초록 열기/닫기 버튼
Factors that affect the status of a language in the global setting, either in absolute or in relative senses, are generally considered to be far from invariably fixed. However, there still seem to be a bunch of such factors requiring our special attention including (1) population, (2) populations of language use, (3) educational status, (4) scientific status, (5) economic status, (6) cultural status, (7) industrial status, (8) political status, and (9) military status. In this paper these factors are closely examined with reference to various related statistics and indexes. Results show the status of the Korean language in the world as follows. The rankings of the Korean language in the world are the twenty-sixth based on population, the thirteenth with respect to populations of language use, the seventeenth with regard to educational status, the fourteenth with on the basis of scientific status, the eighteenth in terms of economic status, the eighth with reference to cultural status, the fourteenth based on industrial status, the forty-third with respect to political status, and the fourteenth in terms of military status. When all these factors are considered simultaneously, the composite standing of the Korean language turns out to be the nineteenth in the world.
