In times past, until the 15th century, in Korea, Literary Chinese was the dominant form of written communication, prior to the creation of hangul, the Korean alphabet. Much of the vocabulary, especially in the realms of science and sociology, comes directly from Chinese, comparable to Latin or Greek root words in European languages. However, due to the lack of tones in Korean,[citation needed] as the words were imported from Chinese, many dissimilar characters took on identical sounds, and subsequently identical spelling in hangul.[citation needed] Chinese characters are sometimes used to this day for either clarification in a practical manner, or to give a distinguished appearance, as knowledge of Chinese characters is considered a high class attribute and an indispensable part of a classical education.[citation needed] It is also observed that the preference for Chinese characters is treated as being conservative and Confucian.