Bang is a romanization of the Korean word 방, meaning 'room'. In a traditional Korean house, a sarangbang (Hangul: 사랑방; Hanja: 舍廊房) is the man's study or drawing room, for example.
In modern Korea (especially in the South), the concept of a bang has expanded and diversified from being merely a walled segment in a domestic space, to including buildings or enterprises in commercial, urban, space, such as a PC bang (an internet café), a noraebang (a karaoke room), sojubang (a soju room, i.e. a pub), manwhabang ("manwha room", where people read or borrow manwha) and a jjimjilbang (elaborate Korean public bathhouse). This can be compared with the similar expansion of the concept of a 'house' to include upper houses, opera houses, coffee houses, and publishing houses.
| Bang (Korean) | |
|---|---|
| Hangul | 방 |
| Hanja | 房 |
| Revised Romanization | bang |
| McCune–Reischauer | pang or bang[1] |
Phonetically more tensed word ppang(빵) is used as an abbreviation of a noun gambang[2] (Hangul: 감방; Hanja: 監房; McCune-Reischauer: kambang), meaning 'jail'.
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