Seoul Dialect

Seoul Dialect

The Seoul (서울말) or Gyeonggi dialects of Korean are the basis of the standard language of both North and South Korea. They are spoken in the Seoul National Capital Area in South Korea, which includes Seoul, Incheon, and Gyeonggi, as well as in Kaesŏng in North Korea.

The vowels for e and ae are merged for young speakers. Vowel length is not distinguished consistently, if at all.

Among young speakers or in informal contexts, the postpositions -do (-도, "also"), -ro (-로, "to") and -go (-고, "and then") and their derivatives tend to be pronounced with -du (-두), -ru (-루) and -gu (-구). The sentence-final verb ending -yo tends to be pronounced with a schwa, which is sometimes transcribed as -yeo (-여) on the Internet in informal contexts.

Samchon (삼촌, "uncle") is usually pronounced as samchun (삼춘).

Young Seoul dialect speakers tend to end interrogative sentences (questions) with -nya? (-냐?). They also use unique intonations slightly different from those used by broadcast news readers. The informal ending -eo (-어) is also used quite commonly in both Seoul dialect questions and sentences.