SYM·0095 · Yen · Yuan
Yen
one word, three countries
- Unicode
- U+00A5 yen sign
- Meaning
- The Japanese yen and the Chinese yuan — and behind both, one word meaning round.
- History
- 圓 means round, and was applied to the round silver coins entering East Asian trade; it survives as 円 in Japanese, 元 and 圆 in Chinese, and 원 in Korean. The Latin Y with two bars was adopted to serve the romanised names as the modern currencies were established in the later nineteenth century — a Western letter drafted to carry an East Asian word about shape.
- Variants
- One bar or two; the CJK characters are used in preference within each country.
- Related
- $ £ ₹ the other currency plates.
- Appears
- Prices across East Asia in international contexts, and foreign-exchange notation.
- Evolution
- A word for round → the name of a coin → a Latin letter barred into a currency mark.
Sources · 3
- documented 圓 / 円 / 元 as the shared root, meaning round, applied to coinage.
- documented The Unicode Standard, U+00A5 YEN SIGN, serving both currencies.
- traditional The precise route by which the barred Y was settled on for romanised use. Consistently described and thinly documented.