The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) has a famous chart for consonants. Each column is a place in the mouth, from the lips on the left to the throat on the right. The book 《正音으로 듣고쓰다》 puts a 正音 letter into each cell of that chart. This post reads the chart column by column and shows the letters inside real words, from Spanish and French to Japanese and Hindi.
Some letters are old Hangul letters that modern Korean no longer uses (ㆆ, ㅿ, ㆁ, ㅸ, ㆄ and others). When a spelling uses them, we show the book’s own picture instead of typing it. Vowels have their own post, A Compass Made of Vowels; here we look at consonants.
Two keys help in reading it. First, each column is one place in the mouth, and the columns run from the front of the mouth to the back. Second, the characters 木 火 土 金 水 mark the five consonant families of 正音 – wood ㆁ ㄱ ㅋ, fire ㄴ ㄹ ㄷ ㅌ, earth ㅁ ㅂ ㅍ, metal ㅅ ㅈ ㅊ ㅿ, water ㅇ ㆆ ㅎ – the families described in A Year in a Rice Field. The tinted cells hold letters built from two consonants; they are the subject of section 8.
1. Why is there a vowel in a consonant chart?
Look at three columns side by side. In the middle is the velar column (the back of the tongue touches the soft palate): ㄲ k, ㄱ g, ㅋ kʰ. On its left is the palatal column: 끼 c, 기 ɟ, 키 cʰ. On its right is the uvular column: 끄 q, 그 ɢ, 크 qʰ.
So palatal = velar + ㅣ, and uvular = velar + ㅡ. The ㅣ and the ㅡ are not extra sounds. They tell the tongue where to go. ㅣ is the front vowel: the tongue moves forward and up, toward the hard palate. ㅡ is the back vowel: the tongue pulls back, toward the uvula. In the vowel compass, ㅣ is east (front) and ㅡ is west (back).
In a real word a vowel follows the consonant, and the ㅣ or ㅡ joins that vowel in the same block. For example, c + a = 끼 + ㅏ. Since ㅣ followed by ㅏ is ㅑ, the result is 꺄. In the same way q + a = 끄 + ㅏ: the ㅡ and the ㅏ sit together in one block, as in the book’s line below. Only when nothing follows, at the end of a word, is the chart form written as it is. The sections below show how this works inside real words.
Greek shows the same thing. Several Greek letters change their sound before e and i, and the new sounds are exactly the palatal ones – the 正音 letters that contain ㅣ.
2. Palatal column: 끼 기 키 니 리
Spanish ll is the palatal [ʎ], written 리. In llamar, 리 + ㅏ becomes 랴, so the word is 랴마르. galleta becomes 갈예따 or 가례따.
French gn is the palatal nasal [ɲ], written 니. In agneau, 니 + ㅗ becomes 뇨: 아뇨. At the end of a syllable there is no vowel to join, so the book writes ㄴ with ㆆ at the bottom of the block (Czech kůň). In the palatal column ㅣ and ㆆ go together: ㅣ joins a vowel, and ㆆ takes its place at the bottom of a block. French words like Champagne, Bourgogne and Bretagne end in this sound.
3. Velar and uvular: ㄲ ㄱ ㅋ and 끄 그 크
The velar nasal [ŋ], the ng in sing, is ㆁ. The velar fricative [x] is the double letter ㆅ.
The uvular sounds are made even further back. The uvular nasal [ɴ] is ㄶ. Japanese ん at the end of a word is this sound, so in みかん the last block ends in ㄶ.
The uvular fricative [χ] is 흐, and the same rule as before applies: 흐 + ㅏ puts ㅡ and ㅏ in one block. The French r lives in this column too. A dictionary writes it [ʁ], 正音 ㅎㄹ, but in real speech it comes out as a trill (ㅀ), as [χ] (흐) or as [x] (ㆅ), depending on the sounds around it. Paris can be written 빻~리, where the ㅎ at the bottom is a voiced h (more on this ㅎ in section 7).
The voiced velar fricative [ɣ], the Greek gamma, is 긔: it holds both ㅡ and ㅣ. Inside a word only one half stays. Greek agora keeps the ㅡ, which joins the next vowel; Spanish Higuera keeps the ㅣ: 이계라.
4. Lips: ㅃ ㅂ ㅍ ㅁ and ㆄ ㅸ ㅱ
ㅃ is p without a puff of air (as in spin), ㅂ is b, ㅍ is pʰ with a puff (as in pin), and ㅁ is m.
Korean has no f or v today, but 正音 had them in the 15th century: put a small ㅇ under a lip letter and the lips become “light.” ㆄ is f and ㅸ is v. ㅱ is the sound between w and v, [ʋ], as in Dutch wang.
5. Tongue tip: dental, alveolar, post-alveolar
ㄸ t, ㄷ d, ㅌ tʰ, ㄴ n, ㅅ s and ㅿ z. ㄹ at the start of a block is the quick tap [ɾ].
English th [θ ð] is made with the tongue on the teeth. 正音 writes ㅌ or ㄷ with ㅿ at the bottom of the block. ㅿ is shaped like a tooth, so the picture reads “tongue touching the teeth.”
One column to the right sit [ʃ] and [ʒ], the sh of she and the s of vision. The chart writes them as ㅅ and ㅿ with one extra dot. In 正音, one more dot on a vowel adds a y-glide (ㅏ → ㅑ, ㅓ → ㅕ), and the dot in this letter does the same work: s with a y-colour becomes sh. It is the letter used for Sanskrit ś in the Sanskrit post: शक्ति śakti = 샥띠, शब्द śabda = 셔브더.
English has two kinds of l. The clear l is a final ㄹ. The dark l at the end of milk, fall and pull is ㅭ: ㄹ closed by ㆆ.
The English r [ɹ] is ㆆㄹ, ㆆ before ㄹ. About a hundred years ago, missionaries such as Homer Hulbert already used this pair to write the English r in Hangul. Here is the start of an English song in 正音:
6. Retroflex: adding ㅿ or ㆁ
For a retroflex sound, the tongue tip curls back behind the ridge of the gums. The chart builds these letters out of familiar parts too: retroflex t, d and n take ㅿ at the bottom of the block, and retroflex s, z and ch are ㅅ ㅈ ㅊ with a small ㆁ. (Why ㅿ and ㆁ – see section 8.) Hindi, Swedish and Mandarin all use retroflex sounds.
Mandarin zh, ch and sh are written 즤, 츼, 싀, and the Mandarin r [ɻ] is ᄛ, ㄹ with a small ㅇ under it – a letter already described in the 1446 book that explained 正音.
7. Throat: ㆆ and ㅎ
ㆆ is the glottal stop [ʔ]. At the bottom of a block it cuts the syllable short, like the small っ in Japanese あっ!. ㅎ is h.
Is that h voiced or voiceless? Most alphabets do not say. The Roman letter h covers both the voiceless [h] and the voiced [ɦ], and nobody minds. ㅎ is the same kind of letter. At the top of a block it is voiceless: the chart’s [ç], [x], [χ], [ħ] and [h] are all built from ㅎ and ㆆ. But in two kinds of spelling the book puts ㅎ at the bottom of a block for a voiced sound, and there it is read as the voiced h [ɦ]: the French r of section 3 (Paris 빻~리, bonjour), and the deep throat sounds of Arabic in the Pharyngeal column – the voiced [ʕ] and the “emphatic” consonants (tˤ, dˤ, sˤ, zˤ) are all written with a final ㅎ.
A voiced final ㅎ looks strange to Korean eyes at first: in modern Hangul, a final ㅎ on its own is usually read like an unreleased [t̚]. But Korean already voices ㅎ next to voiced sounds. Before ㄱ, ㄷ, ㅈ a final ㅎ makes ㅋ, ㅌ, ㅊ (놓고 [노코]); next to nasals and vowels it melts away (놓는 [논는], 좋아 [조아]). Old Korean even had nouns that ended in ㅎ: 살ㅎ + 고기 became 살코기 (lean meat), and 수ㅎ + 닭 became 수탉 (rooster). A letter that changes with its position is nothing new in Hangul either: ㅇ is silent at the top of a block and [ŋ] at the bottom. So the book adds one small agreement: in these spellings, the ㅎ at the bottom of the block is voiced.
8. Two consonants together: only five pairs
正音 can join two different consonants: side by side, like ㄶ, or one under the other, like ㅸ. The book uses only five pairs.
The pairs come from the five families marked on the chart. Each family has a strong half (yang, +) and a soft half (yin, −), ten parts in all, called the ten heavenly stems (甲 乙 丙 丁 戊 己 庚 辛 壬 癸). On the star, each element controls the next one along a line. A yang stem pairs with the yin stem of the element it controls.
The five pairs are not equally strong. The book gives them a strength from 1 to 5:
- 戊 + 癸 (5, strongest): ㅂㅍ + ㅇ → ㅸ ㆄ (v, f) and ㅱ (ʋ). These letters were already used in 15th-century books.
- 丁 + 壬 (4): ㄴㄹ + ㆆㅎ → ㄶ ㅀ ㅭ ㆆㄹ ㄴㆆ ㅎㄹ. ㄶ and ㅀ are still final clusters in Korean today. In this pair the order matters, and each order has its own place in the chart: ㄹ + ㆆ (ㅭ) is the dark l, ㆆ + ㄹ is the English r; ㄹ + ㅎ (ㅀ) is the trilled [ʀ], ㅎ + ㄹ is the French [ʁ].
- 丙 + 辛 (3): ㄷㅌ + ㅿ → retroflex t and d, and the th of English.
- 乙 + 庚 (2): ㅅㅈㅊ + ㆁ → retroflex s, z and ch. In Mandarin the ㆁ turns into the vowel ㅢ: 즤 츼 싀.
- 甲 + 己 (1, weakest): ㄱ + ㅁ → 긔 [ɣ]. It is rare and unsteady: inside a word only 그 or 기 stays, as in agora and Higuera.
The stronger the pair, the more firmly it already lived in written Korean. The weaker pairs use ㅿ and ㆁ, letters that dropped out of Korean, so the book had to search for their sounds.
The two letters of a pair rarely stand together at the start of a block. ㅸ and ㆄ are stacked; 丁壬 pairs sit at the bottom of the block; 乙庚 becomes the vowel ㅢ; 丙辛 and 甲己 split between the top and the bottom of the block. So a 正音 block keeps the shape of an ordinary Hangul block. The bottom row of the full chart names the pair behind each column:
Read more
- A Compass Made of Vowels – the vowels
- Hangul, Upside Down – how the consonants picture the mouth
- A Year in a Rice Field – the five consonant families
- Writing Sanskrit and Hindi in 正音(Jeongeum) – aspiration, voicing and retroflex sounds
