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Etymology Of The Korean Currencies




Yang is a former Korean currency. It is a cognate of the Chinese Tael (pronounced "liǎng" in Chinese). The yang was subdivided into 100 '''pun'''. Pun 분 is a cognate of a Chinese word, 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.


SIGN AND COMPUTING

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


SEE ALSO