List of Go terms

Players of the game of Go often use jargon to describe situations on the board and surrounding the game. Such technical terms are likely to be encountered in books and articles about Go in English as well as other languages. Many of these terms have been borrowed from Japanese, mostly when no short equivalent English term could be found. This article gives an overview of the most important terms.

Use of Japanese terms

Although Go originated in China before the Confucian era, where it is called Weiqi, the current English and Western technical vocabulary borrows a high proportion of terms from the Japanese language because it was through Japan that the West was introduced to Go.

Many of these terms are from a jargon used for technical Go writing and are to some extent specially developed for Go journalism. Some authors of English-language Go materials avoid use of Japanese technical terms, and the way they are applied can differ in subtle ways from the original meanings.

A few Korean-language terms have come into use (e.g., Korean: haengma as a way of describing the development of stones).

Terms

Aji

Aji (Japanese: 味; Chinese: 味道; pinyin: wèi dào; Wade–Giles: wei4 tao4, Korean 맛 [ma:t]) meaning 'taste' refers to the latent potential of stones to open various avenues of play. The aji in various positions on the board impacts the course of the game regardless of whether a player makes moves to realize the latent potential.