Brief history of Korean language
The Korean language is spoken by around 80 million people in North and South Korea, China, Japan, and elsewhere. It is a member of the Altaic family, which also includes the Jeju language spoken on the Korean island of Jeju.
The earliest known attestation of Korean is a 3rd-century Chinese document called the Samguk Yusa, which mentions a Goguryeo queen named Suro as having learned Chinese writing. However, it is generally agreed that the first attestation of truly Korean writing dates to the 14th century, in the form of hanja (Chinese characters used in Korea). The first extant examples of hanja date to the 13th century, but it was not until the 15th century that a fully developed system of hanja use emerged.
The Joseon Dynasty (1392-1910) saw an evolution in Korean literature and culture. One important development was the rise of native Korean genres such as sijo (poetic prose) and pansori (traditional narrative singing). Another was an increased use of hanmun (classical Chinese) for literary and official purposes. This period also saw several important changes to the Korean language itself, including a shift from Sino-Korean vocabulary to native Korean vocabulary, and an increase in loanwords from Western languages such as Portuguese and English.
With the advent of Western colonialism in Asia during the 19th century, Korea came into contact with Western science and technology. The first Westerner known to have reached Korea was the English merchant ship The General Sherman, which sailed up the Taedong River in 1866. In 1871, Francis L. Hawks, the American Minister to China, concluded a treaty of friendship between the United States and Korea. The first Westerner known to have lived in Korea was the French Catholic priest Father James Zhou Wen-Ming, who arrived in 1836.
During the Joseon Dynasty, many Westerners visited Korea, including Americans, Russians, British, French, Germans, and Italians. In 1884, the first group of Westerners to live in Korea permanently arrived, when a group of Catholic missionaries from the United States established a mission in Pyongyang. In 1885, another group of American Catholic missionaries arrived in Incheon.
In 1900, the first Western-style hospital in Korea was established in Seoul by Catholic missionaries. The first Western-style school in Korea was founded in Pyongyang in 1902. In 1904, the first Western-style university in Korea was established in Seoul by American Methodist missionaries. During the Japanese occupation of Korea (1910-1945), Westerners were mostly confined to the settlements of Pyongyang and Incheon. After the Korean War (1950-1953), Westerners began to visit and live in Korea again. In the 1960s and 1970s, a large number of Westerners came to Korea as English teachers. Today, there is a small but growing community of Westerners living in Korea.