伊
- he, she, that;
Used as a third-person pronoun or demonstrative “that one.”
Also functions as a particle in Classical Chinese.
By extension, used in transliterations, e.g. 伊大利 = Italy.
Etymology
Phono-semantic compound:
人 (사람 인, “person”) — semantic, indicating a human or pronoun.
尹 (다스릴 윤, yǐn) — phonetic, providing the sound i / yī.
Thus the character originally denoted a person, later generalized into a pronoun “he, she, that.”
Usage in Korean
伊他 (이타) — he, that man
伊始 (이시) — from the beginning
伊川 (이천) — a place name, also name of the Neo-Confucian scholar Cheng Yi (程伊川)
伊斯蘭 (이슬람) — Islam (transliteration)
Words that derived from 伊
Additional notes
Classical Chinese: common as a third-person pronoun, especially in early texts.