Etymology of the Korean currencies Etymology of the Korean currencies The won is the currency of both North and South Korea. "Won" is a cognate of the Chinese currency unit, the yuan, and the Japanese currency unit, the yen, meaning "round object". The won is subdivided into 100 jeon (전; 錢; McCune-Reischauer: "chŏn"; Revised Romanization: "jeon"). Yang is a former Korean currency. It is a cognate of the Chinese tael (pronounced "liǎng" in Chinese). The yang was subdivided into 100 fun (pronounced "pun" but spelt with an "f" on the coins). Fun (푼) is a cognate of the Chinese word fen (分 fēn), referring to
Mene (unit) Mene (unit) The mĕnē (also mina, Aramaic) () is an ancient Mesopotamian unit of weight for gold or silver and one of the earliest written words for money. The mĕnē, like the shekel, was also a unit of currency. In ancient Greece, it originally equalled 70 drachmae and later was increased to 100 drachmae. The Greek word "mna" was borrowed from Semitic; compare Hebrew "māneh", Aramaic "mĕnē", Syriac "manyā", Ugaritic "mn", and Akkadian "manū". However, before it was used as currency, a mene was a unit of measurement, equal to 567 grams. One mĕnē of gold would be worth $23,000