The Gyeongsang dialects, or Southeastern Korean, are dialects of the Korean language of the Yeongnam region, which includes both Gyeongsang provinces, North and South. There are approximately 13,000,000 speakers. Unlike Standard Korean, most of the variants of the Gyeongsang dialects are tonal, which is similar to Middle Korean. Gyeongsang dialects vary. A native speaker can distinguish the dialect of Daegu from that of the Busan-Ulsan area although the first city is less than 100 kilometers away from the latter two cities. Dialectal forms are relatively similar along the midstream of Nakdong River but are different near Busan and Ulsan, Jinju and Pohang as well as along the eastern slopes of Mount Jiri.
Vowels
Most Gyeongsang dialects have six vowels, a, e, i, eo, o, u. In most areas, the vowels ㅐ and ㅔ are conflated, as are ㅡ and ㅓ. W and y are generally dropped after a consonant, especially in South Gyeongsang dialects. For example, soegogi 'beef' is pronounced sogogi, and gwaja 'confectionery' is pronounced ggaja. Vowels are fronted when the following syllable has a y or i, unless a coronal consonant intervenes. For example, eomi 'mother' is emi, and gogi 'meat' is gegi.
Consonants
Southern Gyeongsang dialects lack the tense consonantss. Thus, the speakers pronounce ssal, meaning "rice", as sal meaning "flesh". Palatalization is widespread: gy, gi, ki and ky are pronounced j and ch, e.g. 귤 is jul and 기름 is jileum, while hy is pronounced s, e.g. 힘 is sim. Many words have tense consonants where the standard is tenuis. Middle Korean z and β are preserved as s and b, as in 새비 saebi for Standard Korean 새우 saeu "shrimp" or 가새 gasae for Standard Korean 가위 gawi "scissors".
Tone
Dialects are classified as North Gyeongsang or South Gyeongsang based on pitch accent. North Gyeongsang has high tone, low tone, and high tone, whereas South Gyeongsang has high, mid, and low tone. For example, South Gyeongsang distinguishes sóni 'guest', sōni 'hand', and sòni 'grandchild'. Pitch accent plays a grammatical role as well, for example distinguishing causative and passive as in jép-pida 'make s.o. catch' and jepída 'be caught'. In North Gyeongsang, any syllable may have pitch accent in the form of a high tone, as may the two initial syllables. For example, in trisyllabic words, there are four possible tone patterns:
메누리
어무이
원어민
오래비
Grammar
The Gyeongsang dialect maintains a trace of Middle Korean: the grammar of the dialect distinguishes between a yes-no question and a wh-question, while Standard Modern Korean does not. With an informal speech level, for example, yes-no questions end with "-a " and wh-questions end with "-o " in the Gyeongsang dialect, whereas in standard speech both types of questions end in either "-ni " or "-eo " without a difference between the types of questions. For example:
"밥 뭇나?" or "밥 묵읏나?" as opposed to "밥 먹었니?" or "밥 먹었어?"
— "Did you have a meal?" or "Did you eat?"
"머 뭇노?" as opposed to "뭘 먹었니?" or "뭘 먹었어?"
— "What did you eat?" Notice that the first question can be answered with a yes or no, while the latter question requires detail explanation of the food eaten. This phenomenon can also be observed in tag questions, which are answered with a yes or no.
"Eopje, geújya?" as opposed to "Eopji, geureotchí?"
From the Park Chung-hee to the Kim Young-sam governments, the Gyeongsang dialect had greater prominence in the Korean media than other dialects as all of the presidents were natives of Gyeongsang province. That is why some South Korean politicians or high-rank officials have been misunderstood for not trying to convert to the Seoul accent, which is considered standard in South Korea. However, former president Kim Young-sam was criticised for failing to pronounce precisely when giving a public speech. He once mistakenly pronounced '경제 ' as '갱제 ' and '외무부 장관 ' as '애무부 장관 '. In addition, there was a rumour concerning one of his public speeches that audiences were surprised to hear that he would make Jeju a world-class 'rape' city by building up an 'adultery' motorway.
