Changes

Although some spelling or words are slighlty different between countries, the official language of both South Korea and North Korea is Korean. Five major dialects in South Korea and one in North Korea are mutually understandable among speakers from different areas. <ref>http://www.todaytranslations.com/index.asp-Q-Page-E-Korean-Language-History--31760371</ref> For more than 2,000 years a Chinese system of writing has been known to Koreans. The Chinese system of writing was widely used during Chinese occupations. After the fifth century AD, Koreans devised three different systems for writing Korean with Chinese characters. (The Japanese systems are were similar to these thus Japanese writing is probably modelled on the Korean system.) King Sejong (r.1418-1450) invented the Korean alphabet in 1444. The Korean alphabet has been called many different names but it is currently known as Hangul, Hangol or Hanguel Hangeul (depending upon transliteration). Originally called "The correct sounds for the instruction of the people", or (''Hunmin jeongeum'' in Korean), or "national writing" (''Gukmeun''.) the alphabet was also known as "vulgar script", or ''Eonmeun'' or more politely "national writing" or by Korea's nobility who felt it was simple next to the traditional Chinese characters. It didn'Gukmeun't catch on in Korea until the mid 1800's. <ref>http://library.thinkquest.org/20746/non/info/history.html</ref> Ju Si-gyeong (Korean linguist b. 1876 d. 1914) coined ''Hangul'' the modern name for the Korean character set. <ref>http://www.omniglot.com/writing/korean.htm</ref> Today, Hangul is honored in South Korea on Hangul Day, on October 9. <ref>http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/002529.html</ref>