Symbols Of Japanese Yen And Chinese Yuan (Japanese Yen Currency Symbol Chart)

Why do the currency symbols of Japanese yen and Chinese yuan have almost the same meaning?

The international currency symbol of RMB is "¥". There are two horizontal lines in the middle of "Y", which is pronounced as "Yuan". Why is it so similar to the Japanese yen?

The currency symbol of the Japanese yen is "￥", which is pronounced in English as "yen[jen]" with a horizontal line in the middle. It is slightly different from the currency symbol of RMB which only has one horizontal line and two horizontal lines in the middle. If there is no respect for China and Japan in the world, people who are too familiar with them can easily confuse the currency symbols of China and Japan.

Therefore, the International Organization for Standardization sets its standard code as JPY. In order to distinguish it from the RMB, the Japanese yen can be recorded as: JPY￥.

Although we all know that RMB is pronounced as "yuan" and Japanese yen is pronounced as "yen", its first letter is "Y". However, in order to distinguish currencies and better calculate currencies, countries around the world deliberately make unit symbols very different for ease of use. use.

Could it be that the Latin letter "Y" is so important in the minds of the Chinese and Japanese that they would rather repeat it and be prone to ambiguity than change the letter? What are your thoughts on this issue?

Let’s first understand the history of “￥”. "￥" was originally the universal symbol for Japanese Yen (JPY) and Renminbi (CNY).

The national currency unit of the Japanese yen is written as "yen", while the national currency unit of China is written as "yuan/yuan". Later, after the new version of RMB was issued, the unit of "yuan" was gradually abolished.

However, the international currency symbol used by mainland China in the early days was exactly the same as the Japanese yen, both "￥". The International Organization for Standardization believes that the same international currency symbol is not conducive to financial exchanges and transactions, so it insists on changing the Chinese symbol from a horizontal line to a horizontal line. Add two horizontal lines to distinguish the Japanese yen currency symbol from full-width input and half-width input.

In the early days of China's symbol change, the government suggested using "RMB¥" as the currency symbol to distinguish it from Japan, and this was briefly implemented.

Next, we examine the past and present lives of the yen and the renminbi from a historical perspective. Let’s first look at the history of the yen.

"Yen" refers to the commonly used character for "circle" in the "Illustrated Guide to Travels in Japan·Volume 20·Japanese Literature·Japan at a Glance Appendix Japanese Different Characters" written by Fu Yunlong in the late Qing Dynasty. It can be seen that "円" has been a Chinese character in China since ancient times. , is a Chinese character that Japan borrowed from the past.

As early as the middle of Japan's Edo period, Japan's Dazai Osamu listed a large number of vulgar words in the book "Japanese Iftar Shoho".

Among them, the origin of the word "元" is the deformation of the word "元". The word "Yuan" has removed the middle word "member" and replaced it with overly simple horizontal and vertical strokes.

This approach is very similar to the oversimplification of Chinese characters when illiteracy was first eliminated in mainland China. For example, "eating" is simplified to "歺" to facilitate quick recognition and use in the secular world.

The Japanese kanji "円" is synonymous with the Chinese "circle" and also has the same character as the Korean "圜" (원).

Chinese coins were widely used in Japan during the Edo period, resulting in many Japanese people still recognizing the character "circle".

Modern Japanese uses the simplified universal character "yen" to write the national monetary unit.

Friends who are familiar with Japanese know that "y" participates in the pronunciation of the Chinese character "元". In Japanese, "円" is pronounced as "en", but in the original Japanese English standard pinyin, it is "yen", and "y" does not participate in the pronunciation.

Japan's current use of "yen" is related to the British-American collusion between the shogunate and the Meiji era.

This seemingly unreasonable pronunciation and writing method has been adopted in Japan since the British and Americans marked the Japanese yen string as "yen" and brought it internationally.

The first English-English dictionary in world history was "The Collection of Ho Yinglin" written by Hepburn. The world's first edition was published in 1867.

In this dictionary, all the "e" and "we" sounds in Japanese are marked as "ye", and the English sound [je] is marked, so the Japanese "en" becomes "en" (Japanese) Yuan)".

The birth of the "yen" actually originated from a small error in the "English Glossary" written by WH Medvedev Hearst in 1830.

Medvedev Hearst did not visit Japan, which is similar to Benjikt, the author of "The Chrysanthemum and the Sword".

The Japanese he heard was the local Japanese in Jakarta, and it happened that the Japanese in Jakarta retained a considerable part of the ancient Japanese accent. In ancient Japanese, part of "e" is biased toward "ye" and is pronounced as [je]. "エ・え(e)" in the index kana list is also included in "e" and "ye".

Because in European and American Western languages, setting "e" to "ye" can facilitate communication in Western languages ​​and will not cause confusion in Western words. For example, the phenomenon of adding the "en" prefix in French. Although the internationally used "円yen[jen]" adopts this pronunciation, and Japan also adopts this pronunciation internationally, this is how it is taught and pronounced in this country. The method is "円en".

This is why Japanese majors encounter the pronunciations of "yi" and "ye" when they first learn Japanese.

Hepburn, who was extremely talented in language, later discovered this language error, and in the third edition of Hepburn's romaji in 1886, all "エ" except for the case particles "円" and "へ(he)" were removed . Change the beginning to "e" and no longer use "ye".

Although Hepburn caught the error, the usage of words has remained to this day.

The "y" in Japanese is actually a flaw that seems to make Japanese easier to understand for Westerners. Modern Japanese native speakers do not use "y".

RMB refers to the currency first issued on December 1, 1948 after the establishment of the People's Bank of China. It was designated as legal tender after the founding of the People's Republic of China. The People's Bank of China is the national RMB management authority and is responsible for the design, printing and issuance of RMB. .

The "Y" in the Chinese yuan is much more orthodox than the Japanese yen. "Yuan" is the pinyin of the Chinese character "RMB Yuan", and "Y" reads "Yuan".

By the time the new version was released on October 1, 1999, a total of five sets had been issued, forming a currency system with multiple varieties and series including banknotes, metal coins, ordinary commemorative coins, and precious metal commemorative coins.

It joined the currency basket system last year.

The abbreviation of RMB is CNY ("CN" is generally used to represent the People's Republic of China, and "Y" is the first letter of the pinyin of RMB), and the abbreviation of offshore RMB is CNH, but the more commonly used abbreviation in daily life is RMB;

Generally, "¥" is added before the number (take the first letter "Y" of "YUAN" and add the "=" sign above) to indicate the amount of RMB. RMB banknotes and coins are in equal circulation.

From this point of view, China and Japan have no special insistence on the letter "Y". It is just a coincidence based on the history, language and culture of their respective countries.

What is the symbol of RMB?

1. Some people say it is "one horizontal ¥", mainly because:

1. The most authoritative one is the "Notice of the Bank of China on the Unified Use of RMB Currency Symbols" on February 3, 1994. Notices reproduced on various websites show that the RMB symbol designated by the Bank of China is "one horizontal ¥". However, it is difficult for websites with certain formats to display the "two horizontal ￥" symbol, and it is also common for "two horizontal ￥" to be mistakenly displayed as "one horizontal ￥". It's unclear whether the websites that reposted the notice also displayed the symbol incorrectly.

Since the People's Bank of China is the central bank of our country, whether this provision of the Bank of China has universal legal effect has been questioned by many people and even professionals in the accounting field.

2. Google and Baidu on the Internet display text related to currency symbols of various countries. The symbol of RMB is without exception "one horizontal yen", and the symbol of Japanese yen is "two horizontal yen".

3. Sogou input method, press shift and the above 4 keys at the same time, the symbol "a horizontal ￥" will be displayed. The corresponding symbol for inputting RMB in Sogou input method is "one horizontal ￥".

2. Some people think it is "two horizontal ￥", mainly because:

1. It was not until the People's Bank of China issued the second set of RMB on March 1, 1955 that the symbol of the RMB was officially determined.

Since the unit of RMB is "yuan" and the Chinese pinyin of "yuan" is "YUAN", the RMB symbol adopts the first letter "Y" of the Chinese pinyin of "yuan". In order to distinguish "Y" from misunderstandings and misspellings of Arabic numerals, two horizontal lines are added to the word "Y" and written as "two horizontal lines ¥", which is still pronounced as "yuan". From then on, people began to use this symbol to represent the renminbi and use it as a header symbol when writing numerical amounts.

It is clearly stated here that two horizontal lines have been added. Until the People's Bank of China denies this, no one seems to have the authority to change this.

2. Many bank passbooks, receipts, and tax bureau receipts are marked with the "two horizontal ￥" symbol. (They believe that bank books, receipts, and receipts from the tax bureau are blueprints, and they do not doubt whether they are right or wrong.)

3. The "Finance" book of the university's accounting major says "two horizontal lines ￥" in black and white.

4. There is another humorous interpretation of this symbol. It is said that a woman will get rich once she marries her husband, so the word "erratic" is a symbol of money.

5. If the computer language cannot recognize the "two horizontal ￥" symbol during programming, it must be replaced by "one horizontal ￥".

6. Press and hold the ALT key, continuously enter four numbers 0165 on the small keyboard, and then release the ALT key to display the "two horizontal ¥" symbol.

You see, the second view that the RMB symbol is "¥" has many reasons and is completely conclusive. Stop arguing. It's just Y plus two horizontal lines.

Conclusion: ¥ (Hold down the Alt key, enter four consecutive numbers 0165 on the keypad, and then release Alt).

标签： #Symbols #Currency #People #Yen #Japanese