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Etymology of Go
Keywords: Culture & History
"Go" comes from Japanese igo 囲碁 which in turn comes from Chinese weiqi 圍棋 (simplified: 围棋). In Chinese, wei 圍 means "surrounding" and qi 棋 means "game" (and is used for Chinese chess); weiqi is thus "the game of surrounding". In Japanese i 囲 corresponds to wei 圍 and also means "surrounding"; go is the Japanese pronunciation of 棋 but in Japanese 棋 is used for shogi so the variant 碁 is used instead. (i is the onyomi for 囲; the kunyomi for 囲 is kako, used in the word kakomu 囲む "to surround". 碁 has onyomi go and gi but no kunyomi. Note that the radical at the bottom of 碁 is ishi 石 "stone".)
Material from Andre Engels, unkx80 and doraguma based on a question from Jan at Messages to people currently present in the library. See also
This is a copy of the living page "Etymology of Go" at Sensei's Library. ![]() |