Names for Go in Other Languages

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    Keywords: Culture & History

The accepted international name of the game of go comes from the Japanese. However, each of the cultures in which go originally flourished has its own name for the game:



In Japanese, the character ki 棋 is also used to refer to go (and usually shogi as well, since the meaning of ki encompasses that board game) in compounds such as the following:

In contrast to go, which is used on its own and in a few compounds, ki (or gi) is never used on its own and is the nornal compound form (free and bound forms in linguistic terminology).

The term go appears in the following compounds:


The character go 碁 also exists in Chinese (the Chinese name of the Taiwan-based "Acer" company, 宏碁, uses the character), but according to a native speaker informant:

It is not a common character in our society. This character was not in the pre-defined 13,000 Chinese character set in the computer before Acer became famous. I think most people do not know this character is actually the same as 棋. So you're right that it is not used as a game of go any more. We use 棋 rather than 碁 for the game of go. The meaning of this character is changed as well to 'a solid foundation', so when people see the Chinese name of Acer, I think nobody links the name with the game."

Someone please insert a list of Chinese compounds using the qi/棋 character here. John F provides the following list of Chinese words for go player:

BenKovitz: What do these mean? (I'm just learning Chinese.) 棋工 = go skill? 棋家 = go aficionado or go house? 棋人 = go player? 棋師 = go master?


Hikaru79: If you go to [ext] www.3dgo.org you can see three calligraphy images for the respective characters for Igo, Wei'qi, and Baduk. (Thanks Hikaru, those are awesome ^_^ -- BrendenT)

HolIgor: Russians use sometimes the term Oblavnye shashki which would translate as the encircling (or hunting) checkers.

Rich: Holigor - I play on KGS as Shashka - is it precisely the same word for both "checker" and "sabre" in Russian, or does one of the words use "shch" in place of "sh"?

HolIgor: No "shch". But the game checker is in plural "shashki", one "shashka" stands for a checker-man and alternatively for a kind of sabre Russian kazaks used. Another meaning is a stick of explosives, a small bomb.

Thouis: What are the Chinese (and Korean) translations of "go parlor"?

See also


Contributors:


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This is a copy of the living page "Names for Go in Other Languages" at Sensei's Library.
(OC) 2004 the Authors, published under the OpenContent License V1.0.
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