choseong

Choseong is the term for the initial consonant of a Hangul syllable in the Korean writing system. Hangul is a phonetic alphabet created in the 15th century by King Sejong the Great and scholars to promote literacy. A Hangul syllable block is typically built from three parts: an initial consonant (choseong), a vowel (jungseong), and an optional final consonant (jongseong). The choseong determines the syllable’s onset and, together with the vowel, shapes its sound.

In modern Korean, there are 19 possible choseong letters: ㄱ, ㄲ, ㄴ, ㄷ, ㄸ, ㄹ, ㅁ, ㅂ, ㅃ, ㅅ, ㅆ, ㅇ, ㅈ, ㅉ, ㅊ, ㅋ, ㅌ, ㅍ, ㅎ. Some are tense or aspirated distinctions. The letter ㅇ acts as a null initial for syllables beginning with a vowel. Double consonants such as ㄲ, ㄸ, ㅃ, ㅆ, ㅉ are treated as separate choseong letters. The final consonant set, jongseong, and the vowel set, jungseong, are separate elements in syllable construction.

Historically, the concept of choseong reflects Hangul’s onset consonant in syllables. In linguistic analysis, choseong refers to this initial phoneme, and in computing, Hangul syllables can be decomposed into choseong, jungseong, and jongseong components. An example: the syllable 가 has initial ㄱ, vowel ㅏ, and no final consonant, while 한 has initial ㅎ, vowel ㅏ, and final ㄴ.