From: Philippe Verdy (verdy_p@wanadoo.fr)
Date: Fri Dec 31 2004 - 13:39:49 CST
From: Patrick Andries
>> Similarly, I suppose EU might be wanting Bulgaria to use ЕУРО, since it
>> transliterates to EURO, while ЕВРО
>> transliterates to EVRO.
>> Brussels is meddling again and wanting to have a single size fit all.
>
> For real multilingual banknotes (when it did not mean some logotype
> language) see :
> http://hapax.ifrance.com/hapax/billets-de-banque.htm
Well this already concerns other countries outside of the EMU.
For example, this swiss site (in French) displays the various denominations
in the current 11 official languages of the ECB...
http://www.frc.ch/dossiers/euro/3.html
(but it forgets that the subdivision, the "cent", can have its name changed
legally.
For example, in French, the term "cent" would normally not be pronouced
"sènn't" but "sã", because it is homograph to the term designating the
number 100; as it can cause confusion when spelling or even writing money
amounts (for example "dix neuf cents": is it 1900€, or 10,09€ or 0,19€ ?)
when so many people do not know that the "cent" numeral for 100 has no
plural form, and don't like saying "sènn't" which is too much connotated to
the dollar.)
So the official term in France is not "cent" but preferably "centime" (the
same term that was used for the subdivision of the French Franc), and
"eurocentime" was also used for the short period when both currencies were
legal. Today, eveybody says "centime" (even if European texts and the
europa.eu.int web site say that only the terms "cent" plural "cents" should
be used, this applies for cross-border transactions and texts, and to minted
coins, but not in France for all commercial transactions and advertizing...)
So if countries can freely adopt, for their internal use, the orthographies
they want, why would this be a problem if Bulgarian prefer writing EBPO
instead of EYPO? For international transactions, like all others, they will
use the term "Euro" or the symbol.
Same thing in Greece for the "leptó"... or in Italian for the name prefixed
with a numeral; another notable exception: in English, the "cent" takes no
plural form... officially... And there's no legal symbol for the cent (the
only legal symbol when writing it is for the euro, which then requires the 2
decimals for small amounts.
More important: official texts say clearly that banknotes MUST be the same
across all countries. Adding new spalling will be possible for legal texts,
but banknotes will not be changed throughout Europe immediately.
In some future, new banknotes may be designed and then will progressively
replace the old ones, but it's not for now. There are already enough
banknotes for the newcomers in 3 years, but the current models will be
printed as is to cover their transition needs.
It's highly probable that the first banknotes that will be replaced the
fastest will be the 5 and 10 euros notes. But old notes will remain legal
for a long time (at least 10 years, even more for some countries that have
not set any deadline for their previous national banknotes...). The 200€ and
500€ banknotes will not disappear easily because they are used in bank
reserves worldwide for the street change market, and their transportation is
too risky and too costly.
Finally, I already read that the banknotes would not be adapted to support
all the european languages. What allows their distinction is their color,
their numeral and their symbol. using too many translations would obscure
the recognizable security features that help limiting counterfeight...
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