Jeolla Dialect

The Jeolla AKA Cholla dialects of Korean (Hangul: 전라도 방언/사투리; Hanja: 全羅道方言), or Southwestern Korean, are spoken in the Jeolla (Honam) region of South Korea, including the city of Gwangju.

Along with Chungcheong dialects, they are considered non-standard. Perhaps the most obvious difference comes from common verb endings. In place of the usual -seumnida (습니다 ) or -sehyo (세요 ) endings, a southern Jeolla person will use -rau (라우 ) or -jirau (지라우 ) appended to the verb. For a causative verb ending, expressed in standard language with a -nikka (니까 ) ending, Jeolla people use -ngkkei (능게 ), so the past tense of the verb "did" ("because someone did it"), haesseunikka (했으니까 ), becomes haesseungkke (했승게 ). A similar sound is used for the quotative ending, "somebody said...". The usual verb endings are -dago (다고 ) and -rago (라고 ). Jeolla dialect prefers -dangkke (당게 ).

Regarding pronunciation differences, there is often a tendency to pronounce only the second vowel in a diphthong. For example, the verb ending that indicates "since", -neundae, becomes -neundi (는디). The name of the large city Gwangju (광주) becomes Gangju (강주), and the verb 'to not have, to be absent', eopda 없다, becomes very close to upda (웂다). There are some words that are unique to the dialect as well: utjeseo (웆제서) for "why", sibang (시방) for "now", and dwitgan (뒷간) for "outhouse". Jeolla dialect speakers have a tendency to end their sentences with -ing, (잉) especially when asking a favor. This can be compared to the word "eh," as used by some Canadians.