An Introduction to Koreans(Han, Joseon, Joseon ethnicity) and the Korean Language Variation, part I Hello, all. This is an introductory article about Koreans and the Korean language origin and its development over time and space. I posted this on my blog earlier and it was summarized and translated by @Alan into English for further reading. Now I am posting the final version for you to read. (please feel free to check it out: ) italki original discussion link: https://www.italki.com/discussion/127064 original blog: http://mymeiyu.blogspot.com.br/2016/10/koreans-in-china-korean-chinese.html ******** Nowadays in North Korea, South Korea and China, as well as other areas with significant Korean populations like Russia, the Korean people are united by a common ethnicity and language. However certain developments have led to some differences appearing. Simply put, North Koreans and ethnic Koreans who live in China call their language “Joseon speech”, whereas South Koreans call their language “Han language”. The term “Joseon”, when referring to the people and ethnicity, can be traced back to the Joseon Dynasty (I mentioned this briefly in my blog, the Joseon dynasty was founded by Yi Dan in 1392, during the China’s Ming Dynasty in the Hongwu period). After founding his “Joseon Kingdom”, he renamed the common language “Joseon”. Much later, Yi Dan’s descendent King Sejong the Great created a Korean script for the language, called Hunmin Jeongum, which replaced the Chinese characters previously used to write the language. Much later, in 1910, a scholar named Ju Si-gyeong renamed the writing system to “Hangul” [meaning “Han Script” – “Han” being the first proto-Korean Kingdom from which Korea descended]. It was probably around that time that the word “Han” began to take on a broader meaning. Afterwards, during the Second World War the Korean peninsula was separated in two, and North Koreans began referring to the language as “Joseon speech”, whereas South Koreans took the name “Han language”. If you use Joseon to directly refer to a person, for example “I’m Joseon”, the meaning in Chinese clearly means “I’m North Korean”. So ethnic Koreans in China will say “I'm a Chinese person of Joseon ethnicity” or “I’m an ethnic Korean countryman”. In China, a lot of ethnic Chinese like to add “countryman” behind the ethnicity’s name, as this gives a more friendly and inclusive connotation to the word, for example “ethnic Mongolian countryman”, “Uyghur countryman”, “Tibetan countryman”, etc. etc. (to be continued...)