Kang Hyeon-seok. 2015. “Changes in the International Status of Korean and their Implications for Governmental Policies”. The Sociolinguistic Journal of Korea 23(3). 35~75. This study, first, examines the present international status/prestige of Korean on the basis of the number of speakers, the number of countries where it is spoken, the size of GDP by language, and the comprehensive evaluation considering other factors as well as the number of speakers and the economic factor. This research, next, predicts the ‘rather dismal’ future status of Korean based on the predicted statistics of Korea's future population and potential economic growth rate provided by domestic and international organizations. Finally, implications of the findings of this study are discussed and some suggestions on governmental policies, which could be of help to maintain the current international status of Korean, are given.