남자
Korean
[edit]Etymology
[edit]Sino-Korean word from 男子, from 男 (“male”) + 子 (“offspring”)
Pronunciation
[edit]- (SK Standard/Seoul) IPA(key): [na̠md͡ʑa̠]
Audio: (file)
- Phonetic hangul: [남자]
| Romanizations | |
|---|---|
| Revised Romanization? | namja |
| Revised Romanization (translit.)? | namja |
| McCune–Reischauer? | namja |
| Yale Romanization? | namca |
Noun
[edit]Usage notes
[edit]Korean has a number of words equivalent to English "man" and "woman".
- Sino-Korean 남자(男子) (namja, “boy; guy; man”) and 여자(女子) (yeoja, “girl; woman”) are the most common words, but can have a somewhat informal connotation.
- Sino-Korean 남성(男性) (namseong, “male; men”) and 여성(女性) (yeoseong, “female; women”) refer to men and women as groups—though pluralized 남자들 (namja-deul, “the boys; the guys; the men”) and 여자들 (yeoja-deul, “the girls; the women”) is informally more common for this purpose—or to individual adult men and women in formal or polite contexts.
- Sino-Korean 여인(女人) (yeoin, “woman”) is literary. There is no male counterpart.
- 여인의 향기 (movie title) ― yeoin-ui hyanggi ― Scent of a Woman
- The bare Sino-Korean morphemes 남(男) (nam, “male”) and 여(女) (yeo, “female”) are generally used in formal contexts, especially when referring to each gender as a collective but also for male or female individuals in more legalistic contexts. They are commonly written in hanja even when the rest of the text is in pure Hangul script.
- Native 사내 (sanae, “man”) and 계집 (gyejip, “woman”) are not as commonly used. 사내 (sanae) often has a connotation of machismo or manliness, while 계집 (gyejip) has become offensive and derogatory.
Note that in Early Modern Korean (1600—c. 1900) and in contemporary Standard North Korean, Sino-Korean 여(女) (yeo, “female”) is written and pronounced 녀 (nyeo), hence 녀자(女子) (nyeoja), 녀성(女性) (nyeoseong), 녀인(女人) (nyeoin).