In Latvia it’s “eiro”, not “euro”
This is cute – “…Latvia has stuck its mother tongue out at the European Union by refusing to call the single currency by its official name.”…
Despite pleas from the European Central Bank to stick to the official “euro” name, Latvia prefers to call the currency the “eiro” instead. This is because euro is a non-existent word in Latvian.
“The ‘eu’ dipthong is alien to the Latvian language,” says Latvia’s education minister Ina Druviete. National pride is also behind the country’s refusal to budge on the matter.
Latvia has fought to re-establish its linguistic identity after the end of the Soviet occupation during which the Russian language was forced upon its citizens. Latvian is now spoken by around two-thirds of the population of 2.3 million and is the official state language.
Hat Tip to Topi L. for the link!
What’s Latvia?
Comment by gopha — Wed, Jan 4th, 2006 @ 6:40 pm
What’s another word for ‘thesaurus’ ?
Comment by Phil — Wed, Jan 4th, 2006 @ 7:50 pm
“fucking google it?”
Comment by iJusten — Wed, Jan 4th, 2006 @ 8:01 pm
What’s another word for ‘thesaurus’ ?
click
Comment by gopha — Wed, Jan 4th, 2006 @ 8:11 pm
What’s “Europe” in Latvian?
In English a “euro” is a type of kangaroo. Also legally we have to say euro not euros. Sod the EU.
Comment by XL — Wed, Jan 4th, 2006 @ 11:13 pm
Yeah, it’s so cool to trash the EU, so cool infact that you don’t even need a reason for it.
Comment by Anton — Thu, Jan 5th, 2006 @ 12:25 am
I visited Latvia several times during 90`s in business. US president was called then Viljamis Clintonas. Ten points for this proud european nation, where women have the worlds tallest legs.
Comment by Jormanen — Thu, Jan 5th, 2006 @ 7:41 am
What’s new here, the russians (admittedly not in the EU, but..) call it evro (/jevro/) for the same reason (not having the diphtong).
Comment by jl — Thu, Jan 5th, 2006 @ 9:57 am
And in Germany they spell it “euro” and say… “oiro”…
Comment by Kiki — Thu, Jan 5th, 2006 @ 10:03 am
And in English they spell it “euro” and pronounce it “you-row”.
Comment by Kimmo W. — Thu, Jan 5th, 2006 @ 10:16 am
Jormanen: I think the former president’s name is “Viljams ‘Bils’ Klintons” in Latvian (“Williamas ‘Billas’ Clintonas” is Lithuanian)… They write everybody’s name the Latvian way but in essence it’s not that much different from the English-speaking people calling Platon “Plato” or Aristoteles “Aristotle” (the Greeks do have a different alphabet but if I’d think hard enough I’d probably find examples of spelling names originally written in the Latin alphabet the English way – it’s like when Finns call Martin Luther “Martti”).
Comment by Helsinkian — Thu, Jan 5th, 2006 @ 11:50 am
I’ve even seen Finnish history textbooks referring to the first President of the United States as “Yrjö Washington”.
Comment by Kimmo W. — Thu, Jan 5th, 2006 @ 11:55 am
I think it was actually quite common for Finns to write foreign people’s names the Finnish way in the 19th Century. The difference to Baltic languages is that Finnish doesn’t recognize grammatical gender. The Latvians and Lithuanians are obsessed with marking every man’s name with a Baltic masculine ending and every woman’s name with a Baltic feminine ending. In Baltic languages, every word has to be either masculine or feminine and it’s scary for them if they can’t place a word in one of these categories.
Comment by Helsinkian — Thu, Jan 5th, 2006 @ 12:01 pm
If Phil would be interviewed in a Lithuanian newspaper, they would call him “Philas”. They would simply add their masculine ending to make sure that it is a man’s name. Latvians, however, would call him “Fils”. They both change the spelling to accommodate it to Latvian and they also add the “s” to mark masculine gender. For example, Phil Collins is “Philas Collinsas” in Lithuanian but “Fils Kolinss” in Latvian. Latvians add the second s to “Kolinss” because they want to mark that the “s” already exists in the original name and the second “s” is the Latvian masculine ending. A simple “Kolins” would have to be a guy named Colin.
Comment by Helsinkian — Thu, Jan 5th, 2006 @ 12:16 pm
So are the Latvians gonna have coins and bills with the word eiro instead of euro? I can’t see a problem with pronuncing the word ‘euro’ however they want, but if they’re actually gonna have money that looks different than the rest of the euros, then there might be a problem.
Comment by Olli — Thu, Jan 5th, 2006 @ 3:32 pm
The Greek spelling already exists on our euros. The Greeks also pronounce euro “evro”. Their spelling is tolerated because they have a different alphabet; the origin of the word itself is also Greek. Maybe oneday the bills will be printed with the Latvian “eiro” and the Maltese “ewro” as well. Or not.
Comment by Helsinkian — Thu, Jan 5th, 2006 @ 4:02 pm
Latvians are not alone in this and their minister for education praised Malta for joining their ranks in wanting to spell euro their own way:
http://www.maltamedia.com/news/2005/eu/article_8564.shtml
Comment by Helsinkian — Thu, Jan 5th, 2006 @ 4:07 pm
11# Yes, You are right. It is Viljams Klintons with K.
Comment by Jormanen — Thu, Jan 5th, 2006 @ 5:53 pm
So typical EU again. Pissing everybody off by nitpicking on some earth shaking issue, how Latvians should spell their euro. Big member states of the euroland are screwing the stability agreement at the basis of the whole Euro currency all the time and get away with it but noo, this spelling question is of extremely high priority.
Let’s sink a little bit deeper and we spend 6 months every year aligning the ranks for the Europe day parade on…when was it? Bloody May?
Comment by Antti (the redneck one) — Thu, Jan 5th, 2006 @ 10:12 pm
is “google” officialy a verb now?
I google
you google
he googles
etc?
Comment by Derek (el Greco) — Fri, Jan 6th, 2006 @ 7:49 pm
This is a simple matter of convenience. Finns bend it and accepted that Euro bills state “Euro” instead of “euroa” as would be correct according to Finnish grammar. Greeks demanded their alphabet so that’s why Europ bills are bilingual (so far). Should Maltese get through with their Ewro, Latvians with Eiro (as continent in Latvian is Eiropa), Czechs & Slovaks possibly with Evro (continent= Evropa) and Lithuanians with Euros. It seems that a re-design of the bills is highly due and have just one large € showing the currency, then having a list of different language versions underneath as an additional info. Besides European languages, there also could be Chinese, Japanese, Thai, Khmer, Arab, Hindi, Persian etc. version of the name. Of course a bit smaller than the European names
What the frog Trichet and ECB bureaucracy say about uniformal spellign they can flush it down the drain. Should French spelling be different from rest of Europe, we can be sure there would be French text of “Oro” visible. So let’s let the people call the monye they feel natural and what it is according to their language and if necessary due to spelling differences, let them have it also in the bills. Exception to the Greek was the key point, hadn’t that been made, others would not have a case…
Comment by GlobalFinn — Fri, Jan 6th, 2006 @ 7:50 pm
Indeed also the Finnish spelling “Euroopan keskuspankki” (EKP) is included in the euro bills.
But now if we are going change the bills again, I recommend placing Jätkänkynttilä bridge in the 500 EUR bill, instead of that odd structure!
Comment by Kekkonen — Fri, Jan 6th, 2006 @ 11:26 pm