Quote:
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Originally Posted by Pain wtf??? |
I'm not joking. Here's a Wiki article on the subject.
Korean age reckoning
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Koreans refer to their age in units called sal (살), which often causes confusion when it is inaccurately translated. The Korean word sal does not correspond exactly to the English phrase "years old." The Korean age system uses native Korean numbering in ordinal form (as centuries are counted in English) and refers to calendar years, not elapsed years.
Thus, a person is one sal during the first calendar year of life, and ten sal during the tenth calendar year. A baby born on the last day of the year would be two sal the next day. For infants, age is often discussed in days or months, as in English.
The sal count contrasts with the common notion of counting age as the number of net years elapsed since birth. Thus, in non-Korean age, a baby is 0 years old until its first birthday, when it turns one year old. The sal system is not found in neighboring countries, and may be unique to Korea.
Although not quite accurate, the discrepency between sal and "years old" is often explained as Koreans counting the gestation period as the first year.
In modern Korea, the non-Korean age system is widely known and referred to as man (만, meaning "full") sal. For example, man yeol sal means "ten full years", or "ten years old" in English. Also the Korean word dol (돌) means years elapsed, identical to the English "years old," but often refers to the first birthday only. The first 100 days and the first dol call for large celebrations, and Koreans celebrate their birthdays, even though every Korean gains one sal on New Year's Day. Additionally, some Koreans, especially of the older generation, reckon their age and birthday by the lunar calendar instead of the Gregorian calendar.
