004131531.
*Sohn, H.-M. (1999): The Korean Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Song, J.-J. (2005): The Korean Language: Structure, Use and Context. London: Routledge.
*Trask, R. L. (1996): Historical linguistics. Hodder Arnold.
*Vovin, Alexander: Koreo-Japonica. University of Hawai'i Press.
*Whitman, John B. (1985): The Phonological Basis for the Comparison of Japanese and Korean. Unpublished Harvard University Ph.D. dissertation.
* Ethnologue report for Korean
* Linguistic and Philosophical Origins of the Korean Alphabet (Hangul)
* Free Korean language and culture course online, in English
* Linguistic map of Korea
* Korean - a Category III language Languages which are exceptionally difficult for native English speakers
* dongsa.net A Korean verb conjugation tool that explains the conjugations for learners of Korean
|
Korean_language | Is modern Korean written in columns or rows? | null | data/set5/a6 | Korean_language
:This article is mainly about the spoken Korean language. See Hangul for details on the native Korean writing system.
Korean ( , see below) is the official language of Korea, both South and North. It is also one of the two official languages in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in China. There are about 78 million Korean speakers. In the 15th century a national writing system was commissioned by Sejong the Great, currently called Hangul. Prior to the development of Hangul, Koreans used Hanja (Chinese characters) to write for over a millennia.
The genealogical classification of the Korean language is debated by a small number of linguists. Most classify it as a language isolate Song, Jae Jung (2005) "The Korean language: structure, use and context" Routledge, p. 15
Lyle Campbell & Mauricio Mixco. 2007. A Glossary of Historical Linguistics. University of Utah Press. while a few consider it to be in the Altaic language family. Stratification in the peopling of China: how far does the linguistic evidence match genetics and archaeology? In; Sanchez-Mazas, Blench, Ross, Lin & Pejros eds. Human migrations in continental East Asia and Taiwan: genetic, linguistic and archaeological evidence. 2008. Taylor & Francis Some believe it to be distantly related to Japanese. Like Japanese it is agglutinative in its morphology and SOV in its syntax.
The Korean names for the language are based on the names for Korea used in North and South Korea.
In South Korea, the language is most often called Hangungmal
( ; ), or more formally, Hangugeo ( ; ) or Gugeo ( ; ; literally "national language").
In North Korea and Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in China, the language is most often called ChosÅnmal ( ; with hanja: ), or more formally, ChosÅnÅ ( ; ).
On the other hand, Korean people in the former USSR, who refer to themselves as Koryo-saram (ê³ ë ¤ì¬ë; also Goryeoin [ ; ; literally, "Goryeo person(s)"]) call the language Goryeomal ( ; ).
In mainland China, following the establishment of diplomatic relations with South Korea in 1992, the term CháoxiÇnyÇ ( or the short form: CháoyÇ ( )) has normally been used to refer to the language spoken in North Korea and Yanbian, while HánguóyÇ ( or the short form: HányÇ ( )) is used to refer to the language spoken in South Korea.
Some older English sources also used the name "Korean" to refer to the language, country, and people. The word "Korean" is derived from Goryeo, which is thought to be the first dynasty known to western countries.
Most modern linguists consider Korean to be a language isolate Song, Jae Jung (2005) "The Korean language: structure, use and context" Routledge, p. 15
Lyle Campbell & Mauricio J. Mixco. 2007. A Glossary of Historical Linguistics. University of Utah Press.
Since the publication of the article of Ramstedt in 1928, some linguists eg Miller 1971, 1996, Starostin et al. 2003 support the hypothesis that Korean can be classified as an Altaic language or as a relative of proto-Altaic. Korean is similar to the Altaic languages in that they both lack certain grammatical elements, including articles, fusional morphology and relative pronouns. However, linguists agree today on the fact that typological resemblances cannot be used to prove genetic relatedness of languages eg Vovin 2008: 1 as these features are typologically connected and easily borrowed. Trask 1996: 147-151 Such factors of typological divergence as Middle Mongolian's exhibition of gender agreement Rybatzki 2003: 57 can be used to argue that a genetic relationship is unlikely. Vovin 2008: 5
The hypothesis that Korean might be related to Japanese has had some more supporters due to some considerable overlap in vocabulary and similar grammatical features that have been elaborated upon by such researchers as Samuel E. Martin eg Martin 1966, 1990 and Roy Andrew Miller. eg Miller 1971, 1996 Sergei Starostin (1991) found about 25% of potential cognates in the Japanese-Korean 100-word Swadesh list, which - if true - would place these two languages closer together than other possible members of the Altaic family.
Other linguists, most notably Alexander Vovin, argue, however, that the similarities are not due to any genetic relationship, but rather to a sprachbund effect and heavy borrowing especially from Korean into Western Old Japanese. Vovin 2008 A good example might be Middle Korean sà m Whitman 1985: 232, also found in Martin 1966: 233 This word seems to be cognate, but while it is well-attested in Western Old Japanese and Northern RyÅ«kyÅ«, in Eastern Old Japanese it only occurs in compounds, and it is only present in three subdialects of the South-RyÅ«kyÅ«an dialect group. Then, the doublet wo âhempâ is attested in Western Old Japanese and Southern RyÅ«kyÅ«. It is thus plausible to assume a borrowed term. Vovin 2008: 211-212 See East Asian languages for morphological features shared among languages of the East Asian sprachbund, and Classification of Japanese for further details on the discussion of a possible relationship.
Korean is descended from Old Korean, Middle Korean and Modern Korean. Controversy remains over the proposed Altaic language family and its inclusion of Proto-Korean. Since the Korean War, contemporary North-South differences in Korean have developed, including variance in pronunciation, verb inflection, and vocabulary.
Korean is spoken by the Korean people in North Korea and South Korea and by the Korean diaspora in many countries including the People's Republic of China, Japan, and the United States. Korean-speaking minorities exist in these states, but because of cultural assimilation into host countries, not all ethnic Korean immigrants may speak it with native fluency.
Korean is the official language of South Korea and North Korea. It is also one of the two official languages of the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in China.
In South Korea, the regulatory body for Korean is the Seoul-based National Institute of the Korean Language ( ), which was created by presidential decree on January 23, 1991. In North Korea, the regulatory body is the Sahoe Kwahagwon Åhak YÅnguso ( ).
Dialects of Korean
Korean has several dialects (called mal [literally "speech"], saturi, or bang-eon in Korean). The standard language (pyojuneo or pyojunmal) of South Korea is based on the dialect of the area around Seoul, and the standard for North Korea is based on the dialect spoken around P'yÅngyang. All dialects of Korean are similar to each other, and are in fact all mutually intelligible, perhaps with the exception of the dialect of Jeju Island (see Jeju dialect). The dialect spoken in Jeju is in fact classified as a different language by some Korean linguists. One of the most notable differences between dialects is the use of stress: speakers of Seoul dialect use very little stress, and standard South Korean has a very flat intonation; on the other hand, speakers of the Gyeongsang dialect have a very pronounced intonation.
It is also worth noting that there is substantial evidence for a history of extensive dialect levelling, or even convergent evolution or intermixture of two or more originally distinct linguistic stocks, within the Korean language and its dialects. Many Korean dialects have basic vocabulary that is etymologically distinct from vocabulary of identical meaning in Standard Korean or other dialects, such as South Jeolla dialect /kur/ vs. Standard Korean ì
"mouth" or Gyeongsang dialect vs. Standard Korean "garlic chives." This suggests that the Korean Peninsula may have at one time been much more linguistically diverse than it is at present. See also the Buyeo languages hypothesis.
There is a very close connection between the dialects of Korean and the regions of Korea, since the boundaries of both are largely determined by mountains and seas. Here is a list of traditional dialect names and locations:
The Korean consonants
The IPA symbol (a subscript double straight quotation mark, shown here with a placeholder circle) is used to denote the tensed consonants . Its official use in the Extensions to the IPA is for 'strong' articulation, but is used in the literature for faucalized voice. The Korean consonants also have elements of stiff voice, but it is not yet known how typical this is of faucalized consonants. They are produced with a partially constricted glottis and additional subglottal pressure in addition to tense vocal tract walls, laryngeal lowering, or other expansion of the larynx.
becomes an alveolo-palatal before or for most speakers (but see Differences in the language between North Korea and South Korea). This occurs with the tense fricative and all the affricates as well. At the end of a syllable, /s/ changes to /t/ (Example: beoseot (ë²ì¯) 'mushroom').
may become a bilabial before or , a palatal before or , a velar before , a voiced between voiced sounds, and a elsewhere.
become voiced between voiced sounds.
becomes alveolar flap between vowels, and or at the end of a syllable or next to another . Note that a written syllable-final 'ã¹', when followed by a vowel or a glide (i.e., when the next character starts with 'ã
'), migrates to the next syllable and thus becomes .
Traditionally, was disallowed at the beginning of a word. It disappeared before , and otherwise became . However, the inflow of western loanword changed the trend, and now word-initial (mostly from English loanwords) are pronounced as a free variation of either or . The traditional prohibition of word-initial became a morphological rule called "initial law" (ëìë²ì¹) in South Korea, which pertains to Sino-Korean vocabulary. Such words retain their word-initial in North Korea.
All obstruents (plosives, affricates, fricatives) are unreleased at the end of a word.
Plosive stops become nasal stops before nasal stops.
Hangul spelling does not reflect these assimilatory pronunciation rules, but rather maintains the underlying, partly historical morphology. Given this, it is sometimes hard to tell which actual phonemes are present in a certain word.
One difference between the pronunciation standards of North and South Korea is the treatment of initial , and initial . For example,
* "labour" - north: rodong (ë¡ë), south: nodong (ë
¸ë)
* "history" - north: ryÅksa (ë ¥ì¬), south: yeoksa (ìì¬)
* "female" - north: nyÅja (ë
ì), south: yeoja (ì¬ì)
Grammatical morphemes may change shape depending on the preceding sounds. Examples include -eun/-neun (-ì/-ë) and -i/-ga (-ì´/-ê°). Sometimes sounds may be inserted instead. Examples include -eul/-reul (-ì/-를), -euro/-ro (-ì¼ë¡/-ë¡), -eseo/-seo (-ìì/-ì), -ideunji/-deunji (-ì´ë ì§/-ë ì§) and -iya/-ya (-ì´ì¼/-ì¼). However, -euro/-ro is somewhat irregular, since it will behave differently after a rieul consonant.
Some verbs may also change shape morphophonemically.
Korean is an agglutinative language. Modifiers generally precede the modified words, and in the case of verb modifiers, can be serially appended. The basic form of a Korean sentence is Subject Object Verb, but the verb is the only required and immovable element.
:"Did [you] go to the store?" ("you" implied in conversation)
:"Yes."
The Korean Language contains nine parts of speech.
Korean verbs ( , tongsa, ) are also known in English as "action verbs" or "dynamic verbs" to distinguish them from [ , hyeong-yongsa, "adjectives"]), which are also known as "descriptive verbs" or "stative verbs". Examples of action/dynamic verbs include (hada, "to do") and (kada, "to go") which constitute an action or movement as opposed to descriptive verbs such as (yehppeuda, "to be beautiful"). For a larger list of Korean verbs, see .
Unlike most of the European languages, Korean does not conjugate verbs using agreement with the subject, and nouns have no gender. Instead, verb conjugations depend upon the verb tense, aspect, mood, and the social relation between the speaker, the subjects, and the listeners.
The system of speech levels and honorifics loosely resembles the T-V distinction of most Indo-European languages. For example, different endings are used depending on the speaker's relation with their subject or audience. Politeness is a critical part of Korean language and Korean culture, therefore, when talking to someone esteemed, the correct verb ending must be chosen to indicate the proper respect.
Words categorized as Korean adjectives ( , hyeong-yongsa, ) conjugate similarly to verbs, so some English texts call them "descriptive verbs" or "stative verbs", but they are distinctly separate from (tongsa).
English does not have an identical grammatical category, so the English translation of Korean adjectives may misleadingly suggest that they are verbs. For example, (pukda) translates literally as "to be red" and (aswipda) often best translates as "to lack" or "to want for", but both are (hyeong-yongsa, "adjectives"). For a larger list of Korean adjectives, see .
Korean pre-nouns ( , gwanhyeongsa, ) are also known in English as "determinatives", "attributives", and "unconjugated adjectives". Examples include (kak, "each"). For a larger list, see .
Core and basic noun words are native to the Korean language, e.g. (nara, country), (nal, day). A large body of Korean nouns ( , myeongsa, ) stem from Chinese characters, e.g. (å±±, san, mountain), (é©, yeok, station), (æå, munhwa, culture), etc. Many Sino-Korean words have a native Korean equivalent and vice versa, but not always. Nouns do not have grammatical gender and can be made plural by adding ë¤ to the end of the word, however in most instances the singular form is used even when in English it would be translated as plural. For example, while in English the sentence "there are three apples" would use the plural "apples" instead of the singular "apple", the Korean sentence ì¬ê³¼ ì¸ê° ììµëë¤ (sagwa segae isssumnida) maintains the word ì¬ê³¼ (sagwa, "apple") in its singular form, thus rendered in English as "apple three(things) exist." For a list of Korean nouns, see .
Korean pronouns ( , daemyeongsa, ) are highly influenced by the honorifics in the language. Pronouns change forms depending on the social status of the person or persons spoken to, e.g. the pronoun for "I" there is both the informal (na) and the honorific/humble (jeo). In general second person singular pronouns are avoided, especially when using honorific forms. For a larger list or Korean pronouns, see .
Korean adverbs ( , busa, ) include (tto, "also") and (gadeuk, "fully"). For a larger list, see .
Korean particles ( , josa, ) are also known in English as "postpositions". Examples include (neun, topic marker) and (reul, object marker). For a larger list, see .
Korean interjections ( , gamtansa, ) are also known in English as "exclamations". Examples include (ani, "no"). For a larger list, see .
Korean numbers or numerals ( , susa, ) constitute two regularly used sets: a native Korean set and a Sino-Korean set. The Sino-Korean system is nearly entirely based on the Chinese numerals. The distinction between the two numeral systems is very important. Everything that can be counted will use one of the two systems, but seldom both. Sino-Korean words are sometimes used to mark ordinal usage: yeol beon (ì´ ë²) means "ten times" while sip beon (ì(å) ë²(çª)) means "number ten." The grouping of large numbers in Korean follow the Chinese tradition of myriads (10000) rather than thousands (1000) as is common in Europe and North America.
The relationship between a speaker or writer and his or her subject and audience is paramount in Korean, and the grammar reflects this. The relationship between speaker/writer and subject referent is reflected in honorifics, while that between speaker/writer and audience is reflected in speech level.
When talking about someone superior in status, a speaker or writer usually uses special nouns or verb endings to indicate the subject's superiority. Generally, someone is superior in status if he/she is an older relative, a stranger of roughly equal or greater age, or an employer, teacher, customer, or the like. Someone is equal or inferior in status if he/she is a younger stranger, student, employee or the like. Nowadays, there are special endings which can be used on declarative, interrogative, and imperative sentences; and both honorific or normal sentences. They are made for easier and faster use of Korean.
There are seven verb paradigms or speech levels in Korean, and each level has its own unique set of verb endings which are used to indicate the level of formality of a situation. Unlike honorificsâwhich are used to show respect towards the referentâspeech levels are used to show respect towards a speaker's or writer's audience. The names of the seven levels are derived from the non-honorific imperative form of the verb íë¤ (hada, "do") in each level, plus the suffix ì²´ ("che", hanja: é« ), which means "style".
The highest six levels are generally grouped together as jondaenmal (ì¡´ëë§), while the lowest level (haeche, í´ì²´) is called banmal (ë°ë§) in Korean.
The core of the Korean vocabulary is made up of native Korean words. Like Japanese and Vietnamese, a significant proportion of the vocabulary, especially words that denote abstract ideas, are Sino-Korean words, Sohn, Ho-Min. The Korean Language (Section 1.5.3 "Korean vocabulary", p.12â13), Cambridge University Press, 2001. ISBN 0521369436. either
* directly borrowed from Written Chinese, or
* coined in Japan or Korea using Chinese characters,
in a similar way European languages borrow from Latin and Greek.
The exact proportion of Sino-Korean vocabulary is a matter of debate. Sohn (2001) stated 50-60%. However, Jeong Jae-do, one of the compilers of the dictionary Urimal Kun Sajeon, asserts that the proportion is not so high. He points out that Korean dictionaries compiled during the period of Japanese occupation include many unused Sino-Korean words. In his estimation, the proportion of native Korean vocabulary in the Korean language might be as high as 70%. . The dictionary mentioned is
Korean has two number systems: one native, and one borrowed from Chinese.
To a much lesser extent, words have also occasionally been borrowed from Mongolian, Sanskrit, and other languages. Conversely, the Korean language itself has also contributed some loanwords to other languages, most notably the Tsushima dialect of Japanese.
The vast majority of loanwords other than Sino-Korean come from modern times, 90% of which are from English. Many words have also been borrowed from Japanese and Western languages such as German (areubaiteu "part-time job", allereugi "allergy", "gibsu" "plaster cast used for broken bones"). Some Western words were borrowed indirectly via Japanese, taking a Japanese sound pattern, for example "dozen" > dÄsu > daseu. Most indirect Western borrowings are now written according to current Hangulization rules for the respective Western language, as if borrowed directly. There are a few more complicated borrowings such as "German(y)" (see Names for Germany), the first part of whose endonym the Japanese approximated using the kanji doitsu that were then accepted into the Korean language by their Sino-Korean pronunciation: dok + il = Dogil. In South Korean official use, a number of other Sino-Korean country names have been replaced with phonetically oriented Hangulizations of the countries' endonyms or English names.
As in Japanese, Korean adapts words in ways that are uncommon in English. For example, in soccer heading ( ) is used to label a head-strike, rather than direction. This is a corrupted loan word from the English header.
North Korean vocabulary shows a tendency to prefer native Korean over Sino-Korean or foreign borrowings, especially with recent political objectives aimed at eliminating foreign (mostly Chinese) influences on the Korean language in the North. By contrast, South Korean may have several Sino-Korean or foreign borrowings which tend to be absent in North Korean.
Formerly the languages of the Korean peninsula were written using Chinese characters, using hyangchal or idu. Such systems relied on principles of rebus, and were lost, later in history. Writing became confined to the ruling elite, who used hanja to write in Classical Chinese.
Korean is now mainly written in Hangul, the Korean alphabet promulgated in 1446 by Sejong the Great; hanja may be mixed in to write Sino-Korean words. While South Korean schools still teach 1,800 hanja characters, North Korea had abolished the use of hanja decades ago.
Below is a chart of the Korean alphabet's symbols and their canonical IPA values:
Modern Korean is written with spaces between words, a feature not found in Chinese or Japanese. Korean punctuation marks are almost identical to Western ones. Traditionally, Korean was written in columns from top to bottom, right to left, but is now usually written in rows from left to right, top to bottom.
The Korean language used in the North and the South exhibits differences in pronunciation, spelling, grammar and vocabulary. Kanno, Hiroomi (ed.) / Society for Korean Linguistics in Japan (1987). ChÅsengo o manabÅ (ãæé®®èªãå¦ã¼ãã), SanshÅ«sha, Tokyo. ISBN 4-384-01506-2
In North Korea, palatalization of is optional, and can be pronounced between vowels.
Words that are written the same way may be pronounced differently, such as the examples below. The pronunciations below are given in Revised Romanization, McCune-Reischauer and Hangul, the last of which represents what the Hangul would be if one writes the word as pronounced.
* Similar pronunciation is used in the North whenever the hanja "ç" is attached to a Sino-Korean word ending in ã´, ã
or ã
. (In the South, this rule only applies when it is attached to any single-character Sino-Korean word.)
Some words are spelled differently by the North and the South, but the pronunciations are the same.
Some words have different spellings and pronunciations in the North and the South, some of which were given in the "Phonology" section above:
In general, when transcribing place names, North Korea tends to use the pronunciation in the original language more than South Korea, which often uses the pronunciation in English. For example:
Some grammatical constructions are also different:
Some vocabulary is different between the North and the South:
In the North, guillemets and are the symbols used for quotes; in the South, quotation marks equivalent to the English ones, â and â, are standard, although and are sometimes used in popular novels.
The United States' Defense Language Institute classifies Korean alongside Arabic, Chinese, and Japanese as a Category IV language, meaning that 63 weeks of instruction (as compared to just 25 weeks for French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian) are required to bring an English-speaking student to a limited working level of proficiency in which he or she has "sufficient capability to meet routine social demands and limited job requirements" and "can deal with concrete topics in past, present, and future tense." As a result, the study of the Korean language in the United States is dominated by Korean American heritage language students; they are estimated to form over 80% of all students of the language at non-military universities.
However, Korean is considerably easier for speakers of certain other languages, such as Japanese ; in Japan, it is more widely studied by non-heritage learners. The Korean Language Proficiency Test, an examination aimed at assessing non-native speakers' competence in Korean, was instituted in 1997; 17,000 people applied for the 2005 sitting of the examination.
*Hangul
*Korean romanization
**Revised romanization of Korean
**McCune-Reischauer
**Yale Romanization#Korean
**SKATS
*Korean numerals
*Korean count word
*Korean language and computers
*Hanja
*Sino-Korean vocabulary
*Korean mixed script
*List of English words of Korean origin
*Altaic languages
*List of Korea-related topics
*Vowel harmony
* (Volume 4 of the London Oriental and African Language Library).
*Hulbert, Homer B. (1905): A Comparative Grammar of the Korean Language and the Dravidian Dialects in India. Seoul.
*Martin, Samuel E. (1966): Lexical Evidence Relating Japanese to Korean. Language 42/2: 185â251.
*Martin, Samuel E. (1990): Morphological clues to the relationship of Japanese and Korean. In: Philip Baldi (ed.): Linguistic Change and Reconstruction Methodology. Trends in Linguistics: Studies and Monographs 45: 483-509.
*Miller, Roy Andrew (1971): Japanese and the Other Altaic Languages. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0226527190.
*Miller, Roy Andrew (1996): Languages and History: Japanese, Korean and Altaic. Oslo: Institute for Comparative Research in Human Culture. ISBN 9748299694.
*Ramstedt, G. J. (1928): Remarks on the Korean language. Mémoires de la Société Finno-Oigrienne 58.
*Rybatzki, Volker (2003): Middle Mongol. In: Juha Janhunen (ed.) (2003): The Mongolic languages. London: Routledge. ISBN 0-7007-1133-3: 47â82.
*Starostin, Sergei A.; Anna V. Dybo; Oleg A. Mudrak (2003): Etymological Dictionary of the Altaic Languages, 3 volumes. Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers. ISBN 9004131531.
*Sohn, H.-M. (1999): The Korean Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Song, J.-J. (2005): The Korean Language: Structure, Use and Context. London: Routledge.
*Trask, R. L. (1996): Historical linguistics. Hodder Arnold.
*Vovin, Alexander: Koreo-Japonica. University of Hawai'i Press.
*Whitman, John B. (1985): The Phonological Basis for the Comparison of Japanese and Korean. Unpublished Harvard University Ph.D. dissertation.
* Ethnologue report for Korean
* Linguistic and Philosophical Origins of the Korean Alphabet (Hangul)
* Free Korean language and culture course online, in English
* Linguistic map of Korea
* Korean - a Category III language Languages which are exceptionally difficult for native English speakers
* dongsa.net A Korean verb conjugation tool that explains the conjugations for learners of Korean
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Korean_language | What percentage of the Korean language does Jeong Jae-do estimate to be Sino-Korean? | Sino-Korean makes up 30% of the Korean language. | data/set5/a6 | Korean_language
:This article is mainly about the spoken Korean language. See Hangul for details on the native Korean writing system.
Korean ( , see below) is the official language of Korea, both South and North. It is also one of the two official languages in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in China. There are about 78 million Korean speakers. In the 15th century a national writing system was commissioned by Sejong the Great, currently called Hangul. Prior to the development of Hangul, Koreans used Hanja (Chinese characters) to write for over a millennia.
The genealogical classification of the Korean language is debated by a small number of linguists. Most classify it as a language isolate Song, Jae Jung (2005) "The Korean language: structure, use and context" Routledge, p. 15
Lyle Campbell & Mauricio Mixco. 2007. A Glossary of Historical Linguistics. University of Utah Press. while a few consider it to be in the Altaic language family. Stratification in the peopling of China: how far does the linguistic evidence match genetics and archaeology? In; Sanchez-Mazas, Blench, Ross, Lin & Pejros eds. Human migrations in continental East Asia and Taiwan: genetic, linguistic and archaeological evidence. 2008. Taylor & Francis Some believe it to be distantly related to Japanese. Like Japanese it is agglutinative in its morphology and SOV in its syntax.
The Korean names for the language are based on the names for Korea used in North and South Korea.
In South Korea, the language is most often called Hangungmal
( ; ), or more formally, Hangugeo ( ; ) or Gugeo ( ; ; literally "national language").
In North Korea and Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in China, the language is most often called ChosÅnmal ( ; with hanja: ), or more formally, ChosÅnÅ ( ; ).
On the other hand, Korean people in the former USSR, who refer to themselves as Koryo-saram (ê³ ë ¤ì¬ë; also Goryeoin [ ; ; literally, "Goryeo person(s)"]) call the language Goryeomal ( ; ).
In mainland China, following the establishment of diplomatic relations with South Korea in 1992, the term CháoxiÇnyÇ ( or the short form: CháoyÇ ( )) has normally been used to refer to the language spoken in North Korea and Yanbian, while HánguóyÇ ( or the short form: HányÇ ( )) is used to refer to the language spoken in South Korea.
Some older English sources also used the name "Korean" to refer to the language, country, and people. The word "Korean" is derived from Goryeo, which is thought to be the first dynasty known to western countries.
Most modern linguists consider Korean to be a language isolate Song, Jae Jung (2005) "The Korean language: structure, use and context" Routledge, p. 15
Lyle Campbell & Mauricio J. Mixco. 2007. A Glossary of Historical Linguistics. University of Utah Press.
Since the publication of the article of Ramstedt in 1928, some linguists eg Miller 1971, 1996, Starostin et al. 2003 support the hypothesis that Korean can be classified as an Altaic language or as a relative of proto-Altaic. Korean is similar to the Altaic languages in that they both lack certain grammatical elements, including articles, fusional morphology and relative pronouns. However, linguists agree today on the fact that typological resemblances cannot be used to prove genetic relatedness of languages eg Vovin 2008: 1 as these features are typologically connected and easily borrowed. Trask 1996: 147-151 Such factors of typological divergence as Middle Mongolian's exhibition of gender agreement Rybatzki 2003: 57 can be used to argue that a genetic relationship is unlikely. Vovin 2008: 5
The hypothesis that Korean might be related to Japanese has had some more supporters due to some considerable overlap in vocabulary and similar grammatical features that have been elaborated upon by such researchers as Samuel E. Martin eg Martin 1966, 1990 and Roy Andrew Miller. eg Miller 1971, 1996 Sergei Starostin (1991) found about 25% of potential cognates in the Japanese-Korean 100-word Swadesh list, which - if true - would place these two languages closer together than other possible members of the Altaic family.
Other linguists, most notably Alexander Vovin, argue, however, that the similarities are not due to any genetic relationship, but rather to a sprachbund effect and heavy borrowing especially from Korean into Western Old Japanese. Vovin 2008 A good example might be Middle Korean sà m Whitman 1985: 232, also found in Martin 1966: 233 This word seems to be cognate, but while it is well-attested in Western Old Japanese and Northern RyÅ«kyÅ«, in Eastern Old Japanese it only occurs in compounds, and it is only present in three subdialects of the South-RyÅ«kyÅ«an dialect group. Then, the doublet wo âhempâ is attested in Western Old Japanese and Southern RyÅ«kyÅ«. It is thus plausible to assume a borrowed term. Vovin 2008: 211-212 See East Asian languages for morphological features shared among languages of the East Asian sprachbund, and Classification of Japanese for further details on the discussion of a possible relationship.
Korean is descended from Old Korean, Middle Korean and Modern Korean. Controversy remains over the proposed Altaic language family and its inclusion of Proto-Korean. Since the Korean War, contemporary North-South differences in Korean have developed, including variance in pronunciation, verb inflection, and vocabulary.
Korean is spoken by the Korean people in North Korea and South Korea and by the Korean diaspora in many countries including the People's Republic of China, Japan, and the United States. Korean-speaking minorities exist in these states, but because of cultural assimilation into host countries, not all ethnic Korean immigrants may speak it with native fluency.
Korean is the official language of South Korea and North Korea. It is also one of the two official languages of the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in China.
In South Korea, the regulatory body for Korean is the Seoul-based National Institute of the Korean Language ( ), which was created by presidential decree on January 23, 1991. In North Korea, the regulatory body is the Sahoe Kwahagwon Åhak YÅnguso ( ).
Dialects of Korean
Korean has several dialects (called mal [literally "speech"], saturi, or bang-eon in Korean). The standard language (pyojuneo or pyojunmal) of South Korea is based on the dialect of the area around Seoul, and the standard for North Korea is based on the dialect spoken around P'yÅngyang. All dialects of Korean are similar to each other, and are in fact all mutually intelligible, perhaps with the exception of the dialect of Jeju Island (see Jeju dialect). The dialect spoken in Jeju is in fact classified as a different language by some Korean linguists. One of the most notable differences between dialects is the use of stress: speakers of Seoul dialect use very little stress, and standard South Korean has a very flat intonation; on the other hand, speakers of the Gyeongsang dialect have a very pronounced intonation.
It is also worth noting that there is substantial evidence for a history of extensive dialect levelling, or even convergent evolution or intermixture of two or more originally distinct linguistic stocks, within the Korean language and its dialects. Many Korean dialects have basic vocabulary that is etymologically distinct from vocabulary of identical meaning in Standard Korean or other dialects, such as South Jeolla dialect /kur/ vs. Standard Korean ì
"mouth" or Gyeongsang dialect vs. Standard Korean "garlic chives." This suggests that the Korean Peninsula may have at one time been much more linguistically diverse than it is at present. See also the Buyeo languages hypothesis.
There is a very close connection between the dialects of Korean and the regions of Korea, since the boundaries of both are largely determined by mountains and seas. Here is a list of traditional dialect names and locations:
The Korean consonants
The IPA symbol (a subscript double straight quotation mark, shown here with a placeholder circle) is used to denote the tensed consonants . Its official use in the Extensions to the IPA is for 'strong' articulation, but is used in the literature for faucalized voice. The Korean consonants also have elements of stiff voice, but it is not yet known how typical this is of faucalized consonants. They are produced with a partially constricted glottis and additional subglottal pressure in addition to tense vocal tract walls, laryngeal lowering, or other expansion of the larynx.
becomes an alveolo-palatal before or for most speakers (but see Differences in the language between North Korea and South Korea). This occurs with the tense fricative and all the affricates as well. At the end of a syllable, /s/ changes to /t/ (Example: beoseot (ë²ì¯) 'mushroom').
may become a bilabial before or , a palatal before or , a velar before , a voiced between voiced sounds, and a elsewhere.
become voiced between voiced sounds.
becomes alveolar flap between vowels, and or at the end of a syllable or next to another . Note that a written syllable-final 'ã¹', when followed by a vowel or a glide (i.e., when the next character starts with 'ã
'), migrates to the next syllable and thus becomes .
Traditionally, was disallowed at the beginning of a word. It disappeared before , and otherwise became . However, the inflow of western loanword changed the trend, and now word-initial (mostly from English loanwords) are pronounced as a free variation of either or . The traditional prohibition of word-initial became a morphological rule called "initial law" (ëìë²ì¹) in South Korea, which pertains to Sino-Korean vocabulary. Such words retain their word-initial in North Korea.
All obstruents (plosives, affricates, fricatives) are unreleased at the end of a word.
Plosive stops become nasal stops before nasal stops.
Hangul spelling does not reflect these assimilatory pronunciation rules, but rather maintains the underlying, partly historical morphology. Given this, it is sometimes hard to tell which actual phonemes are present in a certain word.
One difference between the pronunciation standards of North and South Korea is the treatment of initial , and initial . For example,
* "labour" - north: rodong (ë¡ë), south: nodong (ë
¸ë)
* "history" - north: ryÅksa (ë ¥ì¬), south: yeoksa (ìì¬)
* "female" - north: nyÅja (ë
ì), south: yeoja (ì¬ì)
Grammatical morphemes may change shape depending on the preceding sounds. Examples include -eun/-neun (-ì/-ë) and -i/-ga (-ì´/-ê°). Sometimes sounds may be inserted instead. Examples include -eul/-reul (-ì/-를), -euro/-ro (-ì¼ë¡/-ë¡), -eseo/-seo (-ìì/-ì), -ideunji/-deunji (-ì´ë ì§/-ë ì§) and -iya/-ya (-ì´ì¼/-ì¼). However, -euro/-ro is somewhat irregular, since it will behave differently after a rieul consonant.
Some verbs may also change shape morphophonemically.
Korean is an agglutinative language. Modifiers generally precede the modified words, and in the case of verb modifiers, can be serially appended. The basic form of a Korean sentence is Subject Object Verb, but the verb is the only required and immovable element.
:"Did [you] go to the store?" ("you" implied in conversation)
:"Yes."
The Korean Language contains nine parts of speech.
Korean verbs ( , tongsa, ) are also known in English as "action verbs" or "dynamic verbs" to distinguish them from [ , hyeong-yongsa, "adjectives"]), which are also known as "descriptive verbs" or "stative verbs". Examples of action/dynamic verbs include (hada, "to do") and (kada, "to go") which constitute an action or movement as opposed to descriptive verbs such as (yehppeuda, "to be beautiful"). For a larger list of Korean verbs, see .
Unlike most of the European languages, Korean does not conjugate verbs using agreement with the subject, and nouns have no gender. Instead, verb conjugations depend upon the verb tense, aspect, mood, and the social relation between the speaker, the subjects, and the listeners.
The system of speech levels and honorifics loosely resembles the T-V distinction of most Indo-European languages. For example, different endings are used depending on the speaker's relation with their subject or audience. Politeness is a critical part of Korean language and Korean culture, therefore, when talking to someone esteemed, the correct verb ending must be chosen to indicate the proper respect.
Words categorized as Korean adjectives ( , hyeong-yongsa, ) conjugate similarly to verbs, so some English texts call them "descriptive verbs" or "stative verbs", but they are distinctly separate from (tongsa).
English does not have an identical grammatical category, so the English translation of Korean adjectives may misleadingly suggest that they are verbs. For example, (pukda) translates literally as "to be red" and (aswipda) often best translates as "to lack" or "to want for", but both are (hyeong-yongsa, "adjectives"). For a larger list of Korean adjectives, see .
Korean pre-nouns ( , gwanhyeongsa, ) are also known in English as "determinatives", "attributives", and "unconjugated adjectives". Examples include (kak, "each"). For a larger list, see .
Core and basic noun words are native to the Korean language, e.g. (nara, country), (nal, day). A large body of Korean nouns ( , myeongsa, ) stem from Chinese characters, e.g. (å±±, san, mountain), (é©, yeok, station), (æå, munhwa, culture), etc. Many Sino-Korean words have a native Korean equivalent and vice versa, but not always. Nouns do not have grammatical gender and can be made plural by adding ë¤ to the end of the word, however in most instances the singular form is used even when in English it would be translated as plural. For example, while in English the sentence "there are three apples" would use the plural "apples" instead of the singular "apple", the Korean sentence ì¬ê³¼ ì¸ê° ììµëë¤ (sagwa segae isssumnida) maintains the word ì¬ê³¼ (sagwa, "apple") in its singular form, thus rendered in English as "apple three(things) exist." For a list of Korean nouns, see .
Korean pronouns ( , daemyeongsa, ) are highly influenced by the honorifics in the language. Pronouns change forms depending on the social status of the person or persons spoken to, e.g. the pronoun for "I" there is both the informal (na) and the honorific/humble (jeo). In general second person singular pronouns are avoided, especially when using honorific forms. For a larger list or Korean pronouns, see .
Korean adverbs ( , busa, ) include (tto, "also") and (gadeuk, "fully"). For a larger list, see .
Korean particles ( , josa, ) are also known in English as "postpositions". Examples include (neun, topic marker) and (reul, object marker). For a larger list, see .
Korean interjections ( , gamtansa, ) are also known in English as "exclamations". Examples include (ani, "no"). For a larger list, see .
Korean numbers or numerals ( , susa, ) constitute two regularly used sets: a native Korean set and a Sino-Korean set. The Sino-Korean system is nearly entirely based on the Chinese numerals. The distinction between the two numeral systems is very important. Everything that can be counted will use one of the two systems, but seldom both. Sino-Korean words are sometimes used to mark ordinal usage: yeol beon (ì´ ë²) means "ten times" while sip beon (ì(å) ë²(çª)) means "number ten." The grouping of large numbers in Korean follow the Chinese tradition of myriads (10000) rather than thousands (1000) as is common in Europe and North America.
The relationship between a speaker or writer and his or her subject and audience is paramount in Korean, and the grammar reflects this. The relationship between speaker/writer and subject referent is reflected in honorifics, while that between speaker/writer and audience is reflected in speech level.
When talking about someone superior in status, a speaker or writer usually uses special nouns or verb endings to indicate the subject's superiority. Generally, someone is superior in status if he/she is an older relative, a stranger of roughly equal or greater age, or an employer, teacher, customer, or the like. Someone is equal or inferior in status if he/she is a younger stranger, student, employee or the like. Nowadays, there are special endings which can be used on declarative, interrogative, and imperative sentences; and both honorific or normal sentences. They are made for easier and faster use of Korean.
There are seven verb paradigms or speech levels in Korean, and each level has its own unique set of verb endings which are used to indicate the level of formality of a situation. Unlike honorificsâwhich are used to show respect towards the referentâspeech levels are used to show respect towards a speaker's or writer's audience. The names of the seven levels are derived from the non-honorific imperative form of the verb íë¤ (hada, "do") in each level, plus the suffix ì²´ ("che", hanja: é« ), which means "style".
The highest six levels are generally grouped together as jondaenmal (ì¡´ëë§), while the lowest level (haeche, í´ì²´) is called banmal (ë°ë§) in Korean.
The core of the Korean vocabulary is made up of native Korean words. Like Japanese and Vietnamese, a significant proportion of the vocabulary, especially words that denote abstract ideas, are Sino-Korean words, Sohn, Ho-Min. The Korean Language (Section 1.5.3 "Korean vocabulary", p.12â13), Cambridge University Press, 2001. ISBN 0521369436. either
* directly borrowed from Written Chinese, or
* coined in Japan or Korea using Chinese characters,
in a similar way European languages borrow from Latin and Greek.
The exact proportion of Sino-Korean vocabulary is a matter of debate. Sohn (2001) stated 50-60%. However, Jeong Jae-do, one of the compilers of the dictionary Urimal Kun Sajeon, asserts that the proportion is not so high. He points out that Korean dictionaries compiled during the period of Japanese occupation include many unused Sino-Korean words. In his estimation, the proportion of native Korean vocabulary in the Korean language might be as high as 70%. . The dictionary mentioned is
Korean has two number systems: one native, and one borrowed from Chinese.
To a much lesser extent, words have also occasionally been borrowed from Mongolian, Sanskrit, and other languages. Conversely, the Korean language itself has also contributed some loanwords to other languages, most notably the Tsushima dialect of Japanese.
The vast majority of loanwords other than Sino-Korean come from modern times, 90% of which are from English. Many words have also been borrowed from Japanese and Western languages such as German (areubaiteu "part-time job", allereugi "allergy", "gibsu" "plaster cast used for broken bones"). Some Western words were borrowed indirectly via Japanese, taking a Japanese sound pattern, for example "dozen" > dÄsu > daseu. Most indirect Western borrowings are now written according to current Hangulization rules for the respective Western language, as if borrowed directly. There are a few more complicated borrowings such as "German(y)" (see Names for Germany), the first part of whose endonym the Japanese approximated using the kanji doitsu that were then accepted into the Korean language by their Sino-Korean pronunciation: dok + il = Dogil. In South Korean official use, a number of other Sino-Korean country names have been replaced with phonetically oriented Hangulizations of the countries' endonyms or English names.
As in Japanese, Korean adapts words in ways that are uncommon in English. For example, in soccer heading ( ) is used to label a head-strike, rather than direction. This is a corrupted loan word from the English header.
North Korean vocabulary shows a tendency to prefer native Korean over Sino-Korean or foreign borrowings, especially with recent political objectives aimed at eliminating foreign (mostly Chinese) influences on the Korean language in the North. By contrast, South Korean may have several Sino-Korean or foreign borrowings which tend to be absent in North Korean.
Formerly the languages of the Korean peninsula were written using Chinese characters, using hyangchal or idu. Such systems relied on principles of rebus, and were lost, later in history. Writing became confined to the ruling elite, who used hanja to write in Classical Chinese.
Korean is now mainly written in Hangul, the Korean alphabet promulgated in 1446 by Sejong the Great; hanja may be mixed in to write Sino-Korean words. While South Korean schools still teach 1,800 hanja characters, North Korea had abolished the use of hanja decades ago.
Below is a chart of the Korean alphabet's symbols and their canonical IPA values:
Modern Korean is written with spaces between words, a feature not found in Chinese or Japanese. Korean punctuation marks are almost identical to Western ones. Traditionally, Korean was written in columns from top to bottom, right to left, but is now usually written in rows from left to right, top to bottom.
The Korean language used in the North and the South exhibits differences in pronunciation, spelling, grammar and vocabulary. Kanno, Hiroomi (ed.) / Society for Korean Linguistics in Japan (1987). ChÅsengo o manabÅ (ãæé®®èªãå¦ã¼ãã), SanshÅ«sha, Tokyo. ISBN 4-384-01506-2
In North Korea, palatalization of is optional, and can be pronounced between vowels.
Words that are written the same way may be pronounced differently, such as the examples below. The pronunciations below are given in Revised Romanization, McCune-Reischauer and Hangul, the last of which represents what the Hangul would be if one writes the word as pronounced.
* Similar pronunciation is used in the North whenever the hanja "ç" is attached to a Sino-Korean word ending in ã´, ã
or ã
. (In the South, this rule only applies when it is attached to any single-character Sino-Korean word.)
Some words are spelled differently by the North and the South, but the pronunciations are the same.
Some words have different spellings and pronunciations in the North and the South, some of which were given in the "Phonology" section above:
In general, when transcribing place names, North Korea tends to use the pronunciation in the original language more than South Korea, which often uses the pronunciation in English. For example:
Some grammatical constructions are also different:
Some vocabulary is different between the North and the South:
In the North, guillemets and are the symbols used for quotes; in the South, quotation marks equivalent to the English ones, â and â, are standard, although and are sometimes used in popular novels.
The United States' Defense Language Institute classifies Korean alongside Arabic, Chinese, and Japanese as a Category IV language, meaning that 63 weeks of instruction (as compared to just 25 weeks for French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian) are required to bring an English-speaking student to a limited working level of proficiency in which he or she has "sufficient capability to meet routine social demands and limited job requirements" and "can deal with concrete topics in past, present, and future tense." As a result, the study of the Korean language in the United States is dominated by Korean American heritage language students; they are estimated to form over 80% of all students of the language at non-military universities.
However, Korean is considerably easier for speakers of certain other languages, such as Japanese ; in Japan, it is more widely studied by non-heritage learners. The Korean Language Proficiency Test, an examination aimed at assessing non-native speakers' competence in Korean, was instituted in 1997; 17,000 people applied for the 2005 sitting of the examination.
*Hangul
*Korean romanization
**Revised romanization of Korean
**McCune-Reischauer
**Yale Romanization#Korean
**SKATS
*Korean numerals
*Korean count word
*Korean language and computers
*Hanja
*Sino-Korean vocabulary
*Korean mixed script
*List of English words of Korean origin
*Altaic languages
*List of Korea-related topics
*Vowel harmony
* (Volume 4 of the London Oriental and African Language Library).
*Hulbert, Homer B. (1905): A Comparative Grammar of the Korean Language and the Dravidian Dialects in India. Seoul.
*Martin, Samuel E. (1966): Lexical Evidence Relating Japanese to Korean. Language 42/2: 185â251.
*Martin, Samuel E. (1990): Morphological clues to the relationship of Japanese and Korean. In: Philip Baldi (ed.): Linguistic Change and Reconstruction Methodology. Trends in Linguistics: Studies and Monographs 45: 483-509.
*Miller, Roy Andrew (1971): Japanese and the Other Altaic Languages. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0226527190.
*Miller, Roy Andrew (1996): Languages and History: Japanese, Korean and Altaic. Oslo: Institute for Comparative Research in Human Culture. ISBN 9748299694.
*Ramstedt, G. J. (1928): Remarks on the Korean language. Mémoires de la Société Finno-Oigrienne 58.
*Rybatzki, Volker (2003): Middle Mongol. In: Juha Janhunen (ed.) (2003): The Mongolic languages. London: Routledge. ISBN 0-7007-1133-3: 47â82.
*Starostin, Sergei A.; Anna V. Dybo; Oleg A. Mudrak (2003): Etymological Dictionary of the Altaic Languages, 3 volumes. Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers. ISBN 9004131531.
*Sohn, H.-M. (1999): The Korean Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Song, J.-J. (2005): The Korean Language: Structure, Use and Context. London: Routledge.
*Trask, R. L. (1996): Historical linguistics. Hodder Arnold.
*Vovin, Alexander: Koreo-Japonica. University of Hawai'i Press.
*Whitman, John B. (1985): The Phonological Basis for the Comparison of Japanese and Korean. Unpublished Harvard University Ph.D. dissertation.
* Ethnologue report for Korean
* Linguistic and Philosophical Origins of the Korean Alphabet (Hangul)
* Free Korean language and culture course online, in English
* Linguistic map of Korea
* Korean - a Category III language Languages which are exceptionally difficult for native English speakers
* dongsa.net A Korean verb conjugation tool that explains the conjugations for learners of Korean
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Korean_language | What percentage of the Korean language does Jeong Jae-do estimate to be Sino-Korean? | null | data/set5/a6 | Korean_language
:This article is mainly about the spoken Korean language. See Hangul for details on the native Korean writing system.
Korean ( , see below) is the official language of Korea, both South and North. It is also one of the two official languages in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in China. There are about 78 million Korean speakers. In the 15th century a national writing system was commissioned by Sejong the Great, currently called Hangul. Prior to the development of Hangul, Koreans used Hanja (Chinese characters) to write for over a millennia.
The genealogical classification of the Korean language is debated by a small number of linguists. Most classify it as a language isolate Song, Jae Jung (2005) "The Korean language: structure, use and context" Routledge, p. 15
Lyle Campbell & Mauricio Mixco. 2007. A Glossary of Historical Linguistics. University of Utah Press. while a few consider it to be in the Altaic language family. Stratification in the peopling of China: how far does the linguistic evidence match genetics and archaeology? In; Sanchez-Mazas, Blench, Ross, Lin & Pejros eds. Human migrations in continental East Asia and Taiwan: genetic, linguistic and archaeological evidence. 2008. Taylor & Francis Some believe it to be distantly related to Japanese. Like Japanese it is agglutinative in its morphology and SOV in its syntax.
The Korean names for the language are based on the names for Korea used in North and South Korea.
In South Korea, the language is most often called Hangungmal
( ; ), or more formally, Hangugeo ( ; ) or Gugeo ( ; ; literally "national language").
In North Korea and Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in China, the language is most often called ChosÅnmal ( ; with hanja: ), or more formally, ChosÅnÅ ( ; ).
On the other hand, Korean people in the former USSR, who refer to themselves as Koryo-saram (ê³ ë ¤ì¬ë; also Goryeoin [ ; ; literally, "Goryeo person(s)"]) call the language Goryeomal ( ; ).
In mainland China, following the establishment of diplomatic relations with South Korea in 1992, the term CháoxiÇnyÇ ( or the short form: CháoyÇ ( )) has normally been used to refer to the language spoken in North Korea and Yanbian, while HánguóyÇ ( or the short form: HányÇ ( )) is used to refer to the language spoken in South Korea.
Some older English sources also used the name "Korean" to refer to the language, country, and people. The word "Korean" is derived from Goryeo, which is thought to be the first dynasty known to western countries.
Most modern linguists consider Korean to be a language isolate Song, Jae Jung (2005) "The Korean language: structure, use and context" Routledge, p. 15
Lyle Campbell & Mauricio J. Mixco. 2007. A Glossary of Historical Linguistics. University of Utah Press.
Since the publication of the article of Ramstedt in 1928, some linguists eg Miller 1971, 1996, Starostin et al. 2003 support the hypothesis that Korean can be classified as an Altaic language or as a relative of proto-Altaic. Korean is similar to the Altaic languages in that they both lack certain grammatical elements, including articles, fusional morphology and relative pronouns. However, linguists agree today on the fact that typological resemblances cannot be used to prove genetic relatedness of languages eg Vovin 2008: 1 as these features are typologically connected and easily borrowed. Trask 1996: 147-151 Such factors of typological divergence as Middle Mongolian's exhibition of gender agreement Rybatzki 2003: 57 can be used to argue that a genetic relationship is unlikely. Vovin 2008: 5
The hypothesis that Korean might be related to Japanese has had some more supporters due to some considerable overlap in vocabulary and similar grammatical features that have been elaborated upon by such researchers as Samuel E. Martin eg Martin 1966, 1990 and Roy Andrew Miller. eg Miller 1971, 1996 Sergei Starostin (1991) found about 25% of potential cognates in the Japanese-Korean 100-word Swadesh list, which - if true - would place these two languages closer together than other possible members of the Altaic family.
Other linguists, most notably Alexander Vovin, argue, however, that the similarities are not due to any genetic relationship, but rather to a sprachbund effect and heavy borrowing especially from Korean into Western Old Japanese. Vovin 2008 A good example might be Middle Korean sà m Whitman 1985: 232, also found in Martin 1966: 233 This word seems to be cognate, but while it is well-attested in Western Old Japanese and Northern RyÅ«kyÅ«, in Eastern Old Japanese it only occurs in compounds, and it is only present in three subdialects of the South-RyÅ«kyÅ«an dialect group. Then, the doublet wo âhempâ is attested in Western Old Japanese and Southern RyÅ«kyÅ«. It is thus plausible to assume a borrowed term. Vovin 2008: 211-212 See East Asian languages for morphological features shared among languages of the East Asian sprachbund, and Classification of Japanese for further details on the discussion of a possible relationship.
Korean is descended from Old Korean, Middle Korean and Modern Korean. Controversy remains over the proposed Altaic language family and its inclusion of Proto-Korean. Since the Korean War, contemporary North-South differences in Korean have developed, including variance in pronunciation, verb inflection, and vocabulary.
Korean is spoken by the Korean people in North Korea and South Korea and by the Korean diaspora in many countries including the People's Republic of China, Japan, and the United States. Korean-speaking minorities exist in these states, but because of cultural assimilation into host countries, not all ethnic Korean immigrants may speak it with native fluency.
Korean is the official language of South Korea and North Korea. It is also one of the two official languages of the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in China.
In South Korea, the regulatory body for Korean is the Seoul-based National Institute of the Korean Language ( ), which was created by presidential decree on January 23, 1991. In North Korea, the regulatory body is the Sahoe Kwahagwon Åhak YÅnguso ( ).
Dialects of Korean
Korean has several dialects (called mal [literally "speech"], saturi, or bang-eon in Korean). The standard language (pyojuneo or pyojunmal) of South Korea is based on the dialect of the area around Seoul, and the standard for North Korea is based on the dialect spoken around P'yÅngyang. All dialects of Korean are similar to each other, and are in fact all mutually intelligible, perhaps with the exception of the dialect of Jeju Island (see Jeju dialect). The dialect spoken in Jeju is in fact classified as a different language by some Korean linguists. One of the most notable differences between dialects is the use of stress: speakers of Seoul dialect use very little stress, and standard South Korean has a very flat intonation; on the other hand, speakers of the Gyeongsang dialect have a very pronounced intonation.
It is also worth noting that there is substantial evidence for a history of extensive dialect levelling, or even convergent evolution or intermixture of two or more originally distinct linguistic stocks, within the Korean language and its dialects. Many Korean dialects have basic vocabulary that is etymologically distinct from vocabulary of identical meaning in Standard Korean or other dialects, such as South Jeolla dialect /kur/ vs. Standard Korean ì
"mouth" or Gyeongsang dialect vs. Standard Korean "garlic chives." This suggests that the Korean Peninsula may have at one time been much more linguistically diverse than it is at present. See also the Buyeo languages hypothesis.
There is a very close connection between the dialects of Korean and the regions of Korea, since the boundaries of both are largely determined by mountains and seas. Here is a list of traditional dialect names and locations:
The Korean consonants
The IPA symbol (a subscript double straight quotation mark, shown here with a placeholder circle) is used to denote the tensed consonants . Its official use in the Extensions to the IPA is for 'strong' articulation, but is used in the literature for faucalized voice. The Korean consonants also have elements of stiff voice, but it is not yet known how typical this is of faucalized consonants. They are produced with a partially constricted glottis and additional subglottal pressure in addition to tense vocal tract walls, laryngeal lowering, or other expansion of the larynx.
becomes an alveolo-palatal before or for most speakers (but see Differences in the language between North Korea and South Korea). This occurs with the tense fricative and all the affricates as well. At the end of a syllable, /s/ changes to /t/ (Example: beoseot (ë²ì¯) 'mushroom').
may become a bilabial before or , a palatal before or , a velar before , a voiced between voiced sounds, and a elsewhere.
become voiced between voiced sounds.
becomes alveolar flap between vowels, and or at the end of a syllable or next to another . Note that a written syllable-final 'ã¹', when followed by a vowel or a glide (i.e., when the next character starts with 'ã
'), migrates to the next syllable and thus becomes .
Traditionally, was disallowed at the beginning of a word. It disappeared before , and otherwise became . However, the inflow of western loanword changed the trend, and now word-initial (mostly from English loanwords) are pronounced as a free variation of either or . The traditional prohibition of word-initial became a morphological rule called "initial law" (ëìë²ì¹) in South Korea, which pertains to Sino-Korean vocabulary. Such words retain their word-initial in North Korea.
All obstruents (plosives, affricates, fricatives) are unreleased at the end of a word.
Plosive stops become nasal stops before nasal stops.
Hangul spelling does not reflect these assimilatory pronunciation rules, but rather maintains the underlying, partly historical morphology. Given this, it is sometimes hard to tell which actual phonemes are present in a certain word.
One difference between the pronunciation standards of North and South Korea is the treatment of initial , and initial . For example,
* "labour" - north: rodong (ë¡ë), south: nodong (ë
¸ë)
* "history" - north: ryÅksa (ë ¥ì¬), south: yeoksa (ìì¬)
* "female" - north: nyÅja (ë
ì), south: yeoja (ì¬ì)
Grammatical morphemes may change shape depending on the preceding sounds. Examples include -eun/-neun (-ì/-ë) and -i/-ga (-ì´/-ê°). Sometimes sounds may be inserted instead. Examples include -eul/-reul (-ì/-를), -euro/-ro (-ì¼ë¡/-ë¡), -eseo/-seo (-ìì/-ì), -ideunji/-deunji (-ì´ë ì§/-ë ì§) and -iya/-ya (-ì´ì¼/-ì¼). However, -euro/-ro is somewhat irregular, since it will behave differently after a rieul consonant.
Some verbs may also change shape morphophonemically.
Korean is an agglutinative language. Modifiers generally precede the modified words, and in the case of verb modifiers, can be serially appended. The basic form of a Korean sentence is Subject Object Verb, but the verb is the only required and immovable element.
:"Did [you] go to the store?" ("you" implied in conversation)
:"Yes."
The Korean Language contains nine parts of speech.
Korean verbs ( , tongsa, ) are also known in English as "action verbs" or "dynamic verbs" to distinguish them from [ , hyeong-yongsa, "adjectives"]), which are also known as "descriptive verbs" or "stative verbs". Examples of action/dynamic verbs include (hada, "to do") and (kada, "to go") which constitute an action or movement as opposed to descriptive verbs such as (yehppeuda, "to be beautiful"). For a larger list of Korean verbs, see .
Unlike most of the European languages, Korean does not conjugate verbs using agreement with the subject, and nouns have no gender. Instead, verb conjugations depend upon the verb tense, aspect, mood, and the social relation between the speaker, the subjects, and the listeners.
The system of speech levels and honorifics loosely resembles the T-V distinction of most Indo-European languages. For example, different endings are used depending on the speaker's relation with their subject or audience. Politeness is a critical part of Korean language and Korean culture, therefore, when talking to someone esteemed, the correct verb ending must be chosen to indicate the proper respect.
Words categorized as Korean adjectives ( , hyeong-yongsa, ) conjugate similarly to verbs, so some English texts call them "descriptive verbs" or "stative verbs", but they are distinctly separate from (tongsa).
English does not have an identical grammatical category, so the English translation of Korean adjectives may misleadingly suggest that they are verbs. For example, (pukda) translates literally as "to be red" and (aswipda) often best translates as "to lack" or "to want for", but both are (hyeong-yongsa, "adjectives"). For a larger list of Korean adjectives, see .
Korean pre-nouns ( , gwanhyeongsa, ) are also known in English as "determinatives", "attributives", and "unconjugated adjectives". Examples include (kak, "each"). For a larger list, see .
Core and basic noun words are native to the Korean language, e.g. (nara, country), (nal, day). A large body of Korean nouns ( , myeongsa, ) stem from Chinese characters, e.g. (å±±, san, mountain), (é©, yeok, station), (æå, munhwa, culture), etc. Many Sino-Korean words have a native Korean equivalent and vice versa, but not always. Nouns do not have grammatical gender and can be made plural by adding ë¤ to the end of the word, however in most instances the singular form is used even when in English it would be translated as plural. For example, while in English the sentence "there are three apples" would use the plural "apples" instead of the singular "apple", the Korean sentence ì¬ê³¼ ì¸ê° ììµëë¤ (sagwa segae isssumnida) maintains the word ì¬ê³¼ (sagwa, "apple") in its singular form, thus rendered in English as "apple three(things) exist." For a list of Korean nouns, see .
Korean pronouns ( , daemyeongsa, ) are highly influenced by the honorifics in the language. Pronouns change forms depending on the social status of the person or persons spoken to, e.g. the pronoun for "I" there is both the informal (na) and the honorific/humble (jeo). In general second person singular pronouns are avoided, especially when using honorific forms. For a larger list or Korean pronouns, see .
Korean adverbs ( , busa, ) include (tto, "also") and (gadeuk, "fully"). For a larger list, see .
Korean particles ( , josa, ) are also known in English as "postpositions". Examples include (neun, topic marker) and (reul, object marker). For a larger list, see .
Korean interjections ( , gamtansa, ) are also known in English as "exclamations". Examples include (ani, "no"). For a larger list, see .
Korean numbers or numerals ( , susa, ) constitute two regularly used sets: a native Korean set and a Sino-Korean set. The Sino-Korean system is nearly entirely based on the Chinese numerals. The distinction between the two numeral systems is very important. Everything that can be counted will use one of the two systems, but seldom both. Sino-Korean words are sometimes used to mark ordinal usage: yeol beon (ì´ ë²) means "ten times" while sip beon (ì(å) ë²(çª)) means "number ten." The grouping of large numbers in Korean follow the Chinese tradition of myriads (10000) rather than thousands (1000) as is common in Europe and North America.
The relationship between a speaker or writer and his or her subject and audience is paramount in Korean, and the grammar reflects this. The relationship between speaker/writer and subject referent is reflected in honorifics, while that between speaker/writer and audience is reflected in speech level.
When talking about someone superior in status, a speaker or writer usually uses special nouns or verb endings to indicate the subject's superiority. Generally, someone is superior in status if he/she is an older relative, a stranger of roughly equal or greater age, or an employer, teacher, customer, or the like. Someone is equal or inferior in status if he/she is a younger stranger, student, employee or the like. Nowadays, there are special endings which can be used on declarative, interrogative, and imperative sentences; and both honorific or normal sentences. They are made for easier and faster use of Korean.
There are seven verb paradigms or speech levels in Korean, and each level has its own unique set of verb endings which are used to indicate the level of formality of a situation. Unlike honorificsâwhich are used to show respect towards the referentâspeech levels are used to show respect towards a speaker's or writer's audience. The names of the seven levels are derived from the non-honorific imperative form of the verb íë¤ (hada, "do") in each level, plus the suffix ì²´ ("che", hanja: é« ), which means "style".
The highest six levels are generally grouped together as jondaenmal (ì¡´ëë§), while the lowest level (haeche, í´ì²´) is called banmal (ë°ë§) in Korean.
The core of the Korean vocabulary is made up of native Korean words. Like Japanese and Vietnamese, a significant proportion of the vocabulary, especially words that denote abstract ideas, are Sino-Korean words, Sohn, Ho-Min. The Korean Language (Section 1.5.3 "Korean vocabulary", p.12â13), Cambridge University Press, 2001. ISBN 0521369436. either
* directly borrowed from Written Chinese, or
* coined in Japan or Korea using Chinese characters,
in a similar way European languages borrow from Latin and Greek.
The exact proportion of Sino-Korean vocabulary is a matter of debate. Sohn (2001) stated 50-60%. However, Jeong Jae-do, one of the compilers of the dictionary Urimal Kun Sajeon, asserts that the proportion is not so high. He points out that Korean dictionaries compiled during the period of Japanese occupation include many unused Sino-Korean words. In his estimation, the proportion of native Korean vocabulary in the Korean language might be as high as 70%. . The dictionary mentioned is
Korean has two number systems: one native, and one borrowed from Chinese.
To a much lesser extent, words have also occasionally been borrowed from Mongolian, Sanskrit, and other languages. Conversely, the Korean language itself has also contributed some loanwords to other languages, most notably the Tsushima dialect of Japanese.
The vast majority of loanwords other than Sino-Korean come from modern times, 90% of which are from English. Many words have also been borrowed from Japanese and Western languages such as German (areubaiteu "part-time job", allereugi "allergy", "gibsu" "plaster cast used for broken bones"). Some Western words were borrowed indirectly via Japanese, taking a Japanese sound pattern, for example "dozen" > dÄsu > daseu. Most indirect Western borrowings are now written according to current Hangulization rules for the respective Western language, as if borrowed directly. There are a few more complicated borrowings such as "German(y)" (see Names for Germany), the first part of whose endonym the Japanese approximated using the kanji doitsu that were then accepted into the Korean language by their Sino-Korean pronunciation: dok + il = Dogil. In South Korean official use, a number of other Sino-Korean country names have been replaced with phonetically oriented Hangulizations of the countries' endonyms or English names.
As in Japanese, Korean adapts words in ways that are uncommon in English. For example, in soccer heading ( ) is used to label a head-strike, rather than direction. This is a corrupted loan word from the English header.
North Korean vocabulary shows a tendency to prefer native Korean over Sino-Korean or foreign borrowings, especially with recent political objectives aimed at eliminating foreign (mostly Chinese) influences on the Korean language in the North. By contrast, South Korean may have several Sino-Korean or foreign borrowings which tend to be absent in North Korean.
Formerly the languages of the Korean peninsula were written using Chinese characters, using hyangchal or idu. Such systems relied on principles of rebus, and were lost, later in history. Writing became confined to the ruling elite, who used hanja to write in Classical Chinese.
Korean is now mainly written in Hangul, the Korean alphabet promulgated in 1446 by Sejong the Great; hanja may be mixed in to write Sino-Korean words. While South Korean schools still teach 1,800 hanja characters, North Korea had abolished the use of hanja decades ago.
Below is a chart of the Korean alphabet's symbols and their canonical IPA values:
Modern Korean is written with spaces between words, a feature not found in Chinese or Japanese. Korean punctuation marks are almost identical to Western ones. Traditionally, Korean was written in columns from top to bottom, right to left, but is now usually written in rows from left to right, top to bottom.
The Korean language used in the North and the South exhibits differences in pronunciation, spelling, grammar and vocabulary. Kanno, Hiroomi (ed.) / Society for Korean Linguistics in Japan (1987). ChÅsengo o manabÅ (ãæé®®èªãå¦ã¼ãã), SanshÅ«sha, Tokyo. ISBN 4-384-01506-2
In North Korea, palatalization of is optional, and can be pronounced between vowels.
Words that are written the same way may be pronounced differently, such as the examples below. The pronunciations below are given in Revised Romanization, McCune-Reischauer and Hangul, the last of which represents what the Hangul would be if one writes the word as pronounced.
* Similar pronunciation is used in the North whenever the hanja "ç" is attached to a Sino-Korean word ending in ã´, ã
or ã
. (In the South, this rule only applies when it is attached to any single-character Sino-Korean word.)
Some words are spelled differently by the North and the South, but the pronunciations are the same.
Some words have different spellings and pronunciations in the North and the South, some of which were given in the "Phonology" section above:
In general, when transcribing place names, North Korea tends to use the pronunciation in the original language more than South Korea, which often uses the pronunciation in English. For example:
Some grammatical constructions are also different:
Some vocabulary is different between the North and the South:
In the North, guillemets and are the symbols used for quotes; in the South, quotation marks equivalent to the English ones, â and â, are standard, although and are sometimes used in popular novels.
The United States' Defense Language Institute classifies Korean alongside Arabic, Chinese, and Japanese as a Category IV language, meaning that 63 weeks of instruction (as compared to just 25 weeks for French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian) are required to bring an English-speaking student to a limited working level of proficiency in which he or she has "sufficient capability to meet routine social demands and limited job requirements" and "can deal with concrete topics in past, present, and future tense." As a result, the study of the Korean language in the United States is dominated by Korean American heritage language students; they are estimated to form over 80% of all students of the language at non-military universities.
However, Korean is considerably easier for speakers of certain other languages, such as Japanese ; in Japan, it is more widely studied by non-heritage learners. The Korean Language Proficiency Test, an examination aimed at assessing non-native speakers' competence in Korean, was instituted in 1997; 17,000 people applied for the 2005 sitting of the examination.
*Hangul
*Korean romanization
**Revised romanization of Korean
**McCune-Reischauer
**Yale Romanization#Korean
**SKATS
*Korean numerals
*Korean count word
*Korean language and computers
*Hanja
*Sino-Korean vocabulary
*Korean mixed script
*List of English words of Korean origin
*Altaic languages
*List of Korea-related topics
*Vowel harmony
* (Volume 4 of the London Oriental and African Language Library).
*Hulbert, Homer B. (1905): A Comparative Grammar of the Korean Language and the Dravidian Dialects in India. Seoul.
*Martin, Samuel E. (1966): Lexical Evidence Relating Japanese to Korean. Language 42/2: 185â251.
*Martin, Samuel E. (1990): Morphological clues to the relationship of Japanese and Korean. In: Philip Baldi (ed.): Linguistic Change and Reconstruction Methodology. Trends in Linguistics: Studies and Monographs 45: 483-509.
*Miller, Roy Andrew (1971): Japanese and the Other Altaic Languages. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0226527190.
*Miller, Roy Andrew (1996): Languages and History: Japanese, Korean and Altaic. Oslo: Institute for Comparative Research in Human Culture. ISBN 9748299694.
*Ramstedt, G. J. (1928): Remarks on the Korean language. Mémoires de la Société Finno-Oigrienne 58.
*Rybatzki, Volker (2003): Middle Mongol. In: Juha Janhunen (ed.) (2003): The Mongolic languages. London: Routledge. ISBN 0-7007-1133-3: 47â82.
*Starostin, Sergei A.; Anna V. Dybo; Oleg A. Mudrak (2003): Etymological Dictionary of the Altaic Languages, 3 volumes. Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers. ISBN 9004131531.
*Sohn, H.-M. (1999): The Korean Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Song, J.-J. (2005): The Korean Language: Structure, Use and Context. London: Routledge.
*Trask, R. L. (1996): Historical linguistics. Hodder Arnold.
*Vovin, Alexander: Koreo-Japonica. University of Hawai'i Press.
*Whitman, John B. (1985): The Phonological Basis for the Comparison of Japanese and Korean. Unpublished Harvard University Ph.D. dissertation.
* Ethnologue report for Korean
* Linguistic and Philosophical Origins of the Korean Alphabet (Hangul)
* Free Korean language and culture course online, in English
* Linguistic map of Korea
* Korean - a Category III language Languages which are exceptionally difficult for native English speakers
* dongsa.net A Korean verb conjugation tool that explains the conjugations for learners of Korean
|
Korean_language | Do Chinese and Japanese have spaces between words? | No, Chinese and Japanese do not have spaces between words. | data/set5/a6 | Korean_language
:This article is mainly about the spoken Korean language. See Hangul for details on the native Korean writing system.
Korean ( , see below) is the official language of Korea, both South and North. It is also one of the two official languages in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in China. There are about 78 million Korean speakers. In the 15th century a national writing system was commissioned by Sejong the Great, currently called Hangul. Prior to the development of Hangul, Koreans used Hanja (Chinese characters) to write for over a millennia.
The genealogical classification of the Korean language is debated by a small number of linguists. Most classify it as a language isolate Song, Jae Jung (2005) "The Korean language: structure, use and context" Routledge, p. 15
Lyle Campbell & Mauricio Mixco. 2007. A Glossary of Historical Linguistics. University of Utah Press. while a few consider it to be in the Altaic language family. Stratification in the peopling of China: how far does the linguistic evidence match genetics and archaeology? In; Sanchez-Mazas, Blench, Ross, Lin & Pejros eds. Human migrations in continental East Asia and Taiwan: genetic, linguistic and archaeological evidence. 2008. Taylor & Francis Some believe it to be distantly related to Japanese. Like Japanese it is agglutinative in its morphology and SOV in its syntax.
The Korean names for the language are based on the names for Korea used in North and South Korea.
In South Korea, the language is most often called Hangungmal
( ; ), or more formally, Hangugeo ( ; ) or Gugeo ( ; ; literally "national language").
In North Korea and Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in China, the language is most often called ChosÅnmal ( ; with hanja: ), or more formally, ChosÅnÅ ( ; ).
On the other hand, Korean people in the former USSR, who refer to themselves as Koryo-saram (ê³ ë ¤ì¬ë; also Goryeoin [ ; ; literally, "Goryeo person(s)"]) call the language Goryeomal ( ; ).
In mainland China, following the establishment of diplomatic relations with South Korea in 1992, the term CháoxiÇnyÇ ( or the short form: CháoyÇ ( )) has normally been used to refer to the language spoken in North Korea and Yanbian, while HánguóyÇ ( or the short form: HányÇ ( )) is used to refer to the language spoken in South Korea.
Some older English sources also used the name "Korean" to refer to the language, country, and people. The word "Korean" is derived from Goryeo, which is thought to be the first dynasty known to western countries.
Most modern linguists consider Korean to be a language isolate Song, Jae Jung (2005) "The Korean language: structure, use and context" Routledge, p. 15
Lyle Campbell & Mauricio J. Mixco. 2007. A Glossary of Historical Linguistics. University of Utah Press.
Since the publication of the article of Ramstedt in 1928, some linguists eg Miller 1971, 1996, Starostin et al. 2003 support the hypothesis that Korean can be classified as an Altaic language or as a relative of proto-Altaic. Korean is similar to the Altaic languages in that they both lack certain grammatical elements, including articles, fusional morphology and relative pronouns. However, linguists agree today on the fact that typological resemblances cannot be used to prove genetic relatedness of languages eg Vovin 2008: 1 as these features are typologically connected and easily borrowed. Trask 1996: 147-151 Such factors of typological divergence as Middle Mongolian's exhibition of gender agreement Rybatzki 2003: 57 can be used to argue that a genetic relationship is unlikely. Vovin 2008: 5
The hypothesis that Korean might be related to Japanese has had some more supporters due to some considerable overlap in vocabulary and similar grammatical features that have been elaborated upon by such researchers as Samuel E. Martin eg Martin 1966, 1990 and Roy Andrew Miller. eg Miller 1971, 1996 Sergei Starostin (1991) found about 25% of potential cognates in the Japanese-Korean 100-word Swadesh list, which - if true - would place these two languages closer together than other possible members of the Altaic family.
Other linguists, most notably Alexander Vovin, argue, however, that the similarities are not due to any genetic relationship, but rather to a sprachbund effect and heavy borrowing especially from Korean into Western Old Japanese. Vovin 2008 A good example might be Middle Korean sà m Whitman 1985: 232, also found in Martin 1966: 233 This word seems to be cognate, but while it is well-attested in Western Old Japanese and Northern RyÅ«kyÅ«, in Eastern Old Japanese it only occurs in compounds, and it is only present in three subdialects of the South-RyÅ«kyÅ«an dialect group. Then, the doublet wo âhempâ is attested in Western Old Japanese and Southern RyÅ«kyÅ«. It is thus plausible to assume a borrowed term. Vovin 2008: 211-212 See East Asian languages for morphological features shared among languages of the East Asian sprachbund, and Classification of Japanese for further details on the discussion of a possible relationship.
Korean is descended from Old Korean, Middle Korean and Modern Korean. Controversy remains over the proposed Altaic language family and its inclusion of Proto-Korean. Since the Korean War, contemporary North-South differences in Korean have developed, including variance in pronunciation, verb inflection, and vocabulary.
Korean is spoken by the Korean people in North Korea and South Korea and by the Korean diaspora in many countries including the People's Republic of China, Japan, and the United States. Korean-speaking minorities exist in these states, but because of cultural assimilation into host countries, not all ethnic Korean immigrants may speak it with native fluency.
Korean is the official language of South Korea and North Korea. It is also one of the two official languages of the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in China.
In South Korea, the regulatory body for Korean is the Seoul-based National Institute of the Korean Language ( ), which was created by presidential decree on January 23, 1991. In North Korea, the regulatory body is the Sahoe Kwahagwon Åhak YÅnguso ( ).
Dialects of Korean
Korean has several dialects (called mal [literally "speech"], saturi, or bang-eon in Korean). The standard language (pyojuneo or pyojunmal) of South Korea is based on the dialect of the area around Seoul, and the standard for North Korea is based on the dialect spoken around P'yÅngyang. All dialects of Korean are similar to each other, and are in fact all mutually intelligible, perhaps with the exception of the dialect of Jeju Island (see Jeju dialect). The dialect spoken in Jeju is in fact classified as a different language by some Korean linguists. One of the most notable differences between dialects is the use of stress: speakers of Seoul dialect use very little stress, and standard South Korean has a very flat intonation; on the other hand, speakers of the Gyeongsang dialect have a very pronounced intonation.
It is also worth noting that there is substantial evidence for a history of extensive dialect levelling, or even convergent evolution or intermixture of two or more originally distinct linguistic stocks, within the Korean language and its dialects. Many Korean dialects have basic vocabulary that is etymologically distinct from vocabulary of identical meaning in Standard Korean or other dialects, such as South Jeolla dialect /kur/ vs. Standard Korean ì
"mouth" or Gyeongsang dialect vs. Standard Korean "garlic chives." This suggests that the Korean Peninsula may have at one time been much more linguistically diverse than it is at present. See also the Buyeo languages hypothesis.
There is a very close connection between the dialects of Korean and the regions of Korea, since the boundaries of both are largely determined by mountains and seas. Here is a list of traditional dialect names and locations:
The Korean consonants
The IPA symbol (a subscript double straight quotation mark, shown here with a placeholder circle) is used to denote the tensed consonants . Its official use in the Extensions to the IPA is for 'strong' articulation, but is used in the literature for faucalized voice. The Korean consonants also have elements of stiff voice, but it is not yet known how typical this is of faucalized consonants. They are produced with a partially constricted glottis and additional subglottal pressure in addition to tense vocal tract walls, laryngeal lowering, or other expansion of the larynx.
becomes an alveolo-palatal before or for most speakers (but see Differences in the language between North Korea and South Korea). This occurs with the tense fricative and all the affricates as well. At the end of a syllable, /s/ changes to /t/ (Example: beoseot (ë²ì¯) 'mushroom').
may become a bilabial before or , a palatal before or , a velar before , a voiced between voiced sounds, and a elsewhere.
become voiced between voiced sounds.
becomes alveolar flap between vowels, and or at the end of a syllable or next to another . Note that a written syllable-final 'ã¹', when followed by a vowel or a glide (i.e., when the next character starts with 'ã
'), migrates to the next syllable and thus becomes .
Traditionally, was disallowed at the beginning of a word. It disappeared before , and otherwise became . However, the inflow of western loanword changed the trend, and now word-initial (mostly from English loanwords) are pronounced as a free variation of either or . The traditional prohibition of word-initial became a morphological rule called "initial law" (ëìë²ì¹) in South Korea, which pertains to Sino-Korean vocabulary. Such words retain their word-initial in North Korea.
All obstruents (plosives, affricates, fricatives) are unreleased at the end of a word.
Plosive stops become nasal stops before nasal stops.
Hangul spelling does not reflect these assimilatory pronunciation rules, but rather maintains the underlying, partly historical morphology. Given this, it is sometimes hard to tell which actual phonemes are present in a certain word.
One difference between the pronunciation standards of North and South Korea is the treatment of initial , and initial . For example,
* "labour" - north: rodong (ë¡ë), south: nodong (ë
¸ë)
* "history" - north: ryÅksa (ë ¥ì¬), south: yeoksa (ìì¬)
* "female" - north: nyÅja (ë
ì), south: yeoja (ì¬ì)
Grammatical morphemes may change shape depending on the preceding sounds. Examples include -eun/-neun (-ì/-ë) and -i/-ga (-ì´/-ê°). Sometimes sounds may be inserted instead. Examples include -eul/-reul (-ì/-를), -euro/-ro (-ì¼ë¡/-ë¡), -eseo/-seo (-ìì/-ì), -ideunji/-deunji (-ì´ë ì§/-ë ì§) and -iya/-ya (-ì´ì¼/-ì¼). However, -euro/-ro is somewhat irregular, since it will behave differently after a rieul consonant.
Some verbs may also change shape morphophonemically.
Korean is an agglutinative language. Modifiers generally precede the modified words, and in the case of verb modifiers, can be serially appended. The basic form of a Korean sentence is Subject Object Verb, but the verb is the only required and immovable element.
:"Did [you] go to the store?" ("you" implied in conversation)
:"Yes."
The Korean Language contains nine parts of speech.
Korean verbs ( , tongsa, ) are also known in English as "action verbs" or "dynamic verbs" to distinguish them from [ , hyeong-yongsa, "adjectives"]), which are also known as "descriptive verbs" or "stative verbs". Examples of action/dynamic verbs include (hada, "to do") and (kada, "to go") which constitute an action or movement as opposed to descriptive verbs such as (yehppeuda, "to be beautiful"). For a larger list of Korean verbs, see .
Unlike most of the European languages, Korean does not conjugate verbs using agreement with the subject, and nouns have no gender. Instead, verb conjugations depend upon the verb tense, aspect, mood, and the social relation between the speaker, the subjects, and the listeners.
The system of speech levels and honorifics loosely resembles the T-V distinction of most Indo-European languages. For example, different endings are used depending on the speaker's relation with their subject or audience. Politeness is a critical part of Korean language and Korean culture, therefore, when talking to someone esteemed, the correct verb ending must be chosen to indicate the proper respect.
Words categorized as Korean adjectives ( , hyeong-yongsa, ) conjugate similarly to verbs, so some English texts call them "descriptive verbs" or "stative verbs", but they are distinctly separate from (tongsa).
English does not have an identical grammatical category, so the English translation of Korean adjectives may misleadingly suggest that they are verbs. For example, (pukda) translates literally as "to be red" and (aswipda) often best translates as "to lack" or "to want for", but both are (hyeong-yongsa, "adjectives"). For a larger list of Korean adjectives, see .
Korean pre-nouns ( , gwanhyeongsa, ) are also known in English as "determinatives", "attributives", and "unconjugated adjectives". Examples include (kak, "each"). For a larger list, see .
Core and basic noun words are native to the Korean language, e.g. (nara, country), (nal, day). A large body of Korean nouns ( , myeongsa, ) stem from Chinese characters, e.g. (å±±, san, mountain), (é©, yeok, station), (æå, munhwa, culture), etc. Many Sino-Korean words have a native Korean equivalent and vice versa, but not always. Nouns do not have grammatical gender and can be made plural by adding ë¤ to the end of the word, however in most instances the singular form is used even when in English it would be translated as plural. For example, while in English the sentence "there are three apples" would use the plural "apples" instead of the singular "apple", the Korean sentence ì¬ê³¼ ì¸ê° ììµëë¤ (sagwa segae isssumnida) maintains the word ì¬ê³¼ (sagwa, "apple") in its singular form, thus rendered in English as "apple three(things) exist." For a list of Korean nouns, see .
Korean pronouns ( , daemyeongsa, ) are highly influenced by the honorifics in the language. Pronouns change forms depending on the social status of the person or persons spoken to, e.g. the pronoun for "I" there is both the informal (na) and the honorific/humble (jeo). In general second person singular pronouns are avoided, especially when using honorific forms. For a larger list or Korean pronouns, see .
Korean adverbs ( , busa, ) include (tto, "also") and (gadeuk, "fully"). For a larger list, see .
Korean particles ( , josa, ) are also known in English as "postpositions". Examples include (neun, topic marker) and (reul, object marker). For a larger list, see .
Korean interjections ( , gamtansa, ) are also known in English as "exclamations". Examples include (ani, "no"). For a larger list, see .
Korean numbers or numerals ( , susa, ) constitute two regularly used sets: a native Korean set and a Sino-Korean set. The Sino-Korean system is nearly entirely based on the Chinese numerals. The distinction between the two numeral systems is very important. Everything that can be counted will use one of the two systems, but seldom both. Sino-Korean words are sometimes used to mark ordinal usage: yeol beon (ì´ ë²) means "ten times" while sip beon (ì(å) ë²(çª)) means "number ten." The grouping of large numbers in Korean follow the Chinese tradition of myriads (10000) rather than thousands (1000) as is common in Europe and North America.
The relationship between a speaker or writer and his or her subject and audience is paramount in Korean, and the grammar reflects this. The relationship between speaker/writer and subject referent is reflected in honorifics, while that between speaker/writer and audience is reflected in speech level.
When talking about someone superior in status, a speaker or writer usually uses special nouns or verb endings to indicate the subject's superiority. Generally, someone is superior in status if he/she is an older relative, a stranger of roughly equal or greater age, or an employer, teacher, customer, or the like. Someone is equal or inferior in status if he/she is a younger stranger, student, employee or the like. Nowadays, there are special endings which can be used on declarative, interrogative, and imperative sentences; and both honorific or normal sentences. They are made for easier and faster use of Korean.
There are seven verb paradigms or speech levels in Korean, and each level has its own unique set of verb endings which are used to indicate the level of formality of a situation. Unlike honorificsâwhich are used to show respect towards the referentâspeech levels are used to show respect towards a speaker's or writer's audience. The names of the seven levels are derived from the non-honorific imperative form of the verb íë¤ (hada, "do") in each level, plus the suffix ì²´ ("che", hanja: é« ), which means "style".
The highest six levels are generally grouped together as jondaenmal (ì¡´ëë§), while the lowest level (haeche, í´ì²´) is called banmal (ë°ë§) in Korean.
The core of the Korean vocabulary is made up of native Korean words. Like Japanese and Vietnamese, a significant proportion of the vocabulary, especially words that denote abstract ideas, are Sino-Korean words, Sohn, Ho-Min. The Korean Language (Section 1.5.3 "Korean vocabulary", p.12â13), Cambridge University Press, 2001. ISBN 0521369436. either
* directly borrowed from Written Chinese, or
* coined in Japan or Korea using Chinese characters,
in a similar way European languages borrow from Latin and Greek.
The exact proportion of Sino-Korean vocabulary is a matter of debate. Sohn (2001) stated 50-60%. However, Jeong Jae-do, one of the compilers of the dictionary Urimal Kun Sajeon, asserts that the proportion is not so high. He points out that Korean dictionaries compiled during the period of Japanese occupation include many unused Sino-Korean words. In his estimation, the proportion of native Korean vocabulary in the Korean language might be as high as 70%. . The dictionary mentioned is
Korean has two number systems: one native, and one borrowed from Chinese.
To a much lesser extent, words have also occasionally been borrowed from Mongolian, Sanskrit, and other languages. Conversely, the Korean language itself has also contributed some loanwords to other languages, most notably the Tsushima dialect of Japanese.
The vast majority of loanwords other than Sino-Korean come from modern times, 90% of which are from English. Many words have also been borrowed from Japanese and Western languages such as German (areubaiteu "part-time job", allereugi "allergy", "gibsu" "plaster cast used for broken bones"). Some Western words were borrowed indirectly via Japanese, taking a Japanese sound pattern, for example "dozen" > dÄsu > daseu. Most indirect Western borrowings are now written according to current Hangulization rules for the respective Western language, as if borrowed directly. There are a few more complicated borrowings such as "German(y)" (see Names for Germany), the first part of whose endonym the Japanese approximated using the kanji doitsu that were then accepted into the Korean language by their Sino-Korean pronunciation: dok + il = Dogil. In South Korean official use, a number of other Sino-Korean country names have been replaced with phonetically oriented Hangulizations of the countries' endonyms or English names.
As in Japanese, Korean adapts words in ways that are uncommon in English. For example, in soccer heading ( ) is used to label a head-strike, rather than direction. This is a corrupted loan word from the English header.
North Korean vocabulary shows a tendency to prefer native Korean over Sino-Korean or foreign borrowings, especially with recent political objectives aimed at eliminating foreign (mostly Chinese) influences on the Korean language in the North. By contrast, South Korean may have several Sino-Korean or foreign borrowings which tend to be absent in North Korean.
Formerly the languages of the Korean peninsula were written using Chinese characters, using hyangchal or idu. Such systems relied on principles of rebus, and were lost, later in history. Writing became confined to the ruling elite, who used hanja to write in Classical Chinese.
Korean is now mainly written in Hangul, the Korean alphabet promulgated in 1446 by Sejong the Great; hanja may be mixed in to write Sino-Korean words. While South Korean schools still teach 1,800 hanja characters, North Korea had abolished the use of hanja decades ago.
Below is a chart of the Korean alphabet's symbols and their canonical IPA values:
Modern Korean is written with spaces between words, a feature not found in Chinese or Japanese. Korean punctuation marks are almost identical to Western ones. Traditionally, Korean was written in columns from top to bottom, right to left, but is now usually written in rows from left to right, top to bottom.
The Korean language used in the North and the South exhibits differences in pronunciation, spelling, grammar and vocabulary. Kanno, Hiroomi (ed.) / Society for Korean Linguistics in Japan (1987). ChÅsengo o manabÅ (ãæé®®èªãå¦ã¼ãã), SanshÅ«sha, Tokyo. ISBN 4-384-01506-2
In North Korea, palatalization of is optional, and can be pronounced between vowels.
Words that are written the same way may be pronounced differently, such as the examples below. The pronunciations below are given in Revised Romanization, McCune-Reischauer and Hangul, the last of which represents what the Hangul would be if one writes the word as pronounced.
* Similar pronunciation is used in the North whenever the hanja "ç" is attached to a Sino-Korean word ending in ã´, ã
or ã
. (In the South, this rule only applies when it is attached to any single-character Sino-Korean word.)
Some words are spelled differently by the North and the South, but the pronunciations are the same.
Some words have different spellings and pronunciations in the North and the South, some of which were given in the "Phonology" section above:
In general, when transcribing place names, North Korea tends to use the pronunciation in the original language more than South Korea, which often uses the pronunciation in English. For example:
Some grammatical constructions are also different:
Some vocabulary is different between the North and the South:
In the North, guillemets and are the symbols used for quotes; in the South, quotation marks equivalent to the English ones, â and â, are standard, although and are sometimes used in popular novels.
The United States' Defense Language Institute classifies Korean alongside Arabic, Chinese, and Japanese as a Category IV language, meaning that 63 weeks of instruction (as compared to just 25 weeks for French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian) are required to bring an English-speaking student to a limited working level of proficiency in which he or she has "sufficient capability to meet routine social demands and limited job requirements" and "can deal with concrete topics in past, present, and future tense." As a result, the study of the Korean language in the United States is dominated by Korean American heritage language students; they are estimated to form over 80% of all students of the language at non-military universities.
However, Korean is considerably easier for speakers of certain other languages, such as Japanese ; in Japan, it is more widely studied by non-heritage learners. The Korean Language Proficiency Test, an examination aimed at assessing non-native speakers' competence in Korean, was instituted in 1997; 17,000 people applied for the 2005 sitting of the examination.
*Hangul
*Korean romanization
**Revised romanization of Korean
**McCune-Reischauer
**Yale Romanization#Korean
**SKATS
*Korean numerals
*Korean count word
*Korean language and computers
*Hanja
*Sino-Korean vocabulary
*Korean mixed script
*List of English words of Korean origin
*Altaic languages
*List of Korea-related topics
*Vowel harmony
* (Volume 4 of the London Oriental and African Language Library).
*Hulbert, Homer B. (1905): A Comparative Grammar of the Korean Language and the Dravidian Dialects in India. Seoul.
*Martin, Samuel E. (1966): Lexical Evidence Relating Japanese to Korean. Language 42/2: 185â251.
*Martin, Samuel E. (1990): Morphological clues to the relationship of Japanese and Korean. In: Philip Baldi (ed.): Linguistic Change and Reconstruction Methodology. Trends in Linguistics: Studies and Monographs 45: 483-509.
*Miller, Roy Andrew (1971): Japanese and the Other Altaic Languages. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0226527190.
*Miller, Roy Andrew (1996): Languages and History: Japanese, Korean and Altaic. Oslo: Institute for Comparative Research in Human Culture. ISBN 9748299694.
*Ramstedt, G. J. (1928): Remarks on the Korean language. Mémoires de la Société Finno-Oigrienne 58.
*Rybatzki, Volker (2003): Middle Mongol. In: Juha Janhunen (ed.) (2003): The Mongolic languages. London: Routledge. ISBN 0-7007-1133-3: 47â82.
*Starostin, Sergei A.; Anna V. Dybo; Oleg A. Mudrak (2003): Etymological Dictionary of the Altaic Languages, 3 volumes. Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers. ISBN 9004131531.
*Sohn, H.-M. (1999): The Korean Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Song, J.-J. (2005): The Korean Language: Structure, Use and Context. London: Routledge.
*Trask, R. L. (1996): Historical linguistics. Hodder Arnold.
*Vovin, Alexander: Koreo-Japonica. University of Hawai'i Press.
*Whitman, John B. (1985): The Phonological Basis for the Comparison of Japanese and Korean. Unpublished Harvard University Ph.D. dissertation.
* Ethnologue report for Korean
* Linguistic and Philosophical Origins of the Korean Alphabet (Hangul)
* Free Korean language and culture course online, in English
* Linguistic map of Korea
* Korean - a Category III language Languages which are exceptionally difficult for native English speakers
* dongsa.net A Korean verb conjugation tool that explains the conjugations for learners of Korean
|
Korean_language | Do Chinese and Japanese have spaces between words? | null | data/set5/a6 | Korean_language
:This article is mainly about the spoken Korean language. See Hangul for details on the native Korean writing system.
Korean ( , see below) is the official language of Korea, both South and North. It is also one of the two official languages in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in China. There are about 78 million Korean speakers. In the 15th century a national writing system was commissioned by Sejong the Great, currently called Hangul. Prior to the development of Hangul, Koreans used Hanja (Chinese characters) to write for over a millennia.
The genealogical classification of the Korean language is debated by a small number of linguists. Most classify it as a language isolate Song, Jae Jung (2005) "The Korean language: structure, use and context" Routledge, p. 15
Lyle Campbell & Mauricio Mixco. 2007. A Glossary of Historical Linguistics. University of Utah Press. while a few consider it to be in the Altaic language family. Stratification in the peopling of China: how far does the linguistic evidence match genetics and archaeology? In; Sanchez-Mazas, Blench, Ross, Lin & Pejros eds. Human migrations in continental East Asia and Taiwan: genetic, linguistic and archaeological evidence. 2008. Taylor & Francis Some believe it to be distantly related to Japanese. Like Japanese it is agglutinative in its morphology and SOV in its syntax.
The Korean names for the language are based on the names for Korea used in North and South Korea.
In South Korea, the language is most often called Hangungmal
( ; ), or more formally, Hangugeo ( ; ) or Gugeo ( ; ; literally "national language").
In North Korea and Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in China, the language is most often called ChosÅnmal ( ; with hanja: ), or more formally, ChosÅnÅ ( ; ).
On the other hand, Korean people in the former USSR, who refer to themselves as Koryo-saram (ê³ ë ¤ì¬ë; also Goryeoin [ ; ; literally, "Goryeo person(s)"]) call the language Goryeomal ( ; ).
In mainland China, following the establishment of diplomatic relations with South Korea in 1992, the term CháoxiÇnyÇ ( or the short form: CháoyÇ ( )) has normally been used to refer to the language spoken in North Korea and Yanbian, while HánguóyÇ ( or the short form: HányÇ ( )) is used to refer to the language spoken in South Korea.
Some older English sources also used the name "Korean" to refer to the language, country, and people. The word "Korean" is derived from Goryeo, which is thought to be the first dynasty known to western countries.
Most modern linguists consider Korean to be a language isolate Song, Jae Jung (2005) "The Korean language: structure, use and context" Routledge, p. 15
Lyle Campbell & Mauricio J. Mixco. 2007. A Glossary of Historical Linguistics. University of Utah Press.
Since the publication of the article of Ramstedt in 1928, some linguists eg Miller 1971, 1996, Starostin et al. 2003 support the hypothesis that Korean can be classified as an Altaic language or as a relative of proto-Altaic. Korean is similar to the Altaic languages in that they both lack certain grammatical elements, including articles, fusional morphology and relative pronouns. However, linguists agree today on the fact that typological resemblances cannot be used to prove genetic relatedness of languages eg Vovin 2008: 1 as these features are typologically connected and easily borrowed. Trask 1996: 147-151 Such factors of typological divergence as Middle Mongolian's exhibition of gender agreement Rybatzki 2003: 57 can be used to argue that a genetic relationship is unlikely. Vovin 2008: 5
The hypothesis that Korean might be related to Japanese has had some more supporters due to some considerable overlap in vocabulary and similar grammatical features that have been elaborated upon by such researchers as Samuel E. Martin eg Martin 1966, 1990 and Roy Andrew Miller. eg Miller 1971, 1996 Sergei Starostin (1991) found about 25% of potential cognates in the Japanese-Korean 100-word Swadesh list, which - if true - would place these two languages closer together than other possible members of the Altaic family.
Other linguists, most notably Alexander Vovin, argue, however, that the similarities are not due to any genetic relationship, but rather to a sprachbund effect and heavy borrowing especially from Korean into Western Old Japanese. Vovin 2008 A good example might be Middle Korean sà m Whitman 1985: 232, also found in Martin 1966: 233 This word seems to be cognate, but while it is well-attested in Western Old Japanese and Northern RyÅ«kyÅ«, in Eastern Old Japanese it only occurs in compounds, and it is only present in three subdialects of the South-RyÅ«kyÅ«an dialect group. Then, the doublet wo âhempâ is attested in Western Old Japanese and Southern RyÅ«kyÅ«. It is thus plausible to assume a borrowed term. Vovin 2008: 211-212 See East Asian languages for morphological features shared among languages of the East Asian sprachbund, and Classification of Japanese for further details on the discussion of a possible relationship.
Korean is descended from Old Korean, Middle Korean and Modern Korean. Controversy remains over the proposed Altaic language family and its inclusion of Proto-Korean. Since the Korean War, contemporary North-South differences in Korean have developed, including variance in pronunciation, verb inflection, and vocabulary.
Korean is spoken by the Korean people in North Korea and South Korea and by the Korean diaspora in many countries including the People's Republic of China, Japan, and the United States. Korean-speaking minorities exist in these states, but because of cultural assimilation into host countries, not all ethnic Korean immigrants may speak it with native fluency.
Korean is the official language of South Korea and North Korea. It is also one of the two official languages of the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in China.
In South Korea, the regulatory body for Korean is the Seoul-based National Institute of the Korean Language ( ), which was created by presidential decree on January 23, 1991. In North Korea, the regulatory body is the Sahoe Kwahagwon Åhak YÅnguso ( ).
Dialects of Korean
Korean has several dialects (called mal [literally "speech"], saturi, or bang-eon in Korean). The standard language (pyojuneo or pyojunmal) of South Korea is based on the dialect of the area around Seoul, and the standard for North Korea is based on the dialect spoken around P'yÅngyang. All dialects of Korean are similar to each other, and are in fact all mutually intelligible, perhaps with the exception of the dialect of Jeju Island (see Jeju dialect). The dialect spoken in Jeju is in fact classified as a different language by some Korean linguists. One of the most notable differences between dialects is the use of stress: speakers of Seoul dialect use very little stress, and standard South Korean has a very flat intonation; on the other hand, speakers of the Gyeongsang dialect have a very pronounced intonation.
It is also worth noting that there is substantial evidence for a history of extensive dialect levelling, or even convergent evolution or intermixture of two or more originally distinct linguistic stocks, within the Korean language and its dialects. Many Korean dialects have basic vocabulary that is etymologically distinct from vocabulary of identical meaning in Standard Korean or other dialects, such as South Jeolla dialect /kur/ vs. Standard Korean ì
"mouth" or Gyeongsang dialect vs. Standard Korean "garlic chives." This suggests that the Korean Peninsula may have at one time been much more linguistically diverse than it is at present. See also the Buyeo languages hypothesis.
There is a very close connection between the dialects of Korean and the regions of Korea, since the boundaries of both are largely determined by mountains and seas. Here is a list of traditional dialect names and locations:
The Korean consonants
The IPA symbol (a subscript double straight quotation mark, shown here with a placeholder circle) is used to denote the tensed consonants . Its official use in the Extensions to the IPA is for 'strong' articulation, but is used in the literature for faucalized voice. The Korean consonants also have elements of stiff voice, but it is not yet known how typical this is of faucalized consonants. They are produced with a partially constricted glottis and additional subglottal pressure in addition to tense vocal tract walls, laryngeal lowering, or other expansion of the larynx.
becomes an alveolo-palatal before or for most speakers (but see Differences in the language between North Korea and South Korea). This occurs with the tense fricative and all the affricates as well. At the end of a syllable, /s/ changes to /t/ (Example: beoseot (ë²ì¯) 'mushroom').
may become a bilabial before or , a palatal before or , a velar before , a voiced between voiced sounds, and a elsewhere.
become voiced between voiced sounds.
becomes alveolar flap between vowels, and or at the end of a syllable or next to another . Note that a written syllable-final 'ã¹', when followed by a vowel or a glide (i.e., when the next character starts with 'ã
'), migrates to the next syllable and thus becomes .
Traditionally, was disallowed at the beginning of a word. It disappeared before , and otherwise became . However, the inflow of western loanword changed the trend, and now word-initial (mostly from English loanwords) are pronounced as a free variation of either or . The traditional prohibition of word-initial became a morphological rule called "initial law" (ëìë²ì¹) in South Korea, which pertains to Sino-Korean vocabulary. Such words retain their word-initial in North Korea.
All obstruents (plosives, affricates, fricatives) are unreleased at the end of a word.
Plosive stops become nasal stops before nasal stops.
Hangul spelling does not reflect these assimilatory pronunciation rules, but rather maintains the underlying, partly historical morphology. Given this, it is sometimes hard to tell which actual phonemes are present in a certain word.
One difference between the pronunciation standards of North and South Korea is the treatment of initial , and initial . For example,
* "labour" - north: rodong (ë¡ë), south: nodong (ë
¸ë)
* "history" - north: ryÅksa (ë ¥ì¬), south: yeoksa (ìì¬)
* "female" - north: nyÅja (ë
ì), south: yeoja (ì¬ì)
Grammatical morphemes may change shape depending on the preceding sounds. Examples include -eun/-neun (-ì/-ë) and -i/-ga (-ì´/-ê°). Sometimes sounds may be inserted instead. Examples include -eul/-reul (-ì/-를), -euro/-ro (-ì¼ë¡/-ë¡), -eseo/-seo (-ìì/-ì), -ideunji/-deunji (-ì´ë ì§/-ë ì§) and -iya/-ya (-ì´ì¼/-ì¼). However, -euro/-ro is somewhat irregular, since it will behave differently after a rieul consonant.
Some verbs may also change shape morphophonemically.
Korean is an agglutinative language. Modifiers generally precede the modified words, and in the case of verb modifiers, can be serially appended. The basic form of a Korean sentence is Subject Object Verb, but the verb is the only required and immovable element.
:"Did [you] go to the store?" ("you" implied in conversation)
:"Yes."
The Korean Language contains nine parts of speech.
Korean verbs ( , tongsa, ) are also known in English as "action verbs" or "dynamic verbs" to distinguish them from [ , hyeong-yongsa, "adjectives"]), which are also known as "descriptive verbs" or "stative verbs". Examples of action/dynamic verbs include (hada, "to do") and (kada, "to go") which constitute an action or movement as opposed to descriptive verbs such as (yehppeuda, "to be beautiful"). For a larger list of Korean verbs, see .
Unlike most of the European languages, Korean does not conjugate verbs using agreement with the subject, and nouns have no gender. Instead, verb conjugations depend upon the verb tense, aspect, mood, and the social relation between the speaker, the subjects, and the listeners.
The system of speech levels and honorifics loosely resembles the T-V distinction of most Indo-European languages. For example, different endings are used depending on the speaker's relation with their subject or audience. Politeness is a critical part of Korean language and Korean culture, therefore, when talking to someone esteemed, the correct verb ending must be chosen to indicate the proper respect.
Words categorized as Korean adjectives ( , hyeong-yongsa, ) conjugate similarly to verbs, so some English texts call them "descriptive verbs" or "stative verbs", but they are distinctly separate from (tongsa).
English does not have an identical grammatical category, so the English translation of Korean adjectives may misleadingly suggest that they are verbs. For example, (pukda) translates literally as "to be red" and (aswipda) often best translates as "to lack" or "to want for", but both are (hyeong-yongsa, "adjectives"). For a larger list of Korean adjectives, see .
Korean pre-nouns ( , gwanhyeongsa, ) are also known in English as "determinatives", "attributives", and "unconjugated adjectives". Examples include (kak, "each"). For a larger list, see .
Core and basic noun words are native to the Korean language, e.g. (nara, country), (nal, day). A large body of Korean nouns ( , myeongsa, ) stem from Chinese characters, e.g. (å±±, san, mountain), (é©, yeok, station), (æå, munhwa, culture), etc. Many Sino-Korean words have a native Korean equivalent and vice versa, but not always. Nouns do not have grammatical gender and can be made plural by adding ë¤ to the end of the word, however in most instances the singular form is used even when in English it would be translated as plural. For example, while in English the sentence "there are three apples" would use the plural "apples" instead of the singular "apple", the Korean sentence ì¬ê³¼ ì¸ê° ììµëë¤ (sagwa segae isssumnida) maintains the word ì¬ê³¼ (sagwa, "apple") in its singular form, thus rendered in English as "apple three(things) exist." For a list of Korean nouns, see .
Korean pronouns ( , daemyeongsa, ) are highly influenced by the honorifics in the language. Pronouns change forms depending on the social status of the person or persons spoken to, e.g. the pronoun for "I" there is both the informal (na) and the honorific/humble (jeo). In general second person singular pronouns are avoided, especially when using honorific forms. For a larger list or Korean pronouns, see .
Korean adverbs ( , busa, ) include (tto, "also") and (gadeuk, "fully"). For a larger list, see .
Korean particles ( , josa, ) are also known in English as "postpositions". Examples include (neun, topic marker) and (reul, object marker). For a larger list, see .
Korean interjections ( , gamtansa, ) are also known in English as "exclamations". Examples include (ani, "no"). For a larger list, see .
Korean numbers or numerals ( , susa, ) constitute two regularly used sets: a native Korean set and a Sino-Korean set. The Sino-Korean system is nearly entirely based on the Chinese numerals. The distinction between the two numeral systems is very important. Everything that can be counted will use one of the two systems, but seldom both. Sino-Korean words are sometimes used to mark ordinal usage: yeol beon (ì´ ë²) means "ten times" while sip beon (ì(å) ë²(çª)) means "number ten." The grouping of large numbers in Korean follow the Chinese tradition of myriads (10000) rather than thousands (1000) as is common in Europe and North America.
The relationship between a speaker or writer and his or her subject and audience is paramount in Korean, and the grammar reflects this. The relationship between speaker/writer and subject referent is reflected in honorifics, while that between speaker/writer and audience is reflected in speech level.
When talking about someone superior in status, a speaker or writer usually uses special nouns or verb endings to indicate the subject's superiority. Generally, someone is superior in status if he/she is an older relative, a stranger of roughly equal or greater age, or an employer, teacher, customer, or the like. Someone is equal or inferior in status if he/she is a younger stranger, student, employee or the like. Nowadays, there are special endings which can be used on declarative, interrogative, and imperative sentences; and both honorific or normal sentences. They are made for easier and faster use of Korean.
There are seven verb paradigms or speech levels in Korean, and each level has its own unique set of verb endings which are used to indicate the level of formality of a situation. Unlike honorificsâwhich are used to show respect towards the referentâspeech levels are used to show respect towards a speaker's or writer's audience. The names of the seven levels are derived from the non-honorific imperative form of the verb íë¤ (hada, "do") in each level, plus the suffix ì²´ ("che", hanja: é« ), which means "style".
The highest six levels are generally grouped together as jondaenmal (ì¡´ëë§), while the lowest level (haeche, í´ì²´) is called banmal (ë°ë§) in Korean.
The core of the Korean vocabulary is made up of native Korean words. Like Japanese and Vietnamese, a significant proportion of the vocabulary, especially words that denote abstract ideas, are Sino-Korean words, Sohn, Ho-Min. The Korean Language (Section 1.5.3 "Korean vocabulary", p.12â13), Cambridge University Press, 2001. ISBN 0521369436. either
* directly borrowed from Written Chinese, or
* coined in Japan or Korea using Chinese characters,
in a similar way European languages borrow from Latin and Greek.
The exact proportion of Sino-Korean vocabulary is a matter of debate. Sohn (2001) stated 50-60%. However, Jeong Jae-do, one of the compilers of the dictionary Urimal Kun Sajeon, asserts that the proportion is not so high. He points out that Korean dictionaries compiled during the period of Japanese occupation include many unused Sino-Korean words. In his estimation, the proportion of native Korean vocabulary in the Korean language might be as high as 70%. . The dictionary mentioned is
Korean has two number systems: one native, and one borrowed from Chinese.
To a much lesser extent, words have also occasionally been borrowed from Mongolian, Sanskrit, and other languages. Conversely, the Korean language itself has also contributed some loanwords to other languages, most notably the Tsushima dialect of Japanese.
The vast majority of loanwords other than Sino-Korean come from modern times, 90% of which are from English. Many words have also been borrowed from Japanese and Western languages such as German (areubaiteu "part-time job", allereugi "allergy", "gibsu" "plaster cast used for broken bones"). Some Western words were borrowed indirectly via Japanese, taking a Japanese sound pattern, for example "dozen" > dÄsu > daseu. Most indirect Western borrowings are now written according to current Hangulization rules for the respective Western language, as if borrowed directly. There are a few more complicated borrowings such as "German(y)" (see Names for Germany), the first part of whose endonym the Japanese approximated using the kanji doitsu that were then accepted into the Korean language by their Sino-Korean pronunciation: dok + il = Dogil. In South Korean official use, a number of other Sino-Korean country names have been replaced with phonetically oriented Hangulizations of the countries' endonyms or English names.
As in Japanese, Korean adapts words in ways that are uncommon in English. For example, in soccer heading ( ) is used to label a head-strike, rather than direction. This is a corrupted loan word from the English header.
North Korean vocabulary shows a tendency to prefer native Korean over Sino-Korean or foreign borrowings, especially with recent political objectives aimed at eliminating foreign (mostly Chinese) influences on the Korean language in the North. By contrast, South Korean may have several Sino-Korean or foreign borrowings which tend to be absent in North Korean.
Formerly the languages of the Korean peninsula were written using Chinese characters, using hyangchal or idu. Such systems relied on principles of rebus, and were lost, later in history. Writing became confined to the ruling elite, who used hanja to write in Classical Chinese.
Korean is now mainly written in Hangul, the Korean alphabet promulgated in 1446 by Sejong the Great; hanja may be mixed in to write Sino-Korean words. While South Korean schools still teach 1,800 hanja characters, North Korea had abolished the use of hanja decades ago.
Below is a chart of the Korean alphabet's symbols and their canonical IPA values:
Modern Korean is written with spaces between words, a feature not found in Chinese or Japanese. Korean punctuation marks are almost identical to Western ones. Traditionally, Korean was written in columns from top to bottom, right to left, but is now usually written in rows from left to right, top to bottom.
The Korean language used in the North and the South exhibits differences in pronunciation, spelling, grammar and vocabulary. Kanno, Hiroomi (ed.) / Society for Korean Linguistics in Japan (1987). ChÅsengo o manabÅ (ãæé®®èªãå¦ã¼ãã), SanshÅ«sha, Tokyo. ISBN 4-384-01506-2
In North Korea, palatalization of is optional, and can be pronounced between vowels.
Words that are written the same way may be pronounced differently, such as the examples below. The pronunciations below are given in Revised Romanization, McCune-Reischauer and Hangul, the last of which represents what the Hangul would be if one writes the word as pronounced.
* Similar pronunciation is used in the North whenever the hanja "ç" is attached to a Sino-Korean word ending in ã´, ã
or ã
. (In the South, this rule only applies when it is attached to any single-character Sino-Korean word.)
Some words are spelled differently by the North and the South, but the pronunciations are the same.
Some words have different spellings and pronunciations in the North and the South, some of which were given in the "Phonology" section above:
In general, when transcribing place names, North Korea tends to use the pronunciation in the original language more than South Korea, which often uses the pronunciation in English. For example:
Some grammatical constructions are also different:
Some vocabulary is different between the North and the South:
In the North, guillemets and are the symbols used for quotes; in the South, quotation marks equivalent to the English ones, â and â, are standard, although and are sometimes used in popular novels.
The United States' Defense Language Institute classifies Korean alongside Arabic, Chinese, and Japanese as a Category IV language, meaning that 63 weeks of instruction (as compared to just 25 weeks for French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian) are required to bring an English-speaking student to a limited working level of proficiency in which he or she has "sufficient capability to meet routine social demands and limited job requirements" and "can deal with concrete topics in past, present, and future tense." As a result, the study of the Korean language in the United States is dominated by Korean American heritage language students; they are estimated to form over 80% of all students of the language at non-military universities.
However, Korean is considerably easier for speakers of certain other languages, such as Japanese ; in Japan, it is more widely studied by non-heritage learners. The Korean Language Proficiency Test, an examination aimed at assessing non-native speakers' competence in Korean, was instituted in 1997; 17,000 people applied for the 2005 sitting of the examination.
*Hangul
*Korean romanization
**Revised romanization of Korean
**McCune-Reischauer
**Yale Romanization#Korean
**SKATS
*Korean numerals
*Korean count word
*Korean language and computers
*Hanja
*Sino-Korean vocabulary
*Korean mixed script
*List of English words of Korean origin
*Altaic languages
*List of Korea-related topics
*Vowel harmony
* (Volume 4 of the London Oriental and African Language Library).
*Hulbert, Homer B. (1905): A Comparative Grammar of the Korean Language and the Dravidian Dialects in India. Seoul.
*Martin, Samuel E. (1966): Lexical Evidence Relating Japanese to Korean. Language 42/2: 185â251.
*Martin, Samuel E. (1990): Morphological clues to the relationship of Japanese and Korean. In: Philip Baldi (ed.): Linguistic Change and Reconstruction Methodology. Trends in Linguistics: Studies and Monographs 45: 483-509.
*Miller, Roy Andrew (1971): Japanese and the Other Altaic Languages. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0226527190.
*Miller, Roy Andrew (1996): Languages and History: Japanese, Korean and Altaic. Oslo: Institute for Comparative Research in Human Culture. ISBN 9748299694.
*Ramstedt, G. J. (1928): Remarks on the Korean language. Mémoires de la Société Finno-Oigrienne 58.
*Rybatzki, Volker (2003): Middle Mongol. In: Juha Janhunen (ed.) (2003): The Mongolic languages. London: Routledge. ISBN 0-7007-1133-3: 47â82.
*Starostin, Sergei A.; Anna V. Dybo; Oleg A. Mudrak (2003): Etymological Dictionary of the Altaic Languages, 3 volumes. Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers. ISBN 9004131531.
*Sohn, H.-M. (1999): The Korean Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Song, J.-J. (2005): The Korean Language: Structure, Use and Context. London: Routledge.
*Trask, R. L. (1996): Historical linguistics. Hodder Arnold.
*Vovin, Alexander: Koreo-Japonica. University of Hawai'i Press.
*Whitman, John B. (1985): The Phonological Basis for the Comparison of Japanese and Korean. Unpublished Harvard University Ph.D. dissertation.
* Ethnologue report for Korean
* Linguistic and Philosophical Origins of the Korean Alphabet (Hangul)
* Free Korean language and culture course online, in English
* Linguistic map of Korea
* Korean - a Category III language Languages which are exceptionally difficult for native English speakers
* dongsa.net A Korean verb conjugation tool that explains the conjugations for learners of Korean
|
Korean_language | From which languages is Korean descended? | Korean is descended from Old Korean, Middle Korean and Modern Korean. | data/set5/a6 | Korean_language
:This article is mainly about the spoken Korean language. See Hangul for details on the native Korean writing system.
Korean ( , see below) is the official language of Korea, both South and North. It is also one of the two official languages in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in China. There are about 78 million Korean speakers. In the 15th century a national writing system was commissioned by Sejong the Great, currently called Hangul. Prior to the development of Hangul, Koreans used Hanja (Chinese characters) to write for over a millennia.
The genealogical classification of the Korean language is debated by a small number of linguists. Most classify it as a language isolate Song, Jae Jung (2005) "The Korean language: structure, use and context" Routledge, p. 15
Lyle Campbell & Mauricio Mixco. 2007. A Glossary of Historical Linguistics. University of Utah Press. while a few consider it to be in the Altaic language family. Stratification in the peopling of China: how far does the linguistic evidence match genetics and archaeology? In; Sanchez-Mazas, Blench, Ross, Lin & Pejros eds. Human migrations in continental East Asia and Taiwan: genetic, linguistic and archaeological evidence. 2008. Taylor & Francis Some believe it to be distantly related to Japanese. Like Japanese it is agglutinative in its morphology and SOV in its syntax.
The Korean names for the language are based on the names for Korea used in North and South Korea.
In South Korea, the language is most often called Hangungmal
( ; ), or more formally, Hangugeo ( ; ) or Gugeo ( ; ; literally "national language").
In North Korea and Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in China, the language is most often called ChosÅnmal ( ; with hanja: ), or more formally, ChosÅnÅ ( ; ).
On the other hand, Korean people in the former USSR, who refer to themselves as Koryo-saram (ê³ ë ¤ì¬ë; also Goryeoin [ ; ; literally, "Goryeo person(s)"]) call the language Goryeomal ( ; ).
In mainland China, following the establishment of diplomatic relations with South Korea in 1992, the term CháoxiÇnyÇ ( or the short form: CháoyÇ ( )) has normally been used to refer to the language spoken in North Korea and Yanbian, while HánguóyÇ ( or the short form: HányÇ ( )) is used to refer to the language spoken in South Korea.
Some older English sources also used the name "Korean" to refer to the language, country, and people. The word "Korean" is derived from Goryeo, which is thought to be the first dynasty known to western countries.
Most modern linguists consider Korean to be a language isolate Song, Jae Jung (2005) "The Korean language: structure, use and context" Routledge, p. 15
Lyle Campbell & Mauricio J. Mixco. 2007. A Glossary of Historical Linguistics. University of Utah Press.
Since the publication of the article of Ramstedt in 1928, some linguists eg Miller 1971, 1996, Starostin et al. 2003 support the hypothesis that Korean can be classified as an Altaic language or as a relative of proto-Altaic. Korean is similar to the Altaic languages in that they both lack certain grammatical elements, including articles, fusional morphology and relative pronouns. However, linguists agree today on the fact that typological resemblances cannot be used to prove genetic relatedness of languages eg Vovin 2008: 1 as these features are typologically connected and easily borrowed. Trask 1996: 147-151 Such factors of typological divergence as Middle Mongolian's exhibition of gender agreement Rybatzki 2003: 57 can be used to argue that a genetic relationship is unlikely. Vovin 2008: 5
The hypothesis that Korean might be related to Japanese has had some more supporters due to some considerable overlap in vocabulary and similar grammatical features that have been elaborated upon by such researchers as Samuel E. Martin eg Martin 1966, 1990 and Roy Andrew Miller. eg Miller 1971, 1996 Sergei Starostin (1991) found about 25% of potential cognates in the Japanese-Korean 100-word Swadesh list, which - if true - would place these two languages closer together than other possible members of the Altaic family.
Other linguists, most notably Alexander Vovin, argue, however, that the similarities are not due to any genetic relationship, but rather to a sprachbund effect and heavy borrowing especially from Korean into Western Old Japanese. Vovin 2008 A good example might be Middle Korean sà m Whitman 1985: 232, also found in Martin 1966: 233 This word seems to be cognate, but while it is well-attested in Western Old Japanese and Northern RyÅ«kyÅ«, in Eastern Old Japanese it only occurs in compounds, and it is only present in three subdialects of the South-RyÅ«kyÅ«an dialect group. Then, the doublet wo âhempâ is attested in Western Old Japanese and Southern RyÅ«kyÅ«. It is thus plausible to assume a borrowed term. Vovin 2008: 211-212 See East Asian languages for morphological features shared among languages of the East Asian sprachbund, and Classification of Japanese for further details on the discussion of a possible relationship.
Korean is descended from Old Korean, Middle Korean and Modern Korean. Controversy remains over the proposed Altaic language family and its inclusion of Proto-Korean. Since the Korean War, contemporary North-South differences in Korean have developed, including variance in pronunciation, verb inflection, and vocabulary.
Korean is spoken by the Korean people in North Korea and South Korea and by the Korean diaspora in many countries including the People's Republic of China, Japan, and the United States. Korean-speaking minorities exist in these states, but because of cultural assimilation into host countries, not all ethnic Korean immigrants may speak it with native fluency.
Korean is the official language of South Korea and North Korea. It is also one of the two official languages of the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in China.
In South Korea, the regulatory body for Korean is the Seoul-based National Institute of the Korean Language ( ), which was created by presidential decree on January 23, 1991. In North Korea, the regulatory body is the Sahoe Kwahagwon Åhak YÅnguso ( ).
Dialects of Korean
Korean has several dialects (called mal [literally "speech"], saturi, or bang-eon in Korean). The standard language (pyojuneo or pyojunmal) of South Korea is based on the dialect of the area around Seoul, and the standard for North Korea is based on the dialect spoken around P'yÅngyang. All dialects of Korean are similar to each other, and are in fact all mutually intelligible, perhaps with the exception of the dialect of Jeju Island (see Jeju dialect). The dialect spoken in Jeju is in fact classified as a different language by some Korean linguists. One of the most notable differences between dialects is the use of stress: speakers of Seoul dialect use very little stress, and standard South Korean has a very flat intonation; on the other hand, speakers of the Gyeongsang dialect have a very pronounced intonation.
It is also worth noting that there is substantial evidence for a history of extensive dialect levelling, or even convergent evolution or intermixture of two or more originally distinct linguistic stocks, within the Korean language and its dialects. Many Korean dialects have basic vocabulary that is etymologically distinct from vocabulary of identical meaning in Standard Korean or other dialects, such as South Jeolla dialect /kur/ vs. Standard Korean ì
"mouth" or Gyeongsang dialect vs. Standard Korean "garlic chives." This suggests that the Korean Peninsula may have at one time been much more linguistically diverse than it is at present. See also the Buyeo languages hypothesis.
There is a very close connection between the dialects of Korean and the regions of Korea, since the boundaries of both are largely determined by mountains and seas. Here is a list of traditional dialect names and locations:
The Korean consonants
The IPA symbol (a subscript double straight quotation mark, shown here with a placeholder circle) is used to denote the tensed consonants . Its official use in the Extensions to the IPA is for 'strong' articulation, but is used in the literature for faucalized voice. The Korean consonants also have elements of stiff voice, but it is not yet known how typical this is of faucalized consonants. They are produced with a partially constricted glottis and additional subglottal pressure in addition to tense vocal tract walls, laryngeal lowering, or other expansion of the larynx.
becomes an alveolo-palatal before or for most speakers (but see Differences in the language between North Korea and South Korea). This occurs with the tense fricative and all the affricates as well. At the end of a syllable, /s/ changes to /t/ (Example: beoseot (ë²ì¯) 'mushroom').
may become a bilabial before or , a palatal before or , a velar before , a voiced between voiced sounds, and a elsewhere.
become voiced between voiced sounds.
becomes alveolar flap between vowels, and or at the end of a syllable or next to another . Note that a written syllable-final 'ã¹', when followed by a vowel or a glide (i.e., when the next character starts with 'ã
'), migrates to the next syllable and thus becomes .
Traditionally, was disallowed at the beginning of a word. It disappeared before , and otherwise became . However, the inflow of western loanword changed the trend, and now word-initial (mostly from English loanwords) are pronounced as a free variation of either or . The traditional prohibition of word-initial became a morphological rule called "initial law" (ëìë²ì¹) in South Korea, which pertains to Sino-Korean vocabulary. Such words retain their word-initial in North Korea.
All obstruents (plosives, affricates, fricatives) are unreleased at the end of a word.
Plosive stops become nasal stops before nasal stops.
Hangul spelling does not reflect these assimilatory pronunciation rules, but rather maintains the underlying, partly historical morphology. Given this, it is sometimes hard to tell which actual phonemes are present in a certain word.
One difference between the pronunciation standards of North and South Korea is the treatment of initial , and initial . For example,
* "labour" - north: rodong (ë¡ë), south: nodong (ë
¸ë)
* "history" - north: ryÅksa (ë ¥ì¬), south: yeoksa (ìì¬)
* "female" - north: nyÅja (ë
ì), south: yeoja (ì¬ì)
Grammatical morphemes may change shape depending on the preceding sounds. Examples include -eun/-neun (-ì/-ë) and -i/-ga (-ì´/-ê°). Sometimes sounds may be inserted instead. Examples include -eul/-reul (-ì/-를), -euro/-ro (-ì¼ë¡/-ë¡), -eseo/-seo (-ìì/-ì), -ideunji/-deunji (-ì´ë ì§/-ë ì§) and -iya/-ya (-ì´ì¼/-ì¼). However, -euro/-ro is somewhat irregular, since it will behave differently after a rieul consonant.
Some verbs may also change shape morphophonemically.
Korean is an agglutinative language. Modifiers generally precede the modified words, and in the case of verb modifiers, can be serially appended. The basic form of a Korean sentence is Subject Object Verb, but the verb is the only required and immovable element.
:"Did [you] go to the store?" ("you" implied in conversation)
:"Yes."
The Korean Language contains nine parts of speech.
Korean verbs ( , tongsa, ) are also known in English as "action verbs" or "dynamic verbs" to distinguish them from [ , hyeong-yongsa, "adjectives"]), which are also known as "descriptive verbs" or "stative verbs". Examples of action/dynamic verbs include (hada, "to do") and (kada, "to go") which constitute an action or movement as opposed to descriptive verbs such as (yehppeuda, "to be beautiful"). For a larger list of Korean verbs, see .
Unlike most of the European languages, Korean does not conjugate verbs using agreement with the subject, and nouns have no gender. Instead, verb conjugations depend upon the verb tense, aspect, mood, and the social relation between the speaker, the subjects, and the listeners.
The system of speech levels and honorifics loosely resembles the T-V distinction of most Indo-European languages. For example, different endings are used depending on the speaker's relation with their subject or audience. Politeness is a critical part of Korean language and Korean culture, therefore, when talking to someone esteemed, the correct verb ending must be chosen to indicate the proper respect.
Words categorized as Korean adjectives ( , hyeong-yongsa, ) conjugate similarly to verbs, so some English texts call them "descriptive verbs" or "stative verbs", but they are distinctly separate from (tongsa).
English does not have an identical grammatical category, so the English translation of Korean adjectives may misleadingly suggest that they are verbs. For example, (pukda) translates literally as "to be red" and (aswipda) often best translates as "to lack" or "to want for", but both are (hyeong-yongsa, "adjectives"). For a larger list of Korean adjectives, see .
Korean pre-nouns ( , gwanhyeongsa, ) are also known in English as "determinatives", "attributives", and "unconjugated adjectives". Examples include (kak, "each"). For a larger list, see .
Core and basic noun words are native to the Korean language, e.g. (nara, country), (nal, day). A large body of Korean nouns ( , myeongsa, ) stem from Chinese characters, e.g. (å±±, san, mountain), (é©, yeok, station), (æå, munhwa, culture), etc. Many Sino-Korean words have a native Korean equivalent and vice versa, but not always. Nouns do not have grammatical gender and can be made plural by adding ë¤ to the end of the word, however in most instances the singular form is used even when in English it would be translated as plural. For example, while in English the sentence "there are three apples" would use the plural "apples" instead of the singular "apple", the Korean sentence ì¬ê³¼ ì¸ê° ììµëë¤ (sagwa segae isssumnida) maintains the word ì¬ê³¼ (sagwa, "apple") in its singular form, thus rendered in English as "apple three(things) exist." For a list of Korean nouns, see .
Korean pronouns ( , daemyeongsa, ) are highly influenced by the honorifics in the language. Pronouns change forms depending on the social status of the person or persons spoken to, e.g. the pronoun for "I" there is both the informal (na) and the honorific/humble (jeo). In general second person singular pronouns are avoided, especially when using honorific forms. For a larger list or Korean pronouns, see .
Korean adverbs ( , busa, ) include (tto, "also") and (gadeuk, "fully"). For a larger list, see .
Korean particles ( , josa, ) are also known in English as "postpositions". Examples include (neun, topic marker) and (reul, object marker). For a larger list, see .
Korean interjections ( , gamtansa, ) are also known in English as "exclamations". Examples include (ani, "no"). For a larger list, see .
Korean numbers or numerals ( , susa, ) constitute two regularly used sets: a native Korean set and a Sino-Korean set. The Sino-Korean system is nearly entirely based on the Chinese numerals. The distinction between the two numeral systems is very important. Everything that can be counted will use one of the two systems, but seldom both. Sino-Korean words are sometimes used to mark ordinal usage: yeol beon (ì´ ë²) means "ten times" while sip beon (ì(å) ë²(çª)) means "number ten." The grouping of large numbers in Korean follow the Chinese tradition of myriads (10000) rather than thousands (1000) as is common in Europe and North America.
The relationship between a speaker or writer and his or her subject and audience is paramount in Korean, and the grammar reflects this. The relationship between speaker/writer and subject referent is reflected in honorifics, while that between speaker/writer and audience is reflected in speech level.
When talking about someone superior in status, a speaker or writer usually uses special nouns or verb endings to indicate the subject's superiority. Generally, someone is superior in status if he/she is an older relative, a stranger of roughly equal or greater age, or an employer, teacher, customer, or the like. Someone is equal or inferior in status if he/she is a younger stranger, student, employee or the like. Nowadays, there are special endings which can be used on declarative, interrogative, and imperative sentences; and both honorific or normal sentences. They are made for easier and faster use of Korean.
There are seven verb paradigms or speech levels in Korean, and each level has its own unique set of verb endings which are used to indicate the level of formality of a situation. Unlike honorificsâwhich are used to show respect towards the referentâspeech levels are used to show respect towards a speaker's or writer's audience. The names of the seven levels are derived from the non-honorific imperative form of the verb íë¤ (hada, "do") in each level, plus the suffix ì²´ ("che", hanja: é« ), which means "style".
The highest six levels are generally grouped together as jondaenmal (ì¡´ëë§), while the lowest level (haeche, í´ì²´) is called banmal (ë°ë§) in Korean.
The core of the Korean vocabulary is made up of native Korean words. Like Japanese and Vietnamese, a significant proportion of the vocabulary, especially words that denote abstract ideas, are Sino-Korean words, Sohn, Ho-Min. The Korean Language (Section 1.5.3 "Korean vocabulary", p.12â13), Cambridge University Press, 2001. ISBN 0521369436. either
* directly borrowed from Written Chinese, or
* coined in Japan or Korea using Chinese characters,
in a similar way European languages borrow from Latin and Greek.
The exact proportion of Sino-Korean vocabulary is a matter of debate. Sohn (2001) stated 50-60%. However, Jeong Jae-do, one of the compilers of the dictionary Urimal Kun Sajeon, asserts that the proportion is not so high. He points out that Korean dictionaries compiled during the period of Japanese occupation include many unused Sino-Korean words. In his estimation, the proportion of native Korean vocabulary in the Korean language might be as high as 70%. . The dictionary mentioned is
Korean has two number systems: one native, and one borrowed from Chinese.
To a much lesser extent, words have also occasionally been borrowed from Mongolian, Sanskrit, and other languages. Conversely, the Korean language itself has also contributed some loanwords to other languages, most notably the Tsushima dialect of Japanese.
The vast majority of loanwords other than Sino-Korean come from modern times, 90% of which are from English. Many words have also been borrowed from Japanese and Western languages such as German (areubaiteu "part-time job", allereugi "allergy", "gibsu" "plaster cast used for broken bones"). Some Western words were borrowed indirectly via Japanese, taking a Japanese sound pattern, for example "dozen" > dÄsu > daseu. Most indirect Western borrowings are now written according to current Hangulization rules for the respective Western language, as if borrowed directly. There are a few more complicated borrowings such as "German(y)" (see Names for Germany), the first part of whose endonym the Japanese approximated using the kanji doitsu that were then accepted into the Korean language by their Sino-Korean pronunciation: dok + il = Dogil. In South Korean official use, a number of other Sino-Korean country names have been replaced with phonetically oriented Hangulizations of the countries' endonyms or English names.
As in Japanese, Korean adapts words in ways that are uncommon in English. For example, in soccer heading ( ) is used to label a head-strike, rather than direction. This is a corrupted loan word from the English header.
North Korean vocabulary shows a tendency to prefer native Korean over Sino-Korean or foreign borrowings, especially with recent political objectives aimed at eliminating foreign (mostly Chinese) influences on the Korean language in the North. By contrast, South Korean may have several Sino-Korean or foreign borrowings which tend to be absent in North Korean.
Formerly the languages of the Korean peninsula were written using Chinese characters, using hyangchal or idu. Such systems relied on principles of rebus, and were lost, later in history. Writing became confined to the ruling elite, who used hanja to write in Classical Chinese.
Korean is now mainly written in Hangul, the Korean alphabet promulgated in 1446 by Sejong the Great; hanja may be mixed in to write Sino-Korean words. While South Korean schools still teach 1,800 hanja characters, North Korea had abolished the use of hanja decades ago.
Below is a chart of the Korean alphabet's symbols and their canonical IPA values:
Modern Korean is written with spaces between words, a feature not found in Chinese or Japanese. Korean punctuation marks are almost identical to Western ones. Traditionally, Korean was written in columns from top to bottom, right to left, but is now usually written in rows from left to right, top to bottom.
The Korean language used in the North and the South exhibits differences in pronunciation, spelling, grammar and vocabulary. Kanno, Hiroomi (ed.) / Society for Korean Linguistics in Japan (1987). ChÅsengo o manabÅ (ãæé®®èªãå¦ã¼ãã), SanshÅ«sha, Tokyo. ISBN 4-384-01506-2
In North Korea, palatalization of is optional, and can be pronounced between vowels.
Words that are written the same way may be pronounced differently, such as the examples below. The pronunciations below are given in Revised Romanization, McCune-Reischauer and Hangul, the last of which represents what the Hangul would be if one writes the word as pronounced.
* Similar pronunciation is used in the North whenever the hanja "ç" is attached to a Sino-Korean word ending in ã´, ã
or ã
. (In the South, this rule only applies when it is attached to any single-character Sino-Korean word.)
Some words are spelled differently by the North and the South, but the pronunciations are the same.
Some words have different spellings and pronunciations in the North and the South, some of which were given in the "Phonology" section above:
In general, when transcribing place names, North Korea tends to use the pronunciation in the original language more than South Korea, which often uses the pronunciation in English. For example:
Some grammatical constructions are also different:
Some vocabulary is different between the North and the South:
In the North, guillemets and are the symbols used for quotes; in the South, quotation marks equivalent to the English ones, â and â, are standard, although and are sometimes used in popular novels.
The United States' Defense Language Institute classifies Korean alongside Arabic, Chinese, and Japanese as a Category IV language, meaning that 63 weeks of instruction (as compared to just 25 weeks for French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian) are required to bring an English-speaking student to a limited working level of proficiency in which he or she has "sufficient capability to meet routine social demands and limited job requirements" and "can deal with concrete topics in past, present, and future tense." As a result, the study of the Korean language in the United States is dominated by Korean American heritage language students; they are estimated to form over 80% of all students of the language at non-military universities.
However, Korean is considerably easier for speakers of certain other languages, such as Japanese ; in Japan, it is more widely studied by non-heritage learners. The Korean Language Proficiency Test, an examination aimed at assessing non-native speakers' competence in Korean, was instituted in 1997; 17,000 people applied for the 2005 sitting of the examination.
*Hangul
*Korean romanization
**Revised romanization of Korean
**McCune-Reischauer
**Yale Romanization#Korean
**SKATS
*Korean numerals
*Korean count word
*Korean language and computers
*Hanja
*Sino-Korean vocabulary
*Korean mixed script
*List of English words of Korean origin
*Altaic languages
*List of Korea-related topics
*Vowel harmony
* (Volume 4 of the London Oriental and African Language Library).
*Hulbert, Homer B. (1905): A Comparative Grammar of the Korean Language and the Dravidian Dialects in India. Seoul.
*Martin, Samuel E. (1966): Lexical Evidence Relating Japanese to Korean. Language 42/2: 185â251.
*Martin, Samuel E. (1990): Morphological clues to the relationship of Japanese and Korean. In: Philip Baldi (ed.): Linguistic Change and Reconstruction Methodology. Trends in Linguistics: Studies and Monographs 45: 483-509.
*Miller, Roy Andrew (1971): Japanese and the Other Altaic Languages. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0226527190.
*Miller, Roy Andrew (1996): Languages and History: Japanese, Korean and Altaic. Oslo: Institute for Comparative Research in Human Culture. ISBN 9748299694.
*Ramstedt, G. J. (1928): Remarks on the Korean language. Mémoires de la Société Finno-Oigrienne 58.
*Rybatzki, Volker (2003): Middle Mongol. In: Juha Janhunen (ed.) (2003): The Mongolic languages. London: Routledge. ISBN 0-7007-1133-3: 47â82.
*Starostin, Sergei A.; Anna V. Dybo; Oleg A. Mudrak (2003): Etymological Dictionary of the Altaic Languages, 3 volumes. Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers. ISBN 9004131531.
*Sohn, H.-M. (1999): The Korean Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Song, J.-J. (2005): The Korean Language: Structure, Use and Context. London: Routledge.
*Trask, R. L. (1996): Historical linguistics. Hodder Arnold.
*Vovin, Alexander: Koreo-Japonica. University of Hawai'i Press.
*Whitman, John B. (1985): The Phonological Basis for the Comparison of Japanese and Korean. Unpublished Harvard University Ph.D. dissertation.
* Ethnologue report for Korean
* Linguistic and Philosophical Origins of the Korean Alphabet (Hangul)
* Free Korean language and culture course online, in English
* Linguistic map of Korea
* Korean - a Category III language Languages which are exceptionally difficult for native English speakers
* dongsa.net A Korean verb conjugation tool that explains the conjugations for learners of Korean
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Korean_language | From which languages is Korean descended? | null | data/set5/a6 | Korean_language
:This article is mainly about the spoken Korean language. See Hangul for details on the native Korean writing system.
Korean ( , see below) is the official language of Korea, both South and North. It is also one of the two official languages in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in China. There are about 78 million Korean speakers. In the 15th century a national writing system was commissioned by Sejong the Great, currently called Hangul. Prior to the development of Hangul, Koreans used Hanja (Chinese characters) to write for over a millennia.
The genealogical classification of the Korean language is debated by a small number of linguists. Most classify it as a language isolate Song, Jae Jung (2005) "The Korean language: structure, use and context" Routledge, p. 15
Lyle Campbell & Mauricio Mixco. 2007. A Glossary of Historical Linguistics. University of Utah Press. while a few consider it to be in the Altaic language family. Stratification in the peopling of China: how far does the linguistic evidence match genetics and archaeology? In; Sanchez-Mazas, Blench, Ross, Lin & Pejros eds. Human migrations in continental East Asia and Taiwan: genetic, linguistic and archaeological evidence. 2008. Taylor & Francis Some believe it to be distantly related to Japanese. Like Japanese it is agglutinative in its morphology and SOV in its syntax.
The Korean names for the language are based on the names for Korea used in North and South Korea.
In South Korea, the language is most often called Hangungmal
( ; ), or more formally, Hangugeo ( ; ) or Gugeo ( ; ; literally "national language").
In North Korea and Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in China, the language is most often called ChosÅnmal ( ; with hanja: ), or more formally, ChosÅnÅ ( ; ).
On the other hand, Korean people in the former USSR, who refer to themselves as Koryo-saram (ê³ ë ¤ì¬ë; also Goryeoin [ ; ; literally, "Goryeo person(s)"]) call the language Goryeomal ( ; ).
In mainland China, following the establishment of diplomatic relations with South Korea in 1992, the term CháoxiÇnyÇ ( or the short form: CháoyÇ ( )) has normally been used to refer to the language spoken in North Korea and Yanbian, while HánguóyÇ ( or the short form: HányÇ ( )) is used to refer to the language spoken in South Korea.
Some older English sources also used the name "Korean" to refer to the language, country, and people. The word "Korean" is derived from Goryeo, which is thought to be the first dynasty known to western countries.
Most modern linguists consider Korean to be a language isolate Song, Jae Jung (2005) "The Korean language: structure, use and context" Routledge, p. 15
Lyle Campbell & Mauricio J. Mixco. 2007. A Glossary of Historical Linguistics. University of Utah Press.
Since the publication of the article of Ramstedt in 1928, some linguists eg Miller 1971, 1996, Starostin et al. 2003 support the hypothesis that Korean can be classified as an Altaic language or as a relative of proto-Altaic. Korean is similar to the Altaic languages in that they both lack certain grammatical elements, including articles, fusional morphology and relative pronouns. However, linguists agree today on the fact that typological resemblances cannot be used to prove genetic relatedness of languages eg Vovin 2008: 1 as these features are typologically connected and easily borrowed. Trask 1996: 147-151 Such factors of typological divergence as Middle Mongolian's exhibition of gender agreement Rybatzki 2003: 57 can be used to argue that a genetic relationship is unlikely. Vovin 2008: 5
The hypothesis that Korean might be related to Japanese has had some more supporters due to some considerable overlap in vocabulary and similar grammatical features that have been elaborated upon by such researchers as Samuel E. Martin eg Martin 1966, 1990 and Roy Andrew Miller. eg Miller 1971, 1996 Sergei Starostin (1991) found about 25% of potential cognates in the Japanese-Korean 100-word Swadesh list, which - if true - would place these two languages closer together than other possible members of the Altaic family.
Other linguists, most notably Alexander Vovin, argue, however, that the similarities are not due to any genetic relationship, but rather to a sprachbund effect and heavy borrowing especially from Korean into Western Old Japanese. Vovin 2008 A good example might be Middle Korean sà m Whitman 1985: 232, also found in Martin 1966: 233 This word seems to be cognate, but while it is well-attested in Western Old Japanese and Northern RyÅ«kyÅ«, in Eastern Old Japanese it only occurs in compounds, and it is only present in three subdialects of the South-RyÅ«kyÅ«an dialect group. Then, the doublet wo âhempâ is attested in Western Old Japanese and Southern RyÅ«kyÅ«. It is thus plausible to assume a borrowed term. Vovin 2008: 211-212 See East Asian languages for morphological features shared among languages of the East Asian sprachbund, and Classification of Japanese for further details on the discussion of a possible relationship.
Korean is descended from Old Korean, Middle Korean and Modern Korean. Controversy remains over the proposed Altaic language family and its inclusion of Proto-Korean. Since the Korean War, contemporary North-South differences in Korean have developed, including variance in pronunciation, verb inflection, and vocabulary.
Korean is spoken by the Korean people in North Korea and South Korea and by the Korean diaspora in many countries including the People's Republic of China, Japan, and the United States. Korean-speaking minorities exist in these states, but because of cultural assimilation into host countries, not all ethnic Korean immigrants may speak it with native fluency.
Korean is the official language of South Korea and North Korea. It is also one of the two official languages of the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in China.
In South Korea, the regulatory body for Korean is the Seoul-based National Institute of the Korean Language ( ), which was created by presidential decree on January 23, 1991. In North Korea, the regulatory body is the Sahoe Kwahagwon Åhak YÅnguso ( ).
Dialects of Korean
Korean has several dialects (called mal [literally "speech"], saturi, or bang-eon in Korean). The standard language (pyojuneo or pyojunmal) of South Korea is based on the dialect of the area around Seoul, and the standard for North Korea is based on the dialect spoken around P'yÅngyang. All dialects of Korean are similar to each other, and are in fact all mutually intelligible, perhaps with the exception of the dialect of Jeju Island (see Jeju dialect). The dialect spoken in Jeju is in fact classified as a different language by some Korean linguists. One of the most notable differences between dialects is the use of stress: speakers of Seoul dialect use very little stress, and standard South Korean has a very flat intonation; on the other hand, speakers of the Gyeongsang dialect have a very pronounced intonation.
It is also worth noting that there is substantial evidence for a history of extensive dialect levelling, or even convergent evolution or intermixture of two or more originally distinct linguistic stocks, within the Korean language and its dialects. Many Korean dialects have basic vocabulary that is etymologically distinct from vocabulary of identical meaning in Standard Korean or other dialects, such as South Jeolla dialect /kur/ vs. Standard Korean ì
"mouth" or Gyeongsang dialect vs. Standard Korean "garlic chives." This suggests that the Korean Peninsula may have at one time been much more linguistically diverse than it is at present. See also the Buyeo languages hypothesis.
There is a very close connection between the dialects of Korean and the regions of Korea, since the boundaries of both are largely determined by mountains and seas. Here is a list of traditional dialect names and locations:
The Korean consonants
The IPA symbol (a subscript double straight quotation mark, shown here with a placeholder circle) is used to denote the tensed consonants . Its official use in the Extensions to the IPA is for 'strong' articulation, but is used in the literature for faucalized voice. The Korean consonants also have elements of stiff voice, but it is not yet known how typical this is of faucalized consonants. They are produced with a partially constricted glottis and additional subglottal pressure in addition to tense vocal tract walls, laryngeal lowering, or other expansion of the larynx.
becomes an alveolo-palatal before or for most speakers (but see Differences in the language between North Korea and South Korea). This occurs with the tense fricative and all the affricates as well. At the end of a syllable, /s/ changes to /t/ (Example: beoseot (ë²ì¯) 'mushroom').
may become a bilabial before or , a palatal before or , a velar before , a voiced between voiced sounds, and a elsewhere.
become voiced between voiced sounds.
becomes alveolar flap between vowels, and or at the end of a syllable or next to another . Note that a written syllable-final 'ã¹', when followed by a vowel or a glide (i.e., when the next character starts with 'ã
'), migrates to the next syllable and thus becomes .
Traditionally, was disallowed at the beginning of a word. It disappeared before , and otherwise became . However, the inflow of western loanword changed the trend, and now word-initial (mostly from English loanwords) are pronounced as a free variation of either or . The traditional prohibition of word-initial became a morphological rule called "initial law" (ëìë²ì¹) in South Korea, which pertains to Sino-Korean vocabulary. Such words retain their word-initial in North Korea.
All obstruents (plosives, affricates, fricatives) are unreleased at the end of a word.
Plosive stops become nasal stops before nasal stops.
Hangul spelling does not reflect these assimilatory pronunciation rules, but rather maintains the underlying, partly historical morphology. Given this, it is sometimes hard to tell which actual phonemes are present in a certain word.
One difference between the pronunciation standards of North and South Korea is the treatment of initial , and initial . For example,
* "labour" - north: rodong (ë¡ë), south: nodong (ë
¸ë)
* "history" - north: ryÅksa (ë ¥ì¬), south: yeoksa (ìì¬)
* "female" - north: nyÅja (ë
ì), south: yeoja (ì¬ì)
Grammatical morphemes may change shape depending on the preceding sounds. Examples include -eun/-neun (-ì/-ë) and -i/-ga (-ì´/-ê°). Sometimes sounds may be inserted instead. Examples include -eul/-reul (-ì/-를), -euro/-ro (-ì¼ë¡/-ë¡), -eseo/-seo (-ìì/-ì), -ideunji/-deunji (-ì´ë ì§/-ë ì§) and -iya/-ya (-ì´ì¼/-ì¼). However, -euro/-ro is somewhat irregular, since it will behave differently after a rieul consonant.
Some verbs may also change shape morphophonemically.
Korean is an agglutinative language. Modifiers generally precede the modified words, and in the case of verb modifiers, can be serially appended. The basic form of a Korean sentence is Subject Object Verb, but the verb is the only required and immovable element.
:"Did [you] go to the store?" ("you" implied in conversation)
:"Yes."
The Korean Language contains nine parts of speech.
Korean verbs ( , tongsa, ) are also known in English as "action verbs" or "dynamic verbs" to distinguish them from [ , hyeong-yongsa, "adjectives"]), which are also known as "descriptive verbs" or "stative verbs". Examples of action/dynamic verbs include (hada, "to do") and (kada, "to go") which constitute an action or movement as opposed to descriptive verbs such as (yehppeuda, "to be beautiful"). For a larger list of Korean verbs, see .
Unlike most of the European languages, Korean does not conjugate verbs using agreement with the subject, and nouns have no gender. Instead, verb conjugations depend upon the verb tense, aspect, mood, and the social relation between the speaker, the subjects, and the listeners.
The system of speech levels and honorifics loosely resembles the T-V distinction of most Indo-European languages. For example, different endings are used depending on the speaker's relation with their subject or audience. Politeness is a critical part of Korean language and Korean culture, therefore, when talking to someone esteemed, the correct verb ending must be chosen to indicate the proper respect.
Words categorized as Korean adjectives ( , hyeong-yongsa, ) conjugate similarly to verbs, so some English texts call them "descriptive verbs" or "stative verbs", but they are distinctly separate from (tongsa).
English does not have an identical grammatical category, so the English translation of Korean adjectives may misleadingly suggest that they are verbs. For example, (pukda) translates literally as "to be red" and (aswipda) often best translates as "to lack" or "to want for", but both are (hyeong-yongsa, "adjectives"). For a larger list of Korean adjectives, see .
Korean pre-nouns ( , gwanhyeongsa, ) are also known in English as "determinatives", "attributives", and "unconjugated adjectives". Examples include (kak, "each"). For a larger list, see .
Core and basic noun words are native to the Korean language, e.g. (nara, country), (nal, day). A large body of Korean nouns ( , myeongsa, ) stem from Chinese characters, e.g. (å±±, san, mountain), (é©, yeok, station), (æå, munhwa, culture), etc. Many Sino-Korean words have a native Korean equivalent and vice versa, but not always. Nouns do not have grammatical gender and can be made plural by adding ë¤ to the end of the word, however in most instances the singular form is used even when in English it would be translated as plural. For example, while in English the sentence "there are three apples" would use the plural "apples" instead of the singular "apple", the Korean sentence ì¬ê³¼ ì¸ê° ììµëë¤ (sagwa segae isssumnida) maintains the word ì¬ê³¼ (sagwa, "apple") in its singular form, thus rendered in English as "apple three(things) exist." For a list of Korean nouns, see .
Korean pronouns ( , daemyeongsa, ) are highly influenced by the honorifics in the language. Pronouns change forms depending on the social status of the person or persons spoken to, e.g. the pronoun for "I" there is both the informal (na) and the honorific/humble (jeo). In general second person singular pronouns are avoided, especially when using honorific forms. For a larger list or Korean pronouns, see .
Korean adverbs ( , busa, ) include (tto, "also") and (gadeuk, "fully"). For a larger list, see .
Korean particles ( , josa, ) are also known in English as "postpositions". Examples include (neun, topic marker) and (reul, object marker). For a larger list, see .
Korean interjections ( , gamtansa, ) are also known in English as "exclamations". Examples include (ani, "no"). For a larger list, see .
Korean numbers or numerals ( , susa, ) constitute two regularly used sets: a native Korean set and a Sino-Korean set. The Sino-Korean system is nearly entirely based on the Chinese numerals. The distinction between the two numeral systems is very important. Everything that can be counted will use one of the two systems, but seldom both. Sino-Korean words are sometimes used to mark ordinal usage: yeol beon (ì´ ë²) means "ten times" while sip beon (ì(å) ë²(çª)) means "number ten." The grouping of large numbers in Korean follow the Chinese tradition of myriads (10000) rather than thousands (1000) as is common in Europe and North America.
The relationship between a speaker or writer and his or her subject and audience is paramount in Korean, and the grammar reflects this. The relationship between speaker/writer and subject referent is reflected in honorifics, while that between speaker/writer and audience is reflected in speech level.
When talking about someone superior in status, a speaker or writer usually uses special nouns or verb endings to indicate the subject's superiority. Generally, someone is superior in status if he/she is an older relative, a stranger of roughly equal or greater age, or an employer, teacher, customer, or the like. Someone is equal or inferior in status if he/she is a younger stranger, student, employee or the like. Nowadays, there are special endings which can be used on declarative, interrogative, and imperative sentences; and both honorific or normal sentences. They are made for easier and faster use of Korean.
There are seven verb paradigms or speech levels in Korean, and each level has its own unique set of verb endings which are used to indicate the level of formality of a situation. Unlike honorificsâwhich are used to show respect towards the referentâspeech levels are used to show respect towards a speaker's or writer's audience. The names of the seven levels are derived from the non-honorific imperative form of the verb íë¤ (hada, "do") in each level, plus the suffix ì²´ ("che", hanja: é« ), which means "style".
The highest six levels are generally grouped together as jondaenmal (ì¡´ëë§), while the lowest level (haeche, í´ì²´) is called banmal (ë°ë§) in Korean.
The core of the Korean vocabulary is made up of native Korean words. Like Japanese and Vietnamese, a significant proportion of the vocabulary, especially words that denote abstract ideas, are Sino-Korean words, Sohn, Ho-Min. The Korean Language (Section 1.5.3 "Korean vocabulary", p.12â13), Cambridge University Press, 2001. ISBN 0521369436. either
* directly borrowed from Written Chinese, or
* coined in Japan or Korea using Chinese characters,
in a similar way European languages borrow from Latin and Greek.
The exact proportion of Sino-Korean vocabulary is a matter of debate. Sohn (2001) stated 50-60%. However, Jeong Jae-do, one of the compilers of the dictionary Urimal Kun Sajeon, asserts that the proportion is not so high. He points out that Korean dictionaries compiled during the period of Japanese occupation include many unused Sino-Korean words. In his estimation, the proportion of native Korean vocabulary in the Korean language might be as high as 70%. . The dictionary mentioned is
Korean has two number systems: one native, and one borrowed from Chinese.
To a much lesser extent, words have also occasionally been borrowed from Mongolian, Sanskrit, and other languages. Conversely, the Korean language itself has also contributed some loanwords to other languages, most notably the Tsushima dialect of Japanese.
The vast majority of loanwords other than Sino-Korean come from modern times, 90% of which are from English. Many words have also been borrowed from Japanese and Western languages such as German (areubaiteu "part-time job", allereugi "allergy", "gibsu" "plaster cast used for broken bones"). Some Western words were borrowed indirectly via Japanese, taking a Japanese sound pattern, for example "dozen" > dÄsu > daseu. Most indirect Western borrowings are now written according to current Hangulization rules for the respective Western language, as if borrowed directly. There are a few more complicated borrowings such as "German(y)" (see Names for Germany), the first part of whose endonym the Japanese approximated using the kanji doitsu that were then accepted into the Korean language by their Sino-Korean pronunciation: dok + il = Dogil. In South Korean official use, a number of other Sino-Korean country names have been replaced with phonetically oriented Hangulizations of the countries' endonyms or English names.
As in Japanese, Korean adapts words in ways that are uncommon in English. For example, in soccer heading ( ) is used to label a head-strike, rather than direction. This is a corrupted loan word from the English header.
North Korean vocabulary shows a tendency to prefer native Korean over Sino-Korean or foreign borrowings, especially with recent political objectives aimed at eliminating foreign (mostly Chinese) influences on the Korean language in the North. By contrast, South Korean may have several Sino-Korean or foreign borrowings which tend to be absent in North Korean.
Formerly the languages of the Korean peninsula were written using Chinese characters, using hyangchal or idu. Such systems relied on principles of rebus, and were lost, later in history. Writing became confined to the ruling elite, who used hanja to write in Classical Chinese.
Korean is now mainly written in Hangul, the Korean alphabet promulgated in 1446 by Sejong the Great; hanja may be mixed in to write Sino-Korean words. While South Korean schools still teach 1,800 hanja characters, North Korea had abolished the use of hanja decades ago.
Below is a chart of the Korean alphabet's symbols and their canonical IPA values:
Modern Korean is written with spaces between words, a feature not found in Chinese or Japanese. Korean punctuation marks are almost identical to Western ones. Traditionally, Korean was written in columns from top to bottom, right to left, but is now usually written in rows from left to right, top to bottom.
The Korean language used in the North and the South exhibits differences in pronunciation, spelling, grammar and vocabulary. Kanno, Hiroomi (ed.) / Society for Korean Linguistics in Japan (1987). ChÅsengo o manabÅ (ãæé®®èªãå¦ã¼ãã), SanshÅ«sha, Tokyo. ISBN 4-384-01506-2
In North Korea, palatalization of is optional, and can be pronounced between vowels.
Words that are written the same way may be pronounced differently, such as the examples below. The pronunciations below are given in Revised Romanization, McCune-Reischauer and Hangul, the last of which represents what the Hangul would be if one writes the word as pronounced.
* Similar pronunciation is used in the North whenever the hanja "ç" is attached to a Sino-Korean word ending in ã´, ã
or ã
. (In the South, this rule only applies when it is attached to any single-character Sino-Korean word.)
Some words are spelled differently by the North and the South, but the pronunciations are the same.
Some words have different spellings and pronunciations in the North and the South, some of which were given in the "Phonology" section above:
In general, when transcribing place names, North Korea tends to use the pronunciation in the original language more than South Korea, which often uses the pronunciation in English. For example:
Some grammatical constructions are also different:
Some vocabulary is different between the North and the South:
In the North, guillemets and are the symbols used for quotes; in the South, quotation marks equivalent to the English ones, â and â, are standard, although and are sometimes used in popular novels.
The United States' Defense Language Institute classifies Korean alongside Arabic, Chinese, and Japanese as a Category IV language, meaning that 63 weeks of instruction (as compared to just 25 weeks for French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian) are required to bring an English-speaking student to a limited working level of proficiency in which he or she has "sufficient capability to meet routine social demands and limited job requirements" and "can deal with concrete topics in past, present, and future tense." As a result, the study of the Korean language in the United States is dominated by Korean American heritage language students; they are estimated to form over 80% of all students of the language at non-military universities.
However, Korean is considerably easier for speakers of certain other languages, such as Japanese ; in Japan, it is more widely studied by non-heritage learners. The Korean Language Proficiency Test, an examination aimed at assessing non-native speakers' competence in Korean, was instituted in 1997; 17,000 people applied for the 2005 sitting of the examination.
*Hangul
*Korean romanization
**Revised romanization of Korean
**McCune-Reischauer
**Yale Romanization#Korean
**SKATS
*Korean numerals
*Korean count word
*Korean language and computers
*Hanja
*Sino-Korean vocabulary
*Korean mixed script
*List of English words of Korean origin
*Altaic languages
*List of Korea-related topics
*Vowel harmony
* (Volume 4 of the London Oriental and African Language Library).
*Hulbert, Homer B. (1905): A Comparative Grammar of the Korean Language and the Dravidian Dialects in India. Seoul.
*Martin, Samuel E. (1966): Lexical Evidence Relating Japanese to Korean. Language 42/2: 185â251.
*Martin, Samuel E. (1990): Morphological clues to the relationship of Japanese and Korean. In: Philip Baldi (ed.): Linguistic Change and Reconstruction Methodology. Trends in Linguistics: Studies and Monographs 45: 483-509.
*Miller, Roy Andrew (1971): Japanese and the Other Altaic Languages. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0226527190.
*Miller, Roy Andrew (1996): Languages and History: Japanese, Korean and Altaic. Oslo: Institute for Comparative Research in Human Culture. ISBN 9748299694.
*Ramstedt, G. J. (1928): Remarks on the Korean language. Mémoires de la Société Finno-Oigrienne 58.
*Rybatzki, Volker (2003): Middle Mongol. In: Juha Janhunen (ed.) (2003): The Mongolic languages. London: Routledge. ISBN 0-7007-1133-3: 47â82.
*Starostin, Sergei A.; Anna V. Dybo; Oleg A. Mudrak (2003): Etymological Dictionary of the Altaic Languages, 3 volumes. Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers. ISBN 9004131531.
*Sohn, H.-M. (1999): The Korean Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Song, J.-J. (2005): The Korean Language: Structure, Use and Context. London: Routledge.
*Trask, R. L. (1996): Historical linguistics. Hodder Arnold.
*Vovin, Alexander: Koreo-Japonica. University of Hawai'i Press.
*Whitman, John B. (1985): The Phonological Basis for the Comparison of Japanese and Korean. Unpublished Harvard University Ph.D. dissertation.
* Ethnologue report for Korean
* Linguistic and Philosophical Origins of the Korean Alphabet (Hangul)
* Free Korean language and culture course online, in English
* Linguistic map of Korea
* Korean - a Category III language Languages which are exceptionally difficult for native English speakers
* dongsa.net A Korean verb conjugation tool that explains the conjugations for learners of Korean
|
Korean_language | Are there seven verb paradigms or speech levels in Korean? | Yes. | data/set5/a6 | Korean_language
:This article is mainly about the spoken Korean language. See Hangul for details on the native Korean writing system.
Korean ( , see below) is the official language of Korea, both South and North. It is also one of the two official languages in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in China. There are about 78 million Korean speakers. In the 15th century a national writing system was commissioned by Sejong the Great, currently called Hangul. Prior to the development of Hangul, Koreans used Hanja (Chinese characters) to write for over a millennia.
The genealogical classification of the Korean language is debated by a small number of linguists. Most classify it as a language isolate Song, Jae Jung (2005) "The Korean language: structure, use and context" Routledge, p. 15
Lyle Campbell & Mauricio Mixco. 2007. A Glossary of Historical Linguistics. University of Utah Press. while a few consider it to be in the Altaic language family. Stratification in the peopling of China: how far does the linguistic evidence match genetics and archaeology? In; Sanchez-Mazas, Blench, Ross, Lin & Pejros eds. Human migrations in continental East Asia and Taiwan: genetic, linguistic and archaeological evidence. 2008. Taylor & Francis Some believe it to be distantly related to Japanese. Like Japanese it is agglutinative in its morphology and SOV in its syntax.
The Korean names for the language are based on the names for Korea used in North and South Korea.
In South Korea, the language is most often called Hangungmal
( ; ), or more formally, Hangugeo ( ; ) or Gugeo ( ; ; literally "national language").
In North Korea and Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in China, the language is most often called ChosÅnmal ( ; with hanja: ), or more formally, ChosÅnÅ ( ; ).
On the other hand, Korean people in the former USSR, who refer to themselves as Koryo-saram (ê³ ë ¤ì¬ë; also Goryeoin [ ; ; literally, "Goryeo person(s)"]) call the language Goryeomal ( ; ).
In mainland China, following the establishment of diplomatic relations with South Korea in 1992, the term CháoxiÇnyÇ ( or the short form: CháoyÇ ( )) has normally been used to refer to the language spoken in North Korea and Yanbian, while HánguóyÇ ( or the short form: HányÇ ( )) is used to refer to the language spoken in South Korea.
Some older English sources also used the name "Korean" to refer to the language, country, and people. The word "Korean" is derived from Goryeo, which is thought to be the first dynasty known to western countries.
Most modern linguists consider Korean to be a language isolate Song, Jae Jung (2005) "The Korean language: structure, use and context" Routledge, p. 15
Lyle Campbell & Mauricio J. Mixco. 2007. A Glossary of Historical Linguistics. University of Utah Press.
Since the publication of the article of Ramstedt in 1928, some linguists eg Miller 1971, 1996, Starostin et al. 2003 support the hypothesis that Korean can be classified as an Altaic language or as a relative of proto-Altaic. Korean is similar to the Altaic languages in that they both lack certain grammatical elements, including articles, fusional morphology and relative pronouns. However, linguists agree today on the fact that typological resemblances cannot be used to prove genetic relatedness of languages eg Vovin 2008: 1 as these features are typologically connected and easily borrowed. Trask 1996: 147-151 Such factors of typological divergence as Middle Mongolian's exhibition of gender agreement Rybatzki 2003: 57 can be used to argue that a genetic relationship is unlikely. Vovin 2008: 5
The hypothesis that Korean might be related to Japanese has had some more supporters due to some considerable overlap in vocabulary and similar grammatical features that have been elaborated upon by such researchers as Samuel E. Martin eg Martin 1966, 1990 and Roy Andrew Miller. eg Miller 1971, 1996 Sergei Starostin (1991) found about 25% of potential cognates in the Japanese-Korean 100-word Swadesh list, which - if true - would place these two languages closer together than other possible members of the Altaic family.
Other linguists, most notably Alexander Vovin, argue, however, that the similarities are not due to any genetic relationship, but rather to a sprachbund effect and heavy borrowing especially from Korean into Western Old Japanese. Vovin 2008 A good example might be Middle Korean sà m Whitman 1985: 232, also found in Martin 1966: 233 This word seems to be cognate, but while it is well-attested in Western Old Japanese and Northern RyÅ«kyÅ«, in Eastern Old Japanese it only occurs in compounds, and it is only present in three subdialects of the South-RyÅ«kyÅ«an dialect group. Then, the doublet wo âhempâ is attested in Western Old Japanese and Southern RyÅ«kyÅ«. It is thus plausible to assume a borrowed term. Vovin 2008: 211-212 See East Asian languages for morphological features shared among languages of the East Asian sprachbund, and Classification of Japanese for further details on the discussion of a possible relationship.
Korean is descended from Old Korean, Middle Korean and Modern Korean. Controversy remains over the proposed Altaic language family and its inclusion of Proto-Korean. Since the Korean War, contemporary North-South differences in Korean have developed, including variance in pronunciation, verb inflection, and vocabulary.
Korean is spoken by the Korean people in North Korea and South Korea and by the Korean diaspora in many countries including the People's Republic of China, Japan, and the United States. Korean-speaking minorities exist in these states, but because of cultural assimilation into host countries, not all ethnic Korean immigrants may speak it with native fluency.
Korean is the official language of South Korea and North Korea. It is also one of the two official languages of the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in China.
In South Korea, the regulatory body for Korean is the Seoul-based National Institute of the Korean Language ( ), which was created by presidential decree on January 23, 1991. In North Korea, the regulatory body is the Sahoe Kwahagwon Åhak YÅnguso ( ).
Dialects of Korean
Korean has several dialects (called mal [literally "speech"], saturi, or bang-eon in Korean). The standard language (pyojuneo or pyojunmal) of South Korea is based on the dialect of the area around Seoul, and the standard for North Korea is based on the dialect spoken around P'yÅngyang. All dialects of Korean are similar to each other, and are in fact all mutually intelligible, perhaps with the exception of the dialect of Jeju Island (see Jeju dialect). The dialect spoken in Jeju is in fact classified as a different language by some Korean linguists. One of the most notable differences between dialects is the use of stress: speakers of Seoul dialect use very little stress, and standard South Korean has a very flat intonation; on the other hand, speakers of the Gyeongsang dialect have a very pronounced intonation.
It is also worth noting that there is substantial evidence for a history of extensive dialect levelling, or even convergent evolution or intermixture of two or more originally distinct linguistic stocks, within the Korean language and its dialects. Many Korean dialects have basic vocabulary that is etymologically distinct from vocabulary of identical meaning in Standard Korean or other dialects, such as South Jeolla dialect /kur/ vs. Standard Korean ì
"mouth" or Gyeongsang dialect vs. Standard Korean "garlic chives." This suggests that the Korean Peninsula may have at one time been much more linguistically diverse than it is at present. See also the Buyeo languages hypothesis.
There is a very close connection between the dialects of Korean and the regions of Korea, since the boundaries of both are largely determined by mountains and seas. Here is a list of traditional dialect names and locations:
The Korean consonants
The IPA symbol (a subscript double straight quotation mark, shown here with a placeholder circle) is used to denote the tensed consonants . Its official use in the Extensions to the IPA is for 'strong' articulation, but is used in the literature for faucalized voice. The Korean consonants also have elements of stiff voice, but it is not yet known how typical this is of faucalized consonants. They are produced with a partially constricted glottis and additional subglottal pressure in addition to tense vocal tract walls, laryngeal lowering, or other expansion of the larynx.
becomes an alveolo-palatal before or for most speakers (but see Differences in the language between North Korea and South Korea). This occurs with the tense fricative and all the affricates as well. At the end of a syllable, /s/ changes to /t/ (Example: beoseot (ë²ì¯) 'mushroom').
may become a bilabial before or , a palatal before or , a velar before , a voiced between voiced sounds, and a elsewhere.
become voiced between voiced sounds.
becomes alveolar flap between vowels, and or at the end of a syllable or next to another . Note that a written syllable-final 'ã¹', when followed by a vowel or a glide (i.e., when the next character starts with 'ã
'), migrates to the next syllable and thus becomes .
Traditionally, was disallowed at the beginning of a word. It disappeared before , and otherwise became . However, the inflow of western loanword changed the trend, and now word-initial (mostly from English loanwords) are pronounced as a free variation of either or . The traditional prohibition of word-initial became a morphological rule called "initial law" (ëìë²ì¹) in South Korea, which pertains to Sino-Korean vocabulary. Such words retain their word-initial in North Korea.
All obstruents (plosives, affricates, fricatives) are unreleased at the end of a word.
Plosive stops become nasal stops before nasal stops.
Hangul spelling does not reflect these assimilatory pronunciation rules, but rather maintains the underlying, partly historical morphology. Given this, it is sometimes hard to tell which actual phonemes are present in a certain word.
One difference between the pronunciation standards of North and South Korea is the treatment of initial , and initial . For example,
* "labour" - north: rodong (ë¡ë), south: nodong (ë
¸ë)
* "history" - north: ryÅksa (ë ¥ì¬), south: yeoksa (ìì¬)
* "female" - north: nyÅja (ë
ì), south: yeoja (ì¬ì)
Grammatical morphemes may change shape depending on the preceding sounds. Examples include -eun/-neun (-ì/-ë) and -i/-ga (-ì´/-ê°). Sometimes sounds may be inserted instead. Examples include -eul/-reul (-ì/-를), -euro/-ro (-ì¼ë¡/-ë¡), -eseo/-seo (-ìì/-ì), -ideunji/-deunji (-ì´ë ì§/-ë ì§) and -iya/-ya (-ì´ì¼/-ì¼). However, -euro/-ro is somewhat irregular, since it will behave differently after a rieul consonant.
Some verbs may also change shape morphophonemically.
Korean is an agglutinative language. Modifiers generally precede the modified words, and in the case of verb modifiers, can be serially appended. The basic form of a Korean sentence is Subject Object Verb, but the verb is the only required and immovable element.
:"Did [you] go to the store?" ("you" implied in conversation)
:"Yes."
The Korean Language contains nine parts of speech.
Korean verbs ( , tongsa, ) are also known in English as "action verbs" or "dynamic verbs" to distinguish them from [ , hyeong-yongsa, "adjectives"]), which are also known as "descriptive verbs" or "stative verbs". Examples of action/dynamic verbs include (hada, "to do") and (kada, "to go") which constitute an action or movement as opposed to descriptive verbs such as (yehppeuda, "to be beautiful"). For a larger list of Korean verbs, see .
Unlike most of the European languages, Korean does not conjugate verbs using agreement with the subject, and nouns have no gender. Instead, verb conjugations depend upon the verb tense, aspect, mood, and the social relation between the speaker, the subjects, and the listeners.
The system of speech levels and honorifics loosely resembles the T-V distinction of most Indo-European languages. For example, different endings are used depending on the speaker's relation with their subject or audience. Politeness is a critical part of Korean language and Korean culture, therefore, when talking to someone esteemed, the correct verb ending must be chosen to indicate the proper respect.
Words categorized as Korean adjectives ( , hyeong-yongsa, ) conjugate similarly to verbs, so some English texts call them "descriptive verbs" or "stative verbs", but they are distinctly separate from (tongsa).
English does not have an identical grammatical category, so the English translation of Korean adjectives may misleadingly suggest that they are verbs. For example, (pukda) translates literally as "to be red" and (aswipda) often best translates as "to lack" or "to want for", but both are (hyeong-yongsa, "adjectives"). For a larger list of Korean adjectives, see .
Korean pre-nouns ( , gwanhyeongsa, ) are also known in English as "determinatives", "attributives", and "unconjugated adjectives". Examples include (kak, "each"). For a larger list, see .
Core and basic noun words are native to the Korean language, e.g. (nara, country), (nal, day). A large body of Korean nouns ( , myeongsa, ) stem from Chinese characters, e.g. (å±±, san, mountain), (é©, yeok, station), (æå, munhwa, culture), etc. Many Sino-Korean words have a native Korean equivalent and vice versa, but not always. Nouns do not have grammatical gender and can be made plural by adding ë¤ to the end of the word, however in most instances the singular form is used even when in English it would be translated as plural. For example, while in English the sentence "there are three apples" would use the plural "apples" instead of the singular "apple", the Korean sentence ì¬ê³¼ ì¸ê° ììµëë¤ (sagwa segae isssumnida) maintains the word ì¬ê³¼ (sagwa, "apple") in its singular form, thus rendered in English as "apple three(things) exist." For a list of Korean nouns, see .
Korean pronouns ( , daemyeongsa, ) are highly influenced by the honorifics in the language. Pronouns change forms depending on the social status of the person or persons spoken to, e.g. the pronoun for "I" there is both the informal (na) and the honorific/humble (jeo). In general second person singular pronouns are avoided, especially when using honorific forms. For a larger list or Korean pronouns, see .
Korean adverbs ( , busa, ) include (tto, "also") and (gadeuk, "fully"). For a larger list, see .
Korean particles ( , josa, ) are also known in English as "postpositions". Examples include (neun, topic marker) and (reul, object marker). For a larger list, see .
Korean interjections ( , gamtansa, ) are also known in English as "exclamations". Examples include (ani, "no"). For a larger list, see .
Korean numbers or numerals ( , susa, ) constitute two regularly used sets: a native Korean set and a Sino-Korean set. The Sino-Korean system is nearly entirely based on the Chinese numerals. The distinction between the two numeral systems is very important. Everything that can be counted will use one of the two systems, but seldom both. Sino-Korean words are sometimes used to mark ordinal usage: yeol beon (ì´ ë²) means "ten times" while sip beon (ì(å) ë²(çª)) means "number ten." The grouping of large numbers in Korean follow the Chinese tradition of myriads (10000) rather than thousands (1000) as is common in Europe and North America.
The relationship between a speaker or writer and his or her subject and audience is paramount in Korean, and the grammar reflects this. The relationship between speaker/writer and subject referent is reflected in honorifics, while that between speaker/writer and audience is reflected in speech level.
When talking about someone superior in status, a speaker or writer usually uses special nouns or verb endings to indicate the subject's superiority. Generally, someone is superior in status if he/she is an older relative, a stranger of roughly equal or greater age, or an employer, teacher, customer, or the like. Someone is equal or inferior in status if he/she is a younger stranger, student, employee or the like. Nowadays, there are special endings which can be used on declarative, interrogative, and imperative sentences; and both honorific or normal sentences. They are made for easier and faster use of Korean.
There are seven verb paradigms or speech levels in Korean, and each level has its own unique set of verb endings which are used to indicate the level of formality of a situation. Unlike honorificsâwhich are used to show respect towards the referentâspeech levels are used to show respect towards a speaker's or writer's audience. The names of the seven levels are derived from the non-honorific imperative form of the verb íë¤ (hada, "do") in each level, plus the suffix ì²´ ("che", hanja: é« ), which means "style".
The highest six levels are generally grouped together as jondaenmal (ì¡´ëë§), while the lowest level (haeche, í´ì²´) is called banmal (ë°ë§) in Korean.
The core of the Korean vocabulary is made up of native Korean words. Like Japanese and Vietnamese, a significant proportion of the vocabulary, especially words that denote abstract ideas, are Sino-Korean words, Sohn, Ho-Min. The Korean Language (Section 1.5.3 "Korean vocabulary", p.12â13), Cambridge University Press, 2001. ISBN 0521369436. either
* directly borrowed from Written Chinese, or
* coined in Japan or Korea using Chinese characters,
in a similar way European languages borrow from Latin and Greek.
The exact proportion of Sino-Korean vocabulary is a matter of debate. Sohn (2001) stated 50-60%. However, Jeong Jae-do, one of the compilers of the dictionary Urimal Kun Sajeon, asserts that the proportion is not so high. He points out that Korean dictionaries compiled during the period of Japanese occupation include many unused Sino-Korean words. In his estimation, the proportion of native Korean vocabulary in the Korean language might be as high as 70%. . The dictionary mentioned is
Korean has two number systems: one native, and one borrowed from Chinese.
To a much lesser extent, words have also occasionally been borrowed from Mongolian, Sanskrit, and other languages. Conversely, the Korean language itself has also contributed some loanwords to other languages, most notably the Tsushima dialect of Japanese.
The vast majority of loanwords other than Sino-Korean come from modern times, 90% of which are from English. Many words have also been borrowed from Japanese and Western languages such as German (areubaiteu "part-time job", allereugi "allergy", "gibsu" "plaster cast used for broken bones"). Some Western words were borrowed indirectly via Japanese, taking a Japanese sound pattern, for example "dozen" > dÄsu > daseu. Most indirect Western borrowings are now written according to current Hangulization rules for the respective Western language, as if borrowed directly. There are a few more complicated borrowings such as "German(y)" (see Names for Germany), the first part of whose endonym the Japanese approximated using the kanji doitsu that were then accepted into the Korean language by their Sino-Korean pronunciation: dok + il = Dogil. In South Korean official use, a number of other Sino-Korean country names have been replaced with phonetically oriented Hangulizations of the countries' endonyms or English names.
As in Japanese, Korean adapts words in ways that are uncommon in English. For example, in soccer heading ( ) is used to label a head-strike, rather than direction. This is a corrupted loan word from the English header.
North Korean vocabulary shows a tendency to prefer native Korean over Sino-Korean or foreign borrowings, especially with recent political objectives aimed at eliminating foreign (mostly Chinese) influences on the Korean language in the North. By contrast, South Korean may have several Sino-Korean or foreign borrowings which tend to be absent in North Korean.
Formerly the languages of the Korean peninsula were written using Chinese characters, using hyangchal or idu. Such systems relied on principles of rebus, and were lost, later in history. Writing became confined to the ruling elite, who used hanja to write in Classical Chinese.
Korean is now mainly written in Hangul, the Korean alphabet promulgated in 1446 by Sejong the Great; hanja may be mixed in to write Sino-Korean words. While South Korean schools still teach 1,800 hanja characters, North Korea had abolished the use of hanja decades ago.
Below is a chart of the Korean alphabet's symbols and their canonical IPA values:
Modern Korean is written with spaces between words, a feature not found in Chinese or Japanese. Korean punctuation marks are almost identical to Western ones. Traditionally, Korean was written in columns from top to bottom, right to left, but is now usually written in rows from left to right, top to bottom.
The Korean language used in the North and the South exhibits differences in pronunciation, spelling, grammar and vocabulary. Kanno, Hiroomi (ed.) / Society for Korean Linguistics in Japan (1987). ChÅsengo o manabÅ (ãæé®®èªãå¦ã¼ãã), SanshÅ«sha, Tokyo. ISBN 4-384-01506-2
In North Korea, palatalization of is optional, and can be pronounced between vowels.
Words that are written the same way may be pronounced differently, such as the examples below. The pronunciations below are given in Revised Romanization, McCune-Reischauer and Hangul, the last of which represents what the Hangul would be if one writes the word as pronounced.
* Similar pronunciation is used in the North whenever the hanja "ç" is attached to a Sino-Korean word ending in ã´, ã
or ã
. (In the South, this rule only applies when it is attached to any single-character Sino-Korean word.)
Some words are spelled differently by the North and the South, but the pronunciations are the same.
Some words have different spellings and pronunciations in the North and the South, some of which were given in the "Phonology" section above:
In general, when transcribing place names, North Korea tends to use the pronunciation in the original language more than South Korea, which often uses the pronunciation in English. For example:
Some grammatical constructions are also different:
Some vocabulary is different between the North and the South:
In the North, guillemets and are the symbols used for quotes; in the South, quotation marks equivalent to the English ones, â and â, are standard, although and are sometimes used in popular novels.
The United States' Defense Language Institute classifies Korean alongside Arabic, Chinese, and Japanese as a Category IV language, meaning that 63 weeks of instruction (as compared to just 25 weeks for French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian) are required to bring an English-speaking student to a limited working level of proficiency in which he or she has "sufficient capability to meet routine social demands and limited job requirements" and "can deal with concrete topics in past, present, and future tense." As a result, the study of the Korean language in the United States is dominated by Korean American heritage language students; they are estimated to form over 80% of all students of the language at non-military universities.
However, Korean is considerably easier for speakers of certain other languages, such as Japanese ; in Japan, it is more widely studied by non-heritage learners. The Korean Language Proficiency Test, an examination aimed at assessing non-native speakers' competence in Korean, was instituted in 1997; 17,000 people applied for the 2005 sitting of the examination.
*Hangul
*Korean romanization
**Revised romanization of Korean
**McCune-Reischauer
**Yale Romanization#Korean
**SKATS
*Korean numerals
*Korean count word
*Korean language and computers
*Hanja
*Sino-Korean vocabulary
*Korean mixed script
*List of English words of Korean origin
*Altaic languages
*List of Korea-related topics
*Vowel harmony
* (Volume 4 of the London Oriental and African Language Library).
*Hulbert, Homer B. (1905): A Comparative Grammar of the Korean Language and the Dravidian Dialects in India. Seoul.
*Martin, Samuel E. (1966): Lexical Evidence Relating Japanese to Korean. Language 42/2: 185â251.
*Martin, Samuel E. (1990): Morphological clues to the relationship of Japanese and Korean. In: Philip Baldi (ed.): Linguistic Change and Reconstruction Methodology. Trends in Linguistics: Studies and Monographs 45: 483-509.
*Miller, Roy Andrew (1971): Japanese and the Other Altaic Languages. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0226527190.
*Miller, Roy Andrew (1996): Languages and History: Japanese, Korean and Altaic. Oslo: Institute for Comparative Research in Human Culture. ISBN 9748299694.
*Ramstedt, G. J. (1928): Remarks on the Korean language. Mémoires de la Société Finno-Oigrienne 58.
*Rybatzki, Volker (2003): Middle Mongol. In: Juha Janhunen (ed.) (2003): The Mongolic languages. London: Routledge. ISBN 0-7007-1133-3: 47â82.
*Starostin, Sergei A.; Anna V. Dybo; Oleg A. Mudrak (2003): Etymological Dictionary of the Altaic Languages, 3 volumes. Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers. ISBN 9004131531.
*Sohn, H.-M. (1999): The Korean Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Song, J.-J. (2005): The Korean Language: Structure, Use and Context. London: Routledge.
*Trask, R. L. (1996): Historical linguistics. Hodder Arnold.
*Vovin, Alexander: Koreo-Japonica. University of Hawai'i Press.
*Whitman, John B. (1985): The Phonological Basis for the Comparison of Japanese and Korean. Unpublished Harvard University Ph.D. dissertation.
* Ethnologue report for Korean
* Linguistic and Philosophical Origins of the Korean Alphabet (Hangul)
* Free Korean language and culture course online, in English
* Linguistic map of Korea
* Korean - a Category III language Languages which are exceptionally difficult for native English speakers
* dongsa.net A Korean verb conjugation tool that explains the conjugations for learners of Korean
|
Korean_language | Is Modern Korean written with spaces between words? | Yes. | data/set5/a6 | Korean_language
:This article is mainly about the spoken Korean language. See Hangul for details on the native Korean writing system.
Korean ( , see below) is the official language of Korea, both South and North. It is also one of the two official languages in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in China. There are about 78 million Korean speakers. In the 15th century a national writing system was commissioned by Sejong the Great, currently called Hangul. Prior to the development of Hangul, Koreans used Hanja (Chinese characters) to write for over a millennia.
The genealogical classification of the Korean language is debated by a small number of linguists. Most classify it as a language isolate Song, Jae Jung (2005) "The Korean language: structure, use and context" Routledge, p. 15
Lyle Campbell & Mauricio Mixco. 2007. A Glossary of Historical Linguistics. University of Utah Press. while a few consider it to be in the Altaic language family. Stratification in the peopling of China: how far does the linguistic evidence match genetics and archaeology? In; Sanchez-Mazas, Blench, Ross, Lin & Pejros eds. Human migrations in continental East Asia and Taiwan: genetic, linguistic and archaeological evidence. 2008. Taylor & Francis Some believe it to be distantly related to Japanese. Like Japanese it is agglutinative in its morphology and SOV in its syntax.
The Korean names for the language are based on the names for Korea used in North and South Korea.
In South Korea, the language is most often called Hangungmal
( ; ), or more formally, Hangugeo ( ; ) or Gugeo ( ; ; literally "national language").
In North Korea and Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in China, the language is most often called ChosÅnmal ( ; with hanja: ), or more formally, ChosÅnÅ ( ; ).
On the other hand, Korean people in the former USSR, who refer to themselves as Koryo-saram (ê³ ë ¤ì¬ë; also Goryeoin [ ; ; literally, "Goryeo person(s)"]) call the language Goryeomal ( ; ).
In mainland China, following the establishment of diplomatic relations with South Korea in 1992, the term CháoxiÇnyÇ ( or the short form: CháoyÇ ( )) has normally been used to refer to the language spoken in North Korea and Yanbian, while HánguóyÇ ( or the short form: HányÇ ( )) is used to refer to the language spoken in South Korea.
Some older English sources also used the name "Korean" to refer to the language, country, and people. The word "Korean" is derived from Goryeo, which is thought to be the first dynasty known to western countries.
Most modern linguists consider Korean to be a language isolate Song, Jae Jung (2005) "The Korean language: structure, use and context" Routledge, p. 15
Lyle Campbell & Mauricio J. Mixco. 2007. A Glossary of Historical Linguistics. University of Utah Press.
Since the publication of the article of Ramstedt in 1928, some linguists eg Miller 1971, 1996, Starostin et al. 2003 support the hypothesis that Korean can be classified as an Altaic language or as a relative of proto-Altaic. Korean is similar to the Altaic languages in that they both lack certain grammatical elements, including articles, fusional morphology and relative pronouns. However, linguists agree today on the fact that typological resemblances cannot be used to prove genetic relatedness of languages eg Vovin 2008: 1 as these features are typologically connected and easily borrowed. Trask 1996: 147-151 Such factors of typological divergence as Middle Mongolian's exhibition of gender agreement Rybatzki 2003: 57 can be used to argue that a genetic relationship is unlikely. Vovin 2008: 5
The hypothesis that Korean might be related to Japanese has had some more supporters due to some considerable overlap in vocabulary and similar grammatical features that have been elaborated upon by such researchers as Samuel E. Martin eg Martin 1966, 1990 and Roy Andrew Miller. eg Miller 1971, 1996 Sergei Starostin (1991) found about 25% of potential cognates in the Japanese-Korean 100-word Swadesh list, which - if true - would place these two languages closer together than other possible members of the Altaic family.
Other linguists, most notably Alexander Vovin, argue, however, that the similarities are not due to any genetic relationship, but rather to a sprachbund effect and heavy borrowing especially from Korean into Western Old Japanese. Vovin 2008 A good example might be Middle Korean sà m Whitman 1985: 232, also found in Martin 1966: 233 This word seems to be cognate, but while it is well-attested in Western Old Japanese and Northern RyÅ«kyÅ«, in Eastern Old Japanese it only occurs in compounds, and it is only present in three subdialects of the South-RyÅ«kyÅ«an dialect group. Then, the doublet wo âhempâ is attested in Western Old Japanese and Southern RyÅ«kyÅ«. It is thus plausible to assume a borrowed term. Vovin 2008: 211-212 See East Asian languages for morphological features shared among languages of the East Asian sprachbund, and Classification of Japanese for further details on the discussion of a possible relationship.
Korean is descended from Old Korean, Middle Korean and Modern Korean. Controversy remains over the proposed Altaic language family and its inclusion of Proto-Korean. Since the Korean War, contemporary North-South differences in Korean have developed, including variance in pronunciation, verb inflection, and vocabulary.
Korean is spoken by the Korean people in North Korea and South Korea and by the Korean diaspora in many countries including the People's Republic of China, Japan, and the United States. Korean-speaking minorities exist in these states, but because of cultural assimilation into host countries, not all ethnic Korean immigrants may speak it with native fluency.
Korean is the official language of South Korea and North Korea. It is also one of the two official languages of the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in China.
In South Korea, the regulatory body for Korean is the Seoul-based National Institute of the Korean Language ( ), which was created by presidential decree on January 23, 1991. In North Korea, the regulatory body is the Sahoe Kwahagwon Åhak YÅnguso ( ).
Dialects of Korean
Korean has several dialects (called mal [literally "speech"], saturi, or bang-eon in Korean). The standard language (pyojuneo or pyojunmal) of South Korea is based on the dialect of the area around Seoul, and the standard for North Korea is based on the dialect spoken around P'yÅngyang. All dialects of Korean are similar to each other, and are in fact all mutually intelligible, perhaps with the exception of the dialect of Jeju Island (see Jeju dialect). The dialect spoken in Jeju is in fact classified as a different language by some Korean linguists. One of the most notable differences between dialects is the use of stress: speakers of Seoul dialect use very little stress, and standard South Korean has a very flat intonation; on the other hand, speakers of the Gyeongsang dialect have a very pronounced intonation.
It is also worth noting that there is substantial evidence for a history of extensive dialect levelling, or even convergent evolution or intermixture of two or more originally distinct linguistic stocks, within the Korean language and its dialects. Many Korean dialects have basic vocabulary that is etymologically distinct from vocabulary of identical meaning in Standard Korean or other dialects, such as South Jeolla dialect /kur/ vs. Standard Korean ì
"mouth" or Gyeongsang dialect vs. Standard Korean "garlic chives." This suggests that the Korean Peninsula may have at one time been much more linguistically diverse than it is at present. See also the Buyeo languages hypothesis.
There is a very close connection between the dialects of Korean and the regions of Korea, since the boundaries of both are largely determined by mountains and seas. Here is a list of traditional dialect names and locations:
The Korean consonants
The IPA symbol (a subscript double straight quotation mark, shown here with a placeholder circle) is used to denote the tensed consonants . Its official use in the Extensions to the IPA is for 'strong' articulation, but is used in the literature for faucalized voice. The Korean consonants also have elements of stiff voice, but it is not yet known how typical this is of faucalized consonants. They are produced with a partially constricted glottis and additional subglottal pressure in addition to tense vocal tract walls, laryngeal lowering, or other expansion of the larynx.
becomes an alveolo-palatal before or for most speakers (but see Differences in the language between North Korea and South Korea). This occurs with the tense fricative and all the affricates as well. At the end of a syllable, /s/ changes to /t/ (Example: beoseot (ë²ì¯) 'mushroom').
may become a bilabial before or , a palatal before or , a velar before , a voiced between voiced sounds, and a elsewhere.
become voiced between voiced sounds.
becomes alveolar flap between vowels, and or at the end of a syllable or next to another . Note that a written syllable-final 'ã¹', when followed by a vowel or a glide (i.e., when the next character starts with 'ã
'), migrates to the next syllable and thus becomes .
Traditionally, was disallowed at the beginning of a word. It disappeared before , and otherwise became . However, the inflow of western loanword changed the trend, and now word-initial (mostly from English loanwords) are pronounced as a free variation of either or . The traditional prohibition of word-initial became a morphological rule called "initial law" (ëìë²ì¹) in South Korea, which pertains to Sino-Korean vocabulary. Such words retain their word-initial in North Korea.
All obstruents (plosives, affricates, fricatives) are unreleased at the end of a word.
Plosive stops become nasal stops before nasal stops.
Hangul spelling does not reflect these assimilatory pronunciation rules, but rather maintains the underlying, partly historical morphology. Given this, it is sometimes hard to tell which actual phonemes are present in a certain word.
One difference between the pronunciation standards of North and South Korea is the treatment of initial , and initial . For example,
* "labour" - north: rodong (ë¡ë), south: nodong (ë
¸ë)
* "history" - north: ryÅksa (ë ¥ì¬), south: yeoksa (ìì¬)
* "female" - north: nyÅja (ë
ì), south: yeoja (ì¬ì)
Grammatical morphemes may change shape depending on the preceding sounds. Examples include -eun/-neun (-ì/-ë) and -i/-ga (-ì´/-ê°). Sometimes sounds may be inserted instead. Examples include -eul/-reul (-ì/-를), -euro/-ro (-ì¼ë¡/-ë¡), -eseo/-seo (-ìì/-ì), -ideunji/-deunji (-ì´ë ì§/-ë ì§) and -iya/-ya (-ì´ì¼/-ì¼). However, -euro/-ro is somewhat irregular, since it will behave differently after a rieul consonant.
Some verbs may also change shape morphophonemically.
Korean is an agglutinative language. Modifiers generally precede the modified words, and in the case of verb modifiers, can be serially appended. The basic form of a Korean sentence is Subject Object Verb, but the verb is the only required and immovable element.
:"Did [you] go to the store?" ("you" implied in conversation)
:"Yes."
The Korean Language contains nine parts of speech.
Korean verbs ( , tongsa, ) are also known in English as "action verbs" or "dynamic verbs" to distinguish them from [ , hyeong-yongsa, "adjectives"]), which are also known as "descriptive verbs" or "stative verbs". Examples of action/dynamic verbs include (hada, "to do") and (kada, "to go") which constitute an action or movement as opposed to descriptive verbs such as (yehppeuda, "to be beautiful"). For a larger list of Korean verbs, see .
Unlike most of the European languages, Korean does not conjugate verbs using agreement with the subject, and nouns have no gender. Instead, verb conjugations depend upon the verb tense, aspect, mood, and the social relation between the speaker, the subjects, and the listeners.
The system of speech levels and honorifics loosely resembles the T-V distinction of most Indo-European languages. For example, different endings are used depending on the speaker's relation with their subject or audience. Politeness is a critical part of Korean language and Korean culture, therefore, when talking to someone esteemed, the correct verb ending must be chosen to indicate the proper respect.
Words categorized as Korean adjectives ( , hyeong-yongsa, ) conjugate similarly to verbs, so some English texts call them "descriptive verbs" or "stative verbs", but they are distinctly separate from (tongsa).
English does not have an identical grammatical category, so the English translation of Korean adjectives may misleadingly suggest that they are verbs. For example, (pukda) translates literally as "to be red" and (aswipda) often best translates as "to lack" or "to want for", but both are (hyeong-yongsa, "adjectives"). For a larger list of Korean adjectives, see .
Korean pre-nouns ( , gwanhyeongsa, ) are also known in English as "determinatives", "attributives", and "unconjugated adjectives". Examples include (kak, "each"). For a larger list, see .
Core and basic noun words are native to the Korean language, e.g. (nara, country), (nal, day). A large body of Korean nouns ( , myeongsa, ) stem from Chinese characters, e.g. (å±±, san, mountain), (é©, yeok, station), (æå, munhwa, culture), etc. Many Sino-Korean words have a native Korean equivalent and vice versa, but not always. Nouns do not have grammatical gender and can be made plural by adding ë¤ to the end of the word, however in most instances the singular form is used even when in English it would be translated as plural. For example, while in English the sentence "there are three apples" would use the plural "apples" instead of the singular "apple", the Korean sentence ì¬ê³¼ ì¸ê° ììµëë¤ (sagwa segae isssumnida) maintains the word ì¬ê³¼ (sagwa, "apple") in its singular form, thus rendered in English as "apple three(things) exist." For a list of Korean nouns, see .
Korean pronouns ( , daemyeongsa, ) are highly influenced by the honorifics in the language. Pronouns change forms depending on the social status of the person or persons spoken to, e.g. the pronoun for "I" there is both the informal (na) and the honorific/humble (jeo). In general second person singular pronouns are avoided, especially when using honorific forms. For a larger list or Korean pronouns, see .
Korean adverbs ( , busa, ) include (tto, "also") and (gadeuk, "fully"). For a larger list, see .
Korean particles ( , josa, ) are also known in English as "postpositions". Examples include (neun, topic marker) and (reul, object marker). For a larger list, see .
Korean interjections ( , gamtansa, ) are also known in English as "exclamations". Examples include (ani, "no"). For a larger list, see .
Korean numbers or numerals ( , susa, ) constitute two regularly used sets: a native Korean set and a Sino-Korean set. The Sino-Korean system is nearly entirely based on the Chinese numerals. The distinction between the two numeral systems is very important. Everything that can be counted will use one of the two systems, but seldom both. Sino-Korean words are sometimes used to mark ordinal usage: yeol beon (ì´ ë²) means "ten times" while sip beon (ì(å) ë²(çª)) means "number ten." The grouping of large numbers in Korean follow the Chinese tradition of myriads (10000) rather than thousands (1000) as is common in Europe and North America.
The relationship between a speaker or writer and his or her subject and audience is paramount in Korean, and the grammar reflects this. The relationship between speaker/writer and subject referent is reflected in honorifics, while that between speaker/writer and audience is reflected in speech level.
When talking about someone superior in status, a speaker or writer usually uses special nouns or verb endings to indicate the subject's superiority. Generally, someone is superior in status if he/she is an older relative, a stranger of roughly equal or greater age, or an employer, teacher, customer, or the like. Someone is equal or inferior in status if he/she is a younger stranger, student, employee or the like. Nowadays, there are special endings which can be used on declarative, interrogative, and imperative sentences; and both honorific or normal sentences. They are made for easier and faster use of Korean.
There are seven verb paradigms or speech levels in Korean, and each level has its own unique set of verb endings which are used to indicate the level of formality of a situation. Unlike honorificsâwhich are used to show respect towards the referentâspeech levels are used to show respect towards a speaker's or writer's audience. The names of the seven levels are derived from the non-honorific imperative form of the verb íë¤ (hada, "do") in each level, plus the suffix ì²´ ("che", hanja: é« ), which means "style".
The highest six levels are generally grouped together as jondaenmal (ì¡´ëë§), while the lowest level (haeche, í´ì²´) is called banmal (ë°ë§) in Korean.
The core of the Korean vocabulary is made up of native Korean words. Like Japanese and Vietnamese, a significant proportion of the vocabulary, especially words that denote abstract ideas, are Sino-Korean words, Sohn, Ho-Min. The Korean Language (Section 1.5.3 "Korean vocabulary", p.12â13), Cambridge University Press, 2001. ISBN 0521369436. either
* directly borrowed from Written Chinese, or
* coined in Japan or Korea using Chinese characters,
in a similar way European languages borrow from Latin and Greek.
The exact proportion of Sino-Korean vocabulary is a matter of debate. Sohn (2001) stated 50-60%. However, Jeong Jae-do, one of the compilers of the dictionary Urimal Kun Sajeon, asserts that the proportion is not so high. He points out that Korean dictionaries compiled during the period of Japanese occupation include many unused Sino-Korean words. In his estimation, the proportion of native Korean vocabulary in the Korean language might be as high as 70%. . The dictionary mentioned is
Korean has two number systems: one native, and one borrowed from Chinese.
To a much lesser extent, words have also occasionally been borrowed from Mongolian, Sanskrit, and other languages. Conversely, the Korean language itself has also contributed some loanwords to other languages, most notably the Tsushima dialect of Japanese.
The vast majority of loanwords other than Sino-Korean come from modern times, 90% of which are from English. Many words have also been borrowed from Japanese and Western languages such as German (areubaiteu "part-time job", allereugi "allergy", "gibsu" "plaster cast used for broken bones"). Some Western words were borrowed indirectly via Japanese, taking a Japanese sound pattern, for example "dozen" > dÄsu > daseu. Most indirect Western borrowings are now written according to current Hangulization rules for the respective Western language, as if borrowed directly. There are a few more complicated borrowings such as "German(y)" (see Names for Germany), the first part of whose endonym the Japanese approximated using the kanji doitsu that were then accepted into the Korean language by their Sino-Korean pronunciation: dok + il = Dogil. In South Korean official use, a number of other Sino-Korean country names have been replaced with phonetically oriented Hangulizations of the countries' endonyms or English names.
As in Japanese, Korean adapts words in ways that are uncommon in English. For example, in soccer heading ( ) is used to label a head-strike, rather than direction. This is a corrupted loan word from the English header.
North Korean vocabulary shows a tendency to prefer native Korean over Sino-Korean or foreign borrowings, especially with recent political objectives aimed at eliminating foreign (mostly Chinese) influences on the Korean language in the North. By contrast, South Korean may have several Sino-Korean or foreign borrowings which tend to be absent in North Korean.
Formerly the languages of the Korean peninsula were written using Chinese characters, using hyangchal or idu. Such systems relied on principles of rebus, and were lost, later in history. Writing became confined to the ruling elite, who used hanja to write in Classical Chinese.
Korean is now mainly written in Hangul, the Korean alphabet promulgated in 1446 by Sejong the Great; hanja may be mixed in to write Sino-Korean words. While South Korean schools still teach 1,800 hanja characters, North Korea had abolished the use of hanja decades ago.
Below is a chart of the Korean alphabet's symbols and their canonical IPA values:
Modern Korean is written with spaces between words, a feature not found in Chinese or Japanese. Korean punctuation marks are almost identical to Western ones. Traditionally, Korean was written in columns from top to bottom, right to left, but is now usually written in rows from left to right, top to bottom.
The Korean language used in the North and the South exhibits differences in pronunciation, spelling, grammar and vocabulary. Kanno, Hiroomi (ed.) / Society for Korean Linguistics in Japan (1987). ChÅsengo o manabÅ (ãæé®®èªãå¦ã¼ãã), SanshÅ«sha, Tokyo. ISBN 4-384-01506-2
In North Korea, palatalization of is optional, and can be pronounced between vowels.
Words that are written the same way may be pronounced differently, such as the examples below. The pronunciations below are given in Revised Romanization, McCune-Reischauer and Hangul, the last of which represents what the Hangul would be if one writes the word as pronounced.
* Similar pronunciation is used in the North whenever the hanja "ç" is attached to a Sino-Korean word ending in ã´, ã
or ã
. (In the South, this rule only applies when it is attached to any single-character Sino-Korean word.)
Some words are spelled differently by the North and the South, but the pronunciations are the same.
Some words have different spellings and pronunciations in the North and the South, some of which were given in the "Phonology" section above:
In general, when transcribing place names, North Korea tends to use the pronunciation in the original language more than South Korea, which often uses the pronunciation in English. For example:
Some grammatical constructions are also different:
Some vocabulary is different between the North and the South:
In the North, guillemets and are the symbols used for quotes; in the South, quotation marks equivalent to the English ones, â and â, are standard, although and are sometimes used in popular novels.
The United States' Defense Language Institute classifies Korean alongside Arabic, Chinese, and Japanese as a Category IV language, meaning that 63 weeks of instruction (as compared to just 25 weeks for French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian) are required to bring an English-speaking student to a limited working level of proficiency in which he or she has "sufficient capability to meet routine social demands and limited job requirements" and "can deal with concrete topics in past, present, and future tense." As a result, the study of the Korean language in the United States is dominated by Korean American heritage language students; they are estimated to form over 80% of all students of the language at non-military universities.
However, Korean is considerably easier for speakers of certain other languages, such as Japanese ; in Japan, it is more widely studied by non-heritage learners. The Korean Language Proficiency Test, an examination aimed at assessing non-native speakers' competence in Korean, was instituted in 1997; 17,000 people applied for the 2005 sitting of the examination.
*Hangul
*Korean romanization
**Revised romanization of Korean
**McCune-Reischauer
**Yale Romanization#Korean
**SKATS
*Korean numerals
*Korean count word
*Korean language and computers
*Hanja
*Sino-Korean vocabulary
*Korean mixed script
*List of English words of Korean origin
*Altaic languages
*List of Korea-related topics
*Vowel harmony
* (Volume 4 of the London Oriental and African Language Library).
*Hulbert, Homer B. (1905): A Comparative Grammar of the Korean Language and the Dravidian Dialects in India. Seoul.
*Martin, Samuel E. (1966): Lexical Evidence Relating Japanese to Korean. Language 42/2: 185â251.
*Martin, Samuel E. (1990): Morphological clues to the relationship of Japanese and Korean. In: Philip Baldi (ed.): Linguistic Change and Reconstruction Methodology. Trends in Linguistics: Studies and Monographs 45: 483-509.
*Miller, Roy Andrew (1971): Japanese and the Other Altaic Languages. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0226527190.
*Miller, Roy Andrew (1996): Languages and History: Japanese, Korean and Altaic. Oslo: Institute for Comparative Research in Human Culture. ISBN 9748299694.
*Ramstedt, G. J. (1928): Remarks on the Korean language. Mémoires de la Société Finno-Oigrienne 58.
*Rybatzki, Volker (2003): Middle Mongol. In: Juha Janhunen (ed.) (2003): The Mongolic languages. London: Routledge. ISBN 0-7007-1133-3: 47â82.
*Starostin, Sergei A.; Anna V. Dybo; Oleg A. Mudrak (2003): Etymological Dictionary of the Altaic Languages, 3 volumes. Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers. ISBN 9004131531.
*Sohn, H.-M. (1999): The Korean Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Song, J.-J. (2005): The Korean Language: Structure, Use and Context. London: Routledge.
*Trask, R. L. (1996): Historical linguistics. Hodder Arnold.
*Vovin, Alexander: Koreo-Japonica. University of Hawai'i Press.
*Whitman, John B. (1985): The Phonological Basis for the Comparison of Japanese and Korean. Unpublished Harvard University Ph.D. dissertation.
* Ethnologue report for Korean
* Linguistic and Philosophical Origins of the Korean Alphabet (Hangul)
* Free Korean language and culture course online, in English
* Linguistic map of Korea
* Korean - a Category III language Languages which are exceptionally difficult for native English speakers
* dongsa.net A Korean verb conjugation tool that explains the conjugations for learners of Korean
|
Korean_language | Are the Korean names for the language based on the names for Korea used in North as well as South Korea? | Yes. | data/set5/a6 | Korean_language
:This article is mainly about the spoken Korean language. See Hangul for details on the native Korean writing system.
Korean ( , see below) is the official language of Korea, both South and North. It is also one of the two official languages in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in China. There are about 78 million Korean speakers. In the 15th century a national writing system was commissioned by Sejong the Great, currently called Hangul. Prior to the development of Hangul, Koreans used Hanja (Chinese characters) to write for over a millennia.
The genealogical classification of the Korean language is debated by a small number of linguists. Most classify it as a language isolate Song, Jae Jung (2005) "The Korean language: structure, use and context" Routledge, p. 15
Lyle Campbell & Mauricio Mixco. 2007. A Glossary of Historical Linguistics. University of Utah Press. while a few consider it to be in the Altaic language family. Stratification in the peopling of China: how far does the linguistic evidence match genetics and archaeology? In; Sanchez-Mazas, Blench, Ross, Lin & Pejros eds. Human migrations in continental East Asia and Taiwan: genetic, linguistic and archaeological evidence. 2008. Taylor & Francis Some believe it to be distantly related to Japanese. Like Japanese it is agglutinative in its morphology and SOV in its syntax.
The Korean names for the language are based on the names for Korea used in North and South Korea.
In South Korea, the language is most often called Hangungmal
( ; ), or more formally, Hangugeo ( ; ) or Gugeo ( ; ; literally "national language").
In North Korea and Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in China, the language is most often called ChosÅnmal ( ; with hanja: ), or more formally, ChosÅnÅ ( ; ).
On the other hand, Korean people in the former USSR, who refer to themselves as Koryo-saram (ê³ ë ¤ì¬ë; also Goryeoin [ ; ; literally, "Goryeo person(s)"]) call the language Goryeomal ( ; ).
In mainland China, following the establishment of diplomatic relations with South Korea in 1992, the term CháoxiÇnyÇ ( or the short form: CháoyÇ ( )) has normally been used to refer to the language spoken in North Korea and Yanbian, while HánguóyÇ ( or the short form: HányÇ ( )) is used to refer to the language spoken in South Korea.
Some older English sources also used the name "Korean" to refer to the language, country, and people. The word "Korean" is derived from Goryeo, which is thought to be the first dynasty known to western countries.
Most modern linguists consider Korean to be a language isolate Song, Jae Jung (2005) "The Korean language: structure, use and context" Routledge, p. 15
Lyle Campbell & Mauricio J. Mixco. 2007. A Glossary of Historical Linguistics. University of Utah Press.
Since the publication of the article of Ramstedt in 1928, some linguists eg Miller 1971, 1996, Starostin et al. 2003 support the hypothesis that Korean can be classified as an Altaic language or as a relative of proto-Altaic. Korean is similar to the Altaic languages in that they both lack certain grammatical elements, including articles, fusional morphology and relative pronouns. However, linguists agree today on the fact that typological resemblances cannot be used to prove genetic relatedness of languages eg Vovin 2008: 1 as these features are typologically connected and easily borrowed. Trask 1996: 147-151 Such factors of typological divergence as Middle Mongolian's exhibition of gender agreement Rybatzki 2003: 57 can be used to argue that a genetic relationship is unlikely. Vovin 2008: 5
The hypothesis that Korean might be related to Japanese has had some more supporters due to some considerable overlap in vocabulary and similar grammatical features that have been elaborated upon by such researchers as Samuel E. Martin eg Martin 1966, 1990 and Roy Andrew Miller. eg Miller 1971, 1996 Sergei Starostin (1991) found about 25% of potential cognates in the Japanese-Korean 100-word Swadesh list, which - if true - would place these two languages closer together than other possible members of the Altaic family.
Other linguists, most notably Alexander Vovin, argue, however, that the similarities are not due to any genetic relationship, but rather to a sprachbund effect and heavy borrowing especially from Korean into Western Old Japanese. Vovin 2008 A good example might be Middle Korean sà m Whitman 1985: 232, also found in Martin 1966: 233 This word seems to be cognate, but while it is well-attested in Western Old Japanese and Northern RyÅ«kyÅ«, in Eastern Old Japanese it only occurs in compounds, and it is only present in three subdialects of the South-RyÅ«kyÅ«an dialect group. Then, the doublet wo âhempâ is attested in Western Old Japanese and Southern RyÅ«kyÅ«. It is thus plausible to assume a borrowed term. Vovin 2008: 211-212 See East Asian languages for morphological features shared among languages of the East Asian sprachbund, and Classification of Japanese for further details on the discussion of a possible relationship.
Korean is descended from Old Korean, Middle Korean and Modern Korean. Controversy remains over the proposed Altaic language family and its inclusion of Proto-Korean. Since the Korean War, contemporary North-South differences in Korean have developed, including variance in pronunciation, verb inflection, and vocabulary.
Korean is spoken by the Korean people in North Korea and South Korea and by the Korean diaspora in many countries including the People's Republic of China, Japan, and the United States. Korean-speaking minorities exist in these states, but because of cultural assimilation into host countries, not all ethnic Korean immigrants may speak it with native fluency.
Korean is the official language of South Korea and North Korea. It is also one of the two official languages of the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in China.
In South Korea, the regulatory body for Korean is the Seoul-based National Institute of the Korean Language ( ), which was created by presidential decree on January 23, 1991. In North Korea, the regulatory body is the Sahoe Kwahagwon Åhak YÅnguso ( ).
Dialects of Korean
Korean has several dialects (called mal [literally "speech"], saturi, or bang-eon in Korean). The standard language (pyojuneo or pyojunmal) of South Korea is based on the dialect of the area around Seoul, and the standard for North Korea is based on the dialect spoken around P'yÅngyang. All dialects of Korean are similar to each other, and are in fact all mutually intelligible, perhaps with the exception of the dialect of Jeju Island (see Jeju dialect). The dialect spoken in Jeju is in fact classified as a different language by some Korean linguists. One of the most notable differences between dialects is the use of stress: speakers of Seoul dialect use very little stress, and standard South Korean has a very flat intonation; on the other hand, speakers of the Gyeongsang dialect have a very pronounced intonation.
It is also worth noting that there is substantial evidence for a history of extensive dialect levelling, or even convergent evolution or intermixture of two or more originally distinct linguistic stocks, within the Korean language and its dialects. Many Korean dialects have basic vocabulary that is etymologically distinct from vocabulary of identical meaning in Standard Korean or other dialects, such as South Jeolla dialect /kur/ vs. Standard Korean ì
"mouth" or Gyeongsang dialect vs. Standard Korean "garlic chives." This suggests that the Korean Peninsula may have at one time been much more linguistically diverse than it is at present. See also the Buyeo languages hypothesis.
There is a very close connection between the dialects of Korean and the regions of Korea, since the boundaries of both are largely determined by mountains and seas. Here is a list of traditional dialect names and locations:
The Korean consonants
The IPA symbol (a subscript double straight quotation mark, shown here with a placeholder circle) is used to denote the tensed consonants . Its official use in the Extensions to the IPA is for 'strong' articulation, but is used in the literature for faucalized voice. The Korean consonants also have elements of stiff voice, but it is not yet known how typical this is of faucalized consonants. They are produced with a partially constricted glottis and additional subglottal pressure in addition to tense vocal tract walls, laryngeal lowering, or other expansion of the larynx.
becomes an alveolo-palatal before or for most speakers (but see Differences in the language between North Korea and South Korea). This occurs with the tense fricative and all the affricates as well. At the end of a syllable, /s/ changes to /t/ (Example: beoseot (ë²ì¯) 'mushroom').
may become a bilabial before or , a palatal before or , a velar before , a voiced between voiced sounds, and a elsewhere.
become voiced between voiced sounds.
becomes alveolar flap between vowels, and or at the end of a syllable or next to another . Note that a written syllable-final 'ã¹', when followed by a vowel or a glide (i.e., when the next character starts with 'ã
'), migrates to the next syllable and thus becomes .
Traditionally, was disallowed at the beginning of a word. It disappeared before , and otherwise became . However, the inflow of western loanword changed the trend, and now word-initial (mostly from English loanwords) are pronounced as a free variation of either or . The traditional prohibition of word-initial became a morphological rule called "initial law" (ëìë²ì¹) in South Korea, which pertains to Sino-Korean vocabulary. Such words retain their word-initial in North Korea.
All obstruents (plosives, affricates, fricatives) are unreleased at the end of a word.
Plosive stops become nasal stops before nasal stops.
Hangul spelling does not reflect these assimilatory pronunciation rules, but rather maintains the underlying, partly historical morphology. Given this, it is sometimes hard to tell which actual phonemes are present in a certain word.
One difference between the pronunciation standards of North and South Korea is the treatment of initial , and initial . For example,
* "labour" - north: rodong (ë¡ë), south: nodong (ë
¸ë)
* "history" - north: ryÅksa (ë ¥ì¬), south: yeoksa (ìì¬)
* "female" - north: nyÅja (ë
ì), south: yeoja (ì¬ì)
Grammatical morphemes may change shape depending on the preceding sounds. Examples include -eun/-neun (-ì/-ë) and -i/-ga (-ì´/-ê°). Sometimes sounds may be inserted instead. Examples include -eul/-reul (-ì/-를), -euro/-ro (-ì¼ë¡/-ë¡), -eseo/-seo (-ìì/-ì), -ideunji/-deunji (-ì´ë ì§/-ë ì§) and -iya/-ya (-ì´ì¼/-ì¼). However, -euro/-ro is somewhat irregular, since it will behave differently after a rieul consonant.
Some verbs may also change shape morphophonemically.
Korean is an agglutinative language. Modifiers generally precede the modified words, and in the case of verb modifiers, can be serially appended. The basic form of a Korean sentence is Subject Object Verb, but the verb is the only required and immovable element.
:"Did [you] go to the store?" ("you" implied in conversation)
:"Yes."
The Korean Language contains nine parts of speech.
Korean verbs ( , tongsa, ) are also known in English as "action verbs" or "dynamic verbs" to distinguish them from [ , hyeong-yongsa, "adjectives"]), which are also known as "descriptive verbs" or "stative verbs". Examples of action/dynamic verbs include (hada, "to do") and (kada, "to go") which constitute an action or movement as opposed to descriptive verbs such as (yehppeuda, "to be beautiful"). For a larger list of Korean verbs, see .
Unlike most of the European languages, Korean does not conjugate verbs using agreement with the subject, and nouns have no gender. Instead, verb conjugations depend upon the verb tense, aspect, mood, and the social relation between the speaker, the subjects, and the listeners.
The system of speech levels and honorifics loosely resembles the T-V distinction of most Indo-European languages. For example, different endings are used depending on the speaker's relation with their subject or audience. Politeness is a critical part of Korean language and Korean culture, therefore, when talking to someone esteemed, the correct verb ending must be chosen to indicate the proper respect.
Words categorized as Korean adjectives ( , hyeong-yongsa, ) conjugate similarly to verbs, so some English texts call them "descriptive verbs" or "stative verbs", but they are distinctly separate from (tongsa).
English does not have an identical grammatical category, so the English translation of Korean adjectives may misleadingly suggest that they are verbs. For example, (pukda) translates literally as "to be red" and (aswipda) often best translates as "to lack" or "to want for", but both are (hyeong-yongsa, "adjectives"). For a larger list of Korean adjectives, see .
Korean pre-nouns ( , gwanhyeongsa, ) are also known in English as "determinatives", "attributives", and "unconjugated adjectives". Examples include (kak, "each"). For a larger list, see .
Core and basic noun words are native to the Korean language, e.g. (nara, country), (nal, day). A large body of Korean nouns ( , myeongsa, ) stem from Chinese characters, e.g. (å±±, san, mountain), (é©, yeok, station), (æå, munhwa, culture), etc. Many Sino-Korean words have a native Korean equivalent and vice versa, but not always. Nouns do not have grammatical gender and can be made plural by adding ë¤ to the end of the word, however in most instances the singular form is used even when in English it would be translated as plural. For example, while in English the sentence "there are three apples" would use the plural "apples" instead of the singular "apple", the Korean sentence ì¬ê³¼ ì¸ê° ììµëë¤ (sagwa segae isssumnida) maintains the word ì¬ê³¼ (sagwa, "apple") in its singular form, thus rendered in English as "apple three(things) exist." For a list of Korean nouns, see .
Korean pronouns ( , daemyeongsa, ) are highly influenced by the honorifics in the language. Pronouns change forms depending on the social status of the person or persons spoken to, e.g. the pronoun for "I" there is both the informal (na) and the honorific/humble (jeo). In general second person singular pronouns are avoided, especially when using honorific forms. For a larger list or Korean pronouns, see .
Korean adverbs ( , busa, ) include (tto, "also") and (gadeuk, "fully"). For a larger list, see .
Korean particles ( , josa, ) are also known in English as "postpositions". Examples include (neun, topic marker) and (reul, object marker). For a larger list, see .
Korean interjections ( , gamtansa, ) are also known in English as "exclamations". Examples include (ani, "no"). For a larger list, see .
Korean numbers or numerals ( , susa, ) constitute two regularly used sets: a native Korean set and a Sino-Korean set. The Sino-Korean system is nearly entirely based on the Chinese numerals. The distinction between the two numeral systems is very important. Everything that can be counted will use one of the two systems, but seldom both. Sino-Korean words are sometimes used to mark ordinal usage: yeol beon (ì´ ë²) means "ten times" while sip beon (ì(å) ë²(çª)) means "number ten." The grouping of large numbers in Korean follow the Chinese tradition of myriads (10000) rather than thousands (1000) as is common in Europe and North America.
The relationship between a speaker or writer and his or her subject and audience is paramount in Korean, and the grammar reflects this. The relationship between speaker/writer and subject referent is reflected in honorifics, while that between speaker/writer and audience is reflected in speech level.
When talking about someone superior in status, a speaker or writer usually uses special nouns or verb endings to indicate the subject's superiority. Generally, someone is superior in status if he/she is an older relative, a stranger of roughly equal or greater age, or an employer, teacher, customer, or the like. Someone is equal or inferior in status if he/she is a younger stranger, student, employee or the like. Nowadays, there are special endings which can be used on declarative, interrogative, and imperative sentences; and both honorific or normal sentences. They are made for easier and faster use of Korean.
There are seven verb paradigms or speech levels in Korean, and each level has its own unique set of verb endings which are used to indicate the level of formality of a situation. Unlike honorificsâwhich are used to show respect towards the referentâspeech levels are used to show respect towards a speaker's or writer's audience. The names of the seven levels are derived from the non-honorific imperative form of the verb íë¤ (hada, "do") in each level, plus the suffix ì²´ ("che", hanja: é« ), which means "style".
The highest six levels are generally grouped together as jondaenmal (ì¡´ëë§), while the lowest level (haeche, í´ì²´) is called banmal (ë°ë§) in Korean.
The core of the Korean vocabulary is made up of native Korean words. Like Japanese and Vietnamese, a significant proportion of the vocabulary, especially words that denote abstract ideas, are Sino-Korean words, Sohn, Ho-Min. The Korean Language (Section 1.5.3 "Korean vocabulary", p.12â13), Cambridge University Press, 2001. ISBN 0521369436. either
* directly borrowed from Written Chinese, or
* coined in Japan or Korea using Chinese characters,
in a similar way European languages borrow from Latin and Greek.
The exact proportion of Sino-Korean vocabulary is a matter of debate. Sohn (2001) stated 50-60%. However, Jeong Jae-do, one of the compilers of the dictionary Urimal Kun Sajeon, asserts that the proportion is not so high. He points out that Korean dictionaries compiled during the period of Japanese occupation include many unused Sino-Korean words. In his estimation, the proportion of native Korean vocabulary in the Korean language might be as high as 70%. . The dictionary mentioned is
Korean has two number systems: one native, and one borrowed from Chinese.
To a much lesser extent, words have also occasionally been borrowed from Mongolian, Sanskrit, and other languages. Conversely, the Korean language itself has also contributed some loanwords to other languages, most notably the Tsushima dialect of Japanese.
The vast majority of loanwords other than Sino-Korean come from modern times, 90% of which are from English. Many words have also been borrowed from Japanese and Western languages such as German (areubaiteu "part-time job", allereugi "allergy", "gibsu" "plaster cast used for broken bones"). Some Western words were borrowed indirectly via Japanese, taking a Japanese sound pattern, for example "dozen" > dÄsu > daseu. Most indirect Western borrowings are now written according to current Hangulization rules for the respective Western language, as if borrowed directly. There are a few more complicated borrowings such as "German(y)" (see Names for Germany), the first part of whose endonym the Japanese approximated using the kanji doitsu that were then accepted into the Korean language by their Sino-Korean pronunciation: dok + il = Dogil. In South Korean official use, a number of other Sino-Korean country names have been replaced with phonetically oriented Hangulizations of the countries' endonyms or English names.
As in Japanese, Korean adapts words in ways that are uncommon in English. For example, in soccer heading ( ) is used to label a head-strike, rather than direction. This is a corrupted loan word from the English header.
North Korean vocabulary shows a tendency to prefer native Korean over Sino-Korean or foreign borrowings, especially with recent political objectives aimed at eliminating foreign (mostly Chinese) influences on the Korean language in the North. By contrast, South Korean may have several Sino-Korean or foreign borrowings which tend to be absent in North Korean.
Formerly the languages of the Korean peninsula were written using Chinese characters, using hyangchal or idu. Such systems relied on principles of rebus, and were lost, later in history. Writing became confined to the ruling elite, who used hanja to write in Classical Chinese.
Korean is now mainly written in Hangul, the Korean alphabet promulgated in 1446 by Sejong the Great; hanja may be mixed in to write Sino-Korean words. While South Korean schools still teach 1,800 hanja characters, North Korea had abolished the use of hanja decades ago.
Below is a chart of the Korean alphabet's symbols and their canonical IPA values:
Modern Korean is written with spaces between words, a feature not found in Chinese or Japanese. Korean punctuation marks are almost identical to Western ones. Traditionally, Korean was written in columns from top to bottom, right to left, but is now usually written in rows from left to right, top to bottom.
The Korean language used in the North and the South exhibits differences in pronunciation, spelling, grammar and vocabulary. Kanno, Hiroomi (ed.) / Society for Korean Linguistics in Japan (1987). ChÅsengo o manabÅ (ãæé®®èªãå¦ã¼ãã), SanshÅ«sha, Tokyo. ISBN 4-384-01506-2
In North Korea, palatalization of is optional, and can be pronounced between vowels.
Words that are written the same way may be pronounced differently, such as the examples below. The pronunciations below are given in Revised Romanization, McCune-Reischauer and Hangul, the last of which represents what the Hangul would be if one writes the word as pronounced.
* Similar pronunciation is used in the North whenever the hanja "ç" is attached to a Sino-Korean word ending in ã´, ã
or ã
. (In the South, this rule only applies when it is attached to any single-character Sino-Korean word.)
Some words are spelled differently by the North and the South, but the pronunciations are the same.
Some words have different spellings and pronunciations in the North and the South, some of which were given in the "Phonology" section above:
In general, when transcribing place names, North Korea tends to use the pronunciation in the original language more than South Korea, which often uses the pronunciation in English. For example:
Some grammatical constructions are also different:
Some vocabulary is different between the North and the South:
In the North, guillemets and are the symbols used for quotes; in the South, quotation marks equivalent to the English ones, â and â, are standard, although and are sometimes used in popular novels.
The United States' Defense Language Institute classifies Korean alongside Arabic, Chinese, and Japanese as a Category IV language, meaning that 63 weeks of instruction (as compared to just 25 weeks for French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian) are required to bring an English-speaking student to a limited working level of proficiency in which he or she has "sufficient capability to meet routine social demands and limited job requirements" and "can deal with concrete topics in past, present, and future tense." As a result, the study of the Korean language in the United States is dominated by Korean American heritage language students; they are estimated to form over 80% of all students of the language at non-military universities.
However, Korean is considerably easier for speakers of certain other languages, such as Japanese ; in Japan, it is more widely studied by non-heritage learners. The Korean Language Proficiency Test, an examination aimed at assessing non-native speakers' competence in Korean, was instituted in 1997; 17,000 people applied for the 2005 sitting of the examination.
*Hangul
*Korean romanization
**Revised romanization of Korean
**McCune-Reischauer
**Yale Romanization#Korean
**SKATS
*Korean numerals
*Korean count word
*Korean language and computers
*Hanja
*Sino-Korean vocabulary
*Korean mixed script
*List of English words of Korean origin
*Altaic languages
*List of Korea-related topics
*Vowel harmony
* (Volume 4 of the London Oriental and African Language Library).
*Hulbert, Homer B. (1905): A Comparative Grammar of the Korean Language and the Dravidian Dialects in India. Seoul.
*Martin, Samuel E. (1966): Lexical Evidence Relating Japanese to Korean. Language 42/2: 185â251.
*Martin, Samuel E. (1990): Morphological clues to the relationship of Japanese and Korean. In: Philip Baldi (ed.): Linguistic Change and Reconstruction Methodology. Trends in Linguistics: Studies and Monographs 45: 483-509.
*Miller, Roy Andrew (1971): Japanese and the Other Altaic Languages. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0226527190.
*Miller, Roy Andrew (1996): Languages and History: Japanese, Korean and Altaic. Oslo: Institute for Comparative Research in Human Culture. ISBN 9748299694.
*Ramstedt, G. J. (1928): Remarks on the Korean language. Mémoires de la Société Finno-Oigrienne 58.
*Rybatzki, Volker (2003): Middle Mongol. In: Juha Janhunen (ed.) (2003): The Mongolic languages. London: Routledge. ISBN 0-7007-1133-3: 47â82.
*Starostin, Sergei A.; Anna V. Dybo; Oleg A. Mudrak (2003): Etymological Dictionary of the Altaic Languages, 3 volumes. Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers. ISBN 9004131531.
*Sohn, H.-M. (1999): The Korean Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Song, J.-J. (2005): The Korean Language: Structure, Use and Context. London: Routledge.
*Trask, R. L. (1996): Historical linguistics. Hodder Arnold.
*Vovin, Alexander: Koreo-Japonica. University of Hawai'i Press.
*Whitman, John B. (1985): The Phonological Basis for the Comparison of Japanese and Korean. Unpublished Harvard University Ph.D. dissertation.
* Ethnologue report for Korean
* Linguistic and Philosophical Origins of the Korean Alphabet (Hangul)
* Free Korean language and culture course online, in English
* Linguistic map of Korea
* Korean - a Category III language Languages which are exceptionally difficult for native English speakers
* dongsa.net A Korean verb conjugation tool that explains the conjugations for learners of Korean
|
Korean_language | Is it not also one of the two official languages of the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in China? | Yes. | data/set5/a6 | Korean_language
:This article is mainly about the spoken Korean language. See Hangul for details on the native Korean writing system.
Korean ( , see below) is the official language of Korea, both South and North. It is also one of the two official languages in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in China. There are about 78 million Korean speakers. In the 15th century a national writing system was commissioned by Sejong the Great, currently called Hangul. Prior to the development of Hangul, Koreans used Hanja (Chinese characters) to write for over a millennia.
The genealogical classification of the Korean language is debated by a small number of linguists. Most classify it as a language isolate Song, Jae Jung (2005) "The Korean language: structure, use and context" Routledge, p. 15
Lyle Campbell & Mauricio Mixco. 2007. A Glossary of Historical Linguistics. University of Utah Press. while a few consider it to be in the Altaic language family. Stratification in the peopling of China: how far does the linguistic evidence match genetics and archaeology? In; Sanchez-Mazas, Blench, Ross, Lin & Pejros eds. Human migrations in continental East Asia and Taiwan: genetic, linguistic and archaeological evidence. 2008. Taylor & Francis Some believe it to be distantly related to Japanese. Like Japanese it is agglutinative in its morphology and SOV in its syntax.
The Korean names for the language are based on the names for Korea used in North and South Korea.
In South Korea, the language is most often called Hangungmal
( ; ), or more formally, Hangugeo ( ; ) or Gugeo ( ; ; literally "national language").
In North Korea and Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in China, the language is most often called ChosÅnmal ( ; with hanja: ), or more formally, ChosÅnÅ ( ; ).
On the other hand, Korean people in the former USSR, who refer to themselves as Koryo-saram (ê³ ë ¤ì¬ë; also Goryeoin [ ; ; literally, "Goryeo person(s)"]) call the language Goryeomal ( ; ).
In mainland China, following the establishment of diplomatic relations with South Korea in 1992, the term CháoxiÇnyÇ ( or the short form: CháoyÇ ( )) has normally been used to refer to the language spoken in North Korea and Yanbian, while HánguóyÇ ( or the short form: HányÇ ( )) is used to refer to the language spoken in South Korea.
Some older English sources also used the name "Korean" to refer to the language, country, and people. The word "Korean" is derived from Goryeo, which is thought to be the first dynasty known to western countries.
Most modern linguists consider Korean to be a language isolate Song, Jae Jung (2005) "The Korean language: structure, use and context" Routledge, p. 15
Lyle Campbell & Mauricio J. Mixco. 2007. A Glossary of Historical Linguistics. University of Utah Press.
Since the publication of the article of Ramstedt in 1928, some linguists eg Miller 1971, 1996, Starostin et al. 2003 support the hypothesis that Korean can be classified as an Altaic language or as a relative of proto-Altaic. Korean is similar to the Altaic languages in that they both lack certain grammatical elements, including articles, fusional morphology and relative pronouns. However, linguists agree today on the fact that typological resemblances cannot be used to prove genetic relatedness of languages eg Vovin 2008: 1 as these features are typologically connected and easily borrowed. Trask 1996: 147-151 Such factors of typological divergence as Middle Mongolian's exhibition of gender agreement Rybatzki 2003: 57 can be used to argue that a genetic relationship is unlikely. Vovin 2008: 5
The hypothesis that Korean might be related to Japanese has had some more supporters due to some considerable overlap in vocabulary and similar grammatical features that have been elaborated upon by such researchers as Samuel E. Martin eg Martin 1966, 1990 and Roy Andrew Miller. eg Miller 1971, 1996 Sergei Starostin (1991) found about 25% of potential cognates in the Japanese-Korean 100-word Swadesh list, which - if true - would place these two languages closer together than other possible members of the Altaic family.
Other linguists, most notably Alexander Vovin, argue, however, that the similarities are not due to any genetic relationship, but rather to a sprachbund effect and heavy borrowing especially from Korean into Western Old Japanese. Vovin 2008 A good example might be Middle Korean sà m Whitman 1985: 232, also found in Martin 1966: 233 This word seems to be cognate, but while it is well-attested in Western Old Japanese and Northern RyÅ«kyÅ«, in Eastern Old Japanese it only occurs in compounds, and it is only present in three subdialects of the South-RyÅ«kyÅ«an dialect group. Then, the doublet wo âhempâ is attested in Western Old Japanese and Southern RyÅ«kyÅ«. It is thus plausible to assume a borrowed term. Vovin 2008: 211-212 See East Asian languages for morphological features shared among languages of the East Asian sprachbund, and Classification of Japanese for further details on the discussion of a possible relationship.
Korean is descended from Old Korean, Middle Korean and Modern Korean. Controversy remains over the proposed Altaic language family and its inclusion of Proto-Korean. Since the Korean War, contemporary North-South differences in Korean have developed, including variance in pronunciation, verb inflection, and vocabulary.
Korean is spoken by the Korean people in North Korea and South Korea and by the Korean diaspora in many countries including the People's Republic of China, Japan, and the United States. Korean-speaking minorities exist in these states, but because of cultural assimilation into host countries, not all ethnic Korean immigrants may speak it with native fluency.
Korean is the official language of South Korea and North Korea. It is also one of the two official languages of the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in China.
In South Korea, the regulatory body for Korean is the Seoul-based National Institute of the Korean Language ( ), which was created by presidential decree on January 23, 1991. In North Korea, the regulatory body is the Sahoe Kwahagwon Åhak YÅnguso ( ).
Dialects of Korean
Korean has several dialects (called mal [literally "speech"], saturi, or bang-eon in Korean). The standard language (pyojuneo or pyojunmal) of South Korea is based on the dialect of the area around Seoul, and the standard for North Korea is based on the dialect spoken around P'yÅngyang. All dialects of Korean are similar to each other, and are in fact all mutually intelligible, perhaps with the exception of the dialect of Jeju Island (see Jeju dialect). The dialect spoken in Jeju is in fact classified as a different language by some Korean linguists. One of the most notable differences between dialects is the use of stress: speakers of Seoul dialect use very little stress, and standard South Korean has a very flat intonation; on the other hand, speakers of the Gyeongsang dialect have a very pronounced intonation.
It is also worth noting that there is substantial evidence for a history of extensive dialect levelling, or even convergent evolution or intermixture of two or more originally distinct linguistic stocks, within the Korean language and its dialects. Many Korean dialects have basic vocabulary that is etymologically distinct from vocabulary of identical meaning in Standard Korean or other dialects, such as South Jeolla dialect /kur/ vs. Standard Korean ì
"mouth" or Gyeongsang dialect vs. Standard Korean "garlic chives." This suggests that the Korean Peninsula may have at one time been much more linguistically diverse than it is at present. See also the Buyeo languages hypothesis.
There is a very close connection between the dialects of Korean and the regions of Korea, since the boundaries of both are largely determined by mountains and seas. Here is a list of traditional dialect names and locations:
The Korean consonants
The IPA symbol (a subscript double straight quotation mark, shown here with a placeholder circle) is used to denote the tensed consonants . Its official use in the Extensions to the IPA is for 'strong' articulation, but is used in the literature for faucalized voice. The Korean consonants also have elements of stiff voice, but it is not yet known how typical this is of faucalized consonants. They are produced with a partially constricted glottis and additional subglottal pressure in addition to tense vocal tract walls, laryngeal lowering, or other expansion of the larynx.
becomes an alveolo-palatal before or for most speakers (but see Differences in the language between North Korea and South Korea). This occurs with the tense fricative and all the affricates as well. At the end of a syllable, /s/ changes to /t/ (Example: beoseot (ë²ì¯) 'mushroom').
may become a bilabial before or , a palatal before or , a velar before , a voiced between voiced sounds, and a elsewhere.
become voiced between voiced sounds.
becomes alveolar flap between vowels, and or at the end of a syllable or next to another . Note that a written syllable-final 'ã¹', when followed by a vowel or a glide (i.e., when the next character starts with 'ã
'), migrates to the next syllable and thus becomes .
Traditionally, was disallowed at the beginning of a word. It disappeared before , and otherwise became . However, the inflow of western loanword changed the trend, and now word-initial (mostly from English loanwords) are pronounced as a free variation of either or . The traditional prohibition of word-initial became a morphological rule called "initial law" (ëìë²ì¹) in South Korea, which pertains to Sino-Korean vocabulary. Such words retain their word-initial in North Korea.
All obstruents (plosives, affricates, fricatives) are unreleased at the end of a word.
Plosive stops become nasal stops before nasal stops.
Hangul spelling does not reflect these assimilatory pronunciation rules, but rather maintains the underlying, partly historical morphology. Given this, it is sometimes hard to tell which actual phonemes are present in a certain word.
One difference between the pronunciation standards of North and South Korea is the treatment of initial , and initial . For example,
* "labour" - north: rodong (ë¡ë), south: nodong (ë
¸ë)
* "history" - north: ryÅksa (ë ¥ì¬), south: yeoksa (ìì¬)
* "female" - north: nyÅja (ë
ì), south: yeoja (ì¬ì)
Grammatical morphemes may change shape depending on the preceding sounds. Examples include -eun/-neun (-ì/-ë) and -i/-ga (-ì´/-ê°). Sometimes sounds may be inserted instead. Examples include -eul/-reul (-ì/-를), -euro/-ro (-ì¼ë¡/-ë¡), -eseo/-seo (-ìì/-ì), -ideunji/-deunji (-ì´ë ì§/-ë ì§) and -iya/-ya (-ì´ì¼/-ì¼). However, -euro/-ro is somewhat irregular, since it will behave differently after a rieul consonant.
Some verbs may also change shape morphophonemically.
Korean is an agglutinative language. Modifiers generally precede the modified words, and in the case of verb modifiers, can be serially appended. The basic form of a Korean sentence is Subject Object Verb, but the verb is the only required and immovable element.
:"Did [you] go to the store?" ("you" implied in conversation)
:"Yes."
The Korean Language contains nine parts of speech.
Korean verbs ( , tongsa, ) are also known in English as "action verbs" or "dynamic verbs" to distinguish them from [ , hyeong-yongsa, "adjectives"]), which are also known as "descriptive verbs" or "stative verbs". Examples of action/dynamic verbs include (hada, "to do") and (kada, "to go") which constitute an action or movement as opposed to descriptive verbs such as (yehppeuda, "to be beautiful"). For a larger list of Korean verbs, see .
Unlike most of the European languages, Korean does not conjugate verbs using agreement with the subject, and nouns have no gender. Instead, verb conjugations depend upon the verb tense, aspect, mood, and the social relation between the speaker, the subjects, and the listeners.
The system of speech levels and honorifics loosely resembles the T-V distinction of most Indo-European languages. For example, different endings are used depending on the speaker's relation with their subject or audience. Politeness is a critical part of Korean language and Korean culture, therefore, when talking to someone esteemed, the correct verb ending must be chosen to indicate the proper respect.
Words categorized as Korean adjectives ( , hyeong-yongsa, ) conjugate similarly to verbs, so some English texts call them "descriptive verbs" or "stative verbs", but they are distinctly separate from (tongsa).
English does not have an identical grammatical category, so the English translation of Korean adjectives may misleadingly suggest that they are verbs. For example, (pukda) translates literally as "to be red" and (aswipda) often best translates as "to lack" or "to want for", but both are (hyeong-yongsa, "adjectives"). For a larger list of Korean adjectives, see .
Korean pre-nouns ( , gwanhyeongsa, ) are also known in English as "determinatives", "attributives", and "unconjugated adjectives". Examples include (kak, "each"). For a larger list, see .
Core and basic noun words are native to the Korean language, e.g. (nara, country), (nal, day). A large body of Korean nouns ( , myeongsa, ) stem from Chinese characters, e.g. (å±±, san, mountain), (é©, yeok, station), (æå, munhwa, culture), etc. Many Sino-Korean words have a native Korean equivalent and vice versa, but not always. Nouns do not have grammatical gender and can be made plural by adding ë¤ to the end of the word, however in most instances the singular form is used even when in English it would be translated as plural. For example, while in English the sentence "there are three apples" would use the plural "apples" instead of the singular "apple", the Korean sentence ì¬ê³¼ ì¸ê° ììµëë¤ (sagwa segae isssumnida) maintains the word ì¬ê³¼ (sagwa, "apple") in its singular form, thus rendered in English as "apple three(things) exist." For a list of Korean nouns, see .
Korean pronouns ( , daemyeongsa, ) are highly influenced by the honorifics in the language. Pronouns change forms depending on the social status of the person or persons spoken to, e.g. the pronoun for "I" there is both the informal (na) and the honorific/humble (jeo). In general second person singular pronouns are avoided, especially when using honorific forms. For a larger list or Korean pronouns, see .
Korean adverbs ( , busa, ) include (tto, "also") and (gadeuk, "fully"). For a larger list, see .
Korean particles ( , josa, ) are also known in English as "postpositions". Examples include (neun, topic marker) and (reul, object marker). For a larger list, see .
Korean interjections ( , gamtansa, ) are also known in English as "exclamations". Examples include (ani, "no"). For a larger list, see .
Korean numbers or numerals ( , susa, ) constitute two regularly used sets: a native Korean set and a Sino-Korean set. The Sino-Korean system is nearly entirely based on the Chinese numerals. The distinction between the two numeral systems is very important. Everything that can be counted will use one of the two systems, but seldom both. Sino-Korean words are sometimes used to mark ordinal usage: yeol beon (ì´ ë²) means "ten times" while sip beon (ì(å) ë²(çª)) means "number ten." The grouping of large numbers in Korean follow the Chinese tradition of myriads (10000) rather than thousands (1000) as is common in Europe and North America.
The relationship between a speaker or writer and his or her subject and audience is paramount in Korean, and the grammar reflects this. The relationship between speaker/writer and subject referent is reflected in honorifics, while that between speaker/writer and audience is reflected in speech level.
When talking about someone superior in status, a speaker or writer usually uses special nouns or verb endings to indicate the subject's superiority. Generally, someone is superior in status if he/she is an older relative, a stranger of roughly equal or greater age, or an employer, teacher, customer, or the like. Someone is equal or inferior in status if he/she is a younger stranger, student, employee or the like. Nowadays, there are special endings which can be used on declarative, interrogative, and imperative sentences; and both honorific or normal sentences. They are made for easier and faster use of Korean.
There are seven verb paradigms or speech levels in Korean, and each level has its own unique set of verb endings which are used to indicate the level of formality of a situation. Unlike honorificsâwhich are used to show respect towards the referentâspeech levels are used to show respect towards a speaker's or writer's audience. The names of the seven levels are derived from the non-honorific imperative form of the verb íë¤ (hada, "do") in each level, plus the suffix ì²´ ("che", hanja: é« ), which means "style".
The highest six levels are generally grouped together as jondaenmal (ì¡´ëë§), while the lowest level (haeche, í´ì²´) is called banmal (ë°ë§) in Korean.
The core of the Korean vocabulary is made up of native Korean words. Like Japanese and Vietnamese, a significant proportion of the vocabulary, especially words that denote abstract ideas, are Sino-Korean words, Sohn, Ho-Min. The Korean Language (Section 1.5.3 "Korean vocabulary", p.12â13), Cambridge University Press, 2001. ISBN 0521369436. either
* directly borrowed from Written Chinese, or
* coined in Japan or Korea using Chinese characters,
in a similar way European languages borrow from Latin and Greek.
The exact proportion of Sino-Korean vocabulary is a matter of debate. Sohn (2001) stated 50-60%. However, Jeong Jae-do, one of the compilers of the dictionary Urimal Kun Sajeon, asserts that the proportion is not so high. He points out that Korean dictionaries compiled during the period of Japanese occupation include many unused Sino-Korean words. In his estimation, the proportion of native Korean vocabulary in the Korean language might be as high as 70%. . The dictionary mentioned is
Korean has two number systems: one native, and one borrowed from Chinese.
To a much lesser extent, words have also occasionally been borrowed from Mongolian, Sanskrit, and other languages. Conversely, the Korean language itself has also contributed some loanwords to other languages, most notably the Tsushima dialect of Japanese.
The vast majority of loanwords other than Sino-Korean come from modern times, 90% of which are from English. Many words have also been borrowed from Japanese and Western languages such as German (areubaiteu "part-time job", allereugi "allergy", "gibsu" "plaster cast used for broken bones"). Some Western words were borrowed indirectly via Japanese, taking a Japanese sound pattern, for example "dozen" > dÄsu > daseu. Most indirect Western borrowings are now written according to current Hangulization rules for the respective Western language, as if borrowed directly. There are a few more complicated borrowings such as "German(y)" (see Names for Germany), the first part of whose endonym the Japanese approximated using the kanji doitsu that were then accepted into the Korean language by their Sino-Korean pronunciation: dok + il = Dogil. In South Korean official use, a number of other Sino-Korean country names have been replaced with phonetically oriented Hangulizations of the countries' endonyms or English names.
As in Japanese, Korean adapts words in ways that are uncommon in English. For example, in soccer heading ( ) is used to label a head-strike, rather than direction. This is a corrupted loan word from the English header.
North Korean vocabulary shows a tendency to prefer native Korean over Sino-Korean or foreign borrowings, especially with recent political objectives aimed at eliminating foreign (mostly Chinese) influences on the Korean language in the North. By contrast, South Korean may have several Sino-Korean or foreign borrowings which tend to be absent in North Korean.
Formerly the languages of the Korean peninsula were written using Chinese characters, using hyangchal or idu. Such systems relied on principles of rebus, and were lost, later in history. Writing became confined to the ruling elite, who used hanja to write in Classical Chinese.
Korean is now mainly written in Hangul, the Korean alphabet promulgated in 1446 by Sejong the Great; hanja may be mixed in to write Sino-Korean words. While South Korean schools still teach 1,800 hanja characters, North Korea had abolished the use of hanja decades ago.
Below is a chart of the Korean alphabet's symbols and their canonical IPA values:
Modern Korean is written with spaces between words, a feature not found in Chinese or Japanese. Korean punctuation marks are almost identical to Western ones. Traditionally, Korean was written in columns from top to bottom, right to left, but is now usually written in rows from left to right, top to bottom.
The Korean language used in the North and the South exhibits differences in pronunciation, spelling, grammar and vocabulary. Kanno, Hiroomi (ed.) / Society for Korean Linguistics in Japan (1987). ChÅsengo o manabÅ (ãæé®®èªãå¦ã¼ãã), SanshÅ«sha, Tokyo. ISBN 4-384-01506-2
In North Korea, palatalization of is optional, and can be pronounced between vowels.
Words that are written the same way may be pronounced differently, such as the examples below. The pronunciations below are given in Revised Romanization, McCune-Reischauer and Hangul, the last of which represents what the Hangul would be if one writes the word as pronounced.
* Similar pronunciation is used in the North whenever the hanja "ç" is attached to a Sino-Korean word ending in ã´, ã
or ã
. (In the South, this rule only applies when it is attached to any single-character Sino-Korean word.)
Some words are spelled differently by the North and the South, but the pronunciations are the same.
Some words have different spellings and pronunciations in the North and the South, some of which were given in the "Phonology" section above:
In general, when transcribing place names, North Korea tends to use the pronunciation in the original language more than South Korea, which often uses the pronunciation in English. For example:
Some grammatical constructions are also different:
Some vocabulary is different between the North and the South:
In the North, guillemets and are the symbols used for quotes; in the South, quotation marks equivalent to the English ones, â and â, are standard, although and are sometimes used in popular novels.
The United States' Defense Language Institute classifies Korean alongside Arabic, Chinese, and Japanese as a Category IV language, meaning that 63 weeks of instruction (as compared to just 25 weeks for French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian) are required to bring an English-speaking student to a limited working level of proficiency in which he or she has "sufficient capability to meet routine social demands and limited job requirements" and "can deal with concrete topics in past, present, and future tense." As a result, the study of the Korean language in the United States is dominated by Korean American heritage language students; they are estimated to form over 80% of all students of the language at non-military universities.
However, Korean is considerably easier for speakers of certain other languages, such as Japanese ; in Japan, it is more widely studied by non-heritage learners. The Korean Language Proficiency Test, an examination aimed at assessing non-native speakers' competence in Korean, was instituted in 1997; 17,000 people applied for the 2005 sitting of the examination.
*Hangul
*Korean romanization
**Revised romanization of Korean
**McCune-Reischauer
**Yale Romanization#Korean
**SKATS
*Korean numerals
*Korean count word
*Korean language and computers
*Hanja
*Sino-Korean vocabulary
*Korean mixed script
*List of English words of Korean origin
*Altaic languages
*List of Korea-related topics
*Vowel harmony
* (Volume 4 of the London Oriental and African Language Library).
*Hulbert, Homer B. (1905): A Comparative Grammar of the Korean Language and the Dravidian Dialects in India. Seoul.
*Martin, Samuel E. (1966): Lexical Evidence Relating Japanese to Korean. Language 42/2: 185â251.
*Martin, Samuel E. (1990): Morphological clues to the relationship of Japanese and Korean. In: Philip Baldi (ed.): Linguistic Change and Reconstruction Methodology. Trends in Linguistics: Studies and Monographs 45: 483-509.
*Miller, Roy Andrew (1971): Japanese and the Other Altaic Languages. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0226527190.
*Miller, Roy Andrew (1996): Languages and History: Japanese, Korean and Altaic. Oslo: Institute for Comparative Research in Human Culture. ISBN 9748299694.
*Ramstedt, G. J. (1928): Remarks on the Korean language. Mémoires de la Société Finno-Oigrienne 58.
*Rybatzki, Volker (2003): Middle Mongol. In: Juha Janhunen (ed.) (2003): The Mongolic languages. London: Routledge. ISBN 0-7007-1133-3: 47â82.
*Starostin, Sergei A.; Anna V. Dybo; Oleg A. Mudrak (2003): Etymological Dictionary of the Altaic Languages, 3 volumes. Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers. ISBN 9004131531.
*Sohn, H.-M. (1999): The Korean Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Song, J.-J. (2005): The Korean Language: Structure, Use and Context. London: Routledge.
*Trask, R. L. (1996): Historical linguistics. Hodder Arnold.
*Vovin, Alexander: Koreo-Japonica. University of Hawai'i Press.
*Whitman, John B. (1985): The Phonological Basis for the Comparison of Japanese and Korean. Unpublished Harvard University Ph.D. dissertation.
* Ethnologue report for Korean
* Linguistic and Philosophical Origins of the Korean Alphabet (Hangul)
* Free Korean language and culture course online, in English
* Linguistic map of Korea
* Korean - a Category III language Languages which are exceptionally difficult for native English speakers
* dongsa.net A Korean verb conjugation tool that explains the conjugations for learners of Korean
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Korean_language | Is the dialect spoken in Jeju located in fact classified as a different language by all Korean linguists? | The dialect spoken in Jeju is in fact classified as a different language by some Korean linguists. | data/set5/a6 | Korean_language
:This article is mainly about the spoken Korean language. See Hangul for details on the native Korean writing system.
Korean ( , see below) is the official language of Korea, both South and North. It is also one of the two official languages in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in China. There are about 78 million Korean speakers. In the 15th century a national writing system was commissioned by Sejong the Great, currently called Hangul. Prior to the development of Hangul, Koreans used Hanja (Chinese characters) to write for over a millennia.
The genealogical classification of the Korean language is debated by a small number of linguists. Most classify it as a language isolate Song, Jae Jung (2005) "The Korean language: structure, use and context" Routledge, p. 15
Lyle Campbell & Mauricio Mixco. 2007. A Glossary of Historical Linguistics. University of Utah Press. while a few consider it to be in the Altaic language family. Stratification in the peopling of China: how far does the linguistic evidence match genetics and archaeology? In; Sanchez-Mazas, Blench, Ross, Lin & Pejros eds. Human migrations in continental East Asia and Taiwan: genetic, linguistic and archaeological evidence. 2008. Taylor & Francis Some believe it to be distantly related to Japanese. Like Japanese it is agglutinative in its morphology and SOV in its syntax.
The Korean names for the language are based on the names for Korea used in North and South Korea.
In South Korea, the language is most often called Hangungmal
( ; ), or more formally, Hangugeo ( ; ) or Gugeo ( ; ; literally "national language").
In North Korea and Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in China, the language is most often called ChosÅnmal ( ; with hanja: ), or more formally, ChosÅnÅ ( ; ).
On the other hand, Korean people in the former USSR, who refer to themselves as Koryo-saram (ê³ ë ¤ì¬ë; also Goryeoin [ ; ; literally, "Goryeo person(s)"]) call the language Goryeomal ( ; ).
In mainland China, following the establishment of diplomatic relations with South Korea in 1992, the term CháoxiÇnyÇ ( or the short form: CháoyÇ ( )) has normally been used to refer to the language spoken in North Korea and Yanbian, while HánguóyÇ ( or the short form: HányÇ ( )) is used to refer to the language spoken in South Korea.
Some older English sources also used the name "Korean" to refer to the language, country, and people. The word "Korean" is derived from Goryeo, which is thought to be the first dynasty known to western countries.
Most modern linguists consider Korean to be a language isolate Song, Jae Jung (2005) "The Korean language: structure, use and context" Routledge, p. 15
Lyle Campbell & Mauricio J. Mixco. 2007. A Glossary of Historical Linguistics. University of Utah Press.
Since the publication of the article of Ramstedt in 1928, some linguists eg Miller 1971, 1996, Starostin et al. 2003 support the hypothesis that Korean can be classified as an Altaic language or as a relative of proto-Altaic. Korean is similar to the Altaic languages in that they both lack certain grammatical elements, including articles, fusional morphology and relative pronouns. However, linguists agree today on the fact that typological resemblances cannot be used to prove genetic relatedness of languages eg Vovin 2008: 1 as these features are typologically connected and easily borrowed. Trask 1996: 147-151 Such factors of typological divergence as Middle Mongolian's exhibition of gender agreement Rybatzki 2003: 57 can be used to argue that a genetic relationship is unlikely. Vovin 2008: 5
The hypothesis that Korean might be related to Japanese has had some more supporters due to some considerable overlap in vocabulary and similar grammatical features that have been elaborated upon by such researchers as Samuel E. Martin eg Martin 1966, 1990 and Roy Andrew Miller. eg Miller 1971, 1996 Sergei Starostin (1991) found about 25% of potential cognates in the Japanese-Korean 100-word Swadesh list, which - if true - would place these two languages closer together than other possible members of the Altaic family.
Other linguists, most notably Alexander Vovin, argue, however, that the similarities are not due to any genetic relationship, but rather to a sprachbund effect and heavy borrowing especially from Korean into Western Old Japanese. Vovin 2008 A good example might be Middle Korean sà m Whitman 1985: 232, also found in Martin 1966: 233 This word seems to be cognate, but while it is well-attested in Western Old Japanese and Northern RyÅ«kyÅ«, in Eastern Old Japanese it only occurs in compounds, and it is only present in three subdialects of the South-RyÅ«kyÅ«an dialect group. Then, the doublet wo âhempâ is attested in Western Old Japanese and Southern RyÅ«kyÅ«. It is thus plausible to assume a borrowed term. Vovin 2008: 211-212 See East Asian languages for morphological features shared among languages of the East Asian sprachbund, and Classification of Japanese for further details on the discussion of a possible relationship.
Korean is descended from Old Korean, Middle Korean and Modern Korean. Controversy remains over the proposed Altaic language family and its inclusion of Proto-Korean. Since the Korean War, contemporary North-South differences in Korean have developed, including variance in pronunciation, verb inflection, and vocabulary.
Korean is spoken by the Korean people in North Korea and South Korea and by the Korean diaspora in many countries including the People's Republic of China, Japan, and the United States. Korean-speaking minorities exist in these states, but because of cultural assimilation into host countries, not all ethnic Korean immigrants may speak it with native fluency.
Korean is the official language of South Korea and North Korea. It is also one of the two official languages of the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in China.
In South Korea, the regulatory body for Korean is the Seoul-based National Institute of the Korean Language ( ), which was created by presidential decree on January 23, 1991. In North Korea, the regulatory body is the Sahoe Kwahagwon Åhak YÅnguso ( ).
Dialects of Korean
Korean has several dialects (called mal [literally "speech"], saturi, or bang-eon in Korean). The standard language (pyojuneo or pyojunmal) of South Korea is based on the dialect of the area around Seoul, and the standard for North Korea is based on the dialect spoken around P'yÅngyang. All dialects of Korean are similar to each other, and are in fact all mutually intelligible, perhaps with the exception of the dialect of Jeju Island (see Jeju dialect). The dialect spoken in Jeju is in fact classified as a different language by some Korean linguists. One of the most notable differences between dialects is the use of stress: speakers of Seoul dialect use very little stress, and standard South Korean has a very flat intonation; on the other hand, speakers of the Gyeongsang dialect have a very pronounced intonation.
It is also worth noting that there is substantial evidence for a history of extensive dialect levelling, or even convergent evolution or intermixture of two or more originally distinct linguistic stocks, within the Korean language and its dialects. Many Korean dialects have basic vocabulary that is etymologically distinct from vocabulary of identical meaning in Standard Korean or other dialects, such as South Jeolla dialect /kur/ vs. Standard Korean ì
"mouth" or Gyeongsang dialect vs. Standard Korean "garlic chives." This suggests that the Korean Peninsula may have at one time been much more linguistically diverse than it is at present. See also the Buyeo languages hypothesis.
There is a very close connection between the dialects of Korean and the regions of Korea, since the boundaries of both are largely determined by mountains and seas. Here is a list of traditional dialect names and locations:
The Korean consonants
The IPA symbol (a subscript double straight quotation mark, shown here with a placeholder circle) is used to denote the tensed consonants . Its official use in the Extensions to the IPA is for 'strong' articulation, but is used in the literature for faucalized voice. The Korean consonants also have elements of stiff voice, but it is not yet known how typical this is of faucalized consonants. They are produced with a partially constricted glottis and additional subglottal pressure in addition to tense vocal tract walls, laryngeal lowering, or other expansion of the larynx.
becomes an alveolo-palatal before or for most speakers (but see Differences in the language between North Korea and South Korea). This occurs with the tense fricative and all the affricates as well. At the end of a syllable, /s/ changes to /t/ (Example: beoseot (ë²ì¯) 'mushroom').
may become a bilabial before or , a palatal before or , a velar before , a voiced between voiced sounds, and a elsewhere.
become voiced between voiced sounds.
becomes alveolar flap between vowels, and or at the end of a syllable or next to another . Note that a written syllable-final 'ã¹', when followed by a vowel or a glide (i.e., when the next character starts with 'ã
'), migrates to the next syllable and thus becomes .
Traditionally, was disallowed at the beginning of a word. It disappeared before , and otherwise became . However, the inflow of western loanword changed the trend, and now word-initial (mostly from English loanwords) are pronounced as a free variation of either or . The traditional prohibition of word-initial became a morphological rule called "initial law" (ëìë²ì¹) in South Korea, which pertains to Sino-Korean vocabulary. Such words retain their word-initial in North Korea.
All obstruents (plosives, affricates, fricatives) are unreleased at the end of a word.
Plosive stops become nasal stops before nasal stops.
Hangul spelling does not reflect these assimilatory pronunciation rules, but rather maintains the underlying, partly historical morphology. Given this, it is sometimes hard to tell which actual phonemes are present in a certain word.
One difference between the pronunciation standards of North and South Korea is the treatment of initial , and initial . For example,
* "labour" - north: rodong (ë¡ë), south: nodong (ë
¸ë)
* "history" - north: ryÅksa (ë ¥ì¬), south: yeoksa (ìì¬)
* "female" - north: nyÅja (ë
ì), south: yeoja (ì¬ì)
Grammatical morphemes may change shape depending on the preceding sounds. Examples include -eun/-neun (-ì/-ë) and -i/-ga (-ì´/-ê°). Sometimes sounds may be inserted instead. Examples include -eul/-reul (-ì/-를), -euro/-ro (-ì¼ë¡/-ë¡), -eseo/-seo (-ìì/-ì), -ideunji/-deunji (-ì´ë ì§/-ë ì§) and -iya/-ya (-ì´ì¼/-ì¼). However, -euro/-ro is somewhat irregular, since it will behave differently after a rieul consonant.
Some verbs may also change shape morphophonemically.
Korean is an agglutinative language. Modifiers generally precede the modified words, and in the case of verb modifiers, can be serially appended. The basic form of a Korean sentence is Subject Object Verb, but the verb is the only required and immovable element.
:"Did [you] go to the store?" ("you" implied in conversation)
:"Yes."
The Korean Language contains nine parts of speech.
Korean verbs ( , tongsa, ) are also known in English as "action verbs" or "dynamic verbs" to distinguish them from [ , hyeong-yongsa, "adjectives"]), which are also known as "descriptive verbs" or "stative verbs". Examples of action/dynamic verbs include (hada, "to do") and (kada, "to go") which constitute an action or movement as opposed to descriptive verbs such as (yehppeuda, "to be beautiful"). For a larger list of Korean verbs, see .
Unlike most of the European languages, Korean does not conjugate verbs using agreement with the subject, and nouns have no gender. Instead, verb conjugations depend upon the verb tense, aspect, mood, and the social relation between the speaker, the subjects, and the listeners.
The system of speech levels and honorifics loosely resembles the T-V distinction of most Indo-European languages. For example, different endings are used depending on the speaker's relation with their subject or audience. Politeness is a critical part of Korean language and Korean culture, therefore, when talking to someone esteemed, the correct verb ending must be chosen to indicate the proper respect.
Words categorized as Korean adjectives ( , hyeong-yongsa, ) conjugate similarly to verbs, so some English texts call them "descriptive verbs" or "stative verbs", but they are distinctly separate from (tongsa).
English does not have an identical grammatical category, so the English translation of Korean adjectives may misleadingly suggest that they are verbs. For example, (pukda) translates literally as "to be red" and (aswipda) often best translates as "to lack" or "to want for", but both are (hyeong-yongsa, "adjectives"). For a larger list of Korean adjectives, see .
Korean pre-nouns ( , gwanhyeongsa, ) are also known in English as "determinatives", "attributives", and "unconjugated adjectives". Examples include (kak, "each"). For a larger list, see .
Core and basic noun words are native to the Korean language, e.g. (nara, country), (nal, day). A large body of Korean nouns ( , myeongsa, ) stem from Chinese characters, e.g. (å±±, san, mountain), (é©, yeok, station), (æå, munhwa, culture), etc. Many Sino-Korean words have a native Korean equivalent and vice versa, but not always. Nouns do not have grammatical gender and can be made plural by adding ë¤ to the end of the word, however in most instances the singular form is used even when in English it would be translated as plural. For example, while in English the sentence "there are three apples" would use the plural "apples" instead of the singular "apple", the Korean sentence ì¬ê³¼ ì¸ê° ììµëë¤ (sagwa segae isssumnida) maintains the word ì¬ê³¼ (sagwa, "apple") in its singular form, thus rendered in English as "apple three(things) exist." For a list of Korean nouns, see .
Korean pronouns ( , daemyeongsa, ) are highly influenced by the honorifics in the language. Pronouns change forms depending on the social status of the person or persons spoken to, e.g. the pronoun for "I" there is both the informal (na) and the honorific/humble (jeo). In general second person singular pronouns are avoided, especially when using honorific forms. For a larger list or Korean pronouns, see .
Korean adverbs ( , busa, ) include (tto, "also") and (gadeuk, "fully"). For a larger list, see .
Korean particles ( , josa, ) are also known in English as "postpositions". Examples include (neun, topic marker) and (reul, object marker). For a larger list, see .
Korean interjections ( , gamtansa, ) are also known in English as "exclamations". Examples include (ani, "no"). For a larger list, see .
Korean numbers or numerals ( , susa, ) constitute two regularly used sets: a native Korean set and a Sino-Korean set. The Sino-Korean system is nearly entirely based on the Chinese numerals. The distinction between the two numeral systems is very important. Everything that can be counted will use one of the two systems, but seldom both. Sino-Korean words are sometimes used to mark ordinal usage: yeol beon (ì´ ë²) means "ten times" while sip beon (ì(å) ë²(çª)) means "number ten." The grouping of large numbers in Korean follow the Chinese tradition of myriads (10000) rather than thousands (1000) as is common in Europe and North America.
The relationship between a speaker or writer and his or her subject and audience is paramount in Korean, and the grammar reflects this. The relationship between speaker/writer and subject referent is reflected in honorifics, while that between speaker/writer and audience is reflected in speech level.
When talking about someone superior in status, a speaker or writer usually uses special nouns or verb endings to indicate the subject's superiority. Generally, someone is superior in status if he/she is an older relative, a stranger of roughly equal or greater age, or an employer, teacher, customer, or the like. Someone is equal or inferior in status if he/she is a younger stranger, student, employee or the like. Nowadays, there are special endings which can be used on declarative, interrogative, and imperative sentences; and both honorific or normal sentences. They are made for easier and faster use of Korean.
There are seven verb paradigms or speech levels in Korean, and each level has its own unique set of verb endings which are used to indicate the level of formality of a situation. Unlike honorificsâwhich are used to show respect towards the referentâspeech levels are used to show respect towards a speaker's or writer's audience. The names of the seven levels are derived from the non-honorific imperative form of the verb íë¤ (hada, "do") in each level, plus the suffix ì²´ ("che", hanja: é« ), which means "style".
The highest six levels are generally grouped together as jondaenmal (ì¡´ëë§), while the lowest level (haeche, í´ì²´) is called banmal (ë°ë§) in Korean.
The core of the Korean vocabulary is made up of native Korean words. Like Japanese and Vietnamese, a significant proportion of the vocabulary, especially words that denote abstract ideas, are Sino-Korean words, Sohn, Ho-Min. The Korean Language (Section 1.5.3 "Korean vocabulary", p.12â13), Cambridge University Press, 2001. ISBN 0521369436. either
* directly borrowed from Written Chinese, or
* coined in Japan or Korea using Chinese characters,
in a similar way European languages borrow from Latin and Greek.
The exact proportion of Sino-Korean vocabulary is a matter of debate. Sohn (2001) stated 50-60%. However, Jeong Jae-do, one of the compilers of the dictionary Urimal Kun Sajeon, asserts that the proportion is not so high. He points out that Korean dictionaries compiled during the period of Japanese occupation include many unused Sino-Korean words. In his estimation, the proportion of native Korean vocabulary in the Korean language might be as high as 70%. . The dictionary mentioned is
Korean has two number systems: one native, and one borrowed from Chinese.
To a much lesser extent, words have also occasionally been borrowed from Mongolian, Sanskrit, and other languages. Conversely, the Korean language itself has also contributed some loanwords to other languages, most notably the Tsushima dialect of Japanese.
The vast majority of loanwords other than Sino-Korean come from modern times, 90% of which are from English. Many words have also been borrowed from Japanese and Western languages such as German (areubaiteu "part-time job", allereugi "allergy", "gibsu" "plaster cast used for broken bones"). Some Western words were borrowed indirectly via Japanese, taking a Japanese sound pattern, for example "dozen" > dÄsu > daseu. Most indirect Western borrowings are now written according to current Hangulization rules for the respective Western language, as if borrowed directly. There are a few more complicated borrowings such as "German(y)" (see Names for Germany), the first part of whose endonym the Japanese approximated using the kanji doitsu that were then accepted into the Korean language by their Sino-Korean pronunciation: dok + il = Dogil. In South Korean official use, a number of other Sino-Korean country names have been replaced with phonetically oriented Hangulizations of the countries' endonyms or English names.
As in Japanese, Korean adapts words in ways that are uncommon in English. For example, in soccer heading ( ) is used to label a head-strike, rather than direction. This is a corrupted loan word from the English header.
North Korean vocabulary shows a tendency to prefer native Korean over Sino-Korean or foreign borrowings, especially with recent political objectives aimed at eliminating foreign (mostly Chinese) influences on the Korean language in the North. By contrast, South Korean may have several Sino-Korean or foreign borrowings which tend to be absent in North Korean.
Formerly the languages of the Korean peninsula were written using Chinese characters, using hyangchal or idu. Such systems relied on principles of rebus, and were lost, later in history. Writing became confined to the ruling elite, who used hanja to write in Classical Chinese.
Korean is now mainly written in Hangul, the Korean alphabet promulgated in 1446 by Sejong the Great; hanja may be mixed in to write Sino-Korean words. While South Korean schools still teach 1,800 hanja characters, North Korea had abolished the use of hanja decades ago.
Below is a chart of the Korean alphabet's symbols and their canonical IPA values:
Modern Korean is written with spaces between words, a feature not found in Chinese or Japanese. Korean punctuation marks are almost identical to Western ones. Traditionally, Korean was written in columns from top to bottom, right to left, but is now usually written in rows from left to right, top to bottom.
The Korean language used in the North and the South exhibits differences in pronunciation, spelling, grammar and vocabulary. Kanno, Hiroomi (ed.) / Society for Korean Linguistics in Japan (1987). ChÅsengo o manabÅ (ãæé®®èªãå¦ã¼ãã), SanshÅ«sha, Tokyo. ISBN 4-384-01506-2
In North Korea, palatalization of is optional, and can be pronounced between vowels.
Words that are written the same way may be pronounced differently, such as the examples below. The pronunciations below are given in Revised Romanization, McCune-Reischauer and Hangul, the last of which represents what the Hangul would be if one writes the word as pronounced.
* Similar pronunciation is used in the North whenever the hanja "ç" is attached to a Sino-Korean word ending in ã´, ã
or ã
. (In the South, this rule only applies when it is attached to any single-character Sino-Korean word.)
Some words are spelled differently by the North and the South, but the pronunciations are the same.
Some words have different spellings and pronunciations in the North and the South, some of which were given in the "Phonology" section above:
In general, when transcribing place names, North Korea tends to use the pronunciation in the original language more than South Korea, which often uses the pronunciation in English. For example:
Some grammatical constructions are also different:
Some vocabulary is different between the North and the South:
In the North, guillemets and are the symbols used for quotes; in the South, quotation marks equivalent to the English ones, â and â, are standard, although and are sometimes used in popular novels.
The United States' Defense Language Institute classifies Korean alongside Arabic, Chinese, and Japanese as a Category IV language, meaning that 63 weeks of instruction (as compared to just 25 weeks for French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian) are required to bring an English-speaking student to a limited working level of proficiency in which he or she has "sufficient capability to meet routine social demands and limited job requirements" and "can deal with concrete topics in past, present, and future tense." As a result, the study of the Korean language in the United States is dominated by Korean American heritage language students; they are estimated to form over 80% of all students of the language at non-military universities.
However, Korean is considerably easier for speakers of certain other languages, such as Japanese ; in Japan, it is more widely studied by non-heritage learners. The Korean Language Proficiency Test, an examination aimed at assessing non-native speakers' competence in Korean, was instituted in 1997; 17,000 people applied for the 2005 sitting of the examination.
*Hangul
*Korean romanization
**Revised romanization of Korean
**McCune-Reischauer
**Yale Romanization#Korean
**SKATS
*Korean numerals
*Korean count word
*Korean language and computers
*Hanja
*Sino-Korean vocabulary
*Korean mixed script
*List of English words of Korean origin
*Altaic languages
*List of Korea-related topics
*Vowel harmony
* (Volume 4 of the London Oriental and African Language Library).
*Hulbert, Homer B. (1905): A Comparative Grammar of the Korean Language and the Dravidian Dialects in India. Seoul.
*Martin, Samuel E. (1966): Lexical Evidence Relating Japanese to Korean. Language 42/2: 185â251.
*Martin, Samuel E. (1990): Morphological clues to the relationship of Japanese and Korean. In: Philip Baldi (ed.): Linguistic Change and Reconstruction Methodology. Trends in Linguistics: Studies and Monographs 45: 483-509.
*Miller, Roy Andrew (1971): Japanese and the Other Altaic Languages. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0226527190.
*Miller, Roy Andrew (1996): Languages and History: Japanese, Korean and Altaic. Oslo: Institute for Comparative Research in Human Culture. ISBN 9748299694.
*Ramstedt, G. J. (1928): Remarks on the Korean language. Mémoires de la Société Finno-Oigrienne 58.
*Rybatzki, Volker (2003): Middle Mongol. In: Juha Janhunen (ed.) (2003): The Mongolic languages. London: Routledge. ISBN 0-7007-1133-3: 47â82.
*Starostin, Sergei A.; Anna V. Dybo; Oleg A. Mudrak (2003): Etymological Dictionary of the Altaic Languages, 3 volumes. Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers. ISBN 9004131531.
*Sohn, H.-M. (1999): The Korean Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Song, J.-J. (2005): The Korean Language: Structure, Use and Context. London: Routledge.
*Trask, R. L. (1996): Historical linguistics. Hodder Arnold.
*Vovin, Alexander: Koreo-Japonica. University of Hawai'i Press.
*Whitman, John B. (1985): The Phonological Basis for the Comparison of Japanese and Korean. Unpublished Harvard University Ph.D. dissertation.
* Ethnologue report for Korean
* Linguistic and Philosophical Origins of the Korean Alphabet (Hangul)
* Free Korean language and culture course online, in English
* Linguistic map of Korea
* Korean - a Category III language Languages which are exceptionally difficult for native English speakers
* dongsa.net A Korean verb conjugation tool that explains the conjugations for learners of Korean
|
Korean_language | Is it also one of the two official languages in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in China? | Yes | data/set5/a6 | Korean_language
:This article is mainly about the spoken Korean language. See Hangul for details on the native Korean writing system.
Korean ( , see below) is the official language of Korea, both South and North. It is also one of the two official languages in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in China. There are about 78 million Korean speakers. In the 15th century a national writing system was commissioned by Sejong the Great, currently called Hangul. Prior to the development of Hangul, Koreans used Hanja (Chinese characters) to write for over a millennia.
The genealogical classification of the Korean language is debated by a small number of linguists. Most classify it as a language isolate Song, Jae Jung (2005) "The Korean language: structure, use and context" Routledge, p. 15
Lyle Campbell & Mauricio Mixco. 2007. A Glossary of Historical Linguistics. University of Utah Press. while a few consider it to be in the Altaic language family. Stratification in the peopling of China: how far does the linguistic evidence match genetics and archaeology? In; Sanchez-Mazas, Blench, Ross, Lin & Pejros eds. Human migrations in continental East Asia and Taiwan: genetic, linguistic and archaeological evidence. 2008. Taylor & Francis Some believe it to be distantly related to Japanese. Like Japanese it is agglutinative in its morphology and SOV in its syntax.
The Korean names for the language are based on the names for Korea used in North and South Korea.
In South Korea, the language is most often called Hangungmal
( ; ), or more formally, Hangugeo ( ; ) or Gugeo ( ; ; literally "national language").
In North Korea and Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in China, the language is most often called ChosÅnmal ( ; with hanja: ), or more formally, ChosÅnÅ ( ; ).
On the other hand, Korean people in the former USSR, who refer to themselves as Koryo-saram (ê³ ë ¤ì¬ë; also Goryeoin [ ; ; literally, "Goryeo person(s)"]) call the language Goryeomal ( ; ).
In mainland China, following the establishment of diplomatic relations with South Korea in 1992, the term CháoxiÇnyÇ ( or the short form: CháoyÇ ( )) has normally been used to refer to the language spoken in North Korea and Yanbian, while HánguóyÇ ( or the short form: HányÇ ( )) is used to refer to the language spoken in South Korea.
Some older English sources also used the name "Korean" to refer to the language, country, and people. The word "Korean" is derived from Goryeo, which is thought to be the first dynasty known to western countries.
Most modern linguists consider Korean to be a language isolate Song, Jae Jung (2005) "The Korean language: structure, use and context" Routledge, p. 15
Lyle Campbell & Mauricio J. Mixco. 2007. A Glossary of Historical Linguistics. University of Utah Press.
Since the publication of the article of Ramstedt in 1928, some linguists eg Miller 1971, 1996, Starostin et al. 2003 support the hypothesis that Korean can be classified as an Altaic language or as a relative of proto-Altaic. Korean is similar to the Altaic languages in that they both lack certain grammatical elements, including articles, fusional morphology and relative pronouns. However, linguists agree today on the fact that typological resemblances cannot be used to prove genetic relatedness of languages eg Vovin 2008: 1 as these features are typologically connected and easily borrowed. Trask 1996: 147-151 Such factors of typological divergence as Middle Mongolian's exhibition of gender agreement Rybatzki 2003: 57 can be used to argue that a genetic relationship is unlikely. Vovin 2008: 5
The hypothesis that Korean might be related to Japanese has had some more supporters due to some considerable overlap in vocabulary and similar grammatical features that have been elaborated upon by such researchers as Samuel E. Martin eg Martin 1966, 1990 and Roy Andrew Miller. eg Miller 1971, 1996 Sergei Starostin (1991) found about 25% of potential cognates in the Japanese-Korean 100-word Swadesh list, which - if true - would place these two languages closer together than other possible members of the Altaic family.
Other linguists, most notably Alexander Vovin, argue, however, that the similarities are not due to any genetic relationship, but rather to a sprachbund effect and heavy borrowing especially from Korean into Western Old Japanese. Vovin 2008 A good example might be Middle Korean sà m Whitman 1985: 232, also found in Martin 1966: 233 This word seems to be cognate, but while it is well-attested in Western Old Japanese and Northern RyÅ«kyÅ«, in Eastern Old Japanese it only occurs in compounds, and it is only present in three subdialects of the South-RyÅ«kyÅ«an dialect group. Then, the doublet wo âhempâ is attested in Western Old Japanese and Southern RyÅ«kyÅ«. It is thus plausible to assume a borrowed term. Vovin 2008: 211-212 See East Asian languages for morphological features shared among languages of the East Asian sprachbund, and Classification of Japanese for further details on the discussion of a possible relationship.
Korean is descended from Old Korean, Middle Korean and Modern Korean. Controversy remains over the proposed Altaic language family and its inclusion of Proto-Korean. Since the Korean War, contemporary North-South differences in Korean have developed, including variance in pronunciation, verb inflection, and vocabulary.
Korean is spoken by the Korean people in North Korea and South Korea and by the Korean diaspora in many countries including the People's Republic of China, Japan, and the United States. Korean-speaking minorities exist in these states, but because of cultural assimilation into host countries, not all ethnic Korean immigrants may speak it with native fluency.
Korean is the official language of South Korea and North Korea. It is also one of the two official languages of the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in China.
In South Korea, the regulatory body for Korean is the Seoul-based National Institute of the Korean Language ( ), which was created by presidential decree on January 23, 1991. In North Korea, the regulatory body is the Sahoe Kwahagwon Åhak YÅnguso ( ).
Dialects of Korean
Korean has several dialects (called mal [literally "speech"], saturi, or bang-eon in Korean). The standard language (pyojuneo or pyojunmal) of South Korea is based on the dialect of the area around Seoul, and the standard for North Korea is based on the dialect spoken around P'yÅngyang. All dialects of Korean are similar to each other, and are in fact all mutually intelligible, perhaps with the exception of the dialect of Jeju Island (see Jeju dialect). The dialect spoken in Jeju is in fact classified as a different language by some Korean linguists. One of the most notable differences between dialects is the use of stress: speakers of Seoul dialect use very little stress, and standard South Korean has a very flat intonation; on the other hand, speakers of the Gyeongsang dialect have a very pronounced intonation.
It is also worth noting that there is substantial evidence for a history of extensive dialect levelling, or even convergent evolution or intermixture of two or more originally distinct linguistic stocks, within the Korean language and its dialects. Many Korean dialects have basic vocabulary that is etymologically distinct from vocabulary of identical meaning in Standard Korean or other dialects, such as South Jeolla dialect /kur/ vs. Standard Korean ì
"mouth" or Gyeongsang dialect vs. Standard Korean "garlic chives." This suggests that the Korean Peninsula may have at one time been much more linguistically diverse than it is at present. See also the Buyeo languages hypothesis.
There is a very close connection between the dialects of Korean and the regions of Korea, since the boundaries of both are largely determined by mountains and seas. Here is a list of traditional dialect names and locations:
The Korean consonants
The IPA symbol (a subscript double straight quotation mark, shown here with a placeholder circle) is used to denote the tensed consonants . Its official use in the Extensions to the IPA is for 'strong' articulation, but is used in the literature for faucalized voice. The Korean consonants also have elements of stiff voice, but it is not yet known how typical this is of faucalized consonants. They are produced with a partially constricted glottis and additional subglottal pressure in addition to tense vocal tract walls, laryngeal lowering, or other expansion of the larynx.
becomes an alveolo-palatal before or for most speakers (but see Differences in the language between North Korea and South Korea). This occurs with the tense fricative and all the affricates as well. At the end of a syllable, /s/ changes to /t/ (Example: beoseot (ë²ì¯) 'mushroom').
may become a bilabial before or , a palatal before or , a velar before , a voiced between voiced sounds, and a elsewhere.
become voiced between voiced sounds.
becomes alveolar flap between vowels, and or at the end of a syllable or next to another . Note that a written syllable-final 'ã¹', when followed by a vowel or a glide (i.e., when the next character starts with 'ã
'), migrates to the next syllable and thus becomes .
Traditionally, was disallowed at the beginning of a word. It disappeared before , and otherwise became . However, the inflow of western loanword changed the trend, and now word-initial (mostly from English loanwords) are pronounced as a free variation of either or . The traditional prohibition of word-initial became a morphological rule called "initial law" (ëìë²ì¹) in South Korea, which pertains to Sino-Korean vocabulary. Such words retain their word-initial in North Korea.
All obstruents (plosives, affricates, fricatives) are unreleased at the end of a word.
Plosive stops become nasal stops before nasal stops.
Hangul spelling does not reflect these assimilatory pronunciation rules, but rather maintains the underlying, partly historical morphology. Given this, it is sometimes hard to tell which actual phonemes are present in a certain word.
One difference between the pronunciation standards of North and South Korea is the treatment of initial , and initial . For example,
* "labour" - north: rodong (ë¡ë), south: nodong (ë
¸ë)
* "history" - north: ryÅksa (ë ¥ì¬), south: yeoksa (ìì¬)
* "female" - north: nyÅja (ë
ì), south: yeoja (ì¬ì)
Grammatical morphemes may change shape depending on the preceding sounds. Examples include -eun/-neun (-ì/-ë) and -i/-ga (-ì´/-ê°). Sometimes sounds may be inserted instead. Examples include -eul/-reul (-ì/-를), -euro/-ro (-ì¼ë¡/-ë¡), -eseo/-seo (-ìì/-ì), -ideunji/-deunji (-ì´ë ì§/-ë ì§) and -iya/-ya (-ì´ì¼/-ì¼). However, -euro/-ro is somewhat irregular, since it will behave differently after a rieul consonant.
Some verbs may also change shape morphophonemically.
Korean is an agglutinative language. Modifiers generally precede the modified words, and in the case of verb modifiers, can be serially appended. The basic form of a Korean sentence is Subject Object Verb, but the verb is the only required and immovable element.
:"Did [you] go to the store?" ("you" implied in conversation)
:"Yes."
The Korean Language contains nine parts of speech.
Korean verbs ( , tongsa, ) are also known in English as "action verbs" or "dynamic verbs" to distinguish them from [ , hyeong-yongsa, "adjectives"]), which are also known as "descriptive verbs" or "stative verbs". Examples of action/dynamic verbs include (hada, "to do") and (kada, "to go") which constitute an action or movement as opposed to descriptive verbs such as (yehppeuda, "to be beautiful"). For a larger list of Korean verbs, see .
Unlike most of the European languages, Korean does not conjugate verbs using agreement with the subject, and nouns have no gender. Instead, verb conjugations depend upon the verb tense, aspect, mood, and the social relation between the speaker, the subjects, and the listeners.
The system of speech levels and honorifics loosely resembles the T-V distinction of most Indo-European languages. For example, different endings are used depending on the speaker's relation with their subject or audience. Politeness is a critical part of Korean language and Korean culture, therefore, when talking to someone esteemed, the correct verb ending must be chosen to indicate the proper respect.
Words categorized as Korean adjectives ( , hyeong-yongsa, ) conjugate similarly to verbs, so some English texts call them "descriptive verbs" or "stative verbs", but they are distinctly separate from (tongsa).
English does not have an identical grammatical category, so the English translation of Korean adjectives may misleadingly suggest that they are verbs. For example, (pukda) translates literally as "to be red" and (aswipda) often best translates as "to lack" or "to want for", but both are (hyeong-yongsa, "adjectives"). For a larger list of Korean adjectives, see .
Korean pre-nouns ( , gwanhyeongsa, ) are also known in English as "determinatives", "attributives", and "unconjugated adjectives". Examples include (kak, "each"). For a larger list, see .
Core and basic noun words are native to the Korean language, e.g. (nara, country), (nal, day). A large body of Korean nouns ( , myeongsa, ) stem from Chinese characters, e.g. (å±±, san, mountain), (é©, yeok, station), (æå, munhwa, culture), etc. Many Sino-Korean words have a native Korean equivalent and vice versa, but not always. Nouns do not have grammatical gender and can be made plural by adding ë¤ to the end of the word, however in most instances the singular form is used even when in English it would be translated as plural. For example, while in English the sentence "there are three apples" would use the plural "apples" instead of the singular "apple", the Korean sentence ì¬ê³¼ ì¸ê° ììµëë¤ (sagwa segae isssumnida) maintains the word ì¬ê³¼ (sagwa, "apple") in its singular form, thus rendered in English as "apple three(things) exist." For a list of Korean nouns, see .
Korean pronouns ( , daemyeongsa, ) are highly influenced by the honorifics in the language. Pronouns change forms depending on the social status of the person or persons spoken to, e.g. the pronoun for "I" there is both the informal (na) and the honorific/humble (jeo). In general second person singular pronouns are avoided, especially when using honorific forms. For a larger list or Korean pronouns, see .
Korean adverbs ( , busa, ) include (tto, "also") and (gadeuk, "fully"). For a larger list, see .
Korean particles ( , josa, ) are also known in English as "postpositions". Examples include (neun, topic marker) and (reul, object marker). For a larger list, see .
Korean interjections ( , gamtansa, ) are also known in English as "exclamations". Examples include (ani, "no"). For a larger list, see .
Korean numbers or numerals ( , susa, ) constitute two regularly used sets: a native Korean set and a Sino-Korean set. The Sino-Korean system is nearly entirely based on the Chinese numerals. The distinction between the two numeral systems is very important. Everything that can be counted will use one of the two systems, but seldom both. Sino-Korean words are sometimes used to mark ordinal usage: yeol beon (ì´ ë²) means "ten times" while sip beon (ì(å) ë²(çª)) means "number ten." The grouping of large numbers in Korean follow the Chinese tradition of myriads (10000) rather than thousands (1000) as is common in Europe and North America.
The relationship between a speaker or writer and his or her subject and audience is paramount in Korean, and the grammar reflects this. The relationship between speaker/writer and subject referent is reflected in honorifics, while that between speaker/writer and audience is reflected in speech level.
When talking about someone superior in status, a speaker or writer usually uses special nouns or verb endings to indicate the subject's superiority. Generally, someone is superior in status if he/she is an older relative, a stranger of roughly equal or greater age, or an employer, teacher, customer, or the like. Someone is equal or inferior in status if he/she is a younger stranger, student, employee or the like. Nowadays, there are special endings which can be used on declarative, interrogative, and imperative sentences; and both honorific or normal sentences. They are made for easier and faster use of Korean.
There are seven verb paradigms or speech levels in Korean, and each level has its own unique set of verb endings which are used to indicate the level of formality of a situation. Unlike honorificsâwhich are used to show respect towards the referentâspeech levels are used to show respect towards a speaker's or writer's audience. The names of the seven levels are derived from the non-honorific imperative form of the verb íë¤ (hada, "do") in each level, plus the suffix ì²´ ("che", hanja: é« ), which means "style".
The highest six levels are generally grouped together as jondaenmal (ì¡´ëë§), while the lowest level (haeche, í´ì²´) is called banmal (ë°ë§) in Korean.
The core of the Korean vocabulary is made up of native Korean words. Like Japanese and Vietnamese, a significant proportion of the vocabulary, especially words that denote abstract ideas, are Sino-Korean words, Sohn, Ho-Min. The Korean Language (Section 1.5.3 "Korean vocabulary", p.12â13), Cambridge University Press, 2001. ISBN 0521369436. either
* directly borrowed from Written Chinese, or
* coined in Japan or Korea using Chinese characters,
in a similar way European languages borrow from Latin and Greek.
The exact proportion of Sino-Korean vocabulary is a matter of debate. Sohn (2001) stated 50-60%. However, Jeong Jae-do, one of the compilers of the dictionary Urimal Kun Sajeon, asserts that the proportion is not so high. He points out that Korean dictionaries compiled during the period of Japanese occupation include many unused Sino-Korean words. In his estimation, the proportion of native Korean vocabulary in the Korean language might be as high as 70%. . The dictionary mentioned is
Korean has two number systems: one native, and one borrowed from Chinese.
To a much lesser extent, words have also occasionally been borrowed from Mongolian, Sanskrit, and other languages. Conversely, the Korean language itself has also contributed some loanwords to other languages, most notably the Tsushima dialect of Japanese.
The vast majority of loanwords other than Sino-Korean come from modern times, 90% of which are from English. Many words have also been borrowed from Japanese and Western languages such as German (areubaiteu "part-time job", allereugi "allergy", "gibsu" "plaster cast used for broken bones"). Some Western words were borrowed indirectly via Japanese, taking a Japanese sound pattern, for example "dozen" > dÄsu > daseu. Most indirect Western borrowings are now written according to current Hangulization rules for the respective Western language, as if borrowed directly. There are a few more complicated borrowings such as "German(y)" (see Names for Germany), the first part of whose endonym the Japanese approximated using the kanji doitsu that were then accepted into the Korean language by their Sino-Korean pronunciation: dok + il = Dogil. In South Korean official use, a number of other Sino-Korean country names have been replaced with phonetically oriented Hangulizations of the countries' endonyms or English names.
As in Japanese, Korean adapts words in ways that are uncommon in English. For example, in soccer heading ( ) is used to label a head-strike, rather than direction. This is a corrupted loan word from the English header.
North Korean vocabulary shows a tendency to prefer native Korean over Sino-Korean or foreign borrowings, especially with recent political objectives aimed at eliminating foreign (mostly Chinese) influences on the Korean language in the North. By contrast, South Korean may have several Sino-Korean or foreign borrowings which tend to be absent in North Korean.
Formerly the languages of the Korean peninsula were written using Chinese characters, using hyangchal or idu. Such systems relied on principles of rebus, and were lost, later in history. Writing became confined to the ruling elite, who used hanja to write in Classical Chinese.
Korean is now mainly written in Hangul, the Korean alphabet promulgated in 1446 by Sejong the Great; hanja may be mixed in to write Sino-Korean words. While South Korean schools still teach 1,800 hanja characters, North Korea had abolished the use of hanja decades ago.
Below is a chart of the Korean alphabet's symbols and their canonical IPA values:
Modern Korean is written with spaces between words, a feature not found in Chinese or Japanese. Korean punctuation marks are almost identical to Western ones. Traditionally, Korean was written in columns from top to bottom, right to left, but is now usually written in rows from left to right, top to bottom.
The Korean language used in the North and the South exhibits differences in pronunciation, spelling, grammar and vocabulary. Kanno, Hiroomi (ed.) / Society for Korean Linguistics in Japan (1987). ChÅsengo o manabÅ (ãæé®®èªãå¦ã¼ãã), SanshÅ«sha, Tokyo. ISBN 4-384-01506-2
In North Korea, palatalization of is optional, and can be pronounced between vowels.
Words that are written the same way may be pronounced differently, such as the examples below. The pronunciations below are given in Revised Romanization, McCune-Reischauer and Hangul, the last of which represents what the Hangul would be if one writes the word as pronounced.
* Similar pronunciation is used in the North whenever the hanja "ç" is attached to a Sino-Korean word ending in ã´, ã
or ã
. (In the South, this rule only applies when it is attached to any single-character Sino-Korean word.)
Some words are spelled differently by the North and the South, but the pronunciations are the same.
Some words have different spellings and pronunciations in the North and the South, some of which were given in the "Phonology" section above:
In general, when transcribing place names, North Korea tends to use the pronunciation in the original language more than South Korea, which often uses the pronunciation in English. For example:
Some grammatical constructions are also different:
Some vocabulary is different between the North and the South:
In the North, guillemets and are the symbols used for quotes; in the South, quotation marks equivalent to the English ones, â and â, are standard, although and are sometimes used in popular novels.
The United States' Defense Language Institute classifies Korean alongside Arabic, Chinese, and Japanese as a Category IV language, meaning that 63 weeks of instruction (as compared to just 25 weeks for French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian) are required to bring an English-speaking student to a limited working level of proficiency in which he or she has "sufficient capability to meet routine social demands and limited job requirements" and "can deal with concrete topics in past, present, and future tense." As a result, the study of the Korean language in the United States is dominated by Korean American heritage language students; they are estimated to form over 80% of all students of the language at non-military universities.
However, Korean is considerably easier for speakers of certain other languages, such as Japanese ; in Japan, it is more widely studied by non-heritage learners. The Korean Language Proficiency Test, an examination aimed at assessing non-native speakers' competence in Korean, was instituted in 1997; 17,000 people applied for the 2005 sitting of the examination.
*Hangul
*Korean romanization
**Revised romanization of Korean
**McCune-Reischauer
**Yale Romanization#Korean
**SKATS
*Korean numerals
*Korean count word
*Korean language and computers
*Hanja
*Sino-Korean vocabulary
*Korean mixed script
*List of English words of Korean origin
*Altaic languages
*List of Korea-related topics
*Vowel harmony
* (Volume 4 of the London Oriental and African Language Library).
*Hulbert, Homer B. (1905): A Comparative Grammar of the Korean Language and the Dravidian Dialects in India. Seoul.
*Martin, Samuel E. (1966): Lexical Evidence Relating Japanese to Korean. Language 42/2: 185â251.
*Martin, Samuel E. (1990): Morphological clues to the relationship of Japanese and Korean. In: Philip Baldi (ed.): Linguistic Change and Reconstruction Methodology. Trends in Linguistics: Studies and Monographs 45: 483-509.
*Miller, Roy Andrew (1971): Japanese and the Other Altaic Languages. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0226527190.
*Miller, Roy Andrew (1996): Languages and History: Japanese, Korean and Altaic. Oslo: Institute for Comparative Research in Human Culture. ISBN 9748299694.
*Ramstedt, G. J. (1928): Remarks on the Korean language. Mémoires de la Société Finno-Oigrienne 58.
*Rybatzki, Volker (2003): Middle Mongol. In: Juha Janhunen (ed.) (2003): The Mongolic languages. London: Routledge. ISBN 0-7007-1133-3: 47â82.
*Starostin, Sergei A.; Anna V. Dybo; Oleg A. Mudrak (2003): Etymological Dictionary of the Altaic Languages, 3 volumes. Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers. ISBN 9004131531.
*Sohn, H.-M. (1999): The Korean Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Song, J.-J. (2005): The Korean Language: Structure, Use and Context. London: Routledge.
*Trask, R. L. (1996): Historical linguistics. Hodder Arnold.
*Vovin, Alexander: Koreo-Japonica. University of Hawai'i Press.
*Whitman, John B. (1985): The Phonological Basis for the Comparison of Japanese and Korean. Unpublished Harvard University Ph.D. dissertation.
* Ethnologue report for Korean
* Linguistic and Philosophical Origins of the Korean Alphabet (Hangul)
* Free Korean language and culture course online, in English
* Linguistic map of Korea
* Korean - a Category III language Languages which are exceptionally difficult for native English speakers
* dongsa.net A Korean verb conjugation tool that explains the conjugations for learners of Korean
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Kuala_Lumpur | Is Kuala Lumpur the capitol of Malaysia? disfluent | Yes | data/set3/a3 | Kuala_Lumpur
Kuala Lumpur (Jawi: ÙÙاÙا ÙÙÙ
Ú¤Ùر; translates as: "muddy confluence," "muddy estuary," and "muddy city"; in English; Kuala Lumpur. Dictionary.com. Retrieved November 2007. Malay , locally or even , and often abbreviated as K.L.), is the capital and largest city of Malaysia. The city proper, making up an area of , has an estimated population of 1.6 million in 2006. Greater Kuala Lumpur, also known as the Klang Valley, is an urban agglomeration of 7.2 million. It is the fastest growing metropolitan region in the country, in terms of population as well as economy.
Kuala Lumpur is the seat of the Parliament of Malaysia. The city was once home to the executive and judicial branches of the federal government, but they have since moved to Putrajaya starting in 1999. Some sections of the judiciary remain in the capital. The official residence of the Malaysian King, the Istana Negara, is also situated in Kuala Lumpur. The city is also the cultural and economic centre of Malaysia due to its position as the capital as well as being a primate city. Kuala Lumpur is rated as an alpha world city, and is the only global city in Malaysia, according to the Globalization and World Cities Study Group and Network (GaWC).
Kuala Lumpur is defined within the borders of the Federal Territory of Kuala Lumpur and is one of three Malaysian Federal Territories. It is an enclave within the state of Selangor, on the central west coast of Peninsular Malaysia. Residents of the city are known as KLites.
Beginning in the 1990s, the city has played host to many international sporting, political and cultural events including the 1998 Commonwealth Games and the Formula One World Championship. In addition, Kuala Lumpur is home to the tallest twin buildings in the world, the Petronas Twin Towers.
Kuala Lumpur is served by two main airports, the Kuala Lumpur International Airport or better known as KLIA in Sepang and Subang International Airport which now only serve domestic flights within Malaysia.
Chinese Kapitan Yap Ah Loy, the founding father of Kuala Lumpur
Kuala Lumpur has its origins in the 1850s, when the Malay Chief of Klang, Raja Abdullah, hired some Chinese labourers to open new and larger tin mines. They landed at the confluence of Sungai Gombak and Sungai Klang (Klang River) to open mines at Ampang. Sungai Gombak was previously known as Sungai Lumpur, which means muddy river. The Original name for this city was "Pengkalan Lumpur", which means bundle of mud. As time passes by the name changed to Kuala Lumpur which literally means âmuddy confluenceâ in Bahasa Melayu. Later, tin mines were opened at Pudu and Batu. Among the early notable pioneers are Hiu Siew and Liu Ngim Kong.
These mines developed into a trading post which became to be considered a frontier town. Early Kuala Lumpur had many problems, including the Selangor Civil War; it was also plagued by diseases and constant fires and floods. Around the 1870s, the Chinese Kapitan of Kuala Lumpur, Yap Ah Loy, emerged as leader, and became responsible for the survival and subsequent systematic growth of this town. He began to develop Kuala Lumpur from a small unknown place into a mining town with economic boom. In 1880, the state capital of Selangor was moved from Klang to the more strategically advantageous Kuala Lumpur.
In 1881, a flood swept through the town following a fire which engulfed it earlier. These successive problems destroyed the town's structures of wood and atap (thatching). As a response, Frank Swettenham, the British Resident of Selangor, required that buildings be constructed of brick and tile. Many of the new brick buildings mirrored that of shop houses in southern China, with "five foot ways" as well as skilled Chinese carpentry. This resulted in a distinct eclectic shop house architecture typical to this region. A railway line increased accessibility into this town. Development intensified in the 1890s, leading to the creation of a Sanitary Board. In 1896, Kuala Lumpur was chosen as the capital of the newly formed Federated Malay States.
A scene during World War II on the streets of Kuala Lumpur. The scene depicts Japanese troops clearing up the streets.
A mixture of different communities settled in various sections of Kuala Lumpur. The Chinese mainly settled around the commercial centre of Market Square, east of Klang River, and towards Chinatown. The Malays, Indian Chettiars, and Indian Muslims resided along Java Street (now Jalan Tun Perak). The Padang, now known as Merdeka Square, was the center of the British administrative offices.
During World War II, Kuala Lumpur was captured by the Japanese army on January 11, 1942. They remained in occupation until August 15, 1945, when the commander in chief of the Japanese Seventh Area Army in Singapore and Malaya, SeishirÅ Itagaki, surrendered to the British administration following the Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Kuala Lumpur grew through the war, the rubber and tin commodity crashes and the Malayan Emergency, during which Malaya was preoccupied with the communist insurgency. In 1957, the Federation of Malaya gained its independence from British rule. Kuala Lumpur remained the capital through the formation of Malaysia on September 16, 1963.
On May 13, 1969, one of the worst race riots in Malaysia took place in Kuala Lumpur. The May 13 Incident was a riot between the Malays and the Chinese. The former being dissatisfied with their socio-political situation at the time. The riot resulted in the deaths of 196 people, Official figure, and led to a major reform in the country's economic policy favouring the Malays.
Kuala Lumpur later achieved city status in 1972, becoming the first settlement in Malaysia to be granted the status after independence. Later, on February 1, 1974, Kuala Lumpur became a Federal Territory. Kuala Lumpur ceased to be the capital of Selangor in 1978 after the city of Shah Alam was declared as the new state capital.
On 14 May 1990, Kuala Lumpur was celebrated 100 years of local authority. The new federal territory of Kuala Lumpur flag and anthem were introduced.
In 1998, another political movement known as Reformasi took place mainly in this city. The movement was a result of the sacking of former Malaysian Deputy Prime Minister, Anwar Ibrahim, and resulted in a chain of protests until 1999, where supporters of Anwar Ibrahim took to the streets to demand reforms in the government's administration, among others.
On February 1, 2001, Putrajaya was declared a Federal Territory, as well as the seat of the federal government. The administrative and judicial functions of the government were shifted from Kuala Lumpur to Putrajaya. Kuala Lumpur however still retained its legislative function, and remained the home of the Yang di-Pertuan Agong (King).
A pedestrian mall by KL's central market.
The geography of Kuala Lumpur is characterized by a huge valley known as Klang Valley. The valley is bordered by the Titiwangsa Mountains in the east, several minor ranges in the north and the south and the Strait of Malacca in the west. Kuala Lumpur is a Malay term which translates to "muddy confluence" as it is located at the confluence of the Klang and Gombak rivers.
Located in the center of Selangor state, Kuala Lumpur was previously under the rule of Selangor State Government. In 1974, Kuala Lumpur was separated from Selangor to form the first Federal Territory governed directly by the Malaysian Federal Government. Its location on the west coast of Peninsular Malaysia, which has wider flat land than the east coast, has contributed to its faster development relative to other cities in Malaysia.
The municipality of the city covers an area of , with an average elevation of .
Protected by the Titiwangsa Mountains in the east and Indonesia's Sumatra Island in the west, Kuala Lumpur has a year-round equatorial Tropical rain forest climate (Köppen climate classification Af) which is warm and sunny, along with abundant rainfall, especially during the northeast monsoon season from October to March. Temperatures tend to remain constant. Maximums hover between and have never exceeded , while minimums hover between and have never fallen below . Kuala Lumpur typically receives of rain annually; June and July are relatively dry, but even then rainfall typically exceeds per month.
Flooding is a frequent occurrence in Kuala Lumpur whenever there is a heavy downpour, especially in the city centre and downstream areas. Dust particles from forest fires from nearby Sumatra sometimes cast a haze over the region. It is a major source of pollution in the city together with open burning, emission from motor vehicles and construction work.
Bahasa Melayu the national language, is the principal language of Kuala Lumpur. Other major languages spoken in the city are Cantonese, Mandarin, and Tamil. English has a strong presence, especially in business and is a compulsory language taught in schools.
Kuala Lumpur City Centre Park
Kuala Lumpur also has a mix of different cultures which include Malays, Chinese, Indians, Eurasians, as well as Kadazans, Ibans and other indigenous races from East Malaysia and Peninsula Malaysia.
Kuala Lumpur's rapid development triggered a huge influx of foreign workers from Indonesia, Nepal, Burma, Thailand, Bangladesh, Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka, and Vietnam into Malaysia.
In the late-18th century, when Europe underwent Industrial Revolution, large groups of Chinese from Fujian and Guangdong in China were brought in to Malaya to work in the booming tin mining industry. The Chinese in Kuala Lumpur speak different dialects but the majority in Kuala Lumpur are of Cantonese descent, and the Hakkas.
Indians form 10% of the population in Kuala Lumpur (as in 2000), mostly practise Hinduism and speak Tamil and other Indian and Pakistani languages such as Hindi, Malayalam, Punjabi, Telugu and Pashtu. Historically, most of the Indians were brought in during the British colonisation of the Malaysia. Their popular festivals are Thaipusam, Deepavali and Pongal.
Islam is practised primarily by the Malays and the Indian Muslim communities. Other major religions are Hinduism (mainly among Indians), Buddhism, Confucianism and Taoism (mainly among Chinese) and Christianity. The city has many places of worship catering to the multi-religious population.
The connecting bridge between Mid Valley Megamall and The Gardens, spanning above the central boulevard.
The estimated population of Kuala Lumpur in the city proper for 2006 was 1.58 million. "Basic Population Characteristics by Administrative Districts", Department of Statistics, Malaysia (June 2006) It has a population density of , and is the most densely populated administrative district in Malaysia. With an estimated metropolitan population of 6.9 million in 2007, it can be considered a primate city. The continuing decline in the birth rate for Kuala Lumpur has resulted in the decline in the proportion of young people below 15 years old from 33% in 1980 to slightly less than 27% in 2000. On the other hand, the working age group of 15â59 increased from 63% in 1980 to 67% in 2000. The elderly age group, 60 years old and above has increased from 4% in 1980 and 1991 to 6% in 2000.
Based on the census of the Department of Statistics (see the percentage of Bumiputera population in Kuala Lumpur alone was around 38% in 2000 (next census is in 2010) while the Chinese population comprised 43% and Indians 10%. A notable phenomenon has been the increase in the presence of foreign residents in Kuala Lumpur, who now constitute about 9% of the cityâs population.
Crime in Kuala Lumpur has been a concern of residents in recent years. Among the crimes showing increasing rates were snatch theft, drug addiction, gambling and vice.
The Kuala Lumpur City Hall
The local administration is carried out by the Kuala Lumpur City Hall, an agency under the Federal Territories Ministry of Malaysia. Dewan Bandaraya Kuala Lumpur They are responsible for public health and sanitation, waste removal and management, town planning, environmental protection and building control, social and economic development and general maintenance functions of urban infrastructure. Executive power lies with the mayor in the city hall, who is appointed for three years by the Federal Territories Minister. This system of appointing the mayor has been in place ever since the local government elections were suspended in 1970.
Since Kuala Lumpur became a Federal Territory of Malaysia on February 1, 1974, the city has been led by nine mayors. The current mayor of Kuala Lumpur is Dato' Ahmad Fuad Ismail, who is in his first term of office. (14 December 2008)
"Pengenalan".Dewan Bandaraya Kuala Lumpur He was appointed in 2008.
Kuala Lumpur is home to the Parliament of Malaysia. The parliament is composed of a lower House of Representatives (Dewan Rakyat) and an upper House of Senate (Dewan Negara). The city is represented in the lower House of Representatives by eleven Members of Parliament (MPs), who are elected to five-year terms. Traditionally, political leanings in Kuala Lumpur have been dominated by Barisan Nasional (BN), with seven representatives from BN and the other four from the Democratic Action Party (DAP) prior to the 2008 General Elections. After the 2008 elections BN was left with just one representative, Zulhasnan Rafique, in the Setiawangsa seat. DAP took control of five seats, Parti Keadilan Rakyat taking four seats, and PAS one seat, marking the first time in which the majority of the Federal Territory's constituencies was dominated by opposition parties.
A street view of the Old Market Square (Medan Pasar)
Kuala Lumpur and its surrounding urban areas form the most industrialized and economically, the fastest growing region in Malaysia. Despite the relocation of federal government administration to Putrajaya, certain governmentâs important machineries such as Bank Negara Malaysia (Central Bank of Malaysia), Companies Commission of Malaysia and Securities Commission as well as most embassies and diplomatic missions have remained in the city.
The city remains as the economic and business center of the country. In fact, the city is a center for finance, insurance, real estate, media and the arts of Malaysia. The infrastructure development in the surrounding areas such as the Kuala Lumpur International Airport at Sepang, the creation of the Multimedia Super Corridor and the expansion of Port Klang further reinforce the economic significance of the city.
Bursa Malaysia or the Malaysia Exchange is based in the city and forms one of its core economic activities. As of 20 November 2007, the market capitalisation stood at US$318.65 billion.
The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) for Kuala Lumpur is estimated at RM25,968 million in 2000 with an average annual growth rate of 4.2 percent. The per capita GDP for Kuala Lumpur in year 2000 is RM30,727, an average annual growth rate of 6.1 percent. The total employment in Kuala Lumpur is estimated at around 838,400. The service sector comprising finance, insurance, real estate, business services, wholesale and retail trade, restaurants and hotels, transport, storage and communication, utilities, personal services and government services form the largest component of employment representing about 83.0 percent of the total. The remaining 17 percent comes from manufacturing and construction.
Pre-war shoplots refurbished into restaurants and bars along Tengkat Tong Shin.
The large service sector is evident in the number of local and foreign banks and insurance companies operating in the city. Kuala Lumpur is poised to become the global Islamic Financing hub with an increasing number of financial institutions providing Islamic Financing and the strong presence of Gulf's financial institutions such as the world's largest Islamic bank, Al-Rajhi Bank and Kuwait Finance House. Apart from that, the Dow Jones & Company is keen to work with Bursa Malaysia to set up Islamic Exchange Trade Funds (ETFs), which would help raise Malaysia's profile in the Gulf. The city has a large number of foreign corporations and is also host to many multi national companiesâ regional offices or support centres, particularly for finance and accounting, and information technology functions. Most of the countriesâ largest companies have their headquarters based here and as of December 2007 and excluding Petronas, there are 14 companies that are listed in Forbes 2000 based in Kuala Lumpur. Largest Company in Malaysia 2007
Other important economic activities in the city are education and health services. Kuala Lumpur also has advantages stemming from the high concentration of educational institutions located within its boundaries, providing a wide range of courses. Such public institutions include the International Islamic University Malaysia, University of Malaya, the Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, International Medical University and the Medical Faculty of the Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia. There are also a large number of private colleges, including the Universiti Tun Abdul Razak and Tunku Abdul Rahman College, in and around Kuala Lumpur providing a wide range of courses which attract students from all over Malaysia as well as from other countries. There are numerous public and private medical specialist centres and hospitals in the city which offer general health services and a wide range of specialist surgery and treatment catering to locals and tourists.
There has been growing emphasis to expand the economic scope of the city into other service activities such as research and development which supports the rest of the economy of Malaysia. Kuala Lumpur has been home for years to important research centers such as the Rubber Research Institute of Malaysia, the Forest Research Institute Malaysia and the Institute of Medical Research and more research centers are expected to be established in the coming years.
Petaling Street, Kuala Lumpur's bustling Chinatown
The tourism sector also plays an important part in the cityâs economy, providing income, employment and expanding business opportunities. As an extension of this, many large worldwide hotel chains have presence in the city. Kuala Lumpur has also developed into an international shopping destination with a wide variety of shopping centres and megamalls which carry well-known global and local brands. Conference tourismâwhich mainly encompass conventionsâhas also expanded in recent years and is becoming a very important component of the industry.
The major tourist destinations in Kuala Lumpur include the Dataran Merdeka (the Independence Square), the House of Parliament, the Istana Budaya, the Istana Negara (National Palace), the Kuala Lumpur Tower, the Muzium Negara (National Museum), the Putra World Trade Centre, the Tugu Negara (National Monument) and mosques such as the Masjid Jamek, the Masjid Negara (National Mosque) and the Federal Territory Mosque.
Other tourist attractions include the Aquaria KLCC, the Batu Caves, the Makam Pahlawan (National Mausoleum), the National Science Centre, Petaling Street, the Royal Selangor Pewter Visitor Centre, the Zoo Negara (National Zoo), and events such as Malay cultural centres, the Chinese cultural festivals at the Thean Hou Temple and the Thaipusam procession at the Sri Mahamariamman Temple. The Golden Triangle, the commercial hub of the city, contains the Petronas Twin Towers and has a distinctive nightlife. Trendy nightclubs, bars and lounges, such as the Beach Club, Espanda, the Hakka Republic Wine Bar & Restaurant, Hard Rock Cafe, the Luna Bar, Nuovo, Rum Jungle, the Thai Club, Zouk, and many others are located within and around Jalan P. Ramlee, Jalan Sultan Ismail and Jalan Ampang.
Hotels, from five-star to budget types, have cropped up everywhere to accommodate the influx of tourists each year. There are many hotels near Kuala Lumpur's entertainment and business districts.
Berjaya Times Square, the world's largest building ever built in a single phase
Kuala Lumpur alone has 66 shopping malls and it is the retail and fashion hub for Malaysia. Shopping in Malaysia contributed RM7.7 billion (USD 2.26 billion) or 20.8 percent of the RM31.9 billion tourism receipts in 2006. and Kuala Lumpur plays a big role in attracting consumers.
Suria KLCC is one of Malaysia's premier shopping destinations due to its location beneath the Petronas Twin Towers.
Apart from Suria KLCC, Bukit Bintang, which resembles Tokyo's Ginza, New York's Fifth Avenue and Singapore's Orchard Road has the highest concentration of shopping outlets in Kuala Lumpur. Bukit Bintang, which is part of the Kuala Lumpur's Golden Triangle, spans over 3 roads, namely Jalan Bukit Bintang, Jalan Imbi and Jalan Sultan Ismail. It houses various cafes, alfresco (open air) dining outlets and shopping complexes such as Berjaya Plaza, Berjaya Times Square, Bukit Bintang Plaza, Imbi Plaza, Kuala Lumpur Plaza, Lot 10, Low Yat Plaza, Pavilion KL, Starhill Plaza and Sungei Wang Plaza. It is also the location of the largest single department store in Malaysia, SOGO Kuala Lumpur KL SOGO, Corporate. Retrieved on 2008-11-10. (also known as KL SOGO) which is located at a landmark site on Jalan Tuanku Abdul Rahman, one of the best known shopping streets for locals in Kuala Lumpur.
The Bangsar district also has a few shopping complexes, including Bangsar Village, Mid Valley Megamall and The Gardens. The Damansara area north-west of Kuala Lumpur, though not in the city-proper, is the home of the only IKEA outlet in the country, and a cluster of locally-operated malls like Cathay Multi Screen Cinemas, The Curve, Ikano Power Centre, NiuXehSui at Ara Damansara and One Utama.
The Central Market, which is located in the proximity of the Dayabumi Complex, offers an assortment of arts and craft merchandise
Apart from shopping complexes, Kuala Lumpur has designated numerous zones in the city to market locally manufactured products such as textiles, fabrics and handicrafts. The Chinatown of Kuala Lumpur, or commonly known as Petaling Street, is one of them. Chinatown features many pre-independence buildings with Straits Chinese and European traditions influence. Gurstien, P (1985) Malaysia Architecture Heritage Survey â A Handbook, Malaysia Heritage Trust. Page 65 Google cache of 'HISTORICAL BUILDINGS IN MALAYSIA' The Kuala Lumpur's Central Market, which was once the city's wet market, offers an assortment of arts and craft merchandise, varying from antiques and paintings to souvenirs and clothing. It is also known as Pasar Seni in Malay.
Since 2000, the Ministry of Tourism of Malaysia has kick-started the mega sale event for all shopping in Malaysia. The mega sale event is held thrice in a year in March, May and December where all shopping malls are encouraged to participate to boost Kuala Lumpur as a leading shopping destination. Malaysia Hotels Blog
Kuala Lumpur skyline at night
The Petronas Twin Towers at dusk.
The architecture of Kuala Lumpur is a blend of old colonial influences, Asian traditions, Malay Islamic inspirations, modern, and postmodern architecture mix. Being a relatively young city compared with other Southeast Asian capitals such as Bangkok, Jakarta and Manila, most of Kuala Lumpur's colonial buildings were built toward the end of the 19th and early 20th centuries. These buildings have Moorish, Tudor, Neo-Gothic or Grecian-Spanish style or architecture. extract Most of the styling has been modified to use local resources and acclimatised to the local climate, which is hot and humid all year around.
The Petronas Twin Towers seen from Pertama Complex.
Prior to the Second World War, many shophouses, usually two storeys with functional shops on the ground floor and separate residential spaces upstairs, were built around the old city centre. These shop-houses drew inspiration from Straits Chinese and European traditions. Some of these shophouses have made way for new developments but there are still many standing today around Medan Pasar (Old Market Square), Chinatown, Jalan Tuanku Abdul Rahman, Jalan Doraisamy, Bukit Bintang and Tengkat Tong Shin areas.
Independence coupled with the rapid economic growth from the 1970s to the 1990s and with Islam being the official religion in the country, has resulted in the construction of buildings with a more local and Islamic flavour arise around the city. Many of these buildings derive their design from traditional Malay items such as the songkok and the keris. Some of these buildings have Islamic geometric motifs integrated with the designs of the building, signifying Islamic restriction on imitating nature through drawings. Examples of these buildings are Menara Telekom, Menara Maybank, Dayabumi Complex, and the Islamic Center. Some buildings such as the Islamic Arts Museum Malaysia and National Planetarium have been built to masquerade as a place of worship, complete with dome and minaret, when in fact it is a place of science and knowledge. The tall Petronas Twin Towers were designed to resemble motifs found in Islamic art.
Late modern and postmodern architecture began to appear in the late-1990s and early-2000s. With the economic development, old buildings such as Bok House have been razed to make way for new ones. Buildings with all glass shell appears around the city, with the most prominent example being the Petronas Twin Towers and Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre. Mega-Urbanization in Southeast Asia
Kuala Lumpur's central business district today has shifted around the Kuala Lumpur city centre (KLCC) where many new and tall buildings with modern and postmodern architecture fill the skyline.
Kuala Lumpur City Centre Park as seen from the Traders Hotel
The Perdana Lake Gardens, a manicured garden near the Malaysian Parliament building, was once home to a British colonial official. The park includes a Butterfly Park, Deer Park, Orchid Garden, Hibiscus Garden and Kuala Lumpur Bird Park, Southeast Asia's largest bird park. Other parks in the city include, the ASEAN Sculpture Garden, KLCC Park, Titiwangsa Lake Gardens, Metropolitan Lake Gardens in Kepong, Forest Research Institute Malaysia, FRIM Photos /ref> Taman Tasik Permaisuri (Queenâs Lake Gardens), Bukit Kiara Botanical Gardens, Equestrian Park and West Valley Park near TTDI, and Bukit Jalil International Park.
There are three forest reserves within the city namely the Bukit Nanas Forest Reserve in the city centre, the oldest gazetted forest reserve in the country , Bukit Sungai Putih Forest Reserve ( ) and Bukit Sungai Besi Forest Reserve ( ). Bukit Nanas, in the heart of the city centre, is one of the oldest virgin forests in the world within a city. These residual forest areas are home to a number of fauna species particularly monkeys, tree shrews, squirrels and birds.
Frieze depicting Malaysian history at the National Museum
Kuala Lumpur is a hub for cultural activities and events in Malaysia. Among the centres is the National Museum which is situated along the Mahameru Highway. Its collection comprises artifacts and paintings collected throughout the country.
Kuala Lumpur also has an Islamic Arts Museum which houses more than seven thousand Islamic artefacts including rare exhibits as well as a library of Islamic art books. However, the museum's collection not only concentrate on works from the Middle East, the museum also puts the emphasis on Asia, with China and Southeast Asia especially well represented. This museum features some impressively decorated domes and large open exhibition spaces. It is located at Jalan Lembah Perdana next to the National Mosque.
The premier performing arts venue is the Petronas Philharmonic Hall. The resident orchestra is the Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra (MPO), consisting of musicians from all over the world and features regular concerts, chamber concerts and traditional cultural performances.
Kuala Lumpur City Centre Park at night.
The National Art Gallery of Malaysia is located on Jalan Temerloh, off Jalan Tun Razak on a site neighbouring the National Theater (Istana Budaya) and National Library. The architecture of the gallery incorporates elements of traditional Malay architecture, as well as contemporary modern architecture. The National Art Gallery serves as a centre of excellence and trustee of the national art heritage.
The Petronas Art Gallery, another centre for fine art, is situated in Kuala Lumpur City Centre (KLCC). The Galeri Tangsi near Dataran Merdeka houses exhibitions of works by local and foreign artists.
The Kuala Lumpur Performing Arts Centre (KLPac) in Sentul West is one of the most established centres for the performing arts, notably theatre, music, and film screening, in the country. It has housed many local productions and has been a supporter of local and regional independent performance artists. One of the highlights in 2006 was the KL Sing Song 2006 music fest which featured Malaysian singer-songwriters of various cultural backgrounds, from both West and East Malaysia, through two days of performances and workshops.
Kuala Lumpur holds the Malaysia International Gourmet Festival annually. Another event hosted annually by the city is the Kuala Lumpur Fashion Week, which includes international brands as well as local designers.
Royal Selangor has an ultra modern Visitor Centre, which allows tours to be conducted through its pewter museum, gallery and its factory. In its pewtersmithing workshop, "The School of Hard Knocks," participants are taught to create their own pewter dish using traditional tools and methods.
The National Stadium at Bukit Jalil.
Kuala Lumpur has numerous parks, gardens and open spaces for recreational purposes. Total open space for recreational and sport facilities land use in the city has increased significantly by 169.6 percent from in 1984 to in 2000.
Kuala Lumpur is one of the host cities for the Formula One World Championship, the open-wheel auto racing A1 Grand Prix and the Motorcycle Grand Prix with races being held at Sepang International Circuit in the neighbouring state of Selangor, next to the Kuala Lumpur International Airport. The Formula One event contributes significantly to tourist arrivals and tourism income to Kuala Lumpur. This was evident during the Asian Financial Crisis in 1998. Despite cities around Asia suffering declining tourist arrivals, Kuala Lumpur tourist arrivals increased from 6,210,900 in 1997 to 10,221,600 in 2000, or 64.6% increase in tourist arrivals.
KL Grand Prix CSI 5*, a five-star international showjumping equestrian event is held annually in the city. This annual event draws the worldâs top riders and their prized horses to Malaysia.
Other annual sport events hosted by the city include the KL Tower Run, the KL Tower International BASE Jump Merdeka Circuit and the Kuala Lumpur International Marathon. Kuala Lumpur is also one of the stages of the Tour de Langkawi cycling race.
The annual Malaysia Open Super Series badminton tournament is held in Kuala Lumpur.
Kuala Lumpur has a considerable array of sports facilities of international class after hosting the 1998 Commonwealth Games. Many of these facilities including the main stadium (with running track and a football field), hockey stadium and swimming pools are located in the National Sports Complex at Bukit Jalil while a velodrome and more swimming pools are located in Bandar Tun Razak, next to the Taman Tasik Permaisuri Lake Gardens. There are also soccer fields, local sports complexes, swimming pools and tennis courts scattered around the suburbs. Badminton and âtakrawâ courts are usually included in community halls.
Kuala Lumpur has several golf courses including the Kuala Lumpur Golf and Country Club (KLGCC) and the Malaysia Civil Service Golf Club in Kiara and the Berjaya Golf Course at Bukit Jalil.
The city also has numerous large private fitness centers run by Celebrity Fitness, Fitness First, True Fitness and major five-star hotels.
Kuala Lumpur is also the birth place of Hashing which began in December 1938 when a group of British colonial officers and expatriates began meeting on Monday evenings to run, in a fashion patterned after the traditional British Paper Chase or "Hare and Hounds".
The Kuala Lumpur Tower is an important broadcast centre in the country.
There are several newspapers, including daily newspapers, opposition newspaper, business newspapers and also a digital newspaper, based in Kuala Lumpur. Daily newspapers include Utusan Malaysia, Berita Harian, Harian Metro, The Star, New Straits Times, The Sun, Malay Mail, Kosmo! as well as other language newspapers like Sin Chew Daily, China Press, Nanyang Siang Pau and others oppositions newspapers such as Harakah, Suara Keadilan, Siasah and Wasilah. Kuala Lumpur is also the headquarters for Malaysia's state broadcaster RTM and Media Prima, a media corporation which houses the commercial television stations TV3, ntv7, 8TV and TV9. Programmes are broadcast in Malay, English, Chinese and Tamil.
TM Tower is the headquarters of Malaysia's principal telecommunication service provider, Telekom Malaysia.
The city is also home to the country's main pay-TV service, Astro, a satellite television service, which broadcasts local and global television channels such as CNN, BBC World, Star World and HBO. Astro official website Al-Jazeera, the Doha-based Arab news network has launched a new English-speaking channel called Al-Jazeera English to boost its international viewership with one of its broadcast centers based in Kuala Lumpur. Phoenix TV, a Hong Kong based television broadcaster has also announced plans to expand its regional business by partnership with local satellite TV provider, Astro. Astro launches Phoenix InfoNews Channel InfoNews Channel launches its broadcast services in Malaysia via Astro The Hong Kong office of Channel V International, an international music channel, relocated its programme production unit in Kuala Lumpur by appointing the local company Double Vision Sdn Bhd.
In March 2008, Time Out, the international listings and events magazine, launched in Kuala Lumpur as its 24th global city.
Kuala Lumpur has been featured in all aspects of popular culture such as movies, television, music and books. Movies set in Kuala Lumpur include Entrapment, starring Sean Connery and Catherine Zeta-Jones, and Children of Men, (starring Clive Owen) where the Petronas Twin Towers were depicted in flames for a few seconds. Books which were set in Kuala Lumpur include KL 24/7 by Ida M Rahim, Shireen Zainudin and Rizal Zainudin, My Life As a Fake by Peter Carey, and Democracy by Joan Didion. Kuala Lumpur is also mentioned in many songs by local Malaysian artists such as Keroncong Kuala Lumpur by P. Ramlee, Kuala Lumpur, Ibu Kota by Saloma, Chow Kit Road by Sudirman Arshad, Senyumlah Kuala Lumpur by Alleycats, Streets of Kuala Lumpur by Murkyway, K.L. by Vandal, Kuala Lumpur by Poetic Ammo, Anak Dara by Azmyl Yunor and KL by Too Phat. Kuala Lumpur was also one of the destinations in The Amazing Race Asia and The Amazing Race. Games have also been set in Kuala Lumpur. They include three levels of the game and two levels of the PlayStation 2 game Burnout.
The old Moorish influenced KL train station was completed in 1910
The busy Jalan Ampang at night leading straight to the Petronas Towers.
Unlike most other Asian cities, driving is the main mode of commuting in Kuala Lumpur. Hence, every part of the city is well connected by highways. As capital of Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur has a comprehensive road network that leads to the rest of Peninsular Malaysia.
In terms of air connectivity, Kuala Lumpur is served by two airports. The main airport, Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA), which is also the aviation hub of Malaysia, is located about south of city. The other airport is Sultan Abdul Aziz Shah Airport, formerly known as Subang International Airport and served as the main international gateway to Kuala Lumpur from 1965 until KLIA opened in 1998. KLIA connects the city with direct flights to destinations in six continents around the world, and is the main hub for the national carrier, Malaysia Airlines and low cost carrier, AirAsia. KLIA can be reached using the KLIA Ekspres high-speed train service from KL Sentral which takes only twenty-eight minutes, while travelling by car via highway will take about an hour. As of 2007, Sultan Abdul Aziz Shah Airport is only used for chartered and turboprops flights by airlines such as Firefly and Berjaya Air.
KL Sentral at night.
Public transport on Kuala Lumpur and the rest of the Klang Valley covers a variety of transport modes such as bus, rail and taxi. Despite efforts to promote usage of public transportation, utilisation rates are low as only 16 percent of the population used public transportation in 2006. The rapid transit system in Kuala Lumpur consists of three separate rail systems which meet in the city and extends towards other parts of Klang Valley. The rail systems are RapidKL RAIL, KL Monorail, and KTM Komuter. These lines have either underground or elevated stations around the city. The main rapid transit hub is KL Sentral which facilitates as an interchange station for the rail systems. KL Sentral is also a hub for intercity railway operated by KTM Intercity. It provides rail services to as far as Singapore in the south, and Hat Yai, Thailand, in the north.
Platform of the KLCC LRT station along the Kelana Jaya Line (Putra LRT) in Kuala Lumpur.
The largest public transportation operator in Kuala Lumpur and the Klang Valley is RapidKL. Since the take over from Intrakota Komposit Sdn Bhd, RapidKL has redrawn the entire bus network of Kuala Lumpur and Klang Valley metropolitan area Rapid KL to revamp network to increase ridership and improve Kuala Lumpur's public transportation system. The management of RapidKL has adopted the hub and spoke system to provide greater connectivity, and cut down the need of more buses. RapidKL is also the operator of three rapid transit rail lines in Kuala Lumpur, namely Ampang Line, Sri Petaling Line and Kelana Jaya Line.
Kuala Lumpur is served by Port Klang, located about southwest of the city. The port is the largest and busiest in the country handling about of cargo in 2006.
Victoria Institution is one of the oldest secondary schools in the country.
According to government statistics, Kuala Lumpur has a literacy rate of 97.5% in 2000, the highest rate in any state or territory in Malaysia.
In Malaysia, Malay is the language of instruction for most subjects while English is a compulsory subject and is used as the language of instruction for mathematics and the natural sciences. There are also schools which provide Mandarin and Tamil as languages of instruction for certain subjects.
In Kuala Lumpur alone, there are 13 tertiary education institutions, 79 high schools, 155 elementary schools and 136 kindergartens.
There are several notable institutions located in the city which have existed for more than 100 years, such as Victoria Institution (1893); Methodist Girls' School, Kuala Lumpur (1896); Methodist Boys' School (1897); Convent Bukit Nanas (1899) and St. John's Institution (1904).
Kuala Lumpur is home to the University of Malaya. Established in 1962, it is the oldest university in Malaysia, and one of the oldest in the region. It is also the most prestigious tertiary institution in Malaysia, having been ranked first among the universities in Malaysia in the 2004 THES international rankings. In recent years, the number of international students at University of Malaya has risen, a result of increasing efforts made to attract more international students.
Other universities located in Kuala Lumpur include UCSI University, International Medical University, Open University Malaysia, Universiti Kuala Lumpur, Wawasan Open University and the branch campus of Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia and Universiti Teknologi Malaysia.
The National Defence University of Malaysia is located at Sungai Besi Army Base, at the southern part of central Kuala Lumpur. It was established to be a major centre for military and defence technology studies. This institution covers studies in the field of army, navy, and air force.
* Sydney, Australia
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* Mashhad, Iran (October 2006)
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* Malacca, Malaysia (April 15, 1989) Kuala Lumpur fact file, Asian-Pacific City Summit. Retrieved on November 3, 2007.
* Beijing, China
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* Delhi, India Delhi to London, itâs a sister act The Times of India. Retrieved on August 30, 2008
* Karachi, Pakistan
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*2005 Malaysian haze
*2020 Summer Olympics
* Official Kuala Lumpur Website
* Kuala Lumpur City Hall
* ITIS Kuala Lumpur
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* Kuala Lumpur Hotels
* Kuala Lumpur City Guide - Explore, Share, Live and Love it!
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Kuala_Lumpur | Is Kuala Lumpur the capitol of Malaysia? disfluent | null | data/set3/a3 | Kuala_Lumpur
Kuala Lumpur (Jawi: ÙÙاÙا ÙÙÙ
Ú¤Ùر; translates as: "muddy confluence," "muddy estuary," and "muddy city"; in English; Kuala Lumpur. Dictionary.com. Retrieved November 2007. Malay , locally or even , and often abbreviated as K.L.), is the capital and largest city of Malaysia. The city proper, making up an area of , has an estimated population of 1.6 million in 2006. Greater Kuala Lumpur, also known as the Klang Valley, is an urban agglomeration of 7.2 million. It is the fastest growing metropolitan region in the country, in terms of population as well as economy.
Kuala Lumpur is the seat of the Parliament of Malaysia. The city was once home to the executive and judicial branches of the federal government, but they have since moved to Putrajaya starting in 1999. Some sections of the judiciary remain in the capital. The official residence of the Malaysian King, the Istana Negara, is also situated in Kuala Lumpur. The city is also the cultural and economic centre of Malaysia due to its position as the capital as well as being a primate city. Kuala Lumpur is rated as an alpha world city, and is the only global city in Malaysia, according to the Globalization and World Cities Study Group and Network (GaWC).
Kuala Lumpur is defined within the borders of the Federal Territory of Kuala Lumpur and is one of three Malaysian Federal Territories. It is an enclave within the state of Selangor, on the central west coast of Peninsular Malaysia. Residents of the city are known as KLites.
Beginning in the 1990s, the city has played host to many international sporting, political and cultural events including the 1998 Commonwealth Games and the Formula One World Championship. In addition, Kuala Lumpur is home to the tallest twin buildings in the world, the Petronas Twin Towers.
Kuala Lumpur is served by two main airports, the Kuala Lumpur International Airport or better known as KLIA in Sepang and Subang International Airport which now only serve domestic flights within Malaysia.
Chinese Kapitan Yap Ah Loy, the founding father of Kuala Lumpur
Kuala Lumpur has its origins in the 1850s, when the Malay Chief of Klang, Raja Abdullah, hired some Chinese labourers to open new and larger tin mines. They landed at the confluence of Sungai Gombak and Sungai Klang (Klang River) to open mines at Ampang. Sungai Gombak was previously known as Sungai Lumpur, which means muddy river. The Original name for this city was "Pengkalan Lumpur", which means bundle of mud. As time passes by the name changed to Kuala Lumpur which literally means âmuddy confluenceâ in Bahasa Melayu. Later, tin mines were opened at Pudu and Batu. Among the early notable pioneers are Hiu Siew and Liu Ngim Kong.
These mines developed into a trading post which became to be considered a frontier town. Early Kuala Lumpur had many problems, including the Selangor Civil War; it was also plagued by diseases and constant fires and floods. Around the 1870s, the Chinese Kapitan of Kuala Lumpur, Yap Ah Loy, emerged as leader, and became responsible for the survival and subsequent systematic growth of this town. He began to develop Kuala Lumpur from a small unknown place into a mining town with economic boom. In 1880, the state capital of Selangor was moved from Klang to the more strategically advantageous Kuala Lumpur.
In 1881, a flood swept through the town following a fire which engulfed it earlier. These successive problems destroyed the town's structures of wood and atap (thatching). As a response, Frank Swettenham, the British Resident of Selangor, required that buildings be constructed of brick and tile. Many of the new brick buildings mirrored that of shop houses in southern China, with "five foot ways" as well as skilled Chinese carpentry. This resulted in a distinct eclectic shop house architecture typical to this region. A railway line increased accessibility into this town. Development intensified in the 1890s, leading to the creation of a Sanitary Board. In 1896, Kuala Lumpur was chosen as the capital of the newly formed Federated Malay States.
A scene during World War II on the streets of Kuala Lumpur. The scene depicts Japanese troops clearing up the streets.
A mixture of different communities settled in various sections of Kuala Lumpur. The Chinese mainly settled around the commercial centre of Market Square, east of Klang River, and towards Chinatown. The Malays, Indian Chettiars, and Indian Muslims resided along Java Street (now Jalan Tun Perak). The Padang, now known as Merdeka Square, was the center of the British administrative offices.
During World War II, Kuala Lumpur was captured by the Japanese army on January 11, 1942. They remained in occupation until August 15, 1945, when the commander in chief of the Japanese Seventh Area Army in Singapore and Malaya, SeishirÅ Itagaki, surrendered to the British administration following the Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Kuala Lumpur grew through the war, the rubber and tin commodity crashes and the Malayan Emergency, during which Malaya was preoccupied with the communist insurgency. In 1957, the Federation of Malaya gained its independence from British rule. Kuala Lumpur remained the capital through the formation of Malaysia on September 16, 1963.
On May 13, 1969, one of the worst race riots in Malaysia took place in Kuala Lumpur. The May 13 Incident was a riot between the Malays and the Chinese. The former being dissatisfied with their socio-political situation at the time. The riot resulted in the deaths of 196 people, Official figure, and led to a major reform in the country's economic policy favouring the Malays.
Kuala Lumpur later achieved city status in 1972, becoming the first settlement in Malaysia to be granted the status after independence. Later, on February 1, 1974, Kuala Lumpur became a Federal Territory. Kuala Lumpur ceased to be the capital of Selangor in 1978 after the city of Shah Alam was declared as the new state capital.
On 14 May 1990, Kuala Lumpur was celebrated 100 years of local authority. The new federal territory of Kuala Lumpur flag and anthem were introduced.
In 1998, another political movement known as Reformasi took place mainly in this city. The movement was a result of the sacking of former Malaysian Deputy Prime Minister, Anwar Ibrahim, and resulted in a chain of protests until 1999, where supporters of Anwar Ibrahim took to the streets to demand reforms in the government's administration, among others.
On February 1, 2001, Putrajaya was declared a Federal Territory, as well as the seat of the federal government. The administrative and judicial functions of the government were shifted from Kuala Lumpur to Putrajaya. Kuala Lumpur however still retained its legislative function, and remained the home of the Yang di-Pertuan Agong (King).
A pedestrian mall by KL's central market.
The geography of Kuala Lumpur is characterized by a huge valley known as Klang Valley. The valley is bordered by the Titiwangsa Mountains in the east, several minor ranges in the north and the south and the Strait of Malacca in the west. Kuala Lumpur is a Malay term which translates to "muddy confluence" as it is located at the confluence of the Klang and Gombak rivers.
Located in the center of Selangor state, Kuala Lumpur was previously under the rule of Selangor State Government. In 1974, Kuala Lumpur was separated from Selangor to form the first Federal Territory governed directly by the Malaysian Federal Government. Its location on the west coast of Peninsular Malaysia, which has wider flat land than the east coast, has contributed to its faster development relative to other cities in Malaysia.
The municipality of the city covers an area of , with an average elevation of .
Protected by the Titiwangsa Mountains in the east and Indonesia's Sumatra Island in the west, Kuala Lumpur has a year-round equatorial Tropical rain forest climate (Köppen climate classification Af) which is warm and sunny, along with abundant rainfall, especially during the northeast monsoon season from October to March. Temperatures tend to remain constant. Maximums hover between and have never exceeded , while minimums hover between and have never fallen below . Kuala Lumpur typically receives of rain annually; June and July are relatively dry, but even then rainfall typically exceeds per month.
Flooding is a frequent occurrence in Kuala Lumpur whenever there is a heavy downpour, especially in the city centre and downstream areas. Dust particles from forest fires from nearby Sumatra sometimes cast a haze over the region. It is a major source of pollution in the city together with open burning, emission from motor vehicles and construction work.
Bahasa Melayu the national language, is the principal language of Kuala Lumpur. Other major languages spoken in the city are Cantonese, Mandarin, and Tamil. English has a strong presence, especially in business and is a compulsory language taught in schools.
Kuala Lumpur City Centre Park
Kuala Lumpur also has a mix of different cultures which include Malays, Chinese, Indians, Eurasians, as well as Kadazans, Ibans and other indigenous races from East Malaysia and Peninsula Malaysia.
Kuala Lumpur's rapid development triggered a huge influx of foreign workers from Indonesia, Nepal, Burma, Thailand, Bangladesh, Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka, and Vietnam into Malaysia.
In the late-18th century, when Europe underwent Industrial Revolution, large groups of Chinese from Fujian and Guangdong in China were brought in to Malaya to work in the booming tin mining industry. The Chinese in Kuala Lumpur speak different dialects but the majority in Kuala Lumpur are of Cantonese descent, and the Hakkas.
Indians form 10% of the population in Kuala Lumpur (as in 2000), mostly practise Hinduism and speak Tamil and other Indian and Pakistani languages such as Hindi, Malayalam, Punjabi, Telugu and Pashtu. Historically, most of the Indians were brought in during the British colonisation of the Malaysia. Their popular festivals are Thaipusam, Deepavali and Pongal.
Islam is practised primarily by the Malays and the Indian Muslim communities. Other major religions are Hinduism (mainly among Indians), Buddhism, Confucianism and Taoism (mainly among Chinese) and Christianity. The city has many places of worship catering to the multi-religious population.
The connecting bridge between Mid Valley Megamall and The Gardens, spanning above the central boulevard.
The estimated population of Kuala Lumpur in the city proper for 2006 was 1.58 million. "Basic Population Characteristics by Administrative Districts", Department of Statistics, Malaysia (June 2006) It has a population density of , and is the most densely populated administrative district in Malaysia. With an estimated metropolitan population of 6.9 million in 2007, it can be considered a primate city. The continuing decline in the birth rate for Kuala Lumpur has resulted in the decline in the proportion of young people below 15 years old from 33% in 1980 to slightly less than 27% in 2000. On the other hand, the working age group of 15â59 increased from 63% in 1980 to 67% in 2000. The elderly age group, 60 years old and above has increased from 4% in 1980 and 1991 to 6% in 2000.
Based on the census of the Department of Statistics (see the percentage of Bumiputera population in Kuala Lumpur alone was around 38% in 2000 (next census is in 2010) while the Chinese population comprised 43% and Indians 10%. A notable phenomenon has been the increase in the presence of foreign residents in Kuala Lumpur, who now constitute about 9% of the cityâs population.
Crime in Kuala Lumpur has been a concern of residents in recent years. Among the crimes showing increasing rates were snatch theft, drug addiction, gambling and vice.
The Kuala Lumpur City Hall
The local administration is carried out by the Kuala Lumpur City Hall, an agency under the Federal Territories Ministry of Malaysia. Dewan Bandaraya Kuala Lumpur They are responsible for public health and sanitation, waste removal and management, town planning, environmental protection and building control, social and economic development and general maintenance functions of urban infrastructure. Executive power lies with the mayor in the city hall, who is appointed for three years by the Federal Territories Minister. This system of appointing the mayor has been in place ever since the local government elections were suspended in 1970.
Since Kuala Lumpur became a Federal Territory of Malaysia on February 1, 1974, the city has been led by nine mayors. The current mayor of Kuala Lumpur is Dato' Ahmad Fuad Ismail, who is in his first term of office. (14 December 2008)
"Pengenalan".Dewan Bandaraya Kuala Lumpur He was appointed in 2008.
Kuala Lumpur is home to the Parliament of Malaysia. The parliament is composed of a lower House of Representatives (Dewan Rakyat) and an upper House of Senate (Dewan Negara). The city is represented in the lower House of Representatives by eleven Members of Parliament (MPs), who are elected to five-year terms. Traditionally, political leanings in Kuala Lumpur have been dominated by Barisan Nasional (BN), with seven representatives from BN and the other four from the Democratic Action Party (DAP) prior to the 2008 General Elections. After the 2008 elections BN was left with just one representative, Zulhasnan Rafique, in the Setiawangsa seat. DAP took control of five seats, Parti Keadilan Rakyat taking four seats, and PAS one seat, marking the first time in which the majority of the Federal Territory's constituencies was dominated by opposition parties.
A street view of the Old Market Square (Medan Pasar)
Kuala Lumpur and its surrounding urban areas form the most industrialized and economically, the fastest growing region in Malaysia. Despite the relocation of federal government administration to Putrajaya, certain governmentâs important machineries such as Bank Negara Malaysia (Central Bank of Malaysia), Companies Commission of Malaysia and Securities Commission as well as most embassies and diplomatic missions have remained in the city.
The city remains as the economic and business center of the country. In fact, the city is a center for finance, insurance, real estate, media and the arts of Malaysia. The infrastructure development in the surrounding areas such as the Kuala Lumpur International Airport at Sepang, the creation of the Multimedia Super Corridor and the expansion of Port Klang further reinforce the economic significance of the city.
Bursa Malaysia or the Malaysia Exchange is based in the city and forms one of its core economic activities. As of 20 November 2007, the market capitalisation stood at US$318.65 billion.
The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) for Kuala Lumpur is estimated at RM25,968 million in 2000 with an average annual growth rate of 4.2 percent. The per capita GDP for Kuala Lumpur in year 2000 is RM30,727, an average annual growth rate of 6.1 percent. The total employment in Kuala Lumpur is estimated at around 838,400. The service sector comprising finance, insurance, real estate, business services, wholesale and retail trade, restaurants and hotels, transport, storage and communication, utilities, personal services and government services form the largest component of employment representing about 83.0 percent of the total. The remaining 17 percent comes from manufacturing and construction.
Pre-war shoplots refurbished into restaurants and bars along Tengkat Tong Shin.
The large service sector is evident in the number of local and foreign banks and insurance companies operating in the city. Kuala Lumpur is poised to become the global Islamic Financing hub with an increasing number of financial institutions providing Islamic Financing and the strong presence of Gulf's financial institutions such as the world's largest Islamic bank, Al-Rajhi Bank and Kuwait Finance House. Apart from that, the Dow Jones & Company is keen to work with Bursa Malaysia to set up Islamic Exchange Trade Funds (ETFs), which would help raise Malaysia's profile in the Gulf. The city has a large number of foreign corporations and is also host to many multi national companiesâ regional offices or support centres, particularly for finance and accounting, and information technology functions. Most of the countriesâ largest companies have their headquarters based here and as of December 2007 and excluding Petronas, there are 14 companies that are listed in Forbes 2000 based in Kuala Lumpur. Largest Company in Malaysia 2007
Other important economic activities in the city are education and health services. Kuala Lumpur also has advantages stemming from the high concentration of educational institutions located within its boundaries, providing a wide range of courses. Such public institutions include the International Islamic University Malaysia, University of Malaya, the Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, International Medical University and the Medical Faculty of the Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia. There are also a large number of private colleges, including the Universiti Tun Abdul Razak and Tunku Abdul Rahman College, in and around Kuala Lumpur providing a wide range of courses which attract students from all over Malaysia as well as from other countries. There are numerous public and private medical specialist centres and hospitals in the city which offer general health services and a wide range of specialist surgery and treatment catering to locals and tourists.
There has been growing emphasis to expand the economic scope of the city into other service activities such as research and development which supports the rest of the economy of Malaysia. Kuala Lumpur has been home for years to important research centers such as the Rubber Research Institute of Malaysia, the Forest Research Institute Malaysia and the Institute of Medical Research and more research centers are expected to be established in the coming years.
Petaling Street, Kuala Lumpur's bustling Chinatown
The tourism sector also plays an important part in the cityâs economy, providing income, employment and expanding business opportunities. As an extension of this, many large worldwide hotel chains have presence in the city. Kuala Lumpur has also developed into an international shopping destination with a wide variety of shopping centres and megamalls which carry well-known global and local brands. Conference tourismâwhich mainly encompass conventionsâhas also expanded in recent years and is becoming a very important component of the industry.
The major tourist destinations in Kuala Lumpur include the Dataran Merdeka (the Independence Square), the House of Parliament, the Istana Budaya, the Istana Negara (National Palace), the Kuala Lumpur Tower, the Muzium Negara (National Museum), the Putra World Trade Centre, the Tugu Negara (National Monument) and mosques such as the Masjid Jamek, the Masjid Negara (National Mosque) and the Federal Territory Mosque.
Other tourist attractions include the Aquaria KLCC, the Batu Caves, the Makam Pahlawan (National Mausoleum), the National Science Centre, Petaling Street, the Royal Selangor Pewter Visitor Centre, the Zoo Negara (National Zoo), and events such as Malay cultural centres, the Chinese cultural festivals at the Thean Hou Temple and the Thaipusam procession at the Sri Mahamariamman Temple. The Golden Triangle, the commercial hub of the city, contains the Petronas Twin Towers and has a distinctive nightlife. Trendy nightclubs, bars and lounges, such as the Beach Club, Espanda, the Hakka Republic Wine Bar & Restaurant, Hard Rock Cafe, the Luna Bar, Nuovo, Rum Jungle, the Thai Club, Zouk, and many others are located within and around Jalan P. Ramlee, Jalan Sultan Ismail and Jalan Ampang.
Hotels, from five-star to budget types, have cropped up everywhere to accommodate the influx of tourists each year. There are many hotels near Kuala Lumpur's entertainment and business districts.
Berjaya Times Square, the world's largest building ever built in a single phase
Kuala Lumpur alone has 66 shopping malls and it is the retail and fashion hub for Malaysia. Shopping in Malaysia contributed RM7.7 billion (USD 2.26 billion) or 20.8 percent of the RM31.9 billion tourism receipts in 2006. and Kuala Lumpur plays a big role in attracting consumers.
Suria KLCC is one of Malaysia's premier shopping destinations due to its location beneath the Petronas Twin Towers.
Apart from Suria KLCC, Bukit Bintang, which resembles Tokyo's Ginza, New York's Fifth Avenue and Singapore's Orchard Road has the highest concentration of shopping outlets in Kuala Lumpur. Bukit Bintang, which is part of the Kuala Lumpur's Golden Triangle, spans over 3 roads, namely Jalan Bukit Bintang, Jalan Imbi and Jalan Sultan Ismail. It houses various cafes, alfresco (open air) dining outlets and shopping complexes such as Berjaya Plaza, Berjaya Times Square, Bukit Bintang Plaza, Imbi Plaza, Kuala Lumpur Plaza, Lot 10, Low Yat Plaza, Pavilion KL, Starhill Plaza and Sungei Wang Plaza. It is also the location of the largest single department store in Malaysia, SOGO Kuala Lumpur KL SOGO, Corporate. Retrieved on 2008-11-10. (also known as KL SOGO) which is located at a landmark site on Jalan Tuanku Abdul Rahman, one of the best known shopping streets for locals in Kuala Lumpur.
The Bangsar district also has a few shopping complexes, including Bangsar Village, Mid Valley Megamall and The Gardens. The Damansara area north-west of Kuala Lumpur, though not in the city-proper, is the home of the only IKEA outlet in the country, and a cluster of locally-operated malls like Cathay Multi Screen Cinemas, The Curve, Ikano Power Centre, NiuXehSui at Ara Damansara and One Utama.
The Central Market, which is located in the proximity of the Dayabumi Complex, offers an assortment of arts and craft merchandise
Apart from shopping complexes, Kuala Lumpur has designated numerous zones in the city to market locally manufactured products such as textiles, fabrics and handicrafts. The Chinatown of Kuala Lumpur, or commonly known as Petaling Street, is one of them. Chinatown features many pre-independence buildings with Straits Chinese and European traditions influence. Gurstien, P (1985) Malaysia Architecture Heritage Survey â A Handbook, Malaysia Heritage Trust. Page 65 Google cache of 'HISTORICAL BUILDINGS IN MALAYSIA' The Kuala Lumpur's Central Market, which was once the city's wet market, offers an assortment of arts and craft merchandise, varying from antiques and paintings to souvenirs and clothing. It is also known as Pasar Seni in Malay.
Since 2000, the Ministry of Tourism of Malaysia has kick-started the mega sale event for all shopping in Malaysia. The mega sale event is held thrice in a year in March, May and December where all shopping malls are encouraged to participate to boost Kuala Lumpur as a leading shopping destination. Malaysia Hotels Blog
Kuala Lumpur skyline at night
The Petronas Twin Towers at dusk.
The architecture of Kuala Lumpur is a blend of old colonial influences, Asian traditions, Malay Islamic inspirations, modern, and postmodern architecture mix. Being a relatively young city compared with other Southeast Asian capitals such as Bangkok, Jakarta and Manila, most of Kuala Lumpur's colonial buildings were built toward the end of the 19th and early 20th centuries. These buildings have Moorish, Tudor, Neo-Gothic or Grecian-Spanish style or architecture. extract Most of the styling has been modified to use local resources and acclimatised to the local climate, which is hot and humid all year around.
The Petronas Twin Towers seen from Pertama Complex.
Prior to the Second World War, many shophouses, usually two storeys with functional shops on the ground floor and separate residential spaces upstairs, were built around the old city centre. These shop-houses drew inspiration from Straits Chinese and European traditions. Some of these shophouses have made way for new developments but there are still many standing today around Medan Pasar (Old Market Square), Chinatown, Jalan Tuanku Abdul Rahman, Jalan Doraisamy, Bukit Bintang and Tengkat Tong Shin areas.
Independence coupled with the rapid economic growth from the 1970s to the 1990s and with Islam being the official religion in the country, has resulted in the construction of buildings with a more local and Islamic flavour arise around the city. Many of these buildings derive their design from traditional Malay items such as the songkok and the keris. Some of these buildings have Islamic geometric motifs integrated with the designs of the building, signifying Islamic restriction on imitating nature through drawings. Examples of these buildings are Menara Telekom, Menara Maybank, Dayabumi Complex, and the Islamic Center. Some buildings such as the Islamic Arts Museum Malaysia and National Planetarium have been built to masquerade as a place of worship, complete with dome and minaret, when in fact it is a place of science and knowledge. The tall Petronas Twin Towers were designed to resemble motifs found in Islamic art.
Late modern and postmodern architecture began to appear in the late-1990s and early-2000s. With the economic development, old buildings such as Bok House have been razed to make way for new ones. Buildings with all glass shell appears around the city, with the most prominent example being the Petronas Twin Towers and Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre. Mega-Urbanization in Southeast Asia
Kuala Lumpur's central business district today has shifted around the Kuala Lumpur city centre (KLCC) where many new and tall buildings with modern and postmodern architecture fill the skyline.
Kuala Lumpur City Centre Park as seen from the Traders Hotel
The Perdana Lake Gardens, a manicured garden near the Malaysian Parliament building, was once home to a British colonial official. The park includes a Butterfly Park, Deer Park, Orchid Garden, Hibiscus Garden and Kuala Lumpur Bird Park, Southeast Asia's largest bird park. Other parks in the city include, the ASEAN Sculpture Garden, KLCC Park, Titiwangsa Lake Gardens, Metropolitan Lake Gardens in Kepong, Forest Research Institute Malaysia, FRIM Photos /ref> Taman Tasik Permaisuri (Queenâs Lake Gardens), Bukit Kiara Botanical Gardens, Equestrian Park and West Valley Park near TTDI, and Bukit Jalil International Park.
There are three forest reserves within the city namely the Bukit Nanas Forest Reserve in the city centre, the oldest gazetted forest reserve in the country , Bukit Sungai Putih Forest Reserve ( ) and Bukit Sungai Besi Forest Reserve ( ). Bukit Nanas, in the heart of the city centre, is one of the oldest virgin forests in the world within a city. These residual forest areas are home to a number of fauna species particularly monkeys, tree shrews, squirrels and birds.
Frieze depicting Malaysian history at the National Museum
Kuala Lumpur is a hub for cultural activities and events in Malaysia. Among the centres is the National Museum which is situated along the Mahameru Highway. Its collection comprises artifacts and paintings collected throughout the country.
Kuala Lumpur also has an Islamic Arts Museum which houses more than seven thousand Islamic artefacts including rare exhibits as well as a library of Islamic art books. However, the museum's collection not only concentrate on works from the Middle East, the museum also puts the emphasis on Asia, with China and Southeast Asia especially well represented. This museum features some impressively decorated domes and large open exhibition spaces. It is located at Jalan Lembah Perdana next to the National Mosque.
The premier performing arts venue is the Petronas Philharmonic Hall. The resident orchestra is the Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra (MPO), consisting of musicians from all over the world and features regular concerts, chamber concerts and traditional cultural performances.
Kuala Lumpur City Centre Park at night.
The National Art Gallery of Malaysia is located on Jalan Temerloh, off Jalan Tun Razak on a site neighbouring the National Theater (Istana Budaya) and National Library. The architecture of the gallery incorporates elements of traditional Malay architecture, as well as contemporary modern architecture. The National Art Gallery serves as a centre of excellence and trustee of the national art heritage.
The Petronas Art Gallery, another centre for fine art, is situated in Kuala Lumpur City Centre (KLCC). The Galeri Tangsi near Dataran Merdeka houses exhibitions of works by local and foreign artists.
The Kuala Lumpur Performing Arts Centre (KLPac) in Sentul West is one of the most established centres for the performing arts, notably theatre, music, and film screening, in the country. It has housed many local productions and has been a supporter of local and regional independent performance artists. One of the highlights in 2006 was the KL Sing Song 2006 music fest which featured Malaysian singer-songwriters of various cultural backgrounds, from both West and East Malaysia, through two days of performances and workshops.
Kuala Lumpur holds the Malaysia International Gourmet Festival annually. Another event hosted annually by the city is the Kuala Lumpur Fashion Week, which includes international brands as well as local designers.
Royal Selangor has an ultra modern Visitor Centre, which allows tours to be conducted through its pewter museum, gallery and its factory. In its pewtersmithing workshop, "The School of Hard Knocks," participants are taught to create their own pewter dish using traditional tools and methods.
The National Stadium at Bukit Jalil.
Kuala Lumpur has numerous parks, gardens and open spaces for recreational purposes. Total open space for recreational and sport facilities land use in the city has increased significantly by 169.6 percent from in 1984 to in 2000.
Kuala Lumpur is one of the host cities for the Formula One World Championship, the open-wheel auto racing A1 Grand Prix and the Motorcycle Grand Prix with races being held at Sepang International Circuit in the neighbouring state of Selangor, next to the Kuala Lumpur International Airport. The Formula One event contributes significantly to tourist arrivals and tourism income to Kuala Lumpur. This was evident during the Asian Financial Crisis in 1998. Despite cities around Asia suffering declining tourist arrivals, Kuala Lumpur tourist arrivals increased from 6,210,900 in 1997 to 10,221,600 in 2000, or 64.6% increase in tourist arrivals.
KL Grand Prix CSI 5*, a five-star international showjumping equestrian event is held annually in the city. This annual event draws the worldâs top riders and their prized horses to Malaysia.
Other annual sport events hosted by the city include the KL Tower Run, the KL Tower International BASE Jump Merdeka Circuit and the Kuala Lumpur International Marathon. Kuala Lumpur is also one of the stages of the Tour de Langkawi cycling race.
The annual Malaysia Open Super Series badminton tournament is held in Kuala Lumpur.
Kuala Lumpur has a considerable array of sports facilities of international class after hosting the 1998 Commonwealth Games. Many of these facilities including the main stadium (with running track and a football field), hockey stadium and swimming pools are located in the National Sports Complex at Bukit Jalil while a velodrome and more swimming pools are located in Bandar Tun Razak, next to the Taman Tasik Permaisuri Lake Gardens. There are also soccer fields, local sports complexes, swimming pools and tennis courts scattered around the suburbs. Badminton and âtakrawâ courts are usually included in community halls.
Kuala Lumpur has several golf courses including the Kuala Lumpur Golf and Country Club (KLGCC) and the Malaysia Civil Service Golf Club in Kiara and the Berjaya Golf Course at Bukit Jalil.
The city also has numerous large private fitness centers run by Celebrity Fitness, Fitness First, True Fitness and major five-star hotels.
Kuala Lumpur is also the birth place of Hashing which began in December 1938 when a group of British colonial officers and expatriates began meeting on Monday evenings to run, in a fashion patterned after the traditional British Paper Chase or "Hare and Hounds".
The Kuala Lumpur Tower is an important broadcast centre in the country.
There are several newspapers, including daily newspapers, opposition newspaper, business newspapers and also a digital newspaper, based in Kuala Lumpur. Daily newspapers include Utusan Malaysia, Berita Harian, Harian Metro, The Star, New Straits Times, The Sun, Malay Mail, Kosmo! as well as other language newspapers like Sin Chew Daily, China Press, Nanyang Siang Pau and others oppositions newspapers such as Harakah, Suara Keadilan, Siasah and Wasilah. Kuala Lumpur is also the headquarters for Malaysia's state broadcaster RTM and Media Prima, a media corporation which houses the commercial television stations TV3, ntv7, 8TV and TV9. Programmes are broadcast in Malay, English, Chinese and Tamil.
TM Tower is the headquarters of Malaysia's principal telecommunication service provider, Telekom Malaysia.
The city is also home to the country's main pay-TV service, Astro, a satellite television service, which broadcasts local and global television channels such as CNN, BBC World, Star World and HBO. Astro official website Al-Jazeera, the Doha-based Arab news network has launched a new English-speaking channel called Al-Jazeera English to boost its international viewership with one of its broadcast centers based in Kuala Lumpur. Phoenix TV, a Hong Kong based television broadcaster has also announced plans to expand its regional business by partnership with local satellite TV provider, Astro. Astro launches Phoenix InfoNews Channel InfoNews Channel launches its broadcast services in Malaysia via Astro The Hong Kong office of Channel V International, an international music channel, relocated its programme production unit in Kuala Lumpur by appointing the local company Double Vision Sdn Bhd.
In March 2008, Time Out, the international listings and events magazine, launched in Kuala Lumpur as its 24th global city.
Kuala Lumpur has been featured in all aspects of popular culture such as movies, television, music and books. Movies set in Kuala Lumpur include Entrapment, starring Sean Connery and Catherine Zeta-Jones, and Children of Men, (starring Clive Owen) where the Petronas Twin Towers were depicted in flames for a few seconds. Books which were set in Kuala Lumpur include KL 24/7 by Ida M Rahim, Shireen Zainudin and Rizal Zainudin, My Life As a Fake by Peter Carey, and Democracy by Joan Didion. Kuala Lumpur is also mentioned in many songs by local Malaysian artists such as Keroncong Kuala Lumpur by P. Ramlee, Kuala Lumpur, Ibu Kota by Saloma, Chow Kit Road by Sudirman Arshad, Senyumlah Kuala Lumpur by Alleycats, Streets of Kuala Lumpur by Murkyway, K.L. by Vandal, Kuala Lumpur by Poetic Ammo, Anak Dara by Azmyl Yunor and KL by Too Phat. Kuala Lumpur was also one of the destinations in The Amazing Race Asia and The Amazing Race. Games have also been set in Kuala Lumpur. They include three levels of the game and two levels of the PlayStation 2 game Burnout.
The old Moorish influenced KL train station was completed in 1910
The busy Jalan Ampang at night leading straight to the Petronas Towers.
Unlike most other Asian cities, driving is the main mode of commuting in Kuala Lumpur. Hence, every part of the city is well connected by highways. As capital of Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur has a comprehensive road network that leads to the rest of Peninsular Malaysia.
In terms of air connectivity, Kuala Lumpur is served by two airports. The main airport, Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA), which is also the aviation hub of Malaysia, is located about south of city. The other airport is Sultan Abdul Aziz Shah Airport, formerly known as Subang International Airport and served as the main international gateway to Kuala Lumpur from 1965 until KLIA opened in 1998. KLIA connects the city with direct flights to destinations in six continents around the world, and is the main hub for the national carrier, Malaysia Airlines and low cost carrier, AirAsia. KLIA can be reached using the KLIA Ekspres high-speed train service from KL Sentral which takes only twenty-eight minutes, while travelling by car via highway will take about an hour. As of 2007, Sultan Abdul Aziz Shah Airport is only used for chartered and turboprops flights by airlines such as Firefly and Berjaya Air.
KL Sentral at night.
Public transport on Kuala Lumpur and the rest of the Klang Valley covers a variety of transport modes such as bus, rail and taxi. Despite efforts to promote usage of public transportation, utilisation rates are low as only 16 percent of the population used public transportation in 2006. The rapid transit system in Kuala Lumpur consists of three separate rail systems which meet in the city and extends towards other parts of Klang Valley. The rail systems are RapidKL RAIL, KL Monorail, and KTM Komuter. These lines have either underground or elevated stations around the city. The main rapid transit hub is KL Sentral which facilitates as an interchange station for the rail systems. KL Sentral is also a hub for intercity railway operated by KTM Intercity. It provides rail services to as far as Singapore in the south, and Hat Yai, Thailand, in the north.
Platform of the KLCC LRT station along the Kelana Jaya Line (Putra LRT) in Kuala Lumpur.
The largest public transportation operator in Kuala Lumpur and the Klang Valley is RapidKL. Since the take over from Intrakota Komposit Sdn Bhd, RapidKL has redrawn the entire bus network of Kuala Lumpur and Klang Valley metropolitan area Rapid KL to revamp network to increase ridership and improve Kuala Lumpur's public transportation system. The management of RapidKL has adopted the hub and spoke system to provide greater connectivity, and cut down the need of more buses. RapidKL is also the operator of three rapid transit rail lines in Kuala Lumpur, namely Ampang Line, Sri Petaling Line and Kelana Jaya Line.
Kuala Lumpur is served by Port Klang, located about southwest of the city. The port is the largest and busiest in the country handling about of cargo in 2006.
Victoria Institution is one of the oldest secondary schools in the country.
According to government statistics, Kuala Lumpur has a literacy rate of 97.5% in 2000, the highest rate in any state or territory in Malaysia.
In Malaysia, Malay is the language of instruction for most subjects while English is a compulsory subject and is used as the language of instruction for mathematics and the natural sciences. There are also schools which provide Mandarin and Tamil as languages of instruction for certain subjects.
In Kuala Lumpur alone, there are 13 tertiary education institutions, 79 high schools, 155 elementary schools and 136 kindergartens.
There are several notable institutions located in the city which have existed for more than 100 years, such as Victoria Institution (1893); Methodist Girls' School, Kuala Lumpur (1896); Methodist Boys' School (1897); Convent Bukit Nanas (1899) and St. John's Institution (1904).
Kuala Lumpur is home to the University of Malaya. Established in 1962, it is the oldest university in Malaysia, and one of the oldest in the region. It is also the most prestigious tertiary institution in Malaysia, having been ranked first among the universities in Malaysia in the 2004 THES international rankings. In recent years, the number of international students at University of Malaya has risen, a result of increasing efforts made to attract more international students.
Other universities located in Kuala Lumpur include UCSI University, International Medical University, Open University Malaysia, Universiti Kuala Lumpur, Wawasan Open University and the branch campus of Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia and Universiti Teknologi Malaysia.
The National Defence University of Malaysia is located at Sungai Besi Army Base, at the southern part of central Kuala Lumpur. It was established to be a major centre for military and defence technology studies. This institution covers studies in the field of army, navy, and air force.
* Sydney, Australia
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* Mashhad, Iran (October 2006)
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* Malacca, Malaysia (April 15, 1989) Kuala Lumpur fact file, Asian-Pacific City Summit. Retrieved on November 3, 2007.
* Beijing, China
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* Delhi, India Delhi to London, itâs a sister act The Times of India. Retrieved on August 30, 2008
* Karachi, Pakistan
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*2005 Malaysian haze
*2020 Summer Olympics
* Official Kuala Lumpur Website
* Kuala Lumpur City Hall
* ITIS Kuala Lumpur
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* Kuala Lumpur Hotels
* Kuala Lumpur City Guide - Explore, Share, Live and Love it!
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Kuala_Lumpur | Is Kuala Lumpur in the Selangor state? | Yes | data/set3/a3 | Kuala_Lumpur
Kuala Lumpur (Jawi: ÙÙاÙا ÙÙÙ
Ú¤Ùر; translates as: "muddy confluence," "muddy estuary," and "muddy city"; in English; Kuala Lumpur. Dictionary.com. Retrieved November 2007. Malay , locally or even , and often abbreviated as K.L.), is the capital and largest city of Malaysia. The city proper, making up an area of , has an estimated population of 1.6 million in 2006. Greater Kuala Lumpur, also known as the Klang Valley, is an urban agglomeration of 7.2 million. It is the fastest growing metropolitan region in the country, in terms of population as well as economy.
Kuala Lumpur is the seat of the Parliament of Malaysia. The city was once home to the executive and judicial branches of the federal government, but they have since moved to Putrajaya starting in 1999. Some sections of the judiciary remain in the capital. The official residence of the Malaysian King, the Istana Negara, is also situated in Kuala Lumpur. The city is also the cultural and economic centre of Malaysia due to its position as the capital as well as being a primate city. Kuala Lumpur is rated as an alpha world city, and is the only global city in Malaysia, according to the Globalization and World Cities Study Group and Network (GaWC).
Kuala Lumpur is defined within the borders of the Federal Territory of Kuala Lumpur and is one of three Malaysian Federal Territories. It is an enclave within the state of Selangor, on the central west coast of Peninsular Malaysia. Residents of the city are known as KLites.
Beginning in the 1990s, the city has played host to many international sporting, political and cultural events including the 1998 Commonwealth Games and the Formula One World Championship. In addition, Kuala Lumpur is home to the tallest twin buildings in the world, the Petronas Twin Towers.
Kuala Lumpur is served by two main airports, the Kuala Lumpur International Airport or better known as KLIA in Sepang and Subang International Airport which now only serve domestic flights within Malaysia.
Chinese Kapitan Yap Ah Loy, the founding father of Kuala Lumpur
Kuala Lumpur has its origins in the 1850s, when the Malay Chief of Klang, Raja Abdullah, hired some Chinese labourers to open new and larger tin mines. They landed at the confluence of Sungai Gombak and Sungai Klang (Klang River) to open mines at Ampang. Sungai Gombak was previously known as Sungai Lumpur, which means muddy river. The Original name for this city was "Pengkalan Lumpur", which means bundle of mud. As time passes by the name changed to Kuala Lumpur which literally means âmuddy confluenceâ in Bahasa Melayu. Later, tin mines were opened at Pudu and Batu. Among the early notable pioneers are Hiu Siew and Liu Ngim Kong.
These mines developed into a trading post which became to be considered a frontier town. Early Kuala Lumpur had many problems, including the Selangor Civil War; it was also plagued by diseases and constant fires and floods. Around the 1870s, the Chinese Kapitan of Kuala Lumpur, Yap Ah Loy, emerged as leader, and became responsible for the survival and subsequent systematic growth of this town. He began to develop Kuala Lumpur from a small unknown place into a mining town with economic boom. In 1880, the state capital of Selangor was moved from Klang to the more strategically advantageous Kuala Lumpur.
In 1881, a flood swept through the town following a fire which engulfed it earlier. These successive problems destroyed the town's structures of wood and atap (thatching). As a response, Frank Swettenham, the British Resident of Selangor, required that buildings be constructed of brick and tile. Many of the new brick buildings mirrored that of shop houses in southern China, with "five foot ways" as well as skilled Chinese carpentry. This resulted in a distinct eclectic shop house architecture typical to this region. A railway line increased accessibility into this town. Development intensified in the 1890s, leading to the creation of a Sanitary Board. In 1896, Kuala Lumpur was chosen as the capital of the newly formed Federated Malay States.
A scene during World War II on the streets of Kuala Lumpur. The scene depicts Japanese troops clearing up the streets.
A mixture of different communities settled in various sections of Kuala Lumpur. The Chinese mainly settled around the commercial centre of Market Square, east of Klang River, and towards Chinatown. The Malays, Indian Chettiars, and Indian Muslims resided along Java Street (now Jalan Tun Perak). The Padang, now known as Merdeka Square, was the center of the British administrative offices.
During World War II, Kuala Lumpur was captured by the Japanese army on January 11, 1942. They remained in occupation until August 15, 1945, when the commander in chief of the Japanese Seventh Area Army in Singapore and Malaya, SeishirÅ Itagaki, surrendered to the British administration following the Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Kuala Lumpur grew through the war, the rubber and tin commodity crashes and the Malayan Emergency, during which Malaya was preoccupied with the communist insurgency. In 1957, the Federation of Malaya gained its independence from British rule. Kuala Lumpur remained the capital through the formation of Malaysia on September 16, 1963.
On May 13, 1969, one of the worst race riots in Malaysia took place in Kuala Lumpur. The May 13 Incident was a riot between the Malays and the Chinese. The former being dissatisfied with their socio-political situation at the time. The riot resulted in the deaths of 196 people, Official figure, and led to a major reform in the country's economic policy favouring the Malays.
Kuala Lumpur later achieved city status in 1972, becoming the first settlement in Malaysia to be granted the status after independence. Later, on February 1, 1974, Kuala Lumpur became a Federal Territory. Kuala Lumpur ceased to be the capital of Selangor in 1978 after the city of Shah Alam was declared as the new state capital.
On 14 May 1990, Kuala Lumpur was celebrated 100 years of local authority. The new federal territory of Kuala Lumpur flag and anthem were introduced.
In 1998, another political movement known as Reformasi took place mainly in this city. The movement was a result of the sacking of former Malaysian Deputy Prime Minister, Anwar Ibrahim, and resulted in a chain of protests until 1999, where supporters of Anwar Ibrahim took to the streets to demand reforms in the government's administration, among others.
On February 1, 2001, Putrajaya was declared a Federal Territory, as well as the seat of the federal government. The administrative and judicial functions of the government were shifted from Kuala Lumpur to Putrajaya. Kuala Lumpur however still retained its legislative function, and remained the home of the Yang di-Pertuan Agong (King).
A pedestrian mall by KL's central market.
The geography of Kuala Lumpur is characterized by a huge valley known as Klang Valley. The valley is bordered by the Titiwangsa Mountains in the east, several minor ranges in the north and the south and the Strait of Malacca in the west. Kuala Lumpur is a Malay term which translates to "muddy confluence" as it is located at the confluence of the Klang and Gombak rivers.
Located in the center of Selangor state, Kuala Lumpur was previously under the rule of Selangor State Government. In 1974, Kuala Lumpur was separated from Selangor to form the first Federal Territory governed directly by the Malaysian Federal Government. Its location on the west coast of Peninsular Malaysia, which has wider flat land than the east coast, has contributed to its faster development relative to other cities in Malaysia.
The municipality of the city covers an area of , with an average elevation of .
Protected by the Titiwangsa Mountains in the east and Indonesia's Sumatra Island in the west, Kuala Lumpur has a year-round equatorial Tropical rain forest climate (Köppen climate classification Af) which is warm and sunny, along with abundant rainfall, especially during the northeast monsoon season from October to March. Temperatures tend to remain constant. Maximums hover between and have never exceeded , while minimums hover between and have never fallen below . Kuala Lumpur typically receives of rain annually; June and July are relatively dry, but even then rainfall typically exceeds per month.
Flooding is a frequent occurrence in Kuala Lumpur whenever there is a heavy downpour, especially in the city centre and downstream areas. Dust particles from forest fires from nearby Sumatra sometimes cast a haze over the region. It is a major source of pollution in the city together with open burning, emission from motor vehicles and construction work.
Bahasa Melayu the national language, is the principal language of Kuala Lumpur. Other major languages spoken in the city are Cantonese, Mandarin, and Tamil. English has a strong presence, especially in business and is a compulsory language taught in schools.
Kuala Lumpur City Centre Park
Kuala Lumpur also has a mix of different cultures which include Malays, Chinese, Indians, Eurasians, as well as Kadazans, Ibans and other indigenous races from East Malaysia and Peninsula Malaysia.
Kuala Lumpur's rapid development triggered a huge influx of foreign workers from Indonesia, Nepal, Burma, Thailand, Bangladesh, Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka, and Vietnam into Malaysia.
In the late-18th century, when Europe underwent Industrial Revolution, large groups of Chinese from Fujian and Guangdong in China were brought in to Malaya to work in the booming tin mining industry. The Chinese in Kuala Lumpur speak different dialects but the majority in Kuala Lumpur are of Cantonese descent, and the Hakkas.
Indians form 10% of the population in Kuala Lumpur (as in 2000), mostly practise Hinduism and speak Tamil and other Indian and Pakistani languages such as Hindi, Malayalam, Punjabi, Telugu and Pashtu. Historically, most of the Indians were brought in during the British colonisation of the Malaysia. Their popular festivals are Thaipusam, Deepavali and Pongal.
Islam is practised primarily by the Malays and the Indian Muslim communities. Other major religions are Hinduism (mainly among Indians), Buddhism, Confucianism and Taoism (mainly among Chinese) and Christianity. The city has many places of worship catering to the multi-religious population.
The connecting bridge between Mid Valley Megamall and The Gardens, spanning above the central boulevard.
The estimated population of Kuala Lumpur in the city proper for 2006 was 1.58 million. "Basic Population Characteristics by Administrative Districts", Department of Statistics, Malaysia (June 2006) It has a population density of , and is the most densely populated administrative district in Malaysia. With an estimated metropolitan population of 6.9 million in 2007, it can be considered a primate city. The continuing decline in the birth rate for Kuala Lumpur has resulted in the decline in the proportion of young people below 15 years old from 33% in 1980 to slightly less than 27% in 2000. On the other hand, the working age group of 15â59 increased from 63% in 1980 to 67% in 2000. The elderly age group, 60 years old and above has increased from 4% in 1980 and 1991 to 6% in 2000.
Based on the census of the Department of Statistics (see the percentage of Bumiputera population in Kuala Lumpur alone was around 38% in 2000 (next census is in 2010) while the Chinese population comprised 43% and Indians 10%. A notable phenomenon has been the increase in the presence of foreign residents in Kuala Lumpur, who now constitute about 9% of the cityâs population.
Crime in Kuala Lumpur has been a concern of residents in recent years. Among the crimes showing increasing rates were snatch theft, drug addiction, gambling and vice.
The Kuala Lumpur City Hall
The local administration is carried out by the Kuala Lumpur City Hall, an agency under the Federal Territories Ministry of Malaysia. Dewan Bandaraya Kuala Lumpur They are responsible for public health and sanitation, waste removal and management, town planning, environmental protection and building control, social and economic development and general maintenance functions of urban infrastructure. Executive power lies with the mayor in the city hall, who is appointed for three years by the Federal Territories Minister. This system of appointing the mayor has been in place ever since the local government elections were suspended in 1970.
Since Kuala Lumpur became a Federal Territory of Malaysia on February 1, 1974, the city has been led by nine mayors. The current mayor of Kuala Lumpur is Dato' Ahmad Fuad Ismail, who is in his first term of office. (14 December 2008)
"Pengenalan".Dewan Bandaraya Kuala Lumpur He was appointed in 2008.
Kuala Lumpur is home to the Parliament of Malaysia. The parliament is composed of a lower House of Representatives (Dewan Rakyat) and an upper House of Senate (Dewan Negara). The city is represented in the lower House of Representatives by eleven Members of Parliament (MPs), who are elected to five-year terms. Traditionally, political leanings in Kuala Lumpur have been dominated by Barisan Nasional (BN), with seven representatives from BN and the other four from the Democratic Action Party (DAP) prior to the 2008 General Elections. After the 2008 elections BN was left with just one representative, Zulhasnan Rafique, in the Setiawangsa seat. DAP took control of five seats, Parti Keadilan Rakyat taking four seats, and PAS one seat, marking the first time in which the majority of the Federal Territory's constituencies was dominated by opposition parties.
A street view of the Old Market Square (Medan Pasar)
Kuala Lumpur and its surrounding urban areas form the most industrialized and economically, the fastest growing region in Malaysia. Despite the relocation of federal government administration to Putrajaya, certain governmentâs important machineries such as Bank Negara Malaysia (Central Bank of Malaysia), Companies Commission of Malaysia and Securities Commission as well as most embassies and diplomatic missions have remained in the city.
The city remains as the economic and business center of the country. In fact, the city is a center for finance, insurance, real estate, media and the arts of Malaysia. The infrastructure development in the surrounding areas such as the Kuala Lumpur International Airport at Sepang, the creation of the Multimedia Super Corridor and the expansion of Port Klang further reinforce the economic significance of the city.
Bursa Malaysia or the Malaysia Exchange is based in the city and forms one of its core economic activities. As of 20 November 2007, the market capitalisation stood at US$318.65 billion.
The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) for Kuala Lumpur is estimated at RM25,968 million in 2000 with an average annual growth rate of 4.2 percent. The per capita GDP for Kuala Lumpur in year 2000 is RM30,727, an average annual growth rate of 6.1 percent. The total employment in Kuala Lumpur is estimated at around 838,400. The service sector comprising finance, insurance, real estate, business services, wholesale and retail trade, restaurants and hotels, transport, storage and communication, utilities, personal services and government services form the largest component of employment representing about 83.0 percent of the total. The remaining 17 percent comes from manufacturing and construction.
Pre-war shoplots refurbished into restaurants and bars along Tengkat Tong Shin.
The large service sector is evident in the number of local and foreign banks and insurance companies operating in the city. Kuala Lumpur is poised to become the global Islamic Financing hub with an increasing number of financial institutions providing Islamic Financing and the strong presence of Gulf's financial institutions such as the world's largest Islamic bank, Al-Rajhi Bank and Kuwait Finance House. Apart from that, the Dow Jones & Company is keen to work with Bursa Malaysia to set up Islamic Exchange Trade Funds (ETFs), which would help raise Malaysia's profile in the Gulf. The city has a large number of foreign corporations and is also host to many multi national companiesâ regional offices or support centres, particularly for finance and accounting, and information technology functions. Most of the countriesâ largest companies have their headquarters based here and as of December 2007 and excluding Petronas, there are 14 companies that are listed in Forbes 2000 based in Kuala Lumpur. Largest Company in Malaysia 2007
Other important economic activities in the city are education and health services. Kuala Lumpur also has advantages stemming from the high concentration of educational institutions located within its boundaries, providing a wide range of courses. Such public institutions include the International Islamic University Malaysia, University of Malaya, the Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, International Medical University and the Medical Faculty of the Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia. There are also a large number of private colleges, including the Universiti Tun Abdul Razak and Tunku Abdul Rahman College, in and around Kuala Lumpur providing a wide range of courses which attract students from all over Malaysia as well as from other countries. There are numerous public and private medical specialist centres and hospitals in the city which offer general health services and a wide range of specialist surgery and treatment catering to locals and tourists.
There has been growing emphasis to expand the economic scope of the city into other service activities such as research and development which supports the rest of the economy of Malaysia. Kuala Lumpur has been home for years to important research centers such as the Rubber Research Institute of Malaysia, the Forest Research Institute Malaysia and the Institute of Medical Research and more research centers are expected to be established in the coming years.
Petaling Street, Kuala Lumpur's bustling Chinatown
The tourism sector also plays an important part in the cityâs economy, providing income, employment and expanding business opportunities. As an extension of this, many large worldwide hotel chains have presence in the city. Kuala Lumpur has also developed into an international shopping destination with a wide variety of shopping centres and megamalls which carry well-known global and local brands. Conference tourismâwhich mainly encompass conventionsâhas also expanded in recent years and is becoming a very important component of the industry.
The major tourist destinations in Kuala Lumpur include the Dataran Merdeka (the Independence Square), the House of Parliament, the Istana Budaya, the Istana Negara (National Palace), the Kuala Lumpur Tower, the Muzium Negara (National Museum), the Putra World Trade Centre, the Tugu Negara (National Monument) and mosques such as the Masjid Jamek, the Masjid Negara (National Mosque) and the Federal Territory Mosque.
Other tourist attractions include the Aquaria KLCC, the Batu Caves, the Makam Pahlawan (National Mausoleum), the National Science Centre, Petaling Street, the Royal Selangor Pewter Visitor Centre, the Zoo Negara (National Zoo), and events such as Malay cultural centres, the Chinese cultural festivals at the Thean Hou Temple and the Thaipusam procession at the Sri Mahamariamman Temple. The Golden Triangle, the commercial hub of the city, contains the Petronas Twin Towers and has a distinctive nightlife. Trendy nightclubs, bars and lounges, such as the Beach Club, Espanda, the Hakka Republic Wine Bar & Restaurant, Hard Rock Cafe, the Luna Bar, Nuovo, Rum Jungle, the Thai Club, Zouk, and many others are located within and around Jalan P. Ramlee, Jalan Sultan Ismail and Jalan Ampang.
Hotels, from five-star to budget types, have cropped up everywhere to accommodate the influx of tourists each year. There are many hotels near Kuala Lumpur's entertainment and business districts.
Berjaya Times Square, the world's largest building ever built in a single phase
Kuala Lumpur alone has 66 shopping malls and it is the retail and fashion hub for Malaysia. Shopping in Malaysia contributed RM7.7 billion (USD 2.26 billion) or 20.8 percent of the RM31.9 billion tourism receipts in 2006. and Kuala Lumpur plays a big role in attracting consumers.
Suria KLCC is one of Malaysia's premier shopping destinations due to its location beneath the Petronas Twin Towers.
Apart from Suria KLCC, Bukit Bintang, which resembles Tokyo's Ginza, New York's Fifth Avenue and Singapore's Orchard Road has the highest concentration of shopping outlets in Kuala Lumpur. Bukit Bintang, which is part of the Kuala Lumpur's Golden Triangle, spans over 3 roads, namely Jalan Bukit Bintang, Jalan Imbi and Jalan Sultan Ismail. It houses various cafes, alfresco (open air) dining outlets and shopping complexes such as Berjaya Plaza, Berjaya Times Square, Bukit Bintang Plaza, Imbi Plaza, Kuala Lumpur Plaza, Lot 10, Low Yat Plaza, Pavilion KL, Starhill Plaza and Sungei Wang Plaza. It is also the location of the largest single department store in Malaysia, SOGO Kuala Lumpur KL SOGO, Corporate. Retrieved on 2008-11-10. (also known as KL SOGO) which is located at a landmark site on Jalan Tuanku Abdul Rahman, one of the best known shopping streets for locals in Kuala Lumpur.
The Bangsar district also has a few shopping complexes, including Bangsar Village, Mid Valley Megamall and The Gardens. The Damansara area north-west of Kuala Lumpur, though not in the city-proper, is the home of the only IKEA outlet in the country, and a cluster of locally-operated malls like Cathay Multi Screen Cinemas, The Curve, Ikano Power Centre, NiuXehSui at Ara Damansara and One Utama.
The Central Market, which is located in the proximity of the Dayabumi Complex, offers an assortment of arts and craft merchandise
Apart from shopping complexes, Kuala Lumpur has designated numerous zones in the city to market locally manufactured products such as textiles, fabrics and handicrafts. The Chinatown of Kuala Lumpur, or commonly known as Petaling Street, is one of them. Chinatown features many pre-independence buildings with Straits Chinese and European traditions influence. Gurstien, P (1985) Malaysia Architecture Heritage Survey â A Handbook, Malaysia Heritage Trust. Page 65 Google cache of 'HISTORICAL BUILDINGS IN MALAYSIA' The Kuala Lumpur's Central Market, which was once the city's wet market, offers an assortment of arts and craft merchandise, varying from antiques and paintings to souvenirs and clothing. It is also known as Pasar Seni in Malay.
Since 2000, the Ministry of Tourism of Malaysia has kick-started the mega sale event for all shopping in Malaysia. The mega sale event is held thrice in a year in March, May and December where all shopping malls are encouraged to participate to boost Kuala Lumpur as a leading shopping destination. Malaysia Hotels Blog
Kuala Lumpur skyline at night
The Petronas Twin Towers at dusk.
The architecture of Kuala Lumpur is a blend of old colonial influences, Asian traditions, Malay Islamic inspirations, modern, and postmodern architecture mix. Being a relatively young city compared with other Southeast Asian capitals such as Bangkok, Jakarta and Manila, most of Kuala Lumpur's colonial buildings were built toward the end of the 19th and early 20th centuries. These buildings have Moorish, Tudor, Neo-Gothic or Grecian-Spanish style or architecture. extract Most of the styling has been modified to use local resources and acclimatised to the local climate, which is hot and humid all year around.
The Petronas Twin Towers seen from Pertama Complex.
Prior to the Second World War, many shophouses, usually two storeys with functional shops on the ground floor and separate residential spaces upstairs, were built around the old city centre. These shop-houses drew inspiration from Straits Chinese and European traditions. Some of these shophouses have made way for new developments but there are still many standing today around Medan Pasar (Old Market Square), Chinatown, Jalan Tuanku Abdul Rahman, Jalan Doraisamy, Bukit Bintang and Tengkat Tong Shin areas.
Independence coupled with the rapid economic growth from the 1970s to the 1990s and with Islam being the official religion in the country, has resulted in the construction of buildings with a more local and Islamic flavour arise around the city. Many of these buildings derive their design from traditional Malay items such as the songkok and the keris. Some of these buildings have Islamic geometric motifs integrated with the designs of the building, signifying Islamic restriction on imitating nature through drawings. Examples of these buildings are Menara Telekom, Menara Maybank, Dayabumi Complex, and the Islamic Center. Some buildings such as the Islamic Arts Museum Malaysia and National Planetarium have been built to masquerade as a place of worship, complete with dome and minaret, when in fact it is a place of science and knowledge. The tall Petronas Twin Towers were designed to resemble motifs found in Islamic art.
Late modern and postmodern architecture began to appear in the late-1990s and early-2000s. With the economic development, old buildings such as Bok House have been razed to make way for new ones. Buildings with all glass shell appears around the city, with the most prominent example being the Petronas Twin Towers and Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre. Mega-Urbanization in Southeast Asia
Kuala Lumpur's central business district today has shifted around the Kuala Lumpur city centre (KLCC) where many new and tall buildings with modern and postmodern architecture fill the skyline.
Kuala Lumpur City Centre Park as seen from the Traders Hotel
The Perdana Lake Gardens, a manicured garden near the Malaysian Parliament building, was once home to a British colonial official. The park includes a Butterfly Park, Deer Park, Orchid Garden, Hibiscus Garden and Kuala Lumpur Bird Park, Southeast Asia's largest bird park. Other parks in the city include, the ASEAN Sculpture Garden, KLCC Park, Titiwangsa Lake Gardens, Metropolitan Lake Gardens in Kepong, Forest Research Institute Malaysia, FRIM Photos /ref> Taman Tasik Permaisuri (Queenâs Lake Gardens), Bukit Kiara Botanical Gardens, Equestrian Park and West Valley Park near TTDI, and Bukit Jalil International Park.
There are three forest reserves within the city namely the Bukit Nanas Forest Reserve in the city centre, the oldest gazetted forest reserve in the country , Bukit Sungai Putih Forest Reserve ( ) and Bukit Sungai Besi Forest Reserve ( ). Bukit Nanas, in the heart of the city centre, is one of the oldest virgin forests in the world within a city. These residual forest areas are home to a number of fauna species particularly monkeys, tree shrews, squirrels and birds.
Frieze depicting Malaysian history at the National Museum
Kuala Lumpur is a hub for cultural activities and events in Malaysia. Among the centres is the National Museum which is situated along the Mahameru Highway. Its collection comprises artifacts and paintings collected throughout the country.
Kuala Lumpur also has an Islamic Arts Museum which houses more than seven thousand Islamic artefacts including rare exhibits as well as a library of Islamic art books. However, the museum's collection not only concentrate on works from the Middle East, the museum also puts the emphasis on Asia, with China and Southeast Asia especially well represented. This museum features some impressively decorated domes and large open exhibition spaces. It is located at Jalan Lembah Perdana next to the National Mosque.
The premier performing arts venue is the Petronas Philharmonic Hall. The resident orchestra is the Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra (MPO), consisting of musicians from all over the world and features regular concerts, chamber concerts and traditional cultural performances.
Kuala Lumpur City Centre Park at night.
The National Art Gallery of Malaysia is located on Jalan Temerloh, off Jalan Tun Razak on a site neighbouring the National Theater (Istana Budaya) and National Library. The architecture of the gallery incorporates elements of traditional Malay architecture, as well as contemporary modern architecture. The National Art Gallery serves as a centre of excellence and trustee of the national art heritage.
The Petronas Art Gallery, another centre for fine art, is situated in Kuala Lumpur City Centre (KLCC). The Galeri Tangsi near Dataran Merdeka houses exhibitions of works by local and foreign artists.
The Kuala Lumpur Performing Arts Centre (KLPac) in Sentul West is one of the most established centres for the performing arts, notably theatre, music, and film screening, in the country. It has housed many local productions and has been a supporter of local and regional independent performance artists. One of the highlights in 2006 was the KL Sing Song 2006 music fest which featured Malaysian singer-songwriters of various cultural backgrounds, from both West and East Malaysia, through two days of performances and workshops.
Kuala Lumpur holds the Malaysia International Gourmet Festival annually. Another event hosted annually by the city is the Kuala Lumpur Fashion Week, which includes international brands as well as local designers.
Royal Selangor has an ultra modern Visitor Centre, which allows tours to be conducted through its pewter museum, gallery and its factory. In its pewtersmithing workshop, "The School of Hard Knocks," participants are taught to create their own pewter dish using traditional tools and methods.
The National Stadium at Bukit Jalil.
Kuala Lumpur has numerous parks, gardens and open spaces for recreational purposes. Total open space for recreational and sport facilities land use in the city has increased significantly by 169.6 percent from in 1984 to in 2000.
Kuala Lumpur is one of the host cities for the Formula One World Championship, the open-wheel auto racing A1 Grand Prix and the Motorcycle Grand Prix with races being held at Sepang International Circuit in the neighbouring state of Selangor, next to the Kuala Lumpur International Airport. The Formula One event contributes significantly to tourist arrivals and tourism income to Kuala Lumpur. This was evident during the Asian Financial Crisis in 1998. Despite cities around Asia suffering declining tourist arrivals, Kuala Lumpur tourist arrivals increased from 6,210,900 in 1997 to 10,221,600 in 2000, or 64.6% increase in tourist arrivals.
KL Grand Prix CSI 5*, a five-star international showjumping equestrian event is held annually in the city. This annual event draws the worldâs top riders and their prized horses to Malaysia.
Other annual sport events hosted by the city include the KL Tower Run, the KL Tower International BASE Jump Merdeka Circuit and the Kuala Lumpur International Marathon. Kuala Lumpur is also one of the stages of the Tour de Langkawi cycling race.
The annual Malaysia Open Super Series badminton tournament is held in Kuala Lumpur.
Kuala Lumpur has a considerable array of sports facilities of international class after hosting the 1998 Commonwealth Games. Many of these facilities including the main stadium (with running track and a football field), hockey stadium and swimming pools are located in the National Sports Complex at Bukit Jalil while a velodrome and more swimming pools are located in Bandar Tun Razak, next to the Taman Tasik Permaisuri Lake Gardens. There are also soccer fields, local sports complexes, swimming pools and tennis courts scattered around the suburbs. Badminton and âtakrawâ courts are usually included in community halls.
Kuala Lumpur has several golf courses including the Kuala Lumpur Golf and Country Club (KLGCC) and the Malaysia Civil Service Golf Club in Kiara and the Berjaya Golf Course at Bukit Jalil.
The city also has numerous large private fitness centers run by Celebrity Fitness, Fitness First, True Fitness and major five-star hotels.
Kuala Lumpur is also the birth place of Hashing which began in December 1938 when a group of British colonial officers and expatriates began meeting on Monday evenings to run, in a fashion patterned after the traditional British Paper Chase or "Hare and Hounds".
The Kuala Lumpur Tower is an important broadcast centre in the country.
There are several newspapers, including daily newspapers, opposition newspaper, business newspapers and also a digital newspaper, based in Kuala Lumpur. Daily newspapers include Utusan Malaysia, Berita Harian, Harian Metro, The Star, New Straits Times, The Sun, Malay Mail, Kosmo! as well as other language newspapers like Sin Chew Daily, China Press, Nanyang Siang Pau and others oppositions newspapers such as Harakah, Suara Keadilan, Siasah and Wasilah. Kuala Lumpur is also the headquarters for Malaysia's state broadcaster RTM and Media Prima, a media corporation which houses the commercial television stations TV3, ntv7, 8TV and TV9. Programmes are broadcast in Malay, English, Chinese and Tamil.
TM Tower is the headquarters of Malaysia's principal telecommunication service provider, Telekom Malaysia.
The city is also home to the country's main pay-TV service, Astro, a satellite television service, which broadcasts local and global television channels such as CNN, BBC World, Star World and HBO. Astro official website Al-Jazeera, the Doha-based Arab news network has launched a new English-speaking channel called Al-Jazeera English to boost its international viewership with one of its broadcast centers based in Kuala Lumpur. Phoenix TV, a Hong Kong based television broadcaster has also announced plans to expand its regional business by partnership with local satellite TV provider, Astro. Astro launches Phoenix InfoNews Channel InfoNews Channel launches its broadcast services in Malaysia via Astro The Hong Kong office of Channel V International, an international music channel, relocated its programme production unit in Kuala Lumpur by appointing the local company Double Vision Sdn Bhd.
In March 2008, Time Out, the international listings and events magazine, launched in Kuala Lumpur as its 24th global city.
Kuala Lumpur has been featured in all aspects of popular culture such as movies, television, music and books. Movies set in Kuala Lumpur include Entrapment, starring Sean Connery and Catherine Zeta-Jones, and Children of Men, (starring Clive Owen) where the Petronas Twin Towers were depicted in flames for a few seconds. Books which were set in Kuala Lumpur include KL 24/7 by Ida M Rahim, Shireen Zainudin and Rizal Zainudin, My Life As a Fake by Peter Carey, and Democracy by Joan Didion. Kuala Lumpur is also mentioned in many songs by local Malaysian artists such as Keroncong Kuala Lumpur by P. Ramlee, Kuala Lumpur, Ibu Kota by Saloma, Chow Kit Road by Sudirman Arshad, Senyumlah Kuala Lumpur by Alleycats, Streets of Kuala Lumpur by Murkyway, K.L. by Vandal, Kuala Lumpur by Poetic Ammo, Anak Dara by Azmyl Yunor and KL by Too Phat. Kuala Lumpur was also one of the destinations in The Amazing Race Asia and The Amazing Race. Games have also been set in Kuala Lumpur. They include three levels of the game and two levels of the PlayStation 2 game Burnout.
The old Moorish influenced KL train station was completed in 1910
The busy Jalan Ampang at night leading straight to the Petronas Towers.
Unlike most other Asian cities, driving is the main mode of commuting in Kuala Lumpur. Hence, every part of the city is well connected by highways. As capital of Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur has a comprehensive road network that leads to the rest of Peninsular Malaysia.
In terms of air connectivity, Kuala Lumpur is served by two airports. The main airport, Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA), which is also the aviation hub of Malaysia, is located about south of city. The other airport is Sultan Abdul Aziz Shah Airport, formerly known as Subang International Airport and served as the main international gateway to Kuala Lumpur from 1965 until KLIA opened in 1998. KLIA connects the city with direct flights to destinations in six continents around the world, and is the main hub for the national carrier, Malaysia Airlines and low cost carrier, AirAsia. KLIA can be reached using the KLIA Ekspres high-speed train service from KL Sentral which takes only twenty-eight minutes, while travelling by car via highway will take about an hour. As of 2007, Sultan Abdul Aziz Shah Airport is only used for chartered and turboprops flights by airlines such as Firefly and Berjaya Air.
KL Sentral at night.
Public transport on Kuala Lumpur and the rest of the Klang Valley covers a variety of transport modes such as bus, rail and taxi. Despite efforts to promote usage of public transportation, utilisation rates are low as only 16 percent of the population used public transportation in 2006. The rapid transit system in Kuala Lumpur consists of three separate rail systems which meet in the city and extends towards other parts of Klang Valley. The rail systems are RapidKL RAIL, KL Monorail, and KTM Komuter. These lines have either underground or elevated stations around the city. The main rapid transit hub is KL Sentral which facilitates as an interchange station for the rail systems. KL Sentral is also a hub for intercity railway operated by KTM Intercity. It provides rail services to as far as Singapore in the south, and Hat Yai, Thailand, in the north.
Platform of the KLCC LRT station along the Kelana Jaya Line (Putra LRT) in Kuala Lumpur.
The largest public transportation operator in Kuala Lumpur and the Klang Valley is RapidKL. Since the take over from Intrakota Komposit Sdn Bhd, RapidKL has redrawn the entire bus network of Kuala Lumpur and Klang Valley metropolitan area Rapid KL to revamp network to increase ridership and improve Kuala Lumpur's public transportation system. The management of RapidKL has adopted the hub and spoke system to provide greater connectivity, and cut down the need of more buses. RapidKL is also the operator of three rapid transit rail lines in Kuala Lumpur, namely Ampang Line, Sri Petaling Line and Kelana Jaya Line.
Kuala Lumpur is served by Port Klang, located about southwest of the city. The port is the largest and busiest in the country handling about of cargo in 2006.
Victoria Institution is one of the oldest secondary schools in the country.
According to government statistics, Kuala Lumpur has a literacy rate of 97.5% in 2000, the highest rate in any state or territory in Malaysia.
In Malaysia, Malay is the language of instruction for most subjects while English is a compulsory subject and is used as the language of instruction for mathematics and the natural sciences. There are also schools which provide Mandarin and Tamil as languages of instruction for certain subjects.
In Kuala Lumpur alone, there are 13 tertiary education institutions, 79 high schools, 155 elementary schools and 136 kindergartens.
There are several notable institutions located in the city which have existed for more than 100 years, such as Victoria Institution (1893); Methodist Girls' School, Kuala Lumpur (1896); Methodist Boys' School (1897); Convent Bukit Nanas (1899) and St. John's Institution (1904).
Kuala Lumpur is home to the University of Malaya. Established in 1962, it is the oldest university in Malaysia, and one of the oldest in the region. It is also the most prestigious tertiary institution in Malaysia, having been ranked first among the universities in Malaysia in the 2004 THES international rankings. In recent years, the number of international students at University of Malaya has risen, a result of increasing efforts made to attract more international students.
Other universities located in Kuala Lumpur include UCSI University, International Medical University, Open University Malaysia, Universiti Kuala Lumpur, Wawasan Open University and the branch campus of Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia and Universiti Teknologi Malaysia.
The National Defence University of Malaysia is located at Sungai Besi Army Base, at the southern part of central Kuala Lumpur. It was established to be a major centre for military and defence technology studies. This institution covers studies in the field of army, navy, and air force.
* Sydney, Australia
* Auckland, New Zealand
* San Francisco, California, United States
* Los Angeles, California, United States
* New York City, New York, United States
* London, United Kingdom
* Dubai, United Arab Emirates
* Mashhad, Iran (October 2006)
* Esfahan, Iran
* Shiraz, Iran
* Casablanca, Morocco
* Malacca, Malaysia (April 15, 1989) Kuala Lumpur fact file, Asian-Pacific City Summit. Retrieved on November 3, 2007.
* Beijing, China
* Osaka, Japan
* Ankara, Turkey
* Delhi, India Delhi to London, itâs a sister act The Times of India. Retrieved on August 30, 2008
* Karachi, Pakistan
* Los Mochis, Mexico
*2005 Malaysian haze
*2020 Summer Olympics
* Official Kuala Lumpur Website
* Kuala Lumpur City Hall
* ITIS Kuala Lumpur
*
* Kuala Lumpur Hotels
* Kuala Lumpur City Guide - Explore, Share, Live and Love it!
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Kuala_Lumpur | Is Kuala Lumpur in the Selangor state? | null | data/set3/a3 | Kuala_Lumpur
Kuala Lumpur (Jawi: ÙÙاÙا ÙÙÙ
Ú¤Ùر; translates as: "muddy confluence," "muddy estuary," and "muddy city"; in English; Kuala Lumpur. Dictionary.com. Retrieved November 2007. Malay , locally or even , and often abbreviated as K.L.), is the capital and largest city of Malaysia. The city proper, making up an area of , has an estimated population of 1.6 million in 2006. Greater Kuala Lumpur, also known as the Klang Valley, is an urban agglomeration of 7.2 million. It is the fastest growing metropolitan region in the country, in terms of population as well as economy.
Kuala Lumpur is the seat of the Parliament of Malaysia. The city was once home to the executive and judicial branches of the federal government, but they have since moved to Putrajaya starting in 1999. Some sections of the judiciary remain in the capital. The official residence of the Malaysian King, the Istana Negara, is also situated in Kuala Lumpur. The city is also the cultural and economic centre of Malaysia due to its position as the capital as well as being a primate city. Kuala Lumpur is rated as an alpha world city, and is the only global city in Malaysia, according to the Globalization and World Cities Study Group and Network (GaWC).
Kuala Lumpur is defined within the borders of the Federal Territory of Kuala Lumpur and is one of three Malaysian Federal Territories. It is an enclave within the state of Selangor, on the central west coast of Peninsular Malaysia. Residents of the city are known as KLites.
Beginning in the 1990s, the city has played host to many international sporting, political and cultural events including the 1998 Commonwealth Games and the Formula One World Championship. In addition, Kuala Lumpur is home to the tallest twin buildings in the world, the Petronas Twin Towers.
Kuala Lumpur is served by two main airports, the Kuala Lumpur International Airport or better known as KLIA in Sepang and Subang International Airport which now only serve domestic flights within Malaysia.
Chinese Kapitan Yap Ah Loy, the founding father of Kuala Lumpur
Kuala Lumpur has its origins in the 1850s, when the Malay Chief of Klang, Raja Abdullah, hired some Chinese labourers to open new and larger tin mines. They landed at the confluence of Sungai Gombak and Sungai Klang (Klang River) to open mines at Ampang. Sungai Gombak was previously known as Sungai Lumpur, which means muddy river. The Original name for this city was "Pengkalan Lumpur", which means bundle of mud. As time passes by the name changed to Kuala Lumpur which literally means âmuddy confluenceâ in Bahasa Melayu. Later, tin mines were opened at Pudu and Batu. Among the early notable pioneers are Hiu Siew and Liu Ngim Kong.
These mines developed into a trading post which became to be considered a frontier town. Early Kuala Lumpur had many problems, including the Selangor Civil War; it was also plagued by diseases and constant fires and floods. Around the 1870s, the Chinese Kapitan of Kuala Lumpur, Yap Ah Loy, emerged as leader, and became responsible for the survival and subsequent systematic growth of this town. He began to develop Kuala Lumpur from a small unknown place into a mining town with economic boom. In 1880, the state capital of Selangor was moved from Klang to the more strategically advantageous Kuala Lumpur.
In 1881, a flood swept through the town following a fire which engulfed it earlier. These successive problems destroyed the town's structures of wood and atap (thatching). As a response, Frank Swettenham, the British Resident of Selangor, required that buildings be constructed of brick and tile. Many of the new brick buildings mirrored that of shop houses in southern China, with "five foot ways" as well as skilled Chinese carpentry. This resulted in a distinct eclectic shop house architecture typical to this region. A railway line increased accessibility into this town. Development intensified in the 1890s, leading to the creation of a Sanitary Board. In 1896, Kuala Lumpur was chosen as the capital of the newly formed Federated Malay States.
A scene during World War II on the streets of Kuala Lumpur. The scene depicts Japanese troops clearing up the streets.
A mixture of different communities settled in various sections of Kuala Lumpur. The Chinese mainly settled around the commercial centre of Market Square, east of Klang River, and towards Chinatown. The Malays, Indian Chettiars, and Indian Muslims resided along Java Street (now Jalan Tun Perak). The Padang, now known as Merdeka Square, was the center of the British administrative offices.
During World War II, Kuala Lumpur was captured by the Japanese army on January 11, 1942. They remained in occupation until August 15, 1945, when the commander in chief of the Japanese Seventh Area Army in Singapore and Malaya, SeishirÅ Itagaki, surrendered to the British administration following the Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Kuala Lumpur grew through the war, the rubber and tin commodity crashes and the Malayan Emergency, during which Malaya was preoccupied with the communist insurgency. In 1957, the Federation of Malaya gained its independence from British rule. Kuala Lumpur remained the capital through the formation of Malaysia on September 16, 1963.
On May 13, 1969, one of the worst race riots in Malaysia took place in Kuala Lumpur. The May 13 Incident was a riot between the Malays and the Chinese. The former being dissatisfied with their socio-political situation at the time. The riot resulted in the deaths of 196 people, Official figure, and led to a major reform in the country's economic policy favouring the Malays.
Kuala Lumpur later achieved city status in 1972, becoming the first settlement in Malaysia to be granted the status after independence. Later, on February 1, 1974, Kuala Lumpur became a Federal Territory. Kuala Lumpur ceased to be the capital of Selangor in 1978 after the city of Shah Alam was declared as the new state capital.
On 14 May 1990, Kuala Lumpur was celebrated 100 years of local authority. The new federal territory of Kuala Lumpur flag and anthem were introduced.
In 1998, another political movement known as Reformasi took place mainly in this city. The movement was a result of the sacking of former Malaysian Deputy Prime Minister, Anwar Ibrahim, and resulted in a chain of protests until 1999, where supporters of Anwar Ibrahim took to the streets to demand reforms in the government's administration, among others.
On February 1, 2001, Putrajaya was declared a Federal Territory, as well as the seat of the federal government. The administrative and judicial functions of the government were shifted from Kuala Lumpur to Putrajaya. Kuala Lumpur however still retained its legislative function, and remained the home of the Yang di-Pertuan Agong (King).
A pedestrian mall by KL's central market.
The geography of Kuala Lumpur is characterized by a huge valley known as Klang Valley. The valley is bordered by the Titiwangsa Mountains in the east, several minor ranges in the north and the south and the Strait of Malacca in the west. Kuala Lumpur is a Malay term which translates to "muddy confluence" as it is located at the confluence of the Klang and Gombak rivers.
Located in the center of Selangor state, Kuala Lumpur was previously under the rule of Selangor State Government. In 1974, Kuala Lumpur was separated from Selangor to form the first Federal Territory governed directly by the Malaysian Federal Government. Its location on the west coast of Peninsular Malaysia, which has wider flat land than the east coast, has contributed to its faster development relative to other cities in Malaysia.
The municipality of the city covers an area of , with an average elevation of .
Protected by the Titiwangsa Mountains in the east and Indonesia's Sumatra Island in the west, Kuala Lumpur has a year-round equatorial Tropical rain forest climate (Köppen climate classification Af) which is warm and sunny, along with abundant rainfall, especially during the northeast monsoon season from October to March. Temperatures tend to remain constant. Maximums hover between and have never exceeded , while minimums hover between and have never fallen below . Kuala Lumpur typically receives of rain annually; June and July are relatively dry, but even then rainfall typically exceeds per month.
Flooding is a frequent occurrence in Kuala Lumpur whenever there is a heavy downpour, especially in the city centre and downstream areas. Dust particles from forest fires from nearby Sumatra sometimes cast a haze over the region. It is a major source of pollution in the city together with open burning, emission from motor vehicles and construction work.
Bahasa Melayu the national language, is the principal language of Kuala Lumpur. Other major languages spoken in the city are Cantonese, Mandarin, and Tamil. English has a strong presence, especially in business and is a compulsory language taught in schools.
Kuala Lumpur City Centre Park
Kuala Lumpur also has a mix of different cultures which include Malays, Chinese, Indians, Eurasians, as well as Kadazans, Ibans and other indigenous races from East Malaysia and Peninsula Malaysia.
Kuala Lumpur's rapid development triggered a huge influx of foreign workers from Indonesia, Nepal, Burma, Thailand, Bangladesh, Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka, and Vietnam into Malaysia.
In the late-18th century, when Europe underwent Industrial Revolution, large groups of Chinese from Fujian and Guangdong in China were brought in to Malaya to work in the booming tin mining industry. The Chinese in Kuala Lumpur speak different dialects but the majority in Kuala Lumpur are of Cantonese descent, and the Hakkas.
Indians form 10% of the population in Kuala Lumpur (as in 2000), mostly practise Hinduism and speak Tamil and other Indian and Pakistani languages such as Hindi, Malayalam, Punjabi, Telugu and Pashtu. Historically, most of the Indians were brought in during the British colonisation of the Malaysia. Their popular festivals are Thaipusam, Deepavali and Pongal.
Islam is practised primarily by the Malays and the Indian Muslim communities. Other major religions are Hinduism (mainly among Indians), Buddhism, Confucianism and Taoism (mainly among Chinese) and Christianity. The city has many places of worship catering to the multi-religious population.
The connecting bridge between Mid Valley Megamall and The Gardens, spanning above the central boulevard.
The estimated population of Kuala Lumpur in the city proper for 2006 was 1.58 million. "Basic Population Characteristics by Administrative Districts", Department of Statistics, Malaysia (June 2006) It has a population density of , and is the most densely populated administrative district in Malaysia. With an estimated metropolitan population of 6.9 million in 2007, it can be considered a primate city. The continuing decline in the birth rate for Kuala Lumpur has resulted in the decline in the proportion of young people below 15 years old from 33% in 1980 to slightly less than 27% in 2000. On the other hand, the working age group of 15â59 increased from 63% in 1980 to 67% in 2000. The elderly age group, 60 years old and above has increased from 4% in 1980 and 1991 to 6% in 2000.
Based on the census of the Department of Statistics (see the percentage of Bumiputera population in Kuala Lumpur alone was around 38% in 2000 (next census is in 2010) while the Chinese population comprised 43% and Indians 10%. A notable phenomenon has been the increase in the presence of foreign residents in Kuala Lumpur, who now constitute about 9% of the cityâs population.
Crime in Kuala Lumpur has been a concern of residents in recent years. Among the crimes showing increasing rates were snatch theft, drug addiction, gambling and vice.
The Kuala Lumpur City Hall
The local administration is carried out by the Kuala Lumpur City Hall, an agency under the Federal Territories Ministry of Malaysia. Dewan Bandaraya Kuala Lumpur They are responsible for public health and sanitation, waste removal and management, town planning, environmental protection and building control, social and economic development and general maintenance functions of urban infrastructure. Executive power lies with the mayor in the city hall, who is appointed for three years by the Federal Territories Minister. This system of appointing the mayor has been in place ever since the local government elections were suspended in 1970.
Since Kuala Lumpur became a Federal Territory of Malaysia on February 1, 1974, the city has been led by nine mayors. The current mayor of Kuala Lumpur is Dato' Ahmad Fuad Ismail, who is in his first term of office. (14 December 2008)
"Pengenalan".Dewan Bandaraya Kuala Lumpur He was appointed in 2008.
Kuala Lumpur is home to the Parliament of Malaysia. The parliament is composed of a lower House of Representatives (Dewan Rakyat) and an upper House of Senate (Dewan Negara). The city is represented in the lower House of Representatives by eleven Members of Parliament (MPs), who are elected to five-year terms. Traditionally, political leanings in Kuala Lumpur have been dominated by Barisan Nasional (BN), with seven representatives from BN and the other four from the Democratic Action Party (DAP) prior to the 2008 General Elections. After the 2008 elections BN was left with just one representative, Zulhasnan Rafique, in the Setiawangsa seat. DAP took control of five seats, Parti Keadilan Rakyat taking four seats, and PAS one seat, marking the first time in which the majority of the Federal Territory's constituencies was dominated by opposition parties.
A street view of the Old Market Square (Medan Pasar)
Kuala Lumpur and its surrounding urban areas form the most industrialized and economically, the fastest growing region in Malaysia. Despite the relocation of federal government administration to Putrajaya, certain governmentâs important machineries such as Bank Negara Malaysia (Central Bank of Malaysia), Companies Commission of Malaysia and Securities Commission as well as most embassies and diplomatic missions have remained in the city.
The city remains as the economic and business center of the country. In fact, the city is a center for finance, insurance, real estate, media and the arts of Malaysia. The infrastructure development in the surrounding areas such as the Kuala Lumpur International Airport at Sepang, the creation of the Multimedia Super Corridor and the expansion of Port Klang further reinforce the economic significance of the city.
Bursa Malaysia or the Malaysia Exchange is based in the city and forms one of its core economic activities. As of 20 November 2007, the market capitalisation stood at US$318.65 billion.
The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) for Kuala Lumpur is estimated at RM25,968 million in 2000 with an average annual growth rate of 4.2 percent. The per capita GDP for Kuala Lumpur in year 2000 is RM30,727, an average annual growth rate of 6.1 percent. The total employment in Kuala Lumpur is estimated at around 838,400. The service sector comprising finance, insurance, real estate, business services, wholesale and retail trade, restaurants and hotels, transport, storage and communication, utilities, personal services and government services form the largest component of employment representing about 83.0 percent of the total. The remaining 17 percent comes from manufacturing and construction.
Pre-war shoplots refurbished into restaurants and bars along Tengkat Tong Shin.
The large service sector is evident in the number of local and foreign banks and insurance companies operating in the city. Kuala Lumpur is poised to become the global Islamic Financing hub with an increasing number of financial institutions providing Islamic Financing and the strong presence of Gulf's financial institutions such as the world's largest Islamic bank, Al-Rajhi Bank and Kuwait Finance House. Apart from that, the Dow Jones & Company is keen to work with Bursa Malaysia to set up Islamic Exchange Trade Funds (ETFs), which would help raise Malaysia's profile in the Gulf. The city has a large number of foreign corporations and is also host to many multi national companiesâ regional offices or support centres, particularly for finance and accounting, and information technology functions. Most of the countriesâ largest companies have their headquarters based here and as of December 2007 and excluding Petronas, there are 14 companies that are listed in Forbes 2000 based in Kuala Lumpur. Largest Company in Malaysia 2007
Other important economic activities in the city are education and health services. Kuala Lumpur also has advantages stemming from the high concentration of educational institutions located within its boundaries, providing a wide range of courses. Such public institutions include the International Islamic University Malaysia, University of Malaya, the Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, International Medical University and the Medical Faculty of the Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia. There are also a large number of private colleges, including the Universiti Tun Abdul Razak and Tunku Abdul Rahman College, in and around Kuala Lumpur providing a wide range of courses which attract students from all over Malaysia as well as from other countries. There are numerous public and private medical specialist centres and hospitals in the city which offer general health services and a wide range of specialist surgery and treatment catering to locals and tourists.
There has been growing emphasis to expand the economic scope of the city into other service activities such as research and development which supports the rest of the economy of Malaysia. Kuala Lumpur has been home for years to important research centers such as the Rubber Research Institute of Malaysia, the Forest Research Institute Malaysia and the Institute of Medical Research and more research centers are expected to be established in the coming years.
Petaling Street, Kuala Lumpur's bustling Chinatown
The tourism sector also plays an important part in the cityâs economy, providing income, employment and expanding business opportunities. As an extension of this, many large worldwide hotel chains have presence in the city. Kuala Lumpur has also developed into an international shopping destination with a wide variety of shopping centres and megamalls which carry well-known global and local brands. Conference tourismâwhich mainly encompass conventionsâhas also expanded in recent years and is becoming a very important component of the industry.
The major tourist destinations in Kuala Lumpur include the Dataran Merdeka (the Independence Square), the House of Parliament, the Istana Budaya, the Istana Negara (National Palace), the Kuala Lumpur Tower, the Muzium Negara (National Museum), the Putra World Trade Centre, the Tugu Negara (National Monument) and mosques such as the Masjid Jamek, the Masjid Negara (National Mosque) and the Federal Territory Mosque.
Other tourist attractions include the Aquaria KLCC, the Batu Caves, the Makam Pahlawan (National Mausoleum), the National Science Centre, Petaling Street, the Royal Selangor Pewter Visitor Centre, the Zoo Negara (National Zoo), and events such as Malay cultural centres, the Chinese cultural festivals at the Thean Hou Temple and the Thaipusam procession at the Sri Mahamariamman Temple. The Golden Triangle, the commercial hub of the city, contains the Petronas Twin Towers and has a distinctive nightlife. Trendy nightclubs, bars and lounges, such as the Beach Club, Espanda, the Hakka Republic Wine Bar & Restaurant, Hard Rock Cafe, the Luna Bar, Nuovo, Rum Jungle, the Thai Club, Zouk, and many others are located within and around Jalan P. Ramlee, Jalan Sultan Ismail and Jalan Ampang.
Hotels, from five-star to budget types, have cropped up everywhere to accommodate the influx of tourists each year. There are many hotels near Kuala Lumpur's entertainment and business districts.
Berjaya Times Square, the world's largest building ever built in a single phase
Kuala Lumpur alone has 66 shopping malls and it is the retail and fashion hub for Malaysia. Shopping in Malaysia contributed RM7.7 billion (USD 2.26 billion) or 20.8 percent of the RM31.9 billion tourism receipts in 2006. and Kuala Lumpur plays a big role in attracting consumers.
Suria KLCC is one of Malaysia's premier shopping destinations due to its location beneath the Petronas Twin Towers.
Apart from Suria KLCC, Bukit Bintang, which resembles Tokyo's Ginza, New York's Fifth Avenue and Singapore's Orchard Road has the highest concentration of shopping outlets in Kuala Lumpur. Bukit Bintang, which is part of the Kuala Lumpur's Golden Triangle, spans over 3 roads, namely Jalan Bukit Bintang, Jalan Imbi and Jalan Sultan Ismail. It houses various cafes, alfresco (open air) dining outlets and shopping complexes such as Berjaya Plaza, Berjaya Times Square, Bukit Bintang Plaza, Imbi Plaza, Kuala Lumpur Plaza, Lot 10, Low Yat Plaza, Pavilion KL, Starhill Plaza and Sungei Wang Plaza. It is also the location of the largest single department store in Malaysia, SOGO Kuala Lumpur KL SOGO, Corporate. Retrieved on 2008-11-10. (also known as KL SOGO) which is located at a landmark site on Jalan Tuanku Abdul Rahman, one of the best known shopping streets for locals in Kuala Lumpur.
The Bangsar district also has a few shopping complexes, including Bangsar Village, Mid Valley Megamall and The Gardens. The Damansara area north-west of Kuala Lumpur, though not in the city-proper, is the home of the only IKEA outlet in the country, and a cluster of locally-operated malls like Cathay Multi Screen Cinemas, The Curve, Ikano Power Centre, NiuXehSui at Ara Damansara and One Utama.
The Central Market, which is located in the proximity of the Dayabumi Complex, offers an assortment of arts and craft merchandise
Apart from shopping complexes, Kuala Lumpur has designated numerous zones in the city to market locally manufactured products such as textiles, fabrics and handicrafts. The Chinatown of Kuala Lumpur, or commonly known as Petaling Street, is one of them. Chinatown features many pre-independence buildings with Straits Chinese and European traditions influence. Gurstien, P (1985) Malaysia Architecture Heritage Survey â A Handbook, Malaysia Heritage Trust. Page 65 Google cache of 'HISTORICAL BUILDINGS IN MALAYSIA' The Kuala Lumpur's Central Market, which was once the city's wet market, offers an assortment of arts and craft merchandise, varying from antiques and paintings to souvenirs and clothing. It is also known as Pasar Seni in Malay.
Since 2000, the Ministry of Tourism of Malaysia has kick-started the mega sale event for all shopping in Malaysia. The mega sale event is held thrice in a year in March, May and December where all shopping malls are encouraged to participate to boost Kuala Lumpur as a leading shopping destination. Malaysia Hotels Blog
Kuala Lumpur skyline at night
The Petronas Twin Towers at dusk.
The architecture of Kuala Lumpur is a blend of old colonial influences, Asian traditions, Malay Islamic inspirations, modern, and postmodern architecture mix. Being a relatively young city compared with other Southeast Asian capitals such as Bangkok, Jakarta and Manila, most of Kuala Lumpur's colonial buildings were built toward the end of the 19th and early 20th centuries. These buildings have Moorish, Tudor, Neo-Gothic or Grecian-Spanish style or architecture. extract Most of the styling has been modified to use local resources and acclimatised to the local climate, which is hot and humid all year around.
The Petronas Twin Towers seen from Pertama Complex.
Prior to the Second World War, many shophouses, usually two storeys with functional shops on the ground floor and separate residential spaces upstairs, were built around the old city centre. These shop-houses drew inspiration from Straits Chinese and European traditions. Some of these shophouses have made way for new developments but there are still many standing today around Medan Pasar (Old Market Square), Chinatown, Jalan Tuanku Abdul Rahman, Jalan Doraisamy, Bukit Bintang and Tengkat Tong Shin areas.
Independence coupled with the rapid economic growth from the 1970s to the 1990s and with Islam being the official religion in the country, has resulted in the construction of buildings with a more local and Islamic flavour arise around the city. Many of these buildings derive their design from traditional Malay items such as the songkok and the keris. Some of these buildings have Islamic geometric motifs integrated with the designs of the building, signifying Islamic restriction on imitating nature through drawings. Examples of these buildings are Menara Telekom, Menara Maybank, Dayabumi Complex, and the Islamic Center. Some buildings such as the Islamic Arts Museum Malaysia and National Planetarium have been built to masquerade as a place of worship, complete with dome and minaret, when in fact it is a place of science and knowledge. The tall Petronas Twin Towers were designed to resemble motifs found in Islamic art.
Late modern and postmodern architecture began to appear in the late-1990s and early-2000s. With the economic development, old buildings such as Bok House have been razed to make way for new ones. Buildings with all glass shell appears around the city, with the most prominent example being the Petronas Twin Towers and Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre. Mega-Urbanization in Southeast Asia
Kuala Lumpur's central business district today has shifted around the Kuala Lumpur city centre (KLCC) where many new and tall buildings with modern and postmodern architecture fill the skyline.
Kuala Lumpur City Centre Park as seen from the Traders Hotel
The Perdana Lake Gardens, a manicured garden near the Malaysian Parliament building, was once home to a British colonial official. The park includes a Butterfly Park, Deer Park, Orchid Garden, Hibiscus Garden and Kuala Lumpur Bird Park, Southeast Asia's largest bird park. Other parks in the city include, the ASEAN Sculpture Garden, KLCC Park, Titiwangsa Lake Gardens, Metropolitan Lake Gardens in Kepong, Forest Research Institute Malaysia, FRIM Photos /ref> Taman Tasik Permaisuri (Queenâs Lake Gardens), Bukit Kiara Botanical Gardens, Equestrian Park and West Valley Park near TTDI, and Bukit Jalil International Park.
There are three forest reserves within the city namely the Bukit Nanas Forest Reserve in the city centre, the oldest gazetted forest reserve in the country , Bukit Sungai Putih Forest Reserve ( ) and Bukit Sungai Besi Forest Reserve ( ). Bukit Nanas, in the heart of the city centre, is one of the oldest virgin forests in the world within a city. These residual forest areas are home to a number of fauna species particularly monkeys, tree shrews, squirrels and birds.
Frieze depicting Malaysian history at the National Museum
Kuala Lumpur is a hub for cultural activities and events in Malaysia. Among the centres is the National Museum which is situated along the Mahameru Highway. Its collection comprises artifacts and paintings collected throughout the country.
Kuala Lumpur also has an Islamic Arts Museum which houses more than seven thousand Islamic artefacts including rare exhibits as well as a library of Islamic art books. However, the museum's collection not only concentrate on works from the Middle East, the museum also puts the emphasis on Asia, with China and Southeast Asia especially well represented. This museum features some impressively decorated domes and large open exhibition spaces. It is located at Jalan Lembah Perdana next to the National Mosque.
The premier performing arts venue is the Petronas Philharmonic Hall. The resident orchestra is the Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra (MPO), consisting of musicians from all over the world and features regular concerts, chamber concerts and traditional cultural performances.
Kuala Lumpur City Centre Park at night.
The National Art Gallery of Malaysia is located on Jalan Temerloh, off Jalan Tun Razak on a site neighbouring the National Theater (Istana Budaya) and National Library. The architecture of the gallery incorporates elements of traditional Malay architecture, as well as contemporary modern architecture. The National Art Gallery serves as a centre of excellence and trustee of the national art heritage.
The Petronas Art Gallery, another centre for fine art, is situated in Kuala Lumpur City Centre (KLCC). The Galeri Tangsi near Dataran Merdeka houses exhibitions of works by local and foreign artists.
The Kuala Lumpur Performing Arts Centre (KLPac) in Sentul West is one of the most established centres for the performing arts, notably theatre, music, and film screening, in the country. It has housed many local productions and has been a supporter of local and regional independent performance artists. One of the highlights in 2006 was the KL Sing Song 2006 music fest which featured Malaysian singer-songwriters of various cultural backgrounds, from both West and East Malaysia, through two days of performances and workshops.
Kuala Lumpur holds the Malaysia International Gourmet Festival annually. Another event hosted annually by the city is the Kuala Lumpur Fashion Week, which includes international brands as well as local designers.
Royal Selangor has an ultra modern Visitor Centre, which allows tours to be conducted through its pewter museum, gallery and its factory. In its pewtersmithing workshop, "The School of Hard Knocks," participants are taught to create their own pewter dish using traditional tools and methods.
The National Stadium at Bukit Jalil.
Kuala Lumpur has numerous parks, gardens and open spaces for recreational purposes. Total open space for recreational and sport facilities land use in the city has increased significantly by 169.6 percent from in 1984 to in 2000.
Kuala Lumpur is one of the host cities for the Formula One World Championship, the open-wheel auto racing A1 Grand Prix and the Motorcycle Grand Prix with races being held at Sepang International Circuit in the neighbouring state of Selangor, next to the Kuala Lumpur International Airport. The Formula One event contributes significantly to tourist arrivals and tourism income to Kuala Lumpur. This was evident during the Asian Financial Crisis in 1998. Despite cities around Asia suffering declining tourist arrivals, Kuala Lumpur tourist arrivals increased from 6,210,900 in 1997 to 10,221,600 in 2000, or 64.6% increase in tourist arrivals.
KL Grand Prix CSI 5*, a five-star international showjumping equestrian event is held annually in the city. This annual event draws the worldâs top riders and their prized horses to Malaysia.
Other annual sport events hosted by the city include the KL Tower Run, the KL Tower International BASE Jump Merdeka Circuit and the Kuala Lumpur International Marathon. Kuala Lumpur is also one of the stages of the Tour de Langkawi cycling race.
The annual Malaysia Open Super Series badminton tournament is held in Kuala Lumpur.
Kuala Lumpur has a considerable array of sports facilities of international class after hosting the 1998 Commonwealth Games. Many of these facilities including the main stadium (with running track and a football field), hockey stadium and swimming pools are located in the National Sports Complex at Bukit Jalil while a velodrome and more swimming pools are located in Bandar Tun Razak, next to the Taman Tasik Permaisuri Lake Gardens. There are also soccer fields, local sports complexes, swimming pools and tennis courts scattered around the suburbs. Badminton and âtakrawâ courts are usually included in community halls.
Kuala Lumpur has several golf courses including the Kuala Lumpur Golf and Country Club (KLGCC) and the Malaysia Civil Service Golf Club in Kiara and the Berjaya Golf Course at Bukit Jalil.
The city also has numerous large private fitness centers run by Celebrity Fitness, Fitness First, True Fitness and major five-star hotels.
Kuala Lumpur is also the birth place of Hashing which began in December 1938 when a group of British colonial officers and expatriates began meeting on Monday evenings to run, in a fashion patterned after the traditional British Paper Chase or "Hare and Hounds".
The Kuala Lumpur Tower is an important broadcast centre in the country.
There are several newspapers, including daily newspapers, opposition newspaper, business newspapers and also a digital newspaper, based in Kuala Lumpur. Daily newspapers include Utusan Malaysia, Berita Harian, Harian Metro, The Star, New Straits Times, The Sun, Malay Mail, Kosmo! as well as other language newspapers like Sin Chew Daily, China Press, Nanyang Siang Pau and others oppositions newspapers such as Harakah, Suara Keadilan, Siasah and Wasilah. Kuala Lumpur is also the headquarters for Malaysia's state broadcaster RTM and Media Prima, a media corporation which houses the commercial television stations TV3, ntv7, 8TV and TV9. Programmes are broadcast in Malay, English, Chinese and Tamil.
TM Tower is the headquarters of Malaysia's principal telecommunication service provider, Telekom Malaysia.
The city is also home to the country's main pay-TV service, Astro, a satellite television service, which broadcasts local and global television channels such as CNN, BBC World, Star World and HBO. Astro official website Al-Jazeera, the Doha-based Arab news network has launched a new English-speaking channel called Al-Jazeera English to boost its international viewership with one of its broadcast centers based in Kuala Lumpur. Phoenix TV, a Hong Kong based television broadcaster has also announced plans to expand its regional business by partnership with local satellite TV provider, Astro. Astro launches Phoenix InfoNews Channel InfoNews Channel launches its broadcast services in Malaysia via Astro The Hong Kong office of Channel V International, an international music channel, relocated its programme production unit in Kuala Lumpur by appointing the local company Double Vision Sdn Bhd.
In March 2008, Time Out, the international listings and events magazine, launched in Kuala Lumpur as its 24th global city.
Kuala Lumpur has been featured in all aspects of popular culture such as movies, television, music and books. Movies set in Kuala Lumpur include Entrapment, starring Sean Connery and Catherine Zeta-Jones, and Children of Men, (starring Clive Owen) where the Petronas Twin Towers were depicted in flames for a few seconds. Books which were set in Kuala Lumpur include KL 24/7 by Ida M Rahim, Shireen Zainudin and Rizal Zainudin, My Life As a Fake by Peter Carey, and Democracy by Joan Didion. Kuala Lumpur is also mentioned in many songs by local Malaysian artists such as Keroncong Kuala Lumpur by P. Ramlee, Kuala Lumpur, Ibu Kota by Saloma, Chow Kit Road by Sudirman Arshad, Senyumlah Kuala Lumpur by Alleycats, Streets of Kuala Lumpur by Murkyway, K.L. by Vandal, Kuala Lumpur by Poetic Ammo, Anak Dara by Azmyl Yunor and KL by Too Phat. Kuala Lumpur was also one of the destinations in The Amazing Race Asia and The Amazing Race. Games have also been set in Kuala Lumpur. They include three levels of the game and two levels of the PlayStation 2 game Burnout.
The old Moorish influenced KL train station was completed in 1910
The busy Jalan Ampang at night leading straight to the Petronas Towers.
Unlike most other Asian cities, driving is the main mode of commuting in Kuala Lumpur. Hence, every part of the city is well connected by highways. As capital of Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur has a comprehensive road network that leads to the rest of Peninsular Malaysia.
In terms of air connectivity, Kuala Lumpur is served by two airports. The main airport, Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA), which is also the aviation hub of Malaysia, is located about south of city. The other airport is Sultan Abdul Aziz Shah Airport, formerly known as Subang International Airport and served as the main international gateway to Kuala Lumpur from 1965 until KLIA opened in 1998. KLIA connects the city with direct flights to destinations in six continents around the world, and is the main hub for the national carrier, Malaysia Airlines and low cost carrier, AirAsia. KLIA can be reached using the KLIA Ekspres high-speed train service from KL Sentral which takes only twenty-eight minutes, while travelling by car via highway will take about an hour. As of 2007, Sultan Abdul Aziz Shah Airport is only used for chartered and turboprops flights by airlines such as Firefly and Berjaya Air.
KL Sentral at night.
Public transport on Kuala Lumpur and the rest of the Klang Valley covers a variety of transport modes such as bus, rail and taxi. Despite efforts to promote usage of public transportation, utilisation rates are low as only 16 percent of the population used public transportation in 2006. The rapid transit system in Kuala Lumpur consists of three separate rail systems which meet in the city and extends towards other parts of Klang Valley. The rail systems are RapidKL RAIL, KL Monorail, and KTM Komuter. These lines have either underground or elevated stations around the city. The main rapid transit hub is KL Sentral which facilitates as an interchange station for the rail systems. KL Sentral is also a hub for intercity railway operated by KTM Intercity. It provides rail services to as far as Singapore in the south, and Hat Yai, Thailand, in the north.
Platform of the KLCC LRT station along the Kelana Jaya Line (Putra LRT) in Kuala Lumpur.
The largest public transportation operator in Kuala Lumpur and the Klang Valley is RapidKL. Since the take over from Intrakota Komposit Sdn Bhd, RapidKL has redrawn the entire bus network of Kuala Lumpur and Klang Valley metropolitan area Rapid KL to revamp network to increase ridership and improve Kuala Lumpur's public transportation system. The management of RapidKL has adopted the hub and spoke system to provide greater connectivity, and cut down the need of more buses. RapidKL is also the operator of three rapid transit rail lines in Kuala Lumpur, namely Ampang Line, Sri Petaling Line and Kelana Jaya Line.
Kuala Lumpur is served by Port Klang, located about southwest of the city. The port is the largest and busiest in the country handling about of cargo in 2006.
Victoria Institution is one of the oldest secondary schools in the country.
According to government statistics, Kuala Lumpur has a literacy rate of 97.5% in 2000, the highest rate in any state or territory in Malaysia.
In Malaysia, Malay is the language of instruction for most subjects while English is a compulsory subject and is used as the language of instruction for mathematics and the natural sciences. There are also schools which provide Mandarin and Tamil as languages of instruction for certain subjects.
In Kuala Lumpur alone, there are 13 tertiary education institutions, 79 high schools, 155 elementary schools and 136 kindergartens.
There are several notable institutions located in the city which have existed for more than 100 years, such as Victoria Institution (1893); Methodist Girls' School, Kuala Lumpur (1896); Methodist Boys' School (1897); Convent Bukit Nanas (1899) and St. John's Institution (1904).
Kuala Lumpur is home to the University of Malaya. Established in 1962, it is the oldest university in Malaysia, and one of the oldest in the region. It is also the most prestigious tertiary institution in Malaysia, having been ranked first among the universities in Malaysia in the 2004 THES international rankings. In recent years, the number of international students at University of Malaya has risen, a result of increasing efforts made to attract more international students.
Other universities located in Kuala Lumpur include UCSI University, International Medical University, Open University Malaysia, Universiti Kuala Lumpur, Wawasan Open University and the branch campus of Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia and Universiti Teknologi Malaysia.
The National Defence University of Malaysia is located at Sungai Besi Army Base, at the southern part of central Kuala Lumpur. It was established to be a major centre for military and defence technology studies. This institution covers studies in the field of army, navy, and air force.
* Sydney, Australia
* Auckland, New Zealand
* San Francisco, California, United States
* Los Angeles, California, United States
* New York City, New York, United States
* London, United Kingdom
* Dubai, United Arab Emirates
* Mashhad, Iran (October 2006)
* Esfahan, Iran
* Shiraz, Iran
* Casablanca, Morocco
* Malacca, Malaysia (April 15, 1989) Kuala Lumpur fact file, Asian-Pacific City Summit. Retrieved on November 3, 2007.
* Beijing, China
* Osaka, Japan
* Ankara, Turkey
* Delhi, India Delhi to London, itâs a sister act The Times of India. Retrieved on August 30, 2008
* Karachi, Pakistan
* Los Mochis, Mexico
*2005 Malaysian haze
*2020 Summer Olympics
* Official Kuala Lumpur Website
* Kuala Lumpur City Hall
* ITIS Kuala Lumpur
*
* Kuala Lumpur Hotels
* Kuala Lumpur City Guide - Explore, Share, Live and Love it!
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Kuala_Lumpur | What's the population of Kuala lumpur? | 1.6 million | data/set3/a3 | Kuala_Lumpur
Kuala Lumpur (Jawi: ÙÙاÙا ÙÙÙ
Ú¤Ùر; translates as: "muddy confluence," "muddy estuary," and "muddy city"; in English; Kuala Lumpur. Dictionary.com. Retrieved November 2007. Malay , locally or even , and often abbreviated as K.L.), is the capital and largest city of Malaysia. The city proper, making up an area of , has an estimated population of 1.6 million in 2006. Greater Kuala Lumpur, also known as the Klang Valley, is an urban agglomeration of 7.2 million. It is the fastest growing metropolitan region in the country, in terms of population as well as economy.
Kuala Lumpur is the seat of the Parliament of Malaysia. The city was once home to the executive and judicial branches of the federal government, but they have since moved to Putrajaya starting in 1999. Some sections of the judiciary remain in the capital. The official residence of the Malaysian King, the Istana Negara, is also situated in Kuala Lumpur. The city is also the cultural and economic centre of Malaysia due to its position as the capital as well as being a primate city. Kuala Lumpur is rated as an alpha world city, and is the only global city in Malaysia, according to the Globalization and World Cities Study Group and Network (GaWC).
Kuala Lumpur is defined within the borders of the Federal Territory of Kuala Lumpur and is one of three Malaysian Federal Territories. It is an enclave within the state of Selangor, on the central west coast of Peninsular Malaysia. Residents of the city are known as KLites.
Beginning in the 1990s, the city has played host to many international sporting, political and cultural events including the 1998 Commonwealth Games and the Formula One World Championship. In addition, Kuala Lumpur is home to the tallest twin buildings in the world, the Petronas Twin Towers.
Kuala Lumpur is served by two main airports, the Kuala Lumpur International Airport or better known as KLIA in Sepang and Subang International Airport which now only serve domestic flights within Malaysia.
Chinese Kapitan Yap Ah Loy, the founding father of Kuala Lumpur
Kuala Lumpur has its origins in the 1850s, when the Malay Chief of Klang, Raja Abdullah, hired some Chinese labourers to open new and larger tin mines. They landed at the confluence of Sungai Gombak and Sungai Klang (Klang River) to open mines at Ampang. Sungai Gombak was previously known as Sungai Lumpur, which means muddy river. The Original name for this city was "Pengkalan Lumpur", which means bundle of mud. As time passes by the name changed to Kuala Lumpur which literally means âmuddy confluenceâ in Bahasa Melayu. Later, tin mines were opened at Pudu and Batu. Among the early notable pioneers are Hiu Siew and Liu Ngim Kong.
These mines developed into a trading post which became to be considered a frontier town. Early Kuala Lumpur had many problems, including the Selangor Civil War; it was also plagued by diseases and constant fires and floods. Around the 1870s, the Chinese Kapitan of Kuala Lumpur, Yap Ah Loy, emerged as leader, and became responsible for the survival and subsequent systematic growth of this town. He began to develop Kuala Lumpur from a small unknown place into a mining town with economic boom. In 1880, the state capital of Selangor was moved from Klang to the more strategically advantageous Kuala Lumpur.
In 1881, a flood swept through the town following a fire which engulfed it earlier. These successive problems destroyed the town's structures of wood and atap (thatching). As a response, Frank Swettenham, the British Resident of Selangor, required that buildings be constructed of brick and tile. Many of the new brick buildings mirrored that of shop houses in southern China, with "five foot ways" as well as skilled Chinese carpentry. This resulted in a distinct eclectic shop house architecture typical to this region. A railway line increased accessibility into this town. Development intensified in the 1890s, leading to the creation of a Sanitary Board. In 1896, Kuala Lumpur was chosen as the capital of the newly formed Federated Malay States.
A scene during World War II on the streets of Kuala Lumpur. The scene depicts Japanese troops clearing up the streets.
A mixture of different communities settled in various sections of Kuala Lumpur. The Chinese mainly settled around the commercial centre of Market Square, east of Klang River, and towards Chinatown. The Malays, Indian Chettiars, and Indian Muslims resided along Java Street (now Jalan Tun Perak). The Padang, now known as Merdeka Square, was the center of the British administrative offices.
During World War II, Kuala Lumpur was captured by the Japanese army on January 11, 1942. They remained in occupation until August 15, 1945, when the commander in chief of the Japanese Seventh Area Army in Singapore and Malaya, SeishirÅ Itagaki, surrendered to the British administration following the Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Kuala Lumpur grew through the war, the rubber and tin commodity crashes and the Malayan Emergency, during which Malaya was preoccupied with the communist insurgency. In 1957, the Federation of Malaya gained its independence from British rule. Kuala Lumpur remained the capital through the formation of Malaysia on September 16, 1963.
On May 13, 1969, one of the worst race riots in Malaysia took place in Kuala Lumpur. The May 13 Incident was a riot between the Malays and the Chinese. The former being dissatisfied with their socio-political situation at the time. The riot resulted in the deaths of 196 people, Official figure, and led to a major reform in the country's economic policy favouring the Malays.
Kuala Lumpur later achieved city status in 1972, becoming the first settlement in Malaysia to be granted the status after independence. Later, on February 1, 1974, Kuala Lumpur became a Federal Territory. Kuala Lumpur ceased to be the capital of Selangor in 1978 after the city of Shah Alam was declared as the new state capital.
On 14 May 1990, Kuala Lumpur was celebrated 100 years of local authority. The new federal territory of Kuala Lumpur flag and anthem were introduced.
In 1998, another political movement known as Reformasi took place mainly in this city. The movement was a result of the sacking of former Malaysian Deputy Prime Minister, Anwar Ibrahim, and resulted in a chain of protests until 1999, where supporters of Anwar Ibrahim took to the streets to demand reforms in the government's administration, among others.
On February 1, 2001, Putrajaya was declared a Federal Territory, as well as the seat of the federal government. The administrative and judicial functions of the government were shifted from Kuala Lumpur to Putrajaya. Kuala Lumpur however still retained its legislative function, and remained the home of the Yang di-Pertuan Agong (King).
A pedestrian mall by KL's central market.
The geography of Kuala Lumpur is characterized by a huge valley known as Klang Valley. The valley is bordered by the Titiwangsa Mountains in the east, several minor ranges in the north and the south and the Strait of Malacca in the west. Kuala Lumpur is a Malay term which translates to "muddy confluence" as it is located at the confluence of the Klang and Gombak rivers.
Located in the center of Selangor state, Kuala Lumpur was previously under the rule of Selangor State Government. In 1974, Kuala Lumpur was separated from Selangor to form the first Federal Territory governed directly by the Malaysian Federal Government. Its location on the west coast of Peninsular Malaysia, which has wider flat land than the east coast, has contributed to its faster development relative to other cities in Malaysia.
The municipality of the city covers an area of , with an average elevation of .
Protected by the Titiwangsa Mountains in the east and Indonesia's Sumatra Island in the west, Kuala Lumpur has a year-round equatorial Tropical rain forest climate (Köppen climate classification Af) which is warm and sunny, along with abundant rainfall, especially during the northeast monsoon season from October to March. Temperatures tend to remain constant. Maximums hover between and have never exceeded , while minimums hover between and have never fallen below . Kuala Lumpur typically receives of rain annually; June and July are relatively dry, but even then rainfall typically exceeds per month.
Flooding is a frequent occurrence in Kuala Lumpur whenever there is a heavy downpour, especially in the city centre and downstream areas. Dust particles from forest fires from nearby Sumatra sometimes cast a haze over the region. It is a major source of pollution in the city together with open burning, emission from motor vehicles and construction work.
Bahasa Melayu the national language, is the principal language of Kuala Lumpur. Other major languages spoken in the city are Cantonese, Mandarin, and Tamil. English has a strong presence, especially in business and is a compulsory language taught in schools.
Kuala Lumpur City Centre Park
Kuala Lumpur also has a mix of different cultures which include Malays, Chinese, Indians, Eurasians, as well as Kadazans, Ibans and other indigenous races from East Malaysia and Peninsula Malaysia.
Kuala Lumpur's rapid development triggered a huge influx of foreign workers from Indonesia, Nepal, Burma, Thailand, Bangladesh, Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka, and Vietnam into Malaysia.
In the late-18th century, when Europe underwent Industrial Revolution, large groups of Chinese from Fujian and Guangdong in China were brought in to Malaya to work in the booming tin mining industry. The Chinese in Kuala Lumpur speak different dialects but the majority in Kuala Lumpur are of Cantonese descent, and the Hakkas.
Indians form 10% of the population in Kuala Lumpur (as in 2000), mostly practise Hinduism and speak Tamil and other Indian and Pakistani languages such as Hindi, Malayalam, Punjabi, Telugu and Pashtu. Historically, most of the Indians were brought in during the British colonisation of the Malaysia. Their popular festivals are Thaipusam, Deepavali and Pongal.
Islam is practised primarily by the Malays and the Indian Muslim communities. Other major religions are Hinduism (mainly among Indians), Buddhism, Confucianism and Taoism (mainly among Chinese) and Christianity. The city has many places of worship catering to the multi-religious population.
The connecting bridge between Mid Valley Megamall and The Gardens, spanning above the central boulevard.
The estimated population of Kuala Lumpur in the city proper for 2006 was 1.58 million. "Basic Population Characteristics by Administrative Districts", Department of Statistics, Malaysia (June 2006) It has a population density of , and is the most densely populated administrative district in Malaysia. With an estimated metropolitan population of 6.9 million in 2007, it can be considered a primate city. The continuing decline in the birth rate for Kuala Lumpur has resulted in the decline in the proportion of young people below 15 years old from 33% in 1980 to slightly less than 27% in 2000. On the other hand, the working age group of 15â59 increased from 63% in 1980 to 67% in 2000. The elderly age group, 60 years old and above has increased from 4% in 1980 and 1991 to 6% in 2000.
Based on the census of the Department of Statistics (see the percentage of Bumiputera population in Kuala Lumpur alone was around 38% in 2000 (next census is in 2010) while the Chinese population comprised 43% and Indians 10%. A notable phenomenon has been the increase in the presence of foreign residents in Kuala Lumpur, who now constitute about 9% of the cityâs population.
Crime in Kuala Lumpur has been a concern of residents in recent years. Among the crimes showing increasing rates were snatch theft, drug addiction, gambling and vice.
The Kuala Lumpur City Hall
The local administration is carried out by the Kuala Lumpur City Hall, an agency under the Federal Territories Ministry of Malaysia. Dewan Bandaraya Kuala Lumpur They are responsible for public health and sanitation, waste removal and management, town planning, environmental protection and building control, social and economic development and general maintenance functions of urban infrastructure. Executive power lies with the mayor in the city hall, who is appointed for three years by the Federal Territories Minister. This system of appointing the mayor has been in place ever since the local government elections were suspended in 1970.
Since Kuala Lumpur became a Federal Territory of Malaysia on February 1, 1974, the city has been led by nine mayors. The current mayor of Kuala Lumpur is Dato' Ahmad Fuad Ismail, who is in his first term of office. (14 December 2008)
"Pengenalan".Dewan Bandaraya Kuala Lumpur He was appointed in 2008.
Kuala Lumpur is home to the Parliament of Malaysia. The parliament is composed of a lower House of Representatives (Dewan Rakyat) and an upper House of Senate (Dewan Negara). The city is represented in the lower House of Representatives by eleven Members of Parliament (MPs), who are elected to five-year terms. Traditionally, political leanings in Kuala Lumpur have been dominated by Barisan Nasional (BN), with seven representatives from BN and the other four from the Democratic Action Party (DAP) prior to the 2008 General Elections. After the 2008 elections BN was left with just one representative, Zulhasnan Rafique, in the Setiawangsa seat. DAP took control of five seats, Parti Keadilan Rakyat taking four seats, and PAS one seat, marking the first time in which the majority of the Federal Territory's constituencies was dominated by opposition parties.
A street view of the Old Market Square (Medan Pasar)
Kuala Lumpur and its surrounding urban areas form the most industrialized and economically, the fastest growing region in Malaysia. Despite the relocation of federal government administration to Putrajaya, certain governmentâs important machineries such as Bank Negara Malaysia (Central Bank of Malaysia), Companies Commission of Malaysia and Securities Commission as well as most embassies and diplomatic missions have remained in the city.
The city remains as the economic and business center of the country. In fact, the city is a center for finance, insurance, real estate, media and the arts of Malaysia. The infrastructure development in the surrounding areas such as the Kuala Lumpur International Airport at Sepang, the creation of the Multimedia Super Corridor and the expansion of Port Klang further reinforce the economic significance of the city.
Bursa Malaysia or the Malaysia Exchange is based in the city and forms one of its core economic activities. As of 20 November 2007, the market capitalisation stood at US$318.65 billion.
The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) for Kuala Lumpur is estimated at RM25,968 million in 2000 with an average annual growth rate of 4.2 percent. The per capita GDP for Kuala Lumpur in year 2000 is RM30,727, an average annual growth rate of 6.1 percent. The total employment in Kuala Lumpur is estimated at around 838,400. The service sector comprising finance, insurance, real estate, business services, wholesale and retail trade, restaurants and hotels, transport, storage and communication, utilities, personal services and government services form the largest component of employment representing about 83.0 percent of the total. The remaining 17 percent comes from manufacturing and construction.
Pre-war shoplots refurbished into restaurants and bars along Tengkat Tong Shin.
The large service sector is evident in the number of local and foreign banks and insurance companies operating in the city. Kuala Lumpur is poised to become the global Islamic Financing hub with an increasing number of financial institutions providing Islamic Financing and the strong presence of Gulf's financial institutions such as the world's largest Islamic bank, Al-Rajhi Bank and Kuwait Finance House. Apart from that, the Dow Jones & Company is keen to work with Bursa Malaysia to set up Islamic Exchange Trade Funds (ETFs), which would help raise Malaysia's profile in the Gulf. The city has a large number of foreign corporations and is also host to many multi national companiesâ regional offices or support centres, particularly for finance and accounting, and information technology functions. Most of the countriesâ largest companies have their headquarters based here and as of December 2007 and excluding Petronas, there are 14 companies that are listed in Forbes 2000 based in Kuala Lumpur. Largest Company in Malaysia 2007
Other important economic activities in the city are education and health services. Kuala Lumpur also has advantages stemming from the high concentration of educational institutions located within its boundaries, providing a wide range of courses. Such public institutions include the International Islamic University Malaysia, University of Malaya, the Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, International Medical University and the Medical Faculty of the Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia. There are also a large number of private colleges, including the Universiti Tun Abdul Razak and Tunku Abdul Rahman College, in and around Kuala Lumpur providing a wide range of courses which attract students from all over Malaysia as well as from other countries. There are numerous public and private medical specialist centres and hospitals in the city which offer general health services and a wide range of specialist surgery and treatment catering to locals and tourists.
There has been growing emphasis to expand the economic scope of the city into other service activities such as research and development which supports the rest of the economy of Malaysia. Kuala Lumpur has been home for years to important research centers such as the Rubber Research Institute of Malaysia, the Forest Research Institute Malaysia and the Institute of Medical Research and more research centers are expected to be established in the coming years.
Petaling Street, Kuala Lumpur's bustling Chinatown
The tourism sector also plays an important part in the cityâs economy, providing income, employment and expanding business opportunities. As an extension of this, many large worldwide hotel chains have presence in the city. Kuala Lumpur has also developed into an international shopping destination with a wide variety of shopping centres and megamalls which carry well-known global and local brands. Conference tourismâwhich mainly encompass conventionsâhas also expanded in recent years and is becoming a very important component of the industry.
The major tourist destinations in Kuala Lumpur include the Dataran Merdeka (the Independence Square), the House of Parliament, the Istana Budaya, the Istana Negara (National Palace), the Kuala Lumpur Tower, the Muzium Negara (National Museum), the Putra World Trade Centre, the Tugu Negara (National Monument) and mosques such as the Masjid Jamek, the Masjid Negara (National Mosque) and the Federal Territory Mosque.
Other tourist attractions include the Aquaria KLCC, the Batu Caves, the Makam Pahlawan (National Mausoleum), the National Science Centre, Petaling Street, the Royal Selangor Pewter Visitor Centre, the Zoo Negara (National Zoo), and events such as Malay cultural centres, the Chinese cultural festivals at the Thean Hou Temple and the Thaipusam procession at the Sri Mahamariamman Temple. The Golden Triangle, the commercial hub of the city, contains the Petronas Twin Towers and has a distinctive nightlife. Trendy nightclubs, bars and lounges, such as the Beach Club, Espanda, the Hakka Republic Wine Bar & Restaurant, Hard Rock Cafe, the Luna Bar, Nuovo, Rum Jungle, the Thai Club, Zouk, and many others are located within and around Jalan P. Ramlee, Jalan Sultan Ismail and Jalan Ampang.
Hotels, from five-star to budget types, have cropped up everywhere to accommodate the influx of tourists each year. There are many hotels near Kuala Lumpur's entertainment and business districts.
Berjaya Times Square, the world's largest building ever built in a single phase
Kuala Lumpur alone has 66 shopping malls and it is the retail and fashion hub for Malaysia. Shopping in Malaysia contributed RM7.7 billion (USD 2.26 billion) or 20.8 percent of the RM31.9 billion tourism receipts in 2006. and Kuala Lumpur plays a big role in attracting consumers.
Suria KLCC is one of Malaysia's premier shopping destinations due to its location beneath the Petronas Twin Towers.
Apart from Suria KLCC, Bukit Bintang, which resembles Tokyo's Ginza, New York's Fifth Avenue and Singapore's Orchard Road has the highest concentration of shopping outlets in Kuala Lumpur. Bukit Bintang, which is part of the Kuala Lumpur's Golden Triangle, spans over 3 roads, namely Jalan Bukit Bintang, Jalan Imbi and Jalan Sultan Ismail. It houses various cafes, alfresco (open air) dining outlets and shopping complexes such as Berjaya Plaza, Berjaya Times Square, Bukit Bintang Plaza, Imbi Plaza, Kuala Lumpur Plaza, Lot 10, Low Yat Plaza, Pavilion KL, Starhill Plaza and Sungei Wang Plaza. It is also the location of the largest single department store in Malaysia, SOGO Kuala Lumpur KL SOGO, Corporate. Retrieved on 2008-11-10. (also known as KL SOGO) which is located at a landmark site on Jalan Tuanku Abdul Rahman, one of the best known shopping streets for locals in Kuala Lumpur.
The Bangsar district also has a few shopping complexes, including Bangsar Village, Mid Valley Megamall and The Gardens. The Damansara area north-west of Kuala Lumpur, though not in the city-proper, is the home of the only IKEA outlet in the country, and a cluster of locally-operated malls like Cathay Multi Screen Cinemas, The Curve, Ikano Power Centre, NiuXehSui at Ara Damansara and One Utama.
The Central Market, which is located in the proximity of the Dayabumi Complex, offers an assortment of arts and craft merchandise
Apart from shopping complexes, Kuala Lumpur has designated numerous zones in the city to market locally manufactured products such as textiles, fabrics and handicrafts. The Chinatown of Kuala Lumpur, or commonly known as Petaling Street, is one of them. Chinatown features many pre-independence buildings with Straits Chinese and European traditions influence. Gurstien, P (1985) Malaysia Architecture Heritage Survey â A Handbook, Malaysia Heritage Trust. Page 65 Google cache of 'HISTORICAL BUILDINGS IN MALAYSIA' The Kuala Lumpur's Central Market, which was once the city's wet market, offers an assortment of arts and craft merchandise, varying from antiques and paintings to souvenirs and clothing. It is also known as Pasar Seni in Malay.
Since 2000, the Ministry of Tourism of Malaysia has kick-started the mega sale event for all shopping in Malaysia. The mega sale event is held thrice in a year in March, May and December where all shopping malls are encouraged to participate to boost Kuala Lumpur as a leading shopping destination. Malaysia Hotels Blog
Kuala Lumpur skyline at night
The Petronas Twin Towers at dusk.
The architecture of Kuala Lumpur is a blend of old colonial influences, Asian traditions, Malay Islamic inspirations, modern, and postmodern architecture mix. Being a relatively young city compared with other Southeast Asian capitals such as Bangkok, Jakarta and Manila, most of Kuala Lumpur's colonial buildings were built toward the end of the 19th and early 20th centuries. These buildings have Moorish, Tudor, Neo-Gothic or Grecian-Spanish style or architecture. extract Most of the styling has been modified to use local resources and acclimatised to the local climate, which is hot and humid all year around.
The Petronas Twin Towers seen from Pertama Complex.
Prior to the Second World War, many shophouses, usually two storeys with functional shops on the ground floor and separate residential spaces upstairs, were built around the old city centre. These shop-houses drew inspiration from Straits Chinese and European traditions. Some of these shophouses have made way for new developments but there are still many standing today around Medan Pasar (Old Market Square), Chinatown, Jalan Tuanku Abdul Rahman, Jalan Doraisamy, Bukit Bintang and Tengkat Tong Shin areas.
Independence coupled with the rapid economic growth from the 1970s to the 1990s and with Islam being the official religion in the country, has resulted in the construction of buildings with a more local and Islamic flavour arise around the city. Many of these buildings derive their design from traditional Malay items such as the songkok and the keris. Some of these buildings have Islamic geometric motifs integrated with the designs of the building, signifying Islamic restriction on imitating nature through drawings. Examples of these buildings are Menara Telekom, Menara Maybank, Dayabumi Complex, and the Islamic Center. Some buildings such as the Islamic Arts Museum Malaysia and National Planetarium have been built to masquerade as a place of worship, complete with dome and minaret, when in fact it is a place of science and knowledge. The tall Petronas Twin Towers were designed to resemble motifs found in Islamic art.
Late modern and postmodern architecture began to appear in the late-1990s and early-2000s. With the economic development, old buildings such as Bok House have been razed to make way for new ones. Buildings with all glass shell appears around the city, with the most prominent example being the Petronas Twin Towers and Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre. Mega-Urbanization in Southeast Asia
Kuala Lumpur's central business district today has shifted around the Kuala Lumpur city centre (KLCC) where many new and tall buildings with modern and postmodern architecture fill the skyline.
Kuala Lumpur City Centre Park as seen from the Traders Hotel
The Perdana Lake Gardens, a manicured garden near the Malaysian Parliament building, was once home to a British colonial official. The park includes a Butterfly Park, Deer Park, Orchid Garden, Hibiscus Garden and Kuala Lumpur Bird Park, Southeast Asia's largest bird park. Other parks in the city include, the ASEAN Sculpture Garden, KLCC Park, Titiwangsa Lake Gardens, Metropolitan Lake Gardens in Kepong, Forest Research Institute Malaysia, FRIM Photos /ref> Taman Tasik Permaisuri (Queenâs Lake Gardens), Bukit Kiara Botanical Gardens, Equestrian Park and West Valley Park near TTDI, and Bukit Jalil International Park.
There are three forest reserves within the city namely the Bukit Nanas Forest Reserve in the city centre, the oldest gazetted forest reserve in the country , Bukit Sungai Putih Forest Reserve ( ) and Bukit Sungai Besi Forest Reserve ( ). Bukit Nanas, in the heart of the city centre, is one of the oldest virgin forests in the world within a city. These residual forest areas are home to a number of fauna species particularly monkeys, tree shrews, squirrels and birds.
Frieze depicting Malaysian history at the National Museum
Kuala Lumpur is a hub for cultural activities and events in Malaysia. Among the centres is the National Museum which is situated along the Mahameru Highway. Its collection comprises artifacts and paintings collected throughout the country.
Kuala Lumpur also has an Islamic Arts Museum which houses more than seven thousand Islamic artefacts including rare exhibits as well as a library of Islamic art books. However, the museum's collection not only concentrate on works from the Middle East, the museum also puts the emphasis on Asia, with China and Southeast Asia especially well represented. This museum features some impressively decorated domes and large open exhibition spaces. It is located at Jalan Lembah Perdana next to the National Mosque.
The premier performing arts venue is the Petronas Philharmonic Hall. The resident orchestra is the Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra (MPO), consisting of musicians from all over the world and features regular concerts, chamber concerts and traditional cultural performances.
Kuala Lumpur City Centre Park at night.
The National Art Gallery of Malaysia is located on Jalan Temerloh, off Jalan Tun Razak on a site neighbouring the National Theater (Istana Budaya) and National Library. The architecture of the gallery incorporates elements of traditional Malay architecture, as well as contemporary modern architecture. The National Art Gallery serves as a centre of excellence and trustee of the national art heritage.
The Petronas Art Gallery, another centre for fine art, is situated in Kuala Lumpur City Centre (KLCC). The Galeri Tangsi near Dataran Merdeka houses exhibitions of works by local and foreign artists.
The Kuala Lumpur Performing Arts Centre (KLPac) in Sentul West is one of the most established centres for the performing arts, notably theatre, music, and film screening, in the country. It has housed many local productions and has been a supporter of local and regional independent performance artists. One of the highlights in 2006 was the KL Sing Song 2006 music fest which featured Malaysian singer-songwriters of various cultural backgrounds, from both West and East Malaysia, through two days of performances and workshops.
Kuala Lumpur holds the Malaysia International Gourmet Festival annually. Another event hosted annually by the city is the Kuala Lumpur Fashion Week, which includes international brands as well as local designers.
Royal Selangor has an ultra modern Visitor Centre, which allows tours to be conducted through its pewter museum, gallery and its factory. In its pewtersmithing workshop, "The School of Hard Knocks," participants are taught to create their own pewter dish using traditional tools and methods.
The National Stadium at Bukit Jalil.
Kuala Lumpur has numerous parks, gardens and open spaces for recreational purposes. Total open space for recreational and sport facilities land use in the city has increased significantly by 169.6 percent from in 1984 to in 2000.
Kuala Lumpur is one of the host cities for the Formula One World Championship, the open-wheel auto racing A1 Grand Prix and the Motorcycle Grand Prix with races being held at Sepang International Circuit in the neighbouring state of Selangor, next to the Kuala Lumpur International Airport. The Formula One event contributes significantly to tourist arrivals and tourism income to Kuala Lumpur. This was evident during the Asian Financial Crisis in 1998. Despite cities around Asia suffering declining tourist arrivals, Kuala Lumpur tourist arrivals increased from 6,210,900 in 1997 to 10,221,600 in 2000, or 64.6% increase in tourist arrivals.
KL Grand Prix CSI 5*, a five-star international showjumping equestrian event is held annually in the city. This annual event draws the worldâs top riders and their prized horses to Malaysia.
Other annual sport events hosted by the city include the KL Tower Run, the KL Tower International BASE Jump Merdeka Circuit and the Kuala Lumpur International Marathon. Kuala Lumpur is also one of the stages of the Tour de Langkawi cycling race.
The annual Malaysia Open Super Series badminton tournament is held in Kuala Lumpur.
Kuala Lumpur has a considerable array of sports facilities of international class after hosting the 1998 Commonwealth Games. Many of these facilities including the main stadium (with running track and a football field), hockey stadium and swimming pools are located in the National Sports Complex at Bukit Jalil while a velodrome and more swimming pools are located in Bandar Tun Razak, next to the Taman Tasik Permaisuri Lake Gardens. There are also soccer fields, local sports complexes, swimming pools and tennis courts scattered around the suburbs. Badminton and âtakrawâ courts are usually included in community halls.
Kuala Lumpur has several golf courses including the Kuala Lumpur Golf and Country Club (KLGCC) and the Malaysia Civil Service Golf Club in Kiara and the Berjaya Golf Course at Bukit Jalil.
The city also has numerous large private fitness centers run by Celebrity Fitness, Fitness First, True Fitness and major five-star hotels.
Kuala Lumpur is also the birth place of Hashing which began in December 1938 when a group of British colonial officers and expatriates began meeting on Monday evenings to run, in a fashion patterned after the traditional British Paper Chase or "Hare and Hounds".
The Kuala Lumpur Tower is an important broadcast centre in the country.
There are several newspapers, including daily newspapers, opposition newspaper, business newspapers and also a digital newspaper, based in Kuala Lumpur. Daily newspapers include Utusan Malaysia, Berita Harian, Harian Metro, The Star, New Straits Times, The Sun, Malay Mail, Kosmo! as well as other language newspapers like Sin Chew Daily, China Press, Nanyang Siang Pau and others oppositions newspapers such as Harakah, Suara Keadilan, Siasah and Wasilah. Kuala Lumpur is also the headquarters for Malaysia's state broadcaster RTM and Media Prima, a media corporation which houses the commercial television stations TV3, ntv7, 8TV and TV9. Programmes are broadcast in Malay, English, Chinese and Tamil.
TM Tower is the headquarters of Malaysia's principal telecommunication service provider, Telekom Malaysia.
The city is also home to the country's main pay-TV service, Astro, a satellite television service, which broadcasts local and global television channels such as CNN, BBC World, Star World and HBO. Astro official website Al-Jazeera, the Doha-based Arab news network has launched a new English-speaking channel called Al-Jazeera English to boost its international viewership with one of its broadcast centers based in Kuala Lumpur. Phoenix TV, a Hong Kong based television broadcaster has also announced plans to expand its regional business by partnership with local satellite TV provider, Astro. Astro launches Phoenix InfoNews Channel InfoNews Channel launches its broadcast services in Malaysia via Astro The Hong Kong office of Channel V International, an international music channel, relocated its programme production unit in Kuala Lumpur by appointing the local company Double Vision Sdn Bhd.
In March 2008, Time Out, the international listings and events magazine, launched in Kuala Lumpur as its 24th global city.
Kuala Lumpur has been featured in all aspects of popular culture such as movies, television, music and books. Movies set in Kuala Lumpur include Entrapment, starring Sean Connery and Catherine Zeta-Jones, and Children of Men, (starring Clive Owen) where the Petronas Twin Towers were depicted in flames for a few seconds. Books which were set in Kuala Lumpur include KL 24/7 by Ida M Rahim, Shireen Zainudin and Rizal Zainudin, My Life As a Fake by Peter Carey, and Democracy by Joan Didion. Kuala Lumpur is also mentioned in many songs by local Malaysian artists such as Keroncong Kuala Lumpur by P. Ramlee, Kuala Lumpur, Ibu Kota by Saloma, Chow Kit Road by Sudirman Arshad, Senyumlah Kuala Lumpur by Alleycats, Streets of Kuala Lumpur by Murkyway, K.L. by Vandal, Kuala Lumpur by Poetic Ammo, Anak Dara by Azmyl Yunor and KL by Too Phat. Kuala Lumpur was also one of the destinations in The Amazing Race Asia and The Amazing Race. Games have also been set in Kuala Lumpur. They include three levels of the game and two levels of the PlayStation 2 game Burnout.
The old Moorish influenced KL train station was completed in 1910
The busy Jalan Ampang at night leading straight to the Petronas Towers.
Unlike most other Asian cities, driving is the main mode of commuting in Kuala Lumpur. Hence, every part of the city is well connected by highways. As capital of Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur has a comprehensive road network that leads to the rest of Peninsular Malaysia.
In terms of air connectivity, Kuala Lumpur is served by two airports. The main airport, Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA), which is also the aviation hub of Malaysia, is located about south of city. The other airport is Sultan Abdul Aziz Shah Airport, formerly known as Subang International Airport and served as the main international gateway to Kuala Lumpur from 1965 until KLIA opened in 1998. KLIA connects the city with direct flights to destinations in six continents around the world, and is the main hub for the national carrier, Malaysia Airlines and low cost carrier, AirAsia. KLIA can be reached using the KLIA Ekspres high-speed train service from KL Sentral which takes only twenty-eight minutes, while travelling by car via highway will take about an hour. As of 2007, Sultan Abdul Aziz Shah Airport is only used for chartered and turboprops flights by airlines such as Firefly and Berjaya Air.
KL Sentral at night.
Public transport on Kuala Lumpur and the rest of the Klang Valley covers a variety of transport modes such as bus, rail and taxi. Despite efforts to promote usage of public transportation, utilisation rates are low as only 16 percent of the population used public transportation in 2006. The rapid transit system in Kuala Lumpur consists of three separate rail systems which meet in the city and extends towards other parts of Klang Valley. The rail systems are RapidKL RAIL, KL Monorail, and KTM Komuter. These lines have either underground or elevated stations around the city. The main rapid transit hub is KL Sentral which facilitates as an interchange station for the rail systems. KL Sentral is also a hub for intercity railway operated by KTM Intercity. It provides rail services to as far as Singapore in the south, and Hat Yai, Thailand, in the north.
Platform of the KLCC LRT station along the Kelana Jaya Line (Putra LRT) in Kuala Lumpur.
The largest public transportation operator in Kuala Lumpur and the Klang Valley is RapidKL. Since the take over from Intrakota Komposit Sdn Bhd, RapidKL has redrawn the entire bus network of Kuala Lumpur and Klang Valley metropolitan area Rapid KL to revamp network to increase ridership and improve Kuala Lumpur's public transportation system. The management of RapidKL has adopted the hub and spoke system to provide greater connectivity, and cut down the need of more buses. RapidKL is also the operator of three rapid transit rail lines in Kuala Lumpur, namely Ampang Line, Sri Petaling Line and Kelana Jaya Line.
Kuala Lumpur is served by Port Klang, located about southwest of the city. The port is the largest and busiest in the country handling about of cargo in 2006.
Victoria Institution is one of the oldest secondary schools in the country.
According to government statistics, Kuala Lumpur has a literacy rate of 97.5% in 2000, the highest rate in any state or territory in Malaysia.
In Malaysia, Malay is the language of instruction for most subjects while English is a compulsory subject and is used as the language of instruction for mathematics and the natural sciences. There are also schools which provide Mandarin and Tamil as languages of instruction for certain subjects.
In Kuala Lumpur alone, there are 13 tertiary education institutions, 79 high schools, 155 elementary schools and 136 kindergartens.
There are several notable institutions located in the city which have existed for more than 100 years, such as Victoria Institution (1893); Methodist Girls' School, Kuala Lumpur (1896); Methodist Boys' School (1897); Convent Bukit Nanas (1899) and St. John's Institution (1904).
Kuala Lumpur is home to the University of Malaya. Established in 1962, it is the oldest university in Malaysia, and one of the oldest in the region. It is also the most prestigious tertiary institution in Malaysia, having been ranked first among the universities in Malaysia in the 2004 THES international rankings. In recent years, the number of international students at University of Malaya has risen, a result of increasing efforts made to attract more international students.
Other universities located in Kuala Lumpur include UCSI University, International Medical University, Open University Malaysia, Universiti Kuala Lumpur, Wawasan Open University and the branch campus of Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia and Universiti Teknologi Malaysia.
The National Defence University of Malaysia is located at Sungai Besi Army Base, at the southern part of central Kuala Lumpur. It was established to be a major centre for military and defence technology studies. This institution covers studies in the field of army, navy, and air force.
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* Malacca, Malaysia (April 15, 1989) Kuala Lumpur fact file, Asian-Pacific City Summit. Retrieved on November 3, 2007.
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