page_title: Hangul
section_title: Consonants
hierarchical_section_title: Hangul / Letters / Consonants
caption_attribution_description: English: The shape of throat hole when ㅇ is pronounced
context_page_description: The Korean alphabet, known as Hangul in South Korea and Chosŏn'gŭl in North Korea, is a writing system for the Korean language created by King Sejong the Great in 1443. The letters for the five basic consonants reflect the shape of the speech organs used to pronounce them, and they are systematically modified to indicate phonetic features; similarly, the vowel letters are systematically modified for related sounds, making Hangul a featural writing system.
  Modern Hangul orthography uses 24 basic letters: 14 consonant letters and 10 vowel letters. There are also 19 complex letters: 5 tense consonants and 11 complex vowels combining the basic letters. Four letters in the original alphabet are no longer used: 1 vowel letter and 3 consonant letters.
  The Korean letters are written in syllabic blocks with the alphabetic letters arranged in two dimensions. For example, the Korean word for "honeybee" is written 꿀벌, not ㄲㅜㄹㅂㅓㄹ. As it combines the features of alphabetic and syllabic writing systems, it has been described as an "alphabetic syllabary."
context_section_description: The chart below shows all 19 consonants in South Korean alphabetic order with Revised Romanization equivalents for each letter and pronunciation in IPA (see Korean phonology for more).
  ㅇ is silent syllable-initially and is used as a placeholder when the syllable starts with a vowel. ㄸ, ㅃ, and ㅉ are never used syllable-finally.
  Consonants are broadly categorized into either obstruents (sounds produced when airflow either completely stops (i.e, a plosive consonant) or passes through a narrow opening (i.e, a fricative) or sonorants (sounds produced when air flows out with little to no obstruction through the mouth, nose, or both). The chart below lists the Korean consonants by their respective categories and subcategories.
  All Korean obstruents are voiceless in that the larynx does not vibrate when producing those sounds and are further distinguished by degree of aspiration and tenseness. The tensed consonants are produced by constricting the vocal chords while heavily aspirated consonants (such as the Korean ㅍ, /pʰ/) are produced by opening them.
  Korean sonorants are voiced.
  Consonant assimilation occurs as a result of intervocalic voicing. When surrounded by vowels or sonorant consonants such as ㅁ or ㄴ, a stop will take on the characteristics of its surrounding sound. Since plain stops (like ㄱ /k/) are produced with relaxed vocal chords that are not tensed, they are more likely to be affected by surrounding voiced sounds (which are produced by vocal chords that are vibrating).
  Below are examples of how lax consonants (ㅂ /p/, ㄷ /t/, ㅈ /tɕ/, ㄱ /k/) change due to location in a word. Letters in bolded interface show intervocalic weakening, or the softening of the lax consonants to their sonorous counterparts.
  ㅂ 
  밥 [pap] - 'rice'
  보리밥 [poribap] - 'barley mixed with rice'
  ㄷ
  다 [ta] - 'all'
  맏 [mat] - 'oldest'
  맏아들 [madadǔl] - 'oldest son'
  ㅈ
  죽 [chuk] - 'porridge'
  콩죽 [k'ong-juk] - 'bean porridge'
  ㄱ
  공 [kong] - 'ball'
  새 공 [saegong] - 'new ball'
  The consonants ㄹ and ㅎ also experience weakening. The liquid ㄹ, when in an intervocalic position, will be weakened to a [r]. For example, the final ㄹ in the word 말 ([mal], 'word') changes when followed by the subject marker 이 (ㅇ being a sonorant consonant), and changes to a [r] to become [mari]. 
  ㅎ /h/ is very weak and is usually deleted in Korean words, as seen in words like 괜찮아요 /kwanch'anh-ayo/[kwaench'anayo]. However, instead of being completely deleted, it leaves remnants by devoicing the following sound or by acting as a glottal stop.
  Lax consonants are tensed when following other obstruents due to the fact that the first obstruent's articulation is not released. Tensing can be seen in words like 입구 ('entrance') /ip-ku/ which is pronounced as [ip-kku]. 
  Consonants in the Korean alphabet can be combined into 11 consonant clusters, which always appear in the final position in a syllable. They are: ㄳ, ㄵ, ㄶ, ㄺ, ㄻ, ㄼ, ㄽ, ㄾ, ㄿ, ㅀ, and ㅄ.
  **In cases where consonant clusters are followed by words beginning with ㅇ or ㄷ, the consonant cluster is "resyllabified" through a phonological phenomenon called liaison. In words where the first consonant of the consonant cluster is ㅂ,ㄱ, or ㄴ (the stop consonants), articulation stops and the second consonant cannot be pronounced without releasing the articulation of the first once. Hence, in words like 값 /kaps/ ('price'), the ㅅ cannot be articulated and the word is thus pronounced as [kap]. The second consonant is usually revived when followed by a word with initial ㅇ (값이 -> [kapsi]. Other examples include 삶 (/salm/ [sam], 'life'). The ㄹ in the final consonant cluster is generally lost in pronunciation, however when followed by the subject marker 이, the ㄹ is revived and the ㅁ takes the place of the blank consonant ㅇ. Thus, 삶이 is pronounced as [sal-mi].
caption: ㅇ is similar to the throat hole.
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