jongseong

Jongseong, also called batchim, is the final consonant of a Hangul syllable. In Hangul, syllables are constructed from an initial consonant (choseong), a medial vowel (jungseong), and, optionally, a final consonant (jongseong). The jongseong sits at the bottom of the syllable block and serves as its coda, shaping both pronunciation and orthography.

There are 27 possible jongseong shapes when a final consonant is present: 16 single consonants (ㄱ, ㄲ, ㄴ, ㄷ, ㄹ, ㅁ, ㅂ, ㅅ, ㅆ, ㅇ, ㅈ, ㅊ, ㅋ, ㅌ, ㅍ, ㅎ) and 11 double-consonant clusters (ㄳ, ㄵ, ㄶ, ㄺ, ㄻ, ㄼ, ㄽ, ㄾ, ㄿ, ㅀ, ㅄ). A syllable may also have no jongseong, yielding 28 possible endings if the absence is counted; in everyday description, the absence is simply described as “no final.”

In phonology, the jongseong determines the syllable’s coda and influences its pronunciation. The term jongseong is the linguistic label for this final consonant, while batchim is the more common term in ordinary Korean usage.

In encoding, Hangul syllables are represented as a combination of choseong, jungseong, and jongseong. The final consonant index is 0 when there is no final, and 1–27 map to the standard 27 jongseong shapes. This system enables the seamless generation and processing of syllables such as those with simple finals and those with complex clusters.

See also: Hangul, Korean orthography, batchim, Hangul Jamo.