South and North Korea have been divided for more than 70 years --- and the Korean spoken by the two sides appears to be growing increasingly divided as well.

South Korean scholar Han Yong-un told an academic forum Tuesday that everyday words spoken in South and North Korea were 38 percent different from each other.

He said technical language differs at a rate of 66 percent --- or, in other words, a North Korean can only understand an average of three out of ten South Korean technical terms.

Han is the chief editor of an inter-Korean board compiling a unified Korean language dictionary.

He's calling for the formation of an inter-Korean organization to discuss South and North linguistic difference until unification can be achieved.