Currency names in another language

[FosseWay]

Completely irrelevant, but I am always a little amused by the denomination 'heller'. In most contexts in Swedish it translates as 'neither'.

[Figleaf]

In modern German it refers to beer. I don't have to tell anyone how a Korean Fun or the Costa Rican Colon come across in English. The Albanian Lek means leaky in Dutch. The Ecuadorean Sucre means sugar in French.

Peter

[bagerap]

The Ecuadorean Sucre means sugar in French
And in Catalan, which probably means Valenciano, Mallorquin, Ibicenco, Canarion and all of the other languages spoken in Spain. Except of course Castellano.

[Coinsforever]

In modern German it refers to beer. I don't have to tell anyone how a Korean Fun or the Costa Rican Colon come across in English. The Albanian Lek means leaky in Dutch. The Ecuadorean Sucre means sugar in French.

Peter

Completely irrelevant, but I am always a little amused by the denomination 'heller'. In most contexts in Swedish it translates as 'neither'.

I got few hellers recently & previously , now your post insisted me to re-think  & correlate  terminology of those coins into other languages   


Cheers

[Afrasi]

Long times ago I had a girlfriend named Anna. I was a great joy to see her in her cute Tanga.

[translateltd]

I saw a joke poster once that read "Have you a yen to go to Japan?"

(Yen = desire/interest, in this case.)

[<k>]

I saw a joke poster once that read "Have you a yen to go to Japan?"

(Yen = desire/interest, in this case.)

From the lyrics of "Wall Street Shuffle", released in 1974 by by 10cc

"You need a yen to make a mark
If you wanna make money"

[FosseWay]

The Albanian Lek means leaky in Dutch.

... and it means 'game' in Swedish (from leka, to play).

Someone mentioned anna -- let's not forget pie, too.

[Figleaf]

Let's not, since the plural means urine in Dutch. An Armenian dram would sound familiar in Scotland. Lari, as in the Georgian currency is nonsense in Dutch. The Kyrgyz som means mathematical exercise in Dutch. The PNG Kina is the name of a medicine against fever. Rand, used in South Africa means edge in Dutch. And how about all those country using pound but not for hammering?

Peter

[FosseWay]

It's strange that many of these names mean something in numerous different languages but the meaning in each is different.

Som can also be Swedish -- meaning 'which', 'that', 'as', 'like'.
Rand means the same in Swedish as in Dutch.
Kina is the Swedish for China (the country), but is pronounced roughly 'Sheena' using English orthography.

[chrisild]

Wait, Heller does not refer to beer in German. Now "(ein) Helles" would refer to some beer indeed, but that requires the -s (neutral gender) ending.

Then again for most people the origin of the word "Heller" (coin from the city of Schwäbisch Hall) is lost. We may think of the (red, or last) Heller as a small amount, a tiny rest of a once big fortune maybe. And "ein Heller" can also mean "a bright one", figuratively or literally.

Christian

[<k>]

Now "(ein) Helles" would refer to some beer indeed, but that requires the -s (neutral gender) ending.

Christian

Just "-s"? It was "-es" in my day.

[chrisild]

Well, "Helle-s" as opposed to the "Helle-r".   And the Dutch/Swedish Rand works in German too ...

Christian

[<k>]

Well, "Helle-s" as opposed to the "Helle-r".

Christian

But the adjective is "hell". "Das Bier ist hell" but "ein helles Bier".  Move to Prussia and learn your own language. 

[FosseWay]

Random linguistic observation concerning the Germanic languages:

As <k> says, in German one says Das Bier ist hell -- you use the root form of the adjective, regardless of the gender, number or case of the noun it refers to, when the adjective comes after the noun like this.

But in Swedish you apply the normal (indefinite declension) endings, so you get mannen är stark but ölet är starkt and elefanterna är starka ('the man is strong', 'the beer is strong', 'the elephants are strong') depending on the gender and number of the noun.

In most respects Swedish is much less inflected than German - it has only two cases for nouns, one for adjectives; no person- or number-related verb endings (so even fewer than English); two genders to German's three; no subjunctive to speak of; no peculiar word order and so on. But in this respect it seems to have retained more of its antique grammatical heritage.