Is the Korean language worth learning?
Korean is the official and national language of both Koreas: North Korea and South Korea, with different standardized official forms used in each country. It is a recognized minority language in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture and Changbai Korean Autonomous County of Jilin Province, China. It is also spoken in parts of Sakhalin, Russia and Central Asia. Korean people in the former USSR refer to themselves as Koryo-saram and/or Koryo-in, and call the language Koryo-mal. It is an East Asian language spoken by about 77 million people and 5.6 million consider Korean as a Heritage Language. Languages that don’t have their own alphabet and characters have known to have merged in another or vanished over time. Historical and modern linguists classify Korean as a language isolate. Korean vocabulary comprises 35% of native words, 60% of Sino-Korean words and 5% loanwords mostly from the English language. Korean presence or influence is strongly found in the Khitan language. Lesser-known Dravido-Korean languages theory, suggests Korean relationship with Dravidian languages in India. Of the 3000 languages in use currently, Korean is known to be the 13th most commonly used language.