- Forum >
- Topic: Japanese >
- "ぎんこうにお金をかえしました。"
"ぎんこうにお金をかえしました。"
Translation:I returned money to the bank.
June 15, 2017
30 Comments
KeithWong9
697
行 is originally a "pictogram" (a stylized drawing of the object it represents)
The meaning was "to go" or "a road." Late in Chinese Tong dynasty, 行 was used to mean an area of clustered of similar professions or shops (derived from the meaning of road). So 銀行 was a profession of managing or trading "silver" - money used at that time.
Today's word is "polyphone," which came up in connection with a Mandarin dictionary app. The Duolingo course describes the issue quite early on, but doesn't name names. The bad news is that some 10% of Chinese characters are polyphonic, with two or more pronunciations. 行 is one, with two: xīng and sometimes hóng. Japanese has GYŌ, KŌ, AN, etc. Not to mention iku, yuku, and okonau.