Diaspora varieties of Korean: Morpho-syntactic contrasts in Koryo Mar and Vernacular Yanbian Korean § Simon Barnes-Sadler * , Jaehoon Yeon SOAS, University of London, London, UK Received 11 December 2018; received in revised form 20 August 2019; accepted 26 August 2019 Available online 27 September 2019 Abstract This paper identifies and examines numerous points of morpho-syntactic contrast in two transplanted varieties of Korean---Central Asian Koryo Mar (KM) and Chinese Vernacular Yanbian Korean (VYK). This allows us to evaluate implicit claims made about the synchronic forms of these dialects, for example those concerning their relationship to peninsula varieties of Korean, and also provides insights into the factors underlying the development of languages in transplanted contexts. The main findings of this paper confirm that KM and VYK's shared features, such as particle forms and verb endings, are strongly associated with the North Hamgyeong and Yukchin varieties of Korean and their common dialectological origins in the North East of the Korean peninsula. The longevity of these features suggests a ‘founder effect’ in the development of these transplanted varieties. © 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. Keywords: Korean; Koryo Mar; Dialectology; Yanbian Korean 1. Introduction Korean is spoken not just on the Korean peninsula, but by a global diaspora in excess of seven million people (MOFAT 2011). The emergence of linguistic dissimilarity between transplanted and other varieties is a cross-linguistically widely observed phenomenon (e.g. transplanted varieties of English, Hindi, or Chinese in global diaspora). It has been demonstrated that this is influenced by a range of linguistic and social conditions, but despite the attention which it has received, the linguistic outcomes of transplantation are far from predictable or deterministic. This paper examines two rare and understudied transplanted varieties of Korean with similar dialectological backgrounds---Central Asian Koryo Mar (KM) and Chinese Vernacular Yanbian Korean (VYK) ---in order to identify particular points of (dis)similarity in their contemporary morpho-syntax. There had been no attempt at conducting a direct comparison of KM and VYK to date, consequently this paper represents the first systematic comparison of these varieties and is conducted using naturalistic speech data. Such an investigation will not only allow us to evaluate implicit claims made about the synchronic forms of www.elsevier.com/locate/lingua Available online at www.sciencedirect.com ScienceDirect Lingua 231 (2019) 102742 § This work was supported by Laboratory Program for Korean Studies through the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Korea and Korean Studies Promotion Service of the Academy of Korean Studies (AKS-2016-LAB-2250003) * Corresponding author at: SOAS, University of London, Room 384, Main Building, Thornhaugh Street, Russell Square, WC1H 0XG London, UK. E-mail address: 253447@soas.ac.uk (S. Barnes-Sadler). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lingua.2019.102742 0024-3841/© 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.