Etymology of the Korean currencies - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Won is the currency

Currency

In economics, currency refers to a generally accepted medium of exchange. These are usually the coins and banknotes of a particular government, which comprise the physical aspects of a nation's money supply...

of both North

North Korea

The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea , , is a country in East Asia, occupying the northern half of the Korean Peninsula. Its capital and largest city is Pyongyang. The Korean Demilitarized Zone serves as the buffer zone between North Korea and South Korea...

and South Korea

South Korea

The Republic of Korea , , is a sovereign state in East Asia, located on the southern portion of the Korean Peninsula. It is neighbored by the People's Republic of China to the west, Japan to the east, North Korea to the north, and the East China Sea and Republic of China to the south...

. Won is a cognate

Cognate

In linguistics, cognates are words that have a common etymological origin. This learned term derives from the Latin cognatus . Cognates within the same language are called doublets. Strictly speaking, loanwords from another language are usually not meant by the term, e.g...

of the Chinese

Chinese language

The Chinese language is a language or language family consisting of varieties which are mutually intelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages...

currency unit, yuan

Chinese yuan

The yuan is the base unit of a number of modern Chinese currencies. The yuan is the primary unit of account of the Renminbi.A yuán is also known colloquially as a kuài . One yuán is divided into 10 jiǎo or colloquially máo...

and the Japanese

Japanese language

is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...

currency unit, yen

Japanese yen

The is the official currency of Japan. It is the third most traded currency in the foreign exchange market after the United States dollar and the euro. It is also widely used as a reserve currency after the U.S. dollar, the euro and the pound sterling...

, meaning "round object". The won is subdivided into 100 jeon (전; 錢; McCune-Reischauer

McCune-Reischauer

McCune–Reischauer romanization is one of the two most widely used Korean language romanization systems, along with the Revised Romanization of Korean, which replaced McCune–Reischauer as the official romanization system in South Korea in 2000...

: chŏn; Revised Romanization: jeon).

Yang is a former Korean currency. It is a cognate of the Chinese tael . The yang was subdivided into 100 fun . Fun (푼) is a cognate of the Chinese word fen (分 fēn), referring to 1/100 of a Chinese yuan in modern context.

History

Due to interchanging Chinese influences, changing Romanization

Romanization

In linguistics, romanization or latinization is the representation of a written word or spoken speech with the Roman script, or a system for doing so, where the original word or language uses a different writing system . Methods of romanization include transliteration, for representing written...

methods, and the use of both hanja

Hanja

Hanja is the Korean name for the Chinese characters hanzi. More specifically, it refers to those Chinese characters borrowed from Chinese and incorporated into the Korean language with Korean pronunciation...

(Sino-Korean characters) and hangul

Hangul

Hangul,Pronounced or ; Korean: 한글 Hangeul/Han'gŭl or 조선글 Chosŏn'gŭl/Joseongeul the Korean alphabet, is the native alphabet of the Korean language. It is a separate script from Hanja, the logographic Chinese characters which are also sometimes used to write Korean...

scripts, the etymology can be hard to understand. The table below summarizes the language used on the modern circulating and historical Korean currencies.

Period	Subunit				Main unit			Super unit				Note
Period	English	Hanja Hanja Hanja is the Korean name for the Chinese characters hanzi. More specifically, it refers to those Chinese characters borrowed from Chinese and incorporated into the Korean language with Korean pronunciation...	Hangul Hangul Hangul,Pronounced or ; Korean: 한글 Hangeul/Han'gŭl or 조선글 Chosŏn'gŭl/Joseongeul the Korean alphabet, is the native alphabet of the Korean language. It is a separate script from Hanja, the logographic Chinese characters which are also sometimes used to write Korean...	Ratio	English	Hanja	Hangul	English	Hanja	Hangul	Ratio	Note
1892-1902	fun	分	푼	1/100	yang	兩	냥	hwan	圜	환	5
1902-1910	chon	錢	전	1/100	won	圓	원	None				1 won = 5 yang of the previous period
1902-1945	sen	錢	N/A	1/100	yen	圓	N/A	None				1 yen = 1 won = 5 yang
1902-1945	Due to Colonial era Korea under Japanese rule Korea was under Japanese rule as part of Japan's 35-year imperialist expansion . Japanese rule ended in 1945 shortly after the Japanese defeat in World War II.... , the English transliterations were based on Japanese pronunciation of the Chinese characters.
North Korea North Korea The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea , , is a country in East Asia, occupying the northern half of the Korean Peninsula. Its capital and largest city is Pyongyang. The Korean Demilitarized Zone serves as the buffer zone between North Korea and South Korea... 1945-present	chon	錢	전	1/100	won	圓	원	None				1 won = 1 yen in 1945 1 new won = 1 old won in 1959. Use of Hanja disappeared after 1959
South Korea South Korea The Republic of Korea , , is a sovereign state in East Asia, located on the southern portion of the Korean Peninsula. It is neighbored by the People's Republic of China to the west, Japan to the east, North Korea to the north, and the East China Sea and Republic of China to the south... 1945-1953	chon	錢	전	1/100	won	圓	원	None				1 won = 1 yen
South Korea 1953-1962	chon	錢	전	1/100	hwan	圜	환	None				1 hwan = 100 won of the previous perioud
South Korea 1962-present	jeon	錢	전	1/100	won	圓	원	None				1 won = 10 hwan of the previous period
Bold = what was actually printed on the notes/engraved on the coins

In the brief period when the yang

Korean yang

The yang was the currency of Korea between 1892 and 1902. It was subdivided into 10 jeon , 100 bun and 5 yang = 1 hwan .-Etymology:The word yang is a cognate of the Chinese "tael"...

was used, 1 hwan/won (圜 = 圓 in Chinese) = 5 yang (兩), while in the Chinese monetary system of that time, 1 yuan (圓) = 0.72 tael (兩).

Use in the Western World

The word jeon is also used in Korean to translate the word "cent," and in this context is associated with bul (불, 弗), meaning "dollar." (The hanja character resembles the symbol "$".) These two words are used by Koreans living in the Western hemisphere when referring to dollar currencies.

Sign and computing

The won sign ("₩", a capital W with a horizontal stroke) is represented in Unicode

Unicode

Unicode is a computing industry standard for the consistent encoding, representation and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems...

at the code point 20A9 (8361 in decimal).

History

Use in the Western World

Sign and computing

See also