Koreanic languages
Koreanic languages constitute a small language family indigenous to the Korean Peninsula and parts of Manchuria, primarily comprising the modern Korean language and the Jeju language, alongside extinct ancient varieties associated with historical kingdoms such as Goguryeo, Baekje, and Silla.[1][2] Korean, the dominant member, is an agglutinative language with subject-object-verb word order spoken natively by approximately 77 million people as of recent estimates, serving as the official language of both North and South Korea.[1] Jeju, spoken on Jeju Island, exhibits sufficient phonological, lexical, and grammatical divergence— including mutual unintelligibility with standard Korean—to warrant classification as a distinct language within the family, though it faces critical endangerment with declining intergenerational transmission.[3][4] The family's linguistic isolation remains a point of contention, with proposed genetic affiliations to larger groupings like Transeurasian or Altaic largely rejected due to insufficient regular sound correspondences and shared innovations, favoring an analysis as a primary isolate family based on comparative method standards.[5] Defining characteristics include honorific systems, extensive vowel harmony in historical stages, and the innovative Hangul alphabet, promulgated in 1446 for Korean to promote literacy among commoners.[1]Overview and Classification
Scope and Definition
The Koreanic languages comprise a compact language family centered on the Korean Peninsula, consisting of the Korean language and the Jeju language as its primary modern members. Korean, the dominant variety, is spoken natively by approximately 82 million people, primarily in South Korea and North Korea, with significant diaspora communities.[6] Jeju, indigenous to Jeju Island, has only 5,000 to 10,000 fluent speakers remaining, rendering it critically endangered.[7] Jeju qualifies as a separate language rather than a dialect of Korean due to substantial linguistic divergence, including low mutual intelligibility—around 10% or comparable to that between Dutch and Norwegian—arising from distinct phonological shifts, morphology, and lexicon following its split from common ancestors in Middle Korean during the 14th to 16th centuries.[8][7] Korean encompasses a dialect continuum with regional varieties such as Gyeongsang, Jeolla, and Hamgyong, which maintain high mutual intelligibility despite variations in phonetics and vocabulary.[1] The family's scope extends historically to Proto-Koreanic, reconstructed from attestations in Middle Korean (roughly 918–1600 CE), with limited evidence linking it to ancient varieties from the Three Kingdoms period, though genetic affiliations for languages like Goguryeo and Baekje are disputed, with proposals ranging from Koreanic inclusion to affiliations with Tungusic or Japonic groups.[1] This uncertainty stems from sparse textual records, primarily in Chinese script, and ongoing debates in comparative linguistics.[7] Overall, Koreanic stands as a linguistic isolate at the family level, lacking demonstrated genetic ties to neighboring families like Japonic or Transeurasian.[1]Internal Structure and Dialect Continuum
The internal structure of the Koreanic languages consists primarily of a dialect continuum encompassing the mainland varieties of Korean, characterized by gradual phonetic, lexical, and grammatical variations across geographic regions, alongside more divergent peripheral varieties such as Jeju and Yukjin.[9][10] Mainland dialects are traditionally classified into five major groups—northwestern, central, southwestern, southeastern, and northeastern—based on phonological features like vowel systems and consonant shifts, grammatical morpheme variations, and lexical differences, with neighboring varieties exhibiting high mutual intelligibility that diminishes over distance.[10] This continuum reflects historical migration patterns and isolation by terrain, such as mountains separating southeastern Gyeongsang from southwestern Jeolla dialects, where speakers of adjacent lects understand each other readily, but those from opposite ends may require accommodation for full comprehension.[11] Jeju, spoken on Jeju Island, occupies a distinct position within the Koreanic family due to significant lexical divergence (retaining archaic forms) and phonological innovations, resulting in low mutual intelligibility with mainland Korean, estimated at 20-25% for unacclimated speakers.[12][13] Linguistic analyses classify Jeju as a separate language rather than a dialect, supported by its unique grammatical morphemes and vocabulary, though it shares core syntactic structures like subject-object-verb order with Korean proper.[12] The Yukjin variety in northeastern Korea forms an isolated "dialect island" amid the continuum, preserving conservative features such as retained Middle Korean phonology not found in central dialects, and showing reduced intelligibility with southern varieties due to geographic separation by the Tumen River and Russian border influences on expatriate communities. Overall, while standardization efforts in both Koreas promote a Seoul-based norm, the underlying continuum persists in rural areas, with dialect use declining due to urbanization and media exposure since the mid-20th century.[11]Debates on Family Status
The classification of Koreanic languages remains unresolved, with most linguists treating Korean as a language isolate due to the absence of demonstrable genetic links to other language families supported by regular sound correspondences and shared basic vocabulary beyond what could be attributed to borrowing or areal diffusion.[14][15] This view predominates in contemporary linguistics, as proposals for affiliation require rigorous comparative method application, which has not yielded conclusive proto-language reconstructions for broader groupings.[1] A prominent but largely discredited hypothesis posits Koreanic as part of the Altaic or Transeurasian macrofamily, encompassing Turkic, Mongolic, Tungusic, and sometimes Japonic languages, based on typological similarities such as agglutinative morphology, vowel harmony, and subject-object-verb word order.[16] Proponents, including some historical linguists like those citing Ramstedt's early 20th-century work, argued for lexical resemblances (e.g., Korean mul 'water' akin to Mongolian mörön), but critics highlight the failure to establish consistent phonological shifts or distinguish cognates from loans, with shared traits better explained as a Eurasian sprachbund from prolonged contact rather than descent.[17][18] By the late 20th century, mainstream consensus rejected Altaic as a genetic family, citing insufficient evidence and methodological flaws, though pockets of support persist in certain Russian and Korean linguistic traditions.[19] An alternative proposal links Koreanic to Japonic languages (Japanese and Ryukyuan) in a Koreo-Japonic family, drawing on phonological parallels like liquid consonants and grammatical particles (e.g., Korean -i topic marker resembling Japanese -wa), as well as limited core vocabulary matches reconstructed to proto-forms dated around 2300–2400 years before present via Bayesian phylogenetics tied to Neolithic migrations.[20][21] Advocates, including Vovin and Robbeets, infer a southern Korean Peninsula origin for Proto-Japonic before northward expansion, supported by archaeological correlations with wet-rice farming dispersals around 350 BCE, but skeptics counter that proposed cognates lack systematicity and could stem from substrate influence or convergence in the region.[22][23] This hypothesis garners more empirical scrutiny than Altaic but remains contested, with no consensus as of 2023 due to sparse pre-modern attestations and challenges in isolating inheritance from contact.[24] Fringe affiliations to Dravidian, Austronesian, or Indo-European have been suggested via isolated lexical items or typological analogies but lack robust comparative support and are dismissed by specialists for relying on improbable long-range diffusion without intermediary evidence.[20] Ongoing debates emphasize the need for deeper proto-Koreanic reconstructions from internal evidence, such as Middle Korean texts from the 15th century, to test external hypotheses, while acknowledging that extinct peninsular varieties like Goguryeo may represent divergent branches whose assimilation obscures familial traces.[1][15]Modern Koreanic Varieties
Korean Proper
Korean proper comprises the mutually intelligible dialect continuum spoken across the mainland of the Korean Peninsula, excluding the Jeju language and certain isolated peripheral varieties like Yukjin.[10] These dialects share core phonological, morphological, and syntactic features derived from Middle Korean, with variations primarily in vowel systems, consonant lenition, and lexical items.[25] Linguistic classification typically divides them into northwestern (Pyongan), northeastern (Hamgyong, excluding Yukjin), southwestern (Jeolla), southeastern (Gyeongsang), and central (Chungcheong and Gyeonggi) groups, based on phonological innovations such as vowel mergers and pitch accent retention.[10] Standard Korean in South Korea, known as pyojuneo, is codified from the Seoul subdialect of the Gyeonggi group, formalized in 1933 under Japanese colonial rule and refined post-1945 through government academies.[26] This standard prioritizes the prestige dialect of the capital, incorporating elements from surrounding central dialects for broader acceptability, with over 80 million speakers worldwide using it as a reference.[27] In North Korea, the standard munhwaeo draws from the Pyongyang dialect of the Pyongan group, established in 1966 to reflect proletarian speech norms, though it retains similarities with southern standards due to pre-division convergence efforts in the 1920s-1930s.[26] [28] Dialectal differences manifest in prosody, with southeastern varieties like Gyeongsang featuring tense consonants and shorter vowels, enhancing rhythmic distinction from the more vowel-length-sensitive northwestern forms.[25] Southwestern Jeolla dialects exhibit innovative verb conjugations and nasal assimilations, while central dialects show transitional traits bridging north-south divides.[10] Despite political division since 1945, cross-border intelligibility remains high at 90-95% for core vocabulary and grammar, supported by shared media exposure pre-division and Hangul orthography standardization in 1446.[27] Urbanization and media have accelerated dialect leveling toward standards, reducing rural-urban variances observed in 20th-century surveys.[29]Jeju Language
Jejueo is the indigenous language of Jeju Island, South Korea, spoken primarily by older residents and classified within the Koreanic language family alongside Korean. It exhibits substantial phonological, grammatical, and lexical differences from Standard Korean, resulting in low mutual intelligibility estimated at 20-25% based on comprehension tests with monolingual Korean speakers.[12] Linguistic analyses, including intelligibility experiments, position Jejueo as a distinct language rather than a dialect, comparable in divergence to pairs like Dutch and Norwegian.[30][13] The language has an ISO 639-3 code of "jje" and was designated critically endangered by UNESCO in 2010, with speaker numbers declining to between 5,000 and 10,000, mostly fluent among those over 60.[31][4] This status reflects rapid shift to Standard Korean due to national language policies post-1945, which prioritized Seoul-based Korean in education and media, marginalizing regional varieties.[32] Revitalization efforts include documentation projects and online dictionaries, though transmission to younger generations remains limited.[33] Phonologically, Jejueo features distinct vowel systems and pitch accent variations absent in Standard Korean, alongside preserved archaic sounds not found in mainland varieties.[12] Grammatically, it employs unique morphemes for case marking, verb conjugations, and sentence endings; for instance, subject markers differ, and verb endings like those for progressive aspect diverge significantly. Lexical divergence is pronounced, with many core vocabulary items unrelated or altered beyond recognition in Korean, contributing to comprehension barriers.[30][12] The classification debate stems from political unity emphasizing Korean homogeneity versus empirical linguistic criteria favoring separation, with scholarly consensus supporting language status based on structural autonomy and intelligibility thresholds.[30][13] Historical isolation of Jeju Island preserved these traits, but modernization has accelerated endangerment without commensurate preservation.[12]Peripheral Dialects Including Yukjin
The Yukjin dialect is a variety of Koreanic spoken in the historic Yukjin region of northeastern Korea, encompassing the six garrison towns of Hoeryŏng, Chongsŏng, Onsŏng, Kyŏngwŏn, Kyŏnghŭng, and Puryŏng, situated south of the Tumen River in present-day North Hamgyong Province, North Korea, with speakers also in neighboring Chinese territories.[34] This peripheral position, bordered by rugged terrain and the international boundary, has contributed to its relative isolation from the central Korean dialect continuum, fostering unique conservative traits despite historical ties to broader northeastern varieties.[35] Phonologically, Yukjin preserves archaic features from Late Middle Korean, including stem-final consonants that align closely with historical forms, differing only in specific cases such as /k/ realizations.[36] It retains anterior articulation for affricates, a trait maintained in northern dialects like Phyengan and Yukjin but lost in southern ones, reflecting slower sound changes in peripheral areas.[35] The vowel system upholds early modern hierarchies, such as height over labiality contrasts, which have eroded in central and southern dialects.[37] These retentions underscore Yukjin's role as a linguistic preserve, though ongoing standardization in North Korea and diaspora shifts threaten its vitality, with many speakers displaced since the mid-20th century Korean War.[36] While typically classified as a sub-variety of the Hamgyong dialect group, Yukjin's distinctiveness has prompted debates on its status within Koreanic, with some analyses highlighting lexical and phonological divergences suggestive of deeper separation, akin to Jeju's trajectory.[38] Peripheral dialects like Yukjin exemplify how geographic marginality sustains archaic elements, providing crucial data for reconstructing Proto-Koreanic, though limited documentation—primarily from refugee communities and field studies—constrains comprehensive analysis.[39]Ancient Koreanic Languages
Evidence from Three Kingdoms Period
The linguistic evidence for Koreanic languages during the Three Kingdoms period (c. 57 BCE–668 CE) derives primarily from toponyms, personal names, and brief glosses preserved in Chinese historical records such as the Hou Hanshu (5th century) and Wei Shu (6th century), as well as later compilations like the Samguk sagi (1145), which draw on earlier sources. These attestations, often rendered phonogrammatically via Chinese characters, reveal non-Sinitic elements consistent with Koreanic morphology and lexicon, including disyllabic stems and suffixes akin to those in Late Middle Korean (e.g., town suffixes like -pər or -wul). Direct grammatical sentences are absent, as administrative and monumental inscriptions, such as the Gwanggaeto Stele of Goguryeo (414 CE), employ Classical Chinese; however, embedded place names in these texts provide phonetic and semantic clues. Chinese accounts note linguistic distinctions among the Samhan confederacies—Mahan (precursor to Baekje), Chinhan (Silla), and Pyŏnhan—describing Chinhan speech as differing from Mahan's, suggesting dialectal variation within a potential Koreanic continuum rather than unrelated languages.[40][41] In Silla, toponyms from the Samguk sagi include forms like na 那 'river' in compounds such as Kwománoro and mil 推 glossed as 'push', paralleling Late Middle Korean mil- 'to push' and indicating vernacular readings of characters for native terms. The Namsan Sinseng Pi inscription (591 CE) deviates from Chinese syntax by following Korean subject-object-verb order in certain phrases, marking an early adaptation of sinographs for Koreanic grammar. The idu system, which used Chinese characters for phonetic approximation and semantic glossing of Korean words while retaining native word order, emerged during this period to record administrative and ritual texts, predating more systematic hyangchal notations in Unified Silla hyangga poetry.[40] Baekje attestations feature Mahan-derived place names like ‐pieliai 卑離, etymologized as puri/byuliX 'town' or 'village', comparable to Silla -pɨr/pər and Late Middle Korean -wul, preserving uncontracted disyllables absent in contemporary Sinitic loans. The Nan Shi (mid-7th century) records Baekje language similarity to Goguryeo's, necessitating interpreters for Silla speakers, implying closer affinity between northern/southwestern varieties than with southeastern Silla speech.[40] Goguryeo evidence includes toponyms on the Gwanggaeto Stele and mokkan (wooden slips) from sites like Mirok-sa (late 7th–early 8th century, reflecting earlier usage), such as ordinal sayd-ʌp 'third' and numerical elements like mir/mit 蜜 or sir/sit 悉 'three', which align with proto-Koreanic reconstructions but also show parallels to non-Koreanic substrates in some analyses. The Samguk sagi's chapter 37 glosses for captured Goguryeo territories provide etymological insights into place names, though their compilation postdates the period and may incorporate Silla interpretations.[40] Overall, these fragments indicate Koreanic features across the kingdoms, such as agglutinative suffixes in compounds and phonological patterns in Sino-Korean readings predating the Qieyun (601 CE), but scarcity limits reconstruction; scholars like Lee Ki-moon posit Puyŏ (Goguryeo) and Han (Silla-Baekje) as branches of a Koreanic family based on shared toponymic lexicon, while others highlight potential substrates from Tungusic or isolate elements due to attested diversity.[41][40]Goguryeo, Baekje, and Silla Attestations
The linguistic attestations for Goguryeo are limited to approximately 60 toponyms and anthroponyms recorded primarily in the Samguk sagi (compiled 1145 CE), a 12th-century Korean history drawing on earlier Chinese and local sources, along with scattered references in Tang dynasty texts like the Old Book of Tang. These include glosses such as eulo or olo for 'willow' (reconstructed as reflecting a Proto-Koreanic *yul- 'willow' cognate) and numerals extracted from place names, e.g., mayo(n) 'five' and yasu 'eight', which exhibit initial liquid or sibilant correspondences interpretable as variants of Middle Korean forms under areal phonological influences.[42] Personal names like Goguryeo itself, analyzed as koku-lia with koku potentially from kwək 'country' akin to Old Korean kwuk, provide further lexical clues, though interpretations vary due to transcription via Chinese characters and potential Buyeo substrate effects. Baekje attestations are scarcer, comprising fewer than 20 reliable lexical items, mostly personal and place names in the Nihon shoki (720 CE) and archaeological wooden tablets from sites like the Mangdeoksa temple area (dated 6th-7th centuries CE), which record terms in early idu-like script. Examples include ne or ni in ritual contexts, reconstructed as a demonstrative or locative morpheme paralleling Old Korean i/ne 'this/there', and the place name Kudara (百濟 phonetic transcription), potentially deriving from kuda-ra with kuda linked to 'capital' or 'high land' cognates in Samhanic varieties.[43] Morphological evidence from names suggests agglutinative suffixes like -si (agentive), consistent with Koreanic patterns observed in Silla data, though the paucity of material limits firm reconstructions.[44] Silla offers the richest attestations among the three kingdoms, with over 100 lexical items preserved in the Samguk sagi, 6th-century stele inscriptions using hybrid Sino-Korean scripts, and the 14 hyangga poems (8th-10th centuries CE) in idu orthography, which capture vernacular syntax, particles, and vocabulary. Key examples include keun 'big/great' (attested in royal titles, cognate to Middle Korean kɨn), moy 'head' in compounds, and verbs like ha- 'do' in hyangga such as the Seokga yeora (657 CE attribution), reflecting SOV word order and agglutinative morphology identical to later Korean stages. Place names like Geumseong (金城) glossed with native etymologies further align with Middle Korean reflexes, indicating continuity in core lexicon despite dialectal divergence from northern varieties.[40] These materials, while filtered through Silla's unification narrative, provide empirical basis for phonological reconstruction, including initial clusters and vowel harmony absent in modern standard Korean.[42]Classification Debates for Extinct Varieties
The classification of extinct Koreanic varieties, primarily those associated with the ancient kingdoms of Goguryeo (37 BCE–668 CE), Baekje (18 BCE–660 CE), and Silla (57 BCE–935 CE), remains contentious due to sparse attestations limited to toponyms, personal names, glosses in Chinese historical texts, and fragmentary inscriptions. These sources, such as the Samguk sagi (compiled 1145 CE) and Japanese records, provide insufficient data for definitive grammatical or phonological reconstruction, leading scholars to rely on comparative methods with Middle Korean (from the 15th century CE onward) and areal linguistics. Mainstream linguists, including Ki-Moon Lee and S. Robert Ramsey, argue that all three languages belong to the Koreanic family, forming a dialect continuum with Silla as the direct ancestor of modern Korean, supported by shared vocabulary and morphological patterns in surviving hyangga poems from Silla (e.g., 8th–10th centuries CE). Silla's language faces the least debate, with over 100 hyangga verses and idu transcriptions demonstrating agglutinative structure and vocabulary cognates to Middle Korean, such as verb endings and honorifics, positioning it as Proto-Koreanic's southeastern branch. In contrast, Baekje's affiliation draws from fewer sources, including about ten Old Korean fragments preserved in Japanese texts like the Nihon shoki (720 CE), analyzed by Roy Andrew Miller in 1979 as exhibiting Koreanic traits like subject-object-verb word order and nominal classifiers akin to Silla and later Korean. Some proposals link Baekje more closely to Goguryeo due to shared Yemaek tribal origins, but evidence of southwestern innovations, such as loanwords from Old Japanese via maritime ties, suggests dialectal divergence within Koreanic rather than external affiliation.[45] Goguryeo's language sparks the most vigorous disputes, with northern toponyms (e.g., those ending in -mi resembling Korean place-name suffixes) cited by scholars like Alexander Vovin and Edwin Unger as evidence of Koreanic membership, potentially representing a northwestern dialect with Tungusic substrate influences from conquests. Counterarguments propose non-Koreanic status: some, drawing on Chinese records noting similarities to Buyeo (a predecessor state, ca. 2nd century BCE–494 CE), classify it as Tungusic based on sparse glosses and geographical overlap with proto-Tungusic speakers, as in certain historical-linguistic surveys. Christopher Beckwith (2004) advances a Japonic-Koguryoic hypothesis, interpreting select words (e.g., river names) as cognates to Old Japanese, though critiqued for methodological overreach in comparative reconstruction absent broader corpus support. Buyeo-related varieties, ancestral to Goguryeo, face analogous ambiguity, with some toponyms aligning Koreanic patterns while others evoke Puyŏ-Tungusic links, underscoring the role of multi-ethnic polities in obscuring genetic signals.[46][45][47] These debates highlight evidentiary gaps—fewer than 200 Goguryeo-attested forms versus thousands for Silla—and potential biases in source interpretation, such as North Korean emphasis on Pyongyang-centered Goguryeo continuity or Chinese historiographical framing of border states. Empirical resolution awaits advances in epigraphy or computational phylogenetics, but current consensus favors a Koreanic umbrella for the Three Kingdoms languages, with internal diversification driven by migration and contact rather than deep external splits.[48]Proto-Koreanic Reconstruction
Phonological System
The phonological system of Proto-Koreanic is reconstructed primarily through internal reconstruction from Middle Korean (15th–16th centuries) and comparative analysis across Koreanic varieties, including evidence from Old Korean inscriptions (8th–10th centuries) and dialectal retentions, with limited supplementation from early loanwords in Chinese and Japanese.[49][40] This yields a relatively simple segmental inventory lacking phonemic aspiration, tenseness, or voicing contrasts among obstruents, consistent with typological patterns in early Northeast Asian languages where such distinctions emerged later via sound shifts from clusters or prosodic developments.[50][49]| Place/Manner | Bilabial | Alveolar | Palatal/Affricate | Velar | Glottal |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stops | *p | *t | *c | *k | |
| Nasals | *m | *n | *ŋ | ||
| Fricatives | *s | *h | |||
| Liquids | *r, *l | ||||
| Glides | *w | *j |
Morphosyntactic Features
Proto-Koreanic exhibited agglutinative morphology, characterized by the linear attachment of suffixes to stems to encode grammatical relations, a feature preserved across descendant varieties through internal reconstruction from Middle Korean and comparative analysis of dialects.[49] Verbal stems combined with a limited set of functional morphemes, including auxiliaries derived from independent verbs, to form complex inflections for tense, aspect, and mood; for instance, the continuative was marked by *-ara- or *-(o/u)l-, as evidenced in Middle Korean reflexes like pola- ('wishes for it') and túmul- ('piles up').[49] [53] Nominal morphology included derivational suffixes such as *-a for deverbal nouns (e.g., yielding forms like kuma-a 'divine gift') and adjectivizers like *-k on nominal bases, with plural marking via *tətəŋ, reflected in Middle Korean *tolh and Old Japanese cognates.[49] Case relations were expressed through postpositions or enclitic suffixes in a head-final syntax, with reconstructed markers including genitive *ŋaj/*ŋa: for animate possession (Middle Korean -uy, Old Japanese -ga), accusative *-wə evolving to Middle Korean *-l, and locative *kə (Middle Korean *-k/-h).[49] Verb inflection paradigms featured forms like infinitive/nominalizer *-i (Middle Korean -i), imperative *-rə (Middle Korean -la), and adnominal *-r or *-o-r for attributive modification (Middle Korean -ol/-ul), often built compositionally with auxiliaries such as causative *-xijə- or perfective *-na-.[49] These reconstructions rely on systematic correspondences in Middle Korean and dialectal data, supplemented by philological evidence from earlier attestations, though the depth is limited by sparse pre-Middle Korean records.[53] The following table summarizes key reconstructed verbal morphemes, derived via internal reconstruction:| Morpheme | Function | Middle Korean Reflex | Notes [49][53] |
|---|---|---|---|
| *-i | Infinitive/Nominalizer | -i | Also served copular role; compositional in complex forms. |
| *-rə | Imperative | -la | Direct command form, e.g., alala 'know it!'. |
| *-ara- | Continuative | pola- | Auxiliary-based, from motion verbs. |
| *-na- | Perfective | -na- | From 'go out', indicating completion. |
| *-r | Adnominal (active) | -ol/-ul | Attributive clause marking. |
Core Vocabulary and Etymological Insights
Reconstruction of Proto-Koreanic core vocabulary draws on internal evidence from Middle Korean texts (dating to the 15th century) and comparative forms across modern Korean dialects and Jeju, revealing a lexicon dominated by stable native terms for pronouns, numerals, and body parts. These elements exhibit regular sound correspondences, such as the development of initial *t- to h- or d- in numerals and retention of sibilants in nouns, supporting a unified ancestral stage predating attested Old Korean (7th–10th centuries).[54] Pronouns form a conservative subset, with the first-person singular reconstructed as *na, directly reflected in Modern Korean na and Jeju na, and the second-person singular as *ne(y), yielding Korean neo or ne and similar Jeju variants.[54] The inclusive plural *wuli ('we/us') persists with minor elision in compounds across varieties.[54] Interrogatives like *nwukwu ('who') and demonstratives such as *i ('this') and *ku ('that') show comparable retention, indicating low susceptibility to replacement in basic deictics.[54] Native numerals provide key cognates, reconstructed with initial stops and vowel qualities inferred from dialectal and historical variants:| Number | Proto-Koreanic | Modern Korean | Jeju |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | *hana | hana | hon |
| 2 | *twul | dul | dul |
| 3 | *seys | se(t) | set |
| 4 | *neys | ne(t) | ne |