South and North Korean lexicographers plan to meet in China next week to discuss the details of an ongoing project to publish a joint dictionary of their language, government officials said Tuesday.

A group of 23 South Korean experts will visit China's northeastern coastal city of Dalian from Monday to next Sunday to hold a meeting with their North Korean counterparts over the contents of the dictionary, the Ministry of Unification said.

Similar forums were already held twice this year.

The joint dictionary project is being pursued in order to preserve Korea's cultural assets and bridge the language gap between the two Koreas. The dictionary will contain around 330,000 words.

The two countries speak the same Korean language, but the gap between their daily uses of words has grown since they were divided 70 years ago, and the influx of foreign languages into the South has increased.

The project, which started in 2006, was suspended in 2010 when Seoul slapped economic sanctions on Pyongyang to punish the North for its deadly torpedoing of a South Korean warship.

The two sides resumed the project in July with the goal to complete it by 2019.

The ministry said in May that it will promote more civilian inter-Korean exchanges, as this year marks the 70th anniversary of Korea's liberation from Japan's 1910-45 colonial rule. (Yonhap)