Gangwon dialect

The Gangwon dialect is spoken in South Korea's Gangwon Province and in North Korea's Kangwŏn Province. Although they are large provinces by area, relatively few people lived in the Gangwon Province. As a result, people living in the western side of Gangwon (Yeongseo) did not develop a highly distinctive dialect. However, the part of Gangwon that stretches on the eastern coast of Korea's Yeongdong region did develop a distinctive dialect. This is because the Taebaek Mountains bisect the Gangwon Province, and the people on eastern Gangwon are isolated from the high mountains. The Gangwon dialect has inherited tones to distinguish homophonic words, but unlike Chinese, Cantonese and Vietnamese tones which have a contour for each syllable, syllables usually don't have distinct tones but have a high-low pitch accent which varies with particles and following particles.[1]