Name[edit]

In Chinese, the game was originally called (pinyin: mqu)meaning sparrowwhich is still
the name most commonly used in some southern Chinese varieties such asCantonese and Min
Nan, as well as in Japanese. However, most Mandarin-speaking Chinese now call the
game mjing (). In Northern Wu Chinese (Shanghainese and its relatives), it is pronounced as
[mo tsia], but in actuality, is the diminutive form of , written as [mo tsia ],
due to an erhua event. It is through the Wu Chinese pronunciation of that the diminutive form
of in Northern Wu became known as in both Mandarin and Wu.[citation needed]

History[edit]
China[edit]

Money-suited cards

Mahjong is based on draw-and-discard card games that were popular in 18th and 19th century
China and some are still popular today.[1]They were played with a stripped deck of money-suited
cards. Each deck is divided into 3 suits of Cash or coins, Strings of cash, andMyriads of strings.
There are 9 ranks in each suit. In addition, there are 3 wild cards: Red flower, White flower,
and Old thousand. Depending on the game, there are multiple copies of each card.
Games scholar David Parlett has written that the Western card games Conquian and Rummy share
a common origin with Mahjong.[2] All these games involve players drawing and discarding tiles or
cards to make melds. The most likely ancestor to Mahjong was pngh () which was played with
120 or 150 cards.[1] During the late 19th century, pngh was used interchangeably with mqu in
both card and tile form.
It is not known when the conversion from cards to tiles took place precisely but most likely occurred
in the middle of the 19th century. The earliest surviving tile sets date to around 1870 and were
acquired in Fuzhou, Shanghai, and Ningbo.[1][3][4] These sets differ from modern ones in several ways.
In the Glover sets, there were no "flower" and f ("green dragon") tiles. In their place were "king" tiles

for heaven, earth, man, and harmony. There were also "king" tiles for the each of the 4 "winds". In
the contemporaneous Himly set, there were no zhng ("red dragon") tiles too. Instead there were the
Cash Flower, String Flower, and Myriad Flower plus an additional king tile, the king of everything.
The function of the king tiles are uncertain, they may have acted as wild cards. They may have been
removed as the tiles share the same titles as the leaders of the Taiping Rebellion (1850-1864).[5] For
example, Hong Xiuquan was the self-styled "Heavenly King of Great Peace" and his top
subordinates were called east king, south king, west king, and north king.
This game was banned by the government of People's Republic of China when it took power in
1949.[6] The new Communist government forbade any gambling activities, which were regarded as
symbols of capitalist corruption. After the Cultural Revolution, the game was revived, without
gambling elements, and the prohibition was revoked in 1985.[7]Today, it is a favorite pastime in
China[8] and other Chinese-speaking communities.

Mahjong in the West[edit]

Students in the United States learning how to play Mahjong

In 1895, British Sinologist William Henry Wilkinson wrote a paper which mentioned a set of cards
known in central China by the name of ma chioh, literally, hemp sparrow, which he maintained was
the origin of the term Mahjong. He did not explain the dialect of the originator or region specific
etymology of this information.[9] By 1910, there were written accounts in many languages,
including French and Japanese.[citation needed]
The game was imported to the United States in the 1920s.[10] The first Mahjong sets sold in the U.S.
were sold by Abercrombie & Fitchstarting in 1920. It became a success in Washington, D.C., and the
co-owner of the company, Ezra Fitch, sent emissaries to Chinese villages to buy every Mahjong set
they could find. Abercrombie & Fitch sold a total of 12,000 Mahjong sets.
Also in 1920, Joseph Park Babcock published his book Rules of Mah-Jongg, also known as the "red
book". This was the earliest version of Mahjong known in America. Babcock had learned Mahjong
while living in China. His rules simplified the game to make it easier for Americans to take up, and
his version was common through the Mahjong fad of the 1920s. Later, when the 1920s fad died out,
many of Babcock's simplifications were abandoned.

The game has taken on a number of trademarked names, such as "Pung Chow" and the "Game of
Thousand Intelligences". Mahjong nights in America often involved dressing and decorating rooms in
Chinese style.[11] Several hit songs were recorded during the Mahjong fad, most notably "Since Ma Is
Playing Mah Jong" by Eddie Cantor.[12]
Many variants of Mahjong developed during this period. By the 1930s, many revisions of the rules
developed that were substantially different from Babcock's classical version (including some that
were considered fundamentals in other variants, such as the notion of a standard hand). The most
common form, which eventually became "American Mahjong", was most popular
among Jewish women.[12] Standardization came with the formation of the National Mah Jongg
League (NMJL) in 1937, along with the first American Mahjong rulebook, Maajh: The American
Version of the Ancient Chinese Game, written by NMJL's first president and co-founder, Viola L.
Cecil.[13]
Many consider the modern American version a remake of a Jewish game,[12] as many American
Mahjong players are of Jewish descent. The NMJL was founded by Jewish players and is
considered a Jewish organization. In 1986, the National Mah Jongg League conducted their first
Mah Jongg Cruise Tournament, in conjunction with Mah Jongg Madness. In 2010, this large scale
seagoing event hosted its 25th Silver Anniversary Cruise, with players from all over the States and
Canada participating.
In recent years, a second organization has formed, the American Mah Jongg Association. The AMJA
currently hosts tournaments all across North America, with their signature event being at the Trump
Taj Mahal Casino Resort in Atlantic City, New Jersey.
British author Alan D. Millington revived the Chinese classical game of the 1920s with his book The
Complete Book of Mah-jongg (1977). This handbook includes a formal rules set for the game.