<html>
<body>
Actually, I thought gyeong was 16 zeroes. That's the way my mother taught
me numbers and she was a real math whiz. After man (4 zeroes), everything
goes by 4-zero increments, and in between is the repeated pattern
of sib-X, baik-X, cheon-X.<br>
So:<br><br>
10,000 is man<br>
100,000 is sib-man<br>
1,000,000 is baik-man<br>
10,000,000 is cheon-man<br>
and then you move on to the new unit of ok:<br>
100,000,000 is ok (8 zereos)<br><br>
With gyeong, it would be following jo:<br>
jo -- 12 zeroes<br>
sib-jo -- 13 zeroes<br>
baik-jo -- 14 zeroes<br>
cheon-jo -- 15 zeroes<br>
gyeong -- 16 zeroes<br><br>
after that it's <br>
hae -- 20 zeroes<br>
ja -- 24 zeroes<br>
yang - 28 zeroes<br><br>
and so on. there are actually lots and lots more names for these huge
numbers, all following the 4-zero increment system with the
sib/baik/cheon repetition.<br><br>
My understanding is that gyeong is not really a new number name -- it's
just one of those that didn't get used much and so the general public
didn't know there was a name for such a large number. But perhaps someone
has scholarly information about the Korean number system, rather than
just experience like myself?<br><br>
<a href="http://kin.naver.com/db/detail.php?d1id=11&dir_id=1102&eid=TiRb%2BukLKImT9Gh4oL2otv4HWjBQ1ixu" eudora="autourl">http://kin.naver.com/db/detail.php?d1id=11&dir_id=1102&eid=TiRb%2BukLKImT9Gh4oL2otv4HWjBQ1ixu<br><br>
</a>This link above is to a thread on Korean number names, with a nice
table. It might not work, though, since I found it through a search and
these links tend to expire.<br><br>
Also, I had always thought that quadrillion had either 15 zereos
(American short-scale) or 24 zereos (British long-scale).<br><br>
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Septillion" eudora="autourl">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Septillion<br><br>
</a>This link above has a great table with large number names and values
in both scales. <br><br>
Best,<br>
Ji-Yeon<br><br>
At 06:43 AM 2005.09.30, you wrote:<br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite><font face="Times New Roman, Times">A
query for those less mathematically challenged than me<br>
(ie just about everyone).<br><br>
In the JoongAng story below, I'm puzzled why the new mega-unit<br>
should have 13 zeroes, rather than 12 or 16.<br><br>
If I have it aright, the <i>man/ok</i> system - whose use even in
official<br>
English-language websites etc traps many an unwary foreigner<br>
brought up on three-based Western thousands/millions/billions<br>
- proceeds in quasi-binary units of 2 and 4, thus:<br><br>
<i>baek
</i>
100<br>
<i>man
</i>
10,000 (a hundred hundreds)<br>
<i>ok
</i>
100,000,000 (ten thousand ten thousands)<br><br>
That is already plenty big enough. But the ROK's perverse refusal<br>
to do to the won what de Gaulle did for the franc in 1959 - ie
create<br>
a new won, worth 100 old won - means they now need mega-numbers;<br>
hence the <i>gyeong</i>. Fair enough. <br><br>
<b>But why <u>13</u> zeroes? </b>OK, <i>ok ok</i> (16 zeroes, ten
quintillion!) is beyond need, or grasp.<br>
But why not 12 zeroes (10,000 cubed), ie the western quadrillion? <br>
Has 13 some mystical significance? Lucky for some?<br><br>
I learn from Wikipedia (see below; sorry I don't know how to paste
characters)<br>
that Chinese has words for both of the above (12 and 16
zeroes).<br><br>
But otherwise I'm outnumbered, and can only shriek:
OOOOOOOOOOOOO!<br><br>
Can anyone figure it out?<br><br>
yours, nonplussed<br>
Aidan<br><br>
</font><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=2>AIDAN
FOSTER-CARTER<br>
Honorary Senior Research Fellow in Sociology & Modern Korea, Leeds
University <br>
Home address: 17 Birklands Road, Shipley, West Yorkshire, BD18 3BY, UK
<br>
tel: +44(0) 1274
588586 (alt) +44(0) 1264
737634
mobile: +44(0) 7970 741307 <br>
fax: +44(0) 1274
773663 ISDN:
+44(0) 1274 589280<br>
Email: afostercarter@aol.com (alt)
afostercarter@yahoo.com website:
<a href="http://www.aidanfc.net/" eudora="autourl">www.aidanfc.net</a><br>
[Please use @aol; but if any problems, please try @yahoo too - and let me
know, so I can chide
AOL]</font><font face="Times New Roman, Times"><br><br>
</font><font size=2>___________________________________________</font><font face="Times New Roman, Times"><br><br>
</font><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=2><a href="http://joongangdaily.joins.com/200509/29/200509292305514579900090409041.html" eudora="autourl">http://joongangdaily.joins.com/200509/29/200509292305514579900090409041.html</a></font><font face="Times New Roman, Times"><br><br>
</font><font size=5>13 zeros all in a row: That's a gyeong here
</font><font size=2><br><br>
<b>September 30, 2005</b> ? It's getting tougher to count the zeros in
talking about the Korean macroeconomy, and some statisticians probably
wish the won were worth only 10 or 100 to the dollar instead of over
1,000. All those zeros to describe an economy the size of Korea's has
forced a new numerical term into use: one gyeong, a unit of 10
quadrillion. <br><br>
The Bank of Korea said yesterday that the sum of all transactions through
domestic financial service companies reached "2.7 gyeong won"
or 27 quadrillion won ($26 trillion) last year. Transactions in
derivatives are also more than a gyeong's worth every year. <br><br>
A Bank of Korea official said that when Korea's broadly defined money
supply reached 1.3 quadrillion won, he had to refer foreign bankers to a
dictionary to confirm to them that there was such an English word as
"quadrillion." <br><br>
<br>
___________________________<br><br>
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myriad" eudora="autourl">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myriad</a><br><br>
There are also words in other languages with the same classic meaning as
"myriad":<br>
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hebrew_language">Hebrew</a>:
<i>revava</i> <br>
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_language">Chinese</a>:
<i>wan4</i>
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandarin_language">Mandarin</a> and <i>maan6</i> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cantonese_language">Cantonese</a> (?/?) <br>
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_language">Japanese</a>:<i>man</i> (?/?) <br>
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_language">Korean</a>: <i>man</i> (?/?/?) <br><br>
Chinese, Japanese and Korean also have words for a myriad squared (10 0002): <i>yi</i> (?/?), <i>oku</i> (?), and <i>eok</i> (?/?)(pronounced "awk"), respectively. A myriad cubed (10 0003) is a <i>zhao</i> (?); <i>cho</i> (?); a myriad to the fourth power (10 0004) is a <i>jing</i> (?); <i>kei</i> (?). Conversely, Chinese, Japanese and Korean do not have single words for a thousand squared, cubed, etc., unlike English.<br><br>
The English numbering system divides large numbers into groups of three digits, and so the names for such numbers follow this division (10 000 = <i>ten <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thousand">thousand</a></i>). Asian numbering divides large numbers into groups of four; so in Chinese, Japanese, or Korean, 30 000 really would be "three myriad" (3 0000 - Japanese <i>san-man</i>). One <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Million">million</a> is a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hundred">hundred</a> myriad (100 x 10000 instead of 1000 x 1000); the next uniquely named number after a myriad is ?, which is myriad myriad (10000 x 10000) or a hundred million.Modern Greek still uses the word "myriad" by itself, but also to form the word for million. The word for million is <i>ekatommyrio</i> (hundred myriad - e?at?µµ????); one <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1_E9">thousand million</a> is <i>disekatommyrio</i> (twice hundred myriad - d?se?at?µµ????).The largest number named in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Greek">Ancient Greek</a> was a myriad myriad and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archimedes">Archimedes of Syracuse</a> used this quantity as the basis for a numeration system of large powers of ten, which he needed to count grains of sand, see <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sand_Reckoner">The Sand Reckoner</a>.There is only slight indication that "myria" has at all been used as a metric prefix for 10,000, e.g., 10 kilometres = 1 myriametre. It does not have official status as a prefix.[<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Myriad&action=edit§ion=1">edit</a><br><br>
<br><br>
<br><br>
<br><br>
</font><font face="Times New Roman, Times"><br><br>
<br><br>
<br><br>
<br><br>
<br><br>
<br><br>
<br><br>
<br><br>
<br><br>
<br><br>
<br>
</blockquote>
<x-sigsep><p></x-sigsep>
Yuh, Ji-Yeon<br>
Associate Professor of History<br>
Director of Asian American Studies<br>
Northwestern University<br>
Harris 202<br>
1881 Sheridan Road<br>
Evanston, IL 60208 USA<br>
j-yuh@northwestern.edu<br>
1-847-467-6538<br>
fax: 1-847-467-1393<br>
[The Alliance of Scholars Concerned about Korea---<www.asck.org> ]<br>
</font></body>
</html>