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[off-topic] As a Chinese, I do know what Weiqi (围棋,圍棋) is. I was surprised to see the English name of Weiqi is Go. (When I saw Go in this post, I thought it's G

[off-topic] As a Chinese, I do know what Weiqi (围棋,圍棋) is. I was surprised to see the English name of Weiqi is Go. (When I saw Go in this post, I thought it's Golang.)

eutectic 11y ago
The English name is a transliteration of the Japanese.
erikb 11y ago
A few Weiqi players like me were really angry when they used the name "Go" for the language where nearly all software engineers know that there is already a game with that (english+japanese) game. Btw, the Korean name "baduk"/"badook" is also used quite often. Sadly Chinese version is the least well known, which I think is because China and USA are the least connected of the three big Weiqi countries.
- vinceyuan 11y ago
  "they used the name "Go" for the language" just because Google named that programming language 'Go'. Personally I don't like the name 'Go'. It's a verb. It should not be used as a name of a programming language or a board game.
  - nicholas73 11y ago
    I bet "Go" beat out "Goo" and "Ogle" in internal naming discussions.
    - vinceyuan 11y ago
      I think so too. Maybe another reason is we can use 'go func' in this programming language to start a concurrent function.
  - erikb 11y ago
    The name for the game is actually reasonable though, because it's the Japanese word. And in Japanese it doesn't mean "walk" but "chess-like game". The complete word is actually "Igo", using characters not too different (maybe traditional?) from the characters for Weiqi. Together Igo/Weiqi means "surround + chess-like". The last character Qi/Go refers to the corresponding more famous chess-like game, so in China it's Xiangqi, but in Japan it's Igo/Weiqi.
    - CaiGengYang 11y ago
      Its actually surprising to me that I have played this game for such a long time and still don't know the origin of the word "Go". I have always called it Weiqi as I was taught in mandarin. From what I understand, Weiqi originated in China, and for most of history was the dominant player in this game, until Japan took over around World War 2 (the rise of Japanese military power , technology, and standards of living probably all contributed to this). The Japanese took up the game, called it Go and helped spread the game to the west and the name has stuck ever since. Japan has since been eclipsed by both Chinese and Korean players though. International Go Tournaments are now mainly dominated by Chinese and Korean national team players it seems to me.
waqf 11y ago
Go terminology used in the West is all from Japanese. The reason can be traced back to the first organized Western interest in Go, from a German engineer who visited Japan in the 1880s: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Go#Development_in_the_West https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Go#Development_in_t...
nicholas73 11y ago
A bit more trivia for you: the Japanese pronunciation is "go" for the same kanji. That sounds weird to you as a Mandarin speaker, but that is because kanji pronunciation is taken from the old Wu dialect. They call it "go-on" in Japanese, or "wu-yin" in Mandarin, meaning "sound of Wu". Apparently the W's often become G's in Wu (like the pronunciation for the number 5). There you go. As a Chinese, you can feel comfortable that the weird Westerners are still calling Go by its Chinese name.
CaiGengYang 11y ago
Hmm .. Go should be for everybody, not just Chinese

[off-topic] As a Chinese, I do know what Weiqi (围棋,圍棋) is. I was surprised to see the English name of Weiqi is Go. (When I saw Go in this post, I thought it's Golang.)

eutectic 11y ago

The English name is a transliteration of the Japanese.

erikb 11y ago

A few Weiqi players like me were really angry when they used the name "Go" for the language where nearly all software engineers know that there is already a game with that (english+japanese) game. Btw, the Korean name "baduk"/"badook" is also used quite often. Sadly Chinese version is the least well known, which I think is because China and USA are the least connected of the three big Weiqi countries.

vinceyuan 11y ago
"they used the name "Go" for the language" just because Google named that programming language 'Go'. Personally I don't like the name 'Go'. It's a verb. It should not be used as a name of a programming language or a board game.
- nicholas73 11y ago
  I bet "Go" beat out "Goo" and "Ogle" in internal naming discussions.
  - vinceyuan 11y ago
    I think so too. Maybe another reason is we can use 'go func' in this programming language to start a concurrent function.
- erikb 11y ago
  The name for the game is actually reasonable though, because it's the Japanese word. And in Japanese it doesn't mean "walk" but "chess-like game". The complete word is actually "Igo", using characters not too different (maybe traditional?) from the characters for Weiqi. Together Igo/Weiqi means "surround + chess-like". The last character Qi/Go refers to the corresponding more famous chess-like game, so in China it's Xiangqi, but in Japan it's Igo/Weiqi.
  - CaiGengYang 11y ago
    Its actually surprising to me that I have played this game for such a long time and still don't know the origin of the word "Go". I have always called it Weiqi as I was taught in mandarin. From what I understand, Weiqi originated in China, and for most of history was the dominant player in this game, until Japan took over around World War 2 (the rise of Japanese military power , technology, and standards of living probably all contributed to this). The Japanese took up the game, called it Go and helped spread the game to the west and the name has stuck ever since. Japan has since been eclipsed by both Chinese and Korean players though. International Go Tournaments are now mainly dominated by Chinese and Korean national team players it seems to me.

waqf 11y ago

Go terminology used in the West is all from Japanese. The reason can be traced back to the first organized Western interest in Go, from a German engineer who visited Japan in the 1880s: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Go#Development_in_the_West https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Go#Development_in_t...

nicholas73 11y ago

A bit more trivia for you: the Japanese pronunciation is "go" for the same kanji. That sounds weird to you as a Mandarin speaker, but that is because kanji pronunciation is taken from the old Wu dialect. They call it "go-on" in Japanese, or "wu-yin" in Mandarin, meaning "sound of Wu". Apparently the W's often become G's in Wu (like the pronunciation for the number 5). There you go. As a Chinese, you can feel comfortable that the weird Westerners are still calling Go by its Chinese name.

CaiGengYang 11y ago

Hmm .. Go should be for everybody, not just Chinese