ㅊ

The Hunmin Jeongeum Haerye, the treatise introducing the principles behind the Korean alphabet written by its inventor King Sejong in 1446, explains that this glyph was derived by adding a stroke to ㅈ (j, “j”) to represent aspiration.

ㅊ • (ch)

1. 치읓 (chieut), a jamo (letter) of hangul, the Korean alphabet.

• ㅊ (chieut) is pronounced as an aspirated alveolo-palatal affricate ([t͡ɕʰ]), i.e. similar to the English ch.