ki character

The Chinese character 棋 refers to board games such as go and shogi. In the oldest Chinese texts it refers to a playing piece. The left-hand radical 木 provides the semantics of "wood", presumably referring to the wood of the pieces, while the right-hand side, 其, is phonetic in nature.

Japanese

In Japanese, 棋, pronounced ki, is used to refer to go in compounds including the following frequently used terms:

• kishi 棋士 (go professional)
• kiri 棋理 (go theory)
• kifu 棋譜 (go record)
• kifuu 棋風 (go style)
• kidou 棋道 (way/path of go)
• kiryoku 棋力 (go strength)
• kisei 棋聖 (go saint/sage)
• kisen 棋戦 (go tournament)
• ki-in 棋院 (go institute/association)

Less commonly used:

• kihaku 棋伯　(go earl, i.e. a high dan player)
• kikai 棋界 (go world, but more commonly shogi world)
• kika 棋家 (go player)
• kikyaku 棋客 (go player)

The character is also read go in cases such as the old go magazine Igo Shinpou (囲棋新報).

Chinese

In Chinese, the character is pronounced qí and used in the Chinese term for go, weiqi (圍棋 or 围棋), as well as the following words for go player:

• 棋手 qíshǒu
• 棋師 qíshi
• 棋工 qígōng
• 棋家 qíjiā
• 棋客 qíkè
• 棋人 qírén

The first is most standard, the second also in modern use, the others obsolete.

The character is used for most other board games as well, such as Xiangqi (象棋), often known as Chinese chess. Conversely, chess is known as "international xiangqi" (國際象棋 or 国际象棋) or "Western xiangqi" (西洋象棋) in Chinese. Other board games that use the character include draughts (西洋跳棋) and gomoku (五子棋).

See also

• Etymology of Go
• Go character