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First, take a look at letters for consonants. Basic
letters for consonants were designed by looking after
the shape of the speech organ which plays a central
role in pronouncing the consonant. |
Basic
Consonant Letters |
Shape
of speech organ
|
5
sounds(五音) |
|
ㄱ |
The
shape of back of tonguetouching
the velum(soft roof of the mouth)
|
velar
sound
(牙音) |
|
ㄴ |
The
shape of the tip
of tongue touching the alveola |
lingual
sound
(舌音) |
|
ㅁ |
The
shape that the lips firmly closing |
labial
sound
(唇音) |
|
ㅅ |
The
shape of a tooth
|
dental
sound
(齒音) |
|
ㅇ |
The
shape of the throat |
guttural
sound
(喉音) |
|
|
Other consonant letters were made on the base of these
5 basic letters. For exmple, consonants /ㄷ/and /ㄴ/ are
pronounced using the same speech organ at the same location
in the mouth, while /ㄷ/ is stronger than /ㄴ/. Reflecting
this fact, the letter for /ㄷ/ was made by adding one
more stroke to the letter for /ㄴ/. This principle is
also applied to the relationship between /ㅁ/ and /ㅂ/,
/ㅅ/ and /ㅈ/, or /ㅇ/ and /ㅎ/. |
|
In Korean, some consonants are classified into the tertiary
scheme of plain sounds, aspirated sounds and glottalized
sounds. /ㄱ/, /ㄷ/, /ㅂ/, /ㅅ/ and /ㅈ/ are plain sounds,
and /ㅋ/, /ㅌ/, /ㅍ/ and /ㅊ/ are aspirated sounds, while
/ㄲ/, /ㄸ/, /ㅃ/, /ㅆ/ and /ㅉ/ belong to tensed sounds.
As can be seen from these, consonats pronounced
by the same speech organ at the same location have similar
shapes, and the relationship between sounds is parallel
to that between letters for these sounds. Adding one
stroke to the letter for a plain sound makes it the
letter for the corresponding aspirated sound, and putting
two identical letters for a plain sound together side
by side leads to the letter for a tensed sound. |
Plain
sounds
|
Aspirated
sounds |
Tensed sounds |
ㄱ |
ㅋ |
ㄲ |
ㄷ |
ㅌ |
ㄸ |
ㅂ |
ㅍ |
ㅃ |
ㅅ |
|
ㅆ
|
ㅈ |
ㅊ |
ㅉ |
|
Summarizing principles of forming
letters for consonants, the basic letters were made
in imitation of the shape of speech organs, and the
others were made by adding a stroke to the basic letters
while considering the similarity between sounds and
their strength. There is no doubt that the scholars
in the King Sejong era were great linguists who exactly
analyzed and understood the Korean language of that
period. They knew what sounds were there, and understood
how the sounds were distinguished.
They decided letter shapes carefully to let the relationship
between letters reflect the relationship between sounds.
And they had an knowledge on which speech organ played
a central role in pronouncing each consonant and what
each speech organ looked like. It is a wonder how these
were possible in that time, where there was no high-technology
method such as X-ray. |
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