Koreanic is a compact language family consisting of Korean and the language of Jeju Island. The latter is often described as a dialect of Korean, but is distinct enough to be considered a separate language. A few scholars suggest that the Yukchin dialect of the far northeast should be similarly distinguished. Korean has been richly documented since the introduction of the Hangul alphabet in the 15th century. Earlier renditions of Korean using Chinese characters are much more difficult to interpret.