Linguistic issues concerning the euro
From Freepedia
Several linguistic issues have resulted from the inclusion of the new word euro into the vocabularies of the languages of the member states of the European Union.
Contents |
English
Official practice followed in English-language EU legislation is to use the words euro and cent as both singular and plural. [1] This practice originally arose out of legislation intended to ensure that the banknotes were uncluttered with a string of plurals (as the Soviet ruble notes were). Because the s-less plurals had become "enshrined" in EU legislation, the Commission decided to retain those plurals in English in legislation even while allowing natural plurals in other languages, but the European Commission Translation Service (ECTS) strongly recommends that in all material generated by the Commission intended for the general public, the "natural plurals" of each language be used.
As the euro was being adopted in the Republic of Ireland, however, the Department for Finance decided to use the word euro as both the singular and plural forms of the currency, and because Irish broadcasters took their cue from the Department, the "legislative plurals" tend to also be used on the news and in much Irish advertising. This has the effect of reinforcing the s-less plurals, though many advertisers (particularly those in the United Kingdom) prefer the "natural" plurals: euros and cents. (This is in line with ECTS recommendations.)
Many people in Ireland prefer the -s plurals, and at the time the s-less plurals were introduced, at least some complained that the EU ought not attempt to change English grammar. People who have become accustomed to what they hear on daily television and radio often use the s-less plurals, which they also see written on the notes and coins. While usage in Ireland is disputed, common usage in the rest of the English-speaking world is to use the natural plurals. The media in the UK prefers euros and cents as the plural forms. Broadcasts of currency exchange rates outside of the European Union tend to use the -s plural, with NPR in the United States and CBC in Canada being two examples.
In Ireland a few people play at using the slang term yoyo, but few actually do so. The transfer of the slang term quid from the punt to the euro, however, is complete, and many people use it. Also, fiver and tenner (originally for 5 pound and 10 pound notes respectively) have carried over as reference to euro notes, and grand for a thousand of any currency is also commonly used.
Irish
In Irish, the English words euro and cent are used, as foreign borrowings without change in spelling or pronunciation, and immune to the natural rules of Irish mutation after numbers. The masculine noun eoró (plural eorónna) has been coined from the word Eoraip ('Europe'), and ceint (plural ceinteanna) has been in the lexicon since at least 1959. The words eoró and ceint are attested in printed literature, though the foreign borrowings tend to be more frequent, again due to a lack of coordinated language planning.
French, Spanish, Portuguese and Catalan
In French, Spanish, Portuguese and Catalan the official plurals are the same as their natural plurals euros. Although cent/cents is official in France and Belgium, almost all French and French-speaking Belgian people still use the traditional term centime/centimes (French for "cent", used with the old franc) to avoid confusion with the word cent meaning hundred. Likewise, in Spain céntimo is used (although the Spanish peseta had had no subdivisions since the 1980s). In Portugal, the words cêntimo/cêntimos are widely used instead of cent/cents and officially accepted - the older term for cents in escudos was centavo/centavos. The standard pronunciation for "euro" in Portuguese is [euró] to defy the Portuguese tendency to pronunce final 'o' as 'u'. Despite that, the pronunciation [euru] is becoming more common due to the word's daily use. In the Catalan speaking areas cèntim/cèntims are used. The pronunciation for euro is [ɛuru] in Oriental dialects and [euro] in Occidental ones.
Finnish
Finnish doesn't have irregular plurals, so euro and sentti are naturally regular and decline accordingly. With singular numerals, the partitive singulars euroa and senttiä are used, e.g. 10 euroa. "The euros" is eurot, "into euros" is euroiksi, "with euros" is euroilla, etc. Sentti is problematic in that its primary meaning is "centimeter". Thus, the recommended abbreviation of sentti is snt, although Finnish merchants generally use a decimal notation (for example 0,35 €).
Dutch
In Dutch, measure words (units) are generally used in singular form only. So when dealing with amounts one says 5 euro, just as it used to be 11 gulden (plural of gulden is guldens). Compare this to 2 meter, 3 uur (hour), 4 gram. The plural of euro is euro's but this is only used to refer to separate coins of one euro, not to abstract amounts of money. The Dutch also tend to make fun of the euro (perhaps to express some frustration over losing the guilder) by using the plural form euri, which makes the plural sound very undignified and ridiculous.
German
Plural
In German, Euro and Cent are used as both singular and plural when following a numeral, as is the case with all units of measurement (e.g. Pfund, Kilo(gramm), Dollar, etc.). However, when talking about euros or cents in the sense of individual coins etc., the plurals Euro-Münzen and Cent-Münzen are used, along with Euros and Cents, similar to the former German and Austrian currencies' Pfennig(e) and Schilling(e). The Mark and Groschen (the subdivision of the former Austrian Schilling) were only seemingly exceptions because the plural forms were in fact identical to the singular ones (the form Märker was only jocular/colloquial).
Pronunciation
The beginning of the word Euro is pronounced in German with the diphthong [ɔʏ] as in the English word "oil".
The spelling of the word Cent is not well adapted to German spelling conventions because these strive to avoid ambiguous letter-sound correspondences. The letter C is only used in loanwords and pronounced in various ways depending on the language of origin (e.g. Centime, Cello, Celsius, Café). Most of these words are therefore eventually spelled phonetically (e.g. Kaffee, Kadmium, Zentimeter).
Latin words beginning with "ce" such as centum (hundred) are traditionally pronounced [ts] in German, and German words derived from these have therefore for a long time already been spelled with a Z, which is pronounced [ts] (as in Zentrum (centre), Zentimeter (centimetre), etc.). Equivalently, some German speakers pronounce the beginning of the word "Cent" [ts], but since they are familiar with the English pronunciation of the US-American unit cent from television, most people pronounce it [s].
As these are nouns, both Euro and Cent are capitalised in German.
Greek
In the Greek language the immutable word ευρώ (pronounced evró) is used as the currency's name. It was decided to use omega rather than omicron as the last letter of the word, partly because a noun ending with omicron would encourage mutability, and partly to stress the origin of the euro in the Greek word Ευρώπη (Europe) which is also spelled with omega. However, there is an uneducated or jocular plural: Ευρά (Evrá.) For the cent, the terms used are λεπτό, pl. λεπτά (leptó, pl. leptá), a name used for small denominations of various ancient and modern Greek currencies, including the drachma (which the euro replaced).
Hungarian
In Hungarian the currency (expected to be introduced in 2010) is named euró and cent, the former with a long ó, as decided by the Research Institute for Linguistics of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, since Hungarian words cannot end in short o either in writing or in speech (except for one or two interjections), see these international words as examples: fotó, videó, sztereó. The plural is not normally marked in Hungarian after numerals, but both names can take suffixes like euróval, euróért, euróból, etc. ("with a euro", "for a euro", "from a euro", etc.).
As of October 2004, Hungary is struggling along with Lithuania, Latvia, and Slovenia for the euro to be written in their official documents according to their own usage and spelling, in contrast with a 1998 EU decree which would call for a single name all through the Union.
The Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe, signed in 2005, contains the following declaration from Hungary and Latvia:
- 50. Declaration by the Republic of Latvia and the Republic of Hungary on the spelling of the name of the single currency in the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe
- Without prejudice to the unified spelling of the name of the single currency of the European Union referred to in the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe as displayed on the banknotes and on the coins, Latvia and Hungary declare that the spelling of the name of the single currency, including its derivatives as applied throughout the Latvian and Hungarian text of the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe, has no effect on the existing rules of the Latvian and the Hungarian languages.
Italian
In Italian the words euro and cent are officially pluralized without any spelling change, as stated in government rulings and by the members of Italy's prestigious national language academy, Accademia della Crusca. However, Italian has no history of extensive grammar or spelling reforms mandated by a central authority, except during the fascist period, and the final authority is in practice the popular usage.
Since Italian has some invariable nouns, it does not strike Italians as strange that euro does not change in the plural, which is common for foreign words as film, snack and such.
If "euro" were to follow Italian plural-construction rules, euri should be the correct plural form, but this is considered somewhat jocular or illiterate; it is nevertheless used sometimes, generally in an informal setting and not in writing.
The word cent is in practical use always replaced by the word centesimo, which simply means "hundreth"; its plural form is centesimi. Cent or eurocent are uncommon in usage.
Latvian
In Latvian there are still at least two concurrent usages. Majority say and write 'eiro' (which somewhat resembles the West European 'euro', but has also taken its sound from Eiropa, the Latvian word for Europe). Purists insist that standardised usage is eira - a word that is declinable according to the normal and convenient Latvian pattern. Eirai clearly means for the euro, eirās means in euros, and so forth. In contrast, eiro, like all Latvian words ending in an '-o', is unable to take on inflections therefore it results in ambiguous phrases like "samainīt eiro", which can be interpreted in a variety of ways: to exchange into euros, to exchange euros [for something else], to exchange one euro - and this limits the fluency of communication. The official usage of eira has been affirmed by Terminology Commission of the Latvian Academy of Sciences, with the argument that a potentially frequently used term needs to fit especially well in the structure of grammar. However, some media outlets and banks have preserved a habit of using eiro. Latvian language routinely adapts foreign words by adding declinable endings (like Ņujorka for New York, freska for fresco), although internationalisms ending in '-o' (like foto, auto) are common as well. (See also the article on the euro in the Latvian Wikipedia, and the section above about Hungarian.)
Lithuanian
In Lithuanian the euro and cent are called euras and centas (in common language usually eurocentas, to distinguish from the cents of the current Lithuanian currency, Litas), while plural forms are eurai and centai (eurocentai). The Lithuanian language routinely adopts foreign words by adding standardised endings, resulting in words like kompiuteris or Tonis Bleiras. Lithuania is expected to join the eurozone in 2007.
Slovenian
In Slovenian the euro and cent are called evro and cent, the dual form is 2 evra/centa and the plural forms are 3 evri/centi and 5 evrov/centov. Evro is spelled with v insetad of u due to the fact that it is derived from the word Evropa (Europe), also written with v. Slovenia is expected to join the eurozone in 2007.
Bulgarian
In Bulgarian the euro and cent will have to be spelled in Cyrillic letters. This will necessitate a design change in euro banknotes.
Romanian
In Romanian the euro and cent are called euro and cent (plural cenţi). Although the official plural of euro is also euro, a variant that is getting quite common is euroi, following the Romanian plural for masculine nouns that is obtained by adding an "i" at the end of the word.
Turkish
Even though Turkey is using, Türk Lirası, its own currency, many people and news agencies use avro for euro and sent for cent as offered by Türk Dil Kurumu in 1998.
