이십
Korean
Etymology
Sino-Korean word from 二十 (“twenty”)
Pronunciation
- (SK Standard/Seoul) IPA(key): [ˈi(ː)ɕʰip̚]
- Phonetic hangul: [이(ː)십]
- Though still prescriptive in Standard Korean, most speakers in both Koreas no longer distinguish vowel length.
| Romanizations | |
|---|---|
| Revised Romanization? | isip |
| Revised Romanization (translit.)? | isib |
| McCune–Reischauer? | isip |
| Yale Romanization? | īsip |
Numeral
이십 • (isip) (hanja 二十)
- (Sino-Korean numeral) twenty
- Synonyms: 스무 (seumu, “twenty”, native determiner numeral), 스물 (seumul, “twenty”, native nominal numeral)
Usage notes
In modern Korean, numbers are usually written in Arabic numerals.
The Korean language has two sets of numerals: a native set of numerals inherited from Old Korean, and a Sino-Korean set which was borrowed from Middle Chinese in the first millennium C.E.
Native classifiers take native numerals.
- 개 한 마리 (gae han mari, “one dog”, native numeral)
- 나무 두 그루 (namu du geuru, “two trees”, native numeral)
Some Sino-Korean classifiers take native numerals, others take Sino-Korean numerals, while yet others take both.
- 종이 두 장(張) (jong'i du jang, “two sheets of paper”, native numeral)
- 이 분(分) (i bun, “two minutes”, Sino-Korean numeral)
- 서른/삼십 명(名) (seoreun/samsip myeong, “thirty people”, both sets possible)
Recently loaned classifiers generally take Sino-Korean numerals.
- 일 킬로미터 (il killomiteo, “one kilometer”, Sino-Korean numeral)
For many terms, a native numeral has a quantifying sense, whereas a Sino-Korean numeral has a sense of labeling.
- 세 반(班) (se ban, “three school classes”, native numeral)
- 삼 반(班) (sam ban, “Class Number Three”, Sino-Korean numeral)
When used in isolation, native numerals refer to objects of that number and are used in counting and quantifying, whereas Sino-Korean numerals refer to the numbers in a more mathematical sense.
- 하나만 더 주세요 (hana-man deo juse-yo, “Could you give me just one more, please”, native numeral)
- 일 더하기 일은? (Il deohagi ir-eun?, “What's one plus one?”, Sino-Korean numeral)
While older stages of Korean had native numerals up to the thousands, native numerals currently exist only up to ninety-nine, and Sino-Korean is used for all higher numbers. There is also a tendency—particularly among younger speakers—to uniformly use Sino-Korean numerals for the higher tens as well, so that native numerals such as 일흔 (ilheun, “seventy”) or 아흔 (aheun, “ninety”) are becoming less common.