Hangul Single Dot Tone Mark

It marks high pitch in Middle Korean. Middle Korean is the form of Korean written in 15th-century texts. This one-dot Bangjeom mark sits beside a syllable; the one-dot reading was called “departing tone.”

No dot signaled level pitch, while two-dot 〯 marked rising pitch. Syllables called “entering tone” were described as hurriedly pronounced, not given another dot count. These marks guide pronunciation; they are not pauses or sentence endings.

When was 〮 first used?

The earliest documented rules are in mid-15th-century Hangul works. The 1446 Hunminjeongeum, an early work explaining Hangul, sets out the one- and two-dot rules; the 1459 Eonhae repeats them.

Side dots fade from the written record from the 17th century onward. One explanation links the change to weakening pitch contrasts; another to spelling simplification. The surviving record does not settle one cause.

Why was 〮 made?

It supplied a pitch cue the syllable block could not show.

Until the 1950s, some scholarship treated the side dots as an imitation of Chinese theory. Later phonological work read them as evidence for Korean pitch accent—a pattern of pitch in speech.