Ieung

Not to be confused with the Latin letter O, the number 0, the Greek letter omicron, or the Cyrillic O.
Ieung
ㅇ
Usage
Writing systemHangul
TypeAlphabet
Sound values
  • [∅] (in the initial position)
  • [ʔ] (sometimes)
  • [ŋ] (in the final position)
In UnicodeU+3147, U+110B, U+11BC, U+3207, U+3267
Other
Korean name
Hangul
이응
RRieung
MRiŭng

Ieung (letter: ㅇ; name: 이응), sometimes also called noieung to clearly distinguish from yesieung, is a consonant letter of the Korean alphabet, Hangul. It is silent when used at the beginning of a syllable (it is a consonant placeholder in vowel letters). However, ㅇ might take on the glottal stop [ʔ] sound on some occasions.[1] It takes on the [ŋ] sound when it is the ending consonant in a syllable.[2][3]

History

Ieung, along with the rest of Hangul, was officially introduced in the 1446 Hunminjeongeum and Hunminjeongeum Haerye. Its design, originally a perfect circle, directly corresponds to the shape of the human throat during the production of its sound. In the fanqie Chinese phonological system, its sound was classified as laryngeal (喉音) and neither clear nor muddy (不淸不濁).[4] It was implied that the letter was largely to be used as a null (∅) placeholder (likely for aesthetic considerations, to make syllable shapes consistent), particularly in the initial position of a syllable, when the vowel sound was supposed to come first. However, the letter possibly sometimes had sound values, namely the voiced velar fricative ɣ or the voiced glottal fricative ɦ, although this is still debated and uncertain.[5] In the 15th century, the letter was sometimes used in the final position as a null value exclusively for Sino-Korean terms. This was done for aesthetic reasons, to make Hangul syllables consistently have some kind of graphical final. This type of use faded by the early 16th century.[6]

The current ieung is a combination of two letters that gradually merged over time: ieung and what is now called yennieung (ㆁ). Yennieung could be used in either the initial or final position as an [ŋ] sound, although it eventually became mostly used in the final position by the 16th century.[7][6] The two letters are graphically related via the Haerye's stroke addition rule; if you add a stroke to ieung it becomes yennieung. This was considered somewhat unusual, as the stroke addition rule typically relates sounds within the same sound class, but yennieung is of a different class (molar; 牙音). The justification provided for this exception was that an initial ng sound was a then-disappearing feature of the Chinese language. Thus, there was perceived to be a relationship between the disappearing initial ng sound ㆁ and the null initial ㅇ.[8]

The merger between ieung and yennieung happened around the 17th century. Ieung absorbed both of their primary roles (the null initial and the final [ŋ]).[9]

Name

Hangul letter names were not originally provided in the Hunminjeongeum; modern scholars have inferred that this letter's name was possibly originally i (이; 伊). The earliest known record of a name for the letter is i, in the 1527 text Hunmong chahoe. In that text, consonants that were only used in the initial position were single-syllable names with the consonant being named and the vowel ㅣ. Consonants used in the initial and final position were two-syllable names in the form ㅣ으, with the consonant being named in the initial of the first syllable and the final of the final position.[10]

The name ieung (approximately phonetically recorded as 異凝) was originally applied to yennieung in the Hunmong chahoe. After the letters merged, this name eventually became applied to ieung.[11]

Stroke order

Computing codes

Character information
Preview ㅇ ᄋ ᆼ ㈇ ㉧
Unicode name HANGUL LETTER IEUNG HANGUL CHOSEONG IEUNG HANGUL JONGSEONG IEUNG PARENTHESIZED HANGUL IEUNG CIRCLED HANGUL IEUNG
Encodings decimal hex dec hex dec hex dec hex dec hex
Unicode 12615 U+3147 4363 U+110B 4540 U+11BC 12807 U+3207 12903 U+3267
UTF-8 227 133 135 E3 85 87 225 132 139 E1 84 8B 225 134 188 E1 86 BC 227 136 135 E3 88 87 227 137 167 E3 89 A7
Numeric character reference ㅇ ㅇ ᄋ ᄋ ᆼ ᆼ ㈇ ㈇ ㉧ ㉧

References

  1. ^ "성문 파열음[?]에 대해 알아보자.glottal stop". m1.386dx.com (in Korean). Retrieved 2022-03-09.
  2. ^ "Script and pronunciation". University College London. Archived from the original on 2024-01-21. Retrieved 2021-10-20.
  3. ^ Jiyoung Shin, Jieun Kiaer, Jaeeun Cha (2012). The Sounds of Korean. Cambridge University Press. pp. XiX–XX. ISBN 9781139789882.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  4. ^ Lee & Ramsey 2011, p. 117.
  5. ^ Lee & Ramsey 2011, p. 143.
  6. ^ a b Martin 1992, p. 49.
  7. ^ Lee & Ramsey 2011, p. 118.
  8. ^ Ledyard 1998, pp. 213–214, 245–246.
  9. ^ Lee & Ramsey 2011, p. 253.
  10. ^ 안경상 (2020). 어학고전 《훈몽자회》의 몇가지 특징 [Some Features of "Hunmong Jahoe"]. Korean Language in China (in Korean). 225: 46–47 – via DBpia.
  11. ^ 강신항. 옛이응. Encyclopedia of Korean Culture (in Korean). Academy of Korean Studies. Retrieved 2025-11-14.

Sources

Look up ㅇ in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.


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