Korean (or 한국어, pronounced [‘hʌngʊ’gɔ:] in Korean) is the official language of South Korea and North Korea as well as one of the two official languages in China’s Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture. For over a millennium, Korean was written with adapted Chinese characters called Hanja, when King Sejong created the Korean Hangul alphabet, which features syllabic blocks and shapes which remind the shape of the mouth, lips and tongue while forming the given sound. Writing system: Hangul (primary), Hanja (mixed script), Cyrillic (Koryo-mar) Official language in: South Korea, North Korea, Yanbian, People’s Republic of China