The traditional account[1] holds that its form is the outline of an incisor, 齒形 (it is the shape of the four teeth in the Chinese pictographic character for incisor, 齒).
Gari Ledyard proposes that ㅅ (s) was derived from ㅈ (j) by removing the top stroke.
This entry lacks etymological information. If you are familiar with the origin of this term, please add it to the page per etymology instructions. You can also discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium. Particularly: “Interesting similarity in form and function to the genitive in the Germanic languages, the third and fourth noun classes in Latin, and the long-vowel stems in Sanskrit, among others. Are there any respectable linguistic theories mentioning a possible PIE connection? Or is this just coincidence? Also, likely cognate with the rare and ancient -s- genitive infix in Japanese, as in 春雨(harusame).”
The sai-siot (사이시옷), genitive marker sometimes placed between a vowel-final syllable of the first constituent and a syllable of the second constituent when forming compounds.
햇빛 (haetbit, “sunlight”) - from 해 (hae, “sun”) + ㅅ + 빛 (bit, “light”)
^ Hunmin Jeongeum Haerye “Explanations and Examples of the Proper Sounds for the Instruction of the People” (1446), defining and explaining the script now known as 한글(han-geul, “Great script, Korean script”) in South Korea and 조선글(joseon-geul, “Korean script”) in North Korea.
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