Etymology of the Korean currencies

Won is the currency of both North and South Korea. Won is a cognate of the Chinese currency unit, yuan and the Japanese currency unit, yen, meaning "round object". The won is subdivided into 100 jeon (전; 錢; McCune-Reischauer: "chŏn"; Revised Romanization: "jeon").

Yang is a former Korean currency. It is a cognate of the Chinese tael (pronounced "liǎng" in Chinese). The yang was subdivided into 100 fun (pronounced "pun" but spelt with an "f" on the coins). 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 and Japanese influences, changing Romanization methods, and the use of both hanja (Sino-Korean characters) and hangul scripts, the etymology can be hard to understand. The table below summarizes the language used on the modern circulating and historical Korean currencies.

It should be noted that in the brief period when the yang 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.

ign and Computing

The won sign ("₩", a capital W with a horizontal stroke) is represented in Unicode at the code point 20A9 (8361 in decimal).

ee also

* Hanja
* Hangul
* Revised Romanization of Korean
* McCune-Reischauer