Yennieung

Yennieung (letter: ㆁ; name: 옛이응) is an archaic consonant letter of the Korean alphabet, Hangul. It was associated with an voiced velar nasal [ŋ] sound.^[1] In Unicode, its name is spelled yesieung, following the ISO/TR 11941 romanization system.^[2] The letter is no longer used in modern Hangul orthographies. Its function gradually merged with that of the letter ㅇ; that letter now fulfills both their previous roles.

Writing systemHangul

TypeAlphabet

Sound values[ŋ]

InUnicodeU+3181, U+114C, U+11F0

Quick facts Usage, Writing system ...

Yennieung
ㆁ
Usage
Writing system	Hangul
Type	Alphabet
Sound values	[ŋ]
In Unicode	U+3181, U+114C, U+11F0
Other
Korean name
Hangul	옛이응
RR	yennieung
MR	yenniŭng
This article contains phonetic transcriptions in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA. For the distinction between [ ], / / and ⟨ ⟩, see IPA § Brackets and transcription delimiters.

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It has a stroke on top, added from ㅇ, the null or zero initial. The relationship between these two characters is considered to be unusual, as they are of different sound classes of the Chinese linguistic system fanqie. Normally, strokes between Hangul letters to relate characters within the same sound class. They were considered to be related because an initial ng sound was a then-disappearing feature of the Chinese language. Ledyard argues that ㆁ is unlikely to have ever been useful as an initial consonant for Korean, as that language likely never had an initial ng sound, and that it was mostly meant for representing Chinese.^[1] They were often confused, as they are so visually similar.^[3] In the 15th century, it was used in both as an initial and final consonant. It became final only at the start of the 16th century.^[4] By the 17th century, the two letters functionally merged into ㅇ.^[3]