Korean is the official language of Korea, both South and North. It is also one of the two official languages in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in China. There are about 78 million Korean speakers. In the 15th century a national writing system was commissioned by Sejong the Great, the system being currently called Hangul.

The genealogical classification of the Korean language is debated by a small number of linguists. Most classify it as a language isolate while a few consider it to be in the Altaic language family. Some believe it to be distantly related to Japanese-Ryukyuan. The Korean language is agglutinative in its morphology and SOV in its syntax.

Korean is descended from Old Korean, Middle Korean and Modern Korean. Controversy remains over the proposed Altaic language family and its inclusion of Proto-Korean. Since the Korean War, contemporary North-South differences in Korean have developed, including variance in pronunciation, verb inflection, and vocabulary.

Source: wikipedia

Korean Dictionary Books:
Korean Dictionary, Romanized Korean Dictionary, English Korean Dictionary, Pocket Korean Dictionary, Learn Korean