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 [ext] onyomi for 囲; the [ext] 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".)

See also

About this Page

Material from Andre Engels, unkx80 and doraguma based on a question from Jan at Messages to people currently present in the library.
WikiMasterEdit by Andre Engels and Gareth.


This is a copy of the living page "Etymology of Go" at Sensei's Library.
(OC) 2004 the Authors, published under the OpenContent License V1.0.
[Welcome to Sensei's Library!]
StartingPoints
ReferenceSection
About