When did North and South Korea divide, what language do they speak and why were the countries enemies?

NORTH Korean leader Kim Jong-un has embraced his South Korean counterpart President Moon Jae-in after the two nations pledged to work for the “complete denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula”.

The announcement came as part of the first inter-Korean summit in more than a decade. We explore the history between the two Koreas.

When did North and South Korea divide?

The Korean division took place after World War II, ending the Empire of Japan’s 35-year rule over Korea in 1945.

When the Japanese empire was dismantled, Korea fell victim to the Cold War.

It was divided into two spheres of influence along the 38th parallel.

The United States and the Soviet Union each occupied a portion of the country, with a boundary installed between their zones of control.

In 1948, UN-supervised elections were held in the US-occupied south only.

The anti-communist Syngman Rhee won the South elections, while in the North, Kim Il-sung was appointed as the leader by Joseph Stalin.

This led to the establishment of the Republic of Korea in South Korea, promptly followed by the establishment of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea in North Korea.

Why were the two countries enemies?

With the United States supporting the South and the Soviet Union supporting the North, each government claimed sovereignty over the whole Korean peninsula.

In 1950, the North launched a surprise attack across the 38th parallel and quickly took most of the South.

The United Nations then backed what it called a "police action" to repulse the advance

The attacks sparked the outbreak of the Korean War, which lasted from 1950 to 1953.

More than 2.5 million had been killed by the time an armistice was signed in July 1953.

The stalemate saw the line of division remain exactly where it had started - at the 38th parallel

The two nations remain separated by the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) to this day.

But with a recent flurry of diplomatic activity recently the ice between the two countries appears to be thawing rapidly.

South Korean government said on April 29 that North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, had told President Moon Jae-in that he would abandon his nuclear weapons if the United States agreed to formally end the Korean War and promise not to invade his country.

Kim also said he would invite experts and journalists from South Korea and the United States to watch the shutdown next month of his country’s only known underground nuclear test site.

What languages do they speak?

The Korean peninsula was rich in regional dialects long before the 1953 division, with most dialects mutually comprehensible.

Both sides of the divide commonly use the Hangul script for official documentation and continue to speak the same Korean language.

However, since the division more than 60 years ago, the style in which North and South Koreans speak has gone separate ways.

While the North Korean language has not changed that much since the 1940s, South Korean has added a wealth of new vocabulary.

The South has seen many English words intermixed with Korean, a stark contrast to the North where the Pyongyang government has prevented foreign words from entering the vernacular.

In 2005, the two Koreas agreed to compile a joint dictionary to help close the language divide.

This project remains in the pipeline as it repeatedly gets abandoned every time tension mounts between the two countries.

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