The original pronunciation of China was Chi-na in Korean, Qi-na in Chinese, and Ji-na in Japanese. Chi-na means a branch. Chi-na was later called Cha-i-na or China. In the ancient millenarian period, Korea was the mother of the Chinese and Japanese civilizations; the Chinese were viewed as a branch state of the Choson (Korean) empire. The Chinese recently changed the name Chi-na to Zhongguo, which means "center-state".