Euro Linguistics

[BC Numismatics]

Farfett il-Lejl,the Bulgarians have got their way in insisting that the 'Euro' is 'Evro' & the Euro-Cent is 'Evro-Cent' in Bulgarian,thus necessitating the addition of Cyrillic on to the next issue of Euro banknotes.

I am not sure what 'Euro' & 'Euro-Cent' translates to in Polish,as Poland isn't likely to change over to the Euro before 2012.

Aidan.

[zarazek]

Well, the fact that the Cyrillic alphabet became the 3rd officially used alphabet in the EU required that the name 'euro' appear on the banknotes. The discussion was about which language's pronunciation it would reflect. Hence the problem evro - as pronounced in Bulgarian and euro - which is pronounced in other countries using the Cyrillic. I was convienced, however, that they agreed on the 'euro' version , which will appear on the banknotes, and that Bulgarians would be allowed to use evro in documents.
Regarding Polish names for euro and cent, the spelling remains the same as we say Europa and Unia Europejska, and cent.
The pronunciation is as follows: euro [ewro] - just as Italians say it and cent [tsent], which in German could be spelled as zent.

[chrisild]

I was convienced, however, that they agreed on the 'euro' version , which will appear on the banknotes, and that Bulgarians would be allowed to use evro in documents.

Don't know - at the Lisbon summit last year the EU decided that the spelling in official documents can be EBPO. So I expect that, and not EYPO, to appear on future euro notes too. We'll see.

In Germany most people pronounce cent like "ssent", pretty much the English way. (Saying "Euro-Cent" would be odd anyway.) It's the same sound that you use in words like "City" or "Center" which have been used in German for quite a while. Some may say "tsent" though. We do not have a pronunciation police.

Christian

[a3v1]

Just a side thought:
Could it be that the British are rejecting their transition to the euro just because of the way they pronounce the word; sounding very much like urology and urine?
Regards,
a3v1

[translateltd]

Ho ho :-)

No, it's probably because the bulk of the Brits would rather not be part of the EU and feel their political "servants" have surrendered too much to Brussels already (I presume that's what you mean by disloyalty in an earlier post, Peter).  It's probably also the reason why Gordon Brown has backed down from holding a referendum on the revamped Constitution, because he can guess the result ...

[chrisild]

Don't believe either that the pronunciation is an issue here. It works in Ireland and Malta after all. And of course I would not have any objections if the UK finally left the EU. Problem is, the British need to do that themselves, as no member state can simply be "thrown out" of the European Union. Oh well, up to them.

Christian