Euro or eora? Cent or ceint? The new currency and Ireland Michael Everson Œ A SINGLE CURRENCY, which has been of endeavour to be internal to the countries of named in the English language the euro, and the EU, and thus to be outside the scope of the whose decimal subdivision is called the cent, has European Council’s powers of direction. We been introduced by the monetary union of a will see below that linguistic argument alone number of member states of the European will show that the directives of the Council Union. Of interest in multilingual Europe are cannot be implemented justly, given the the different ways in which these new words European linguistic situation. will be adapted to the pronunciation, grammar, and spelling requirements of European lan- BORROWING guages, whether these languages be official EU NEW VOCABULARY languages, other languages of the countries adopting the new currency as their national In general, when a new word is introduced to a currency, or other languages used elsewhere in language, it is changed according to relevant Europe. phonetic criteria. English speakers borrowed Rather than requesting the input of its the Czech word robot, but adapted it to English member states with regard to the proper use of pronunciation ([·rÿÜbOt] not [·robot]) and the currency’s name in their languages, the grammar (pl. robots not roboty). The Arabic European Council has surprisingly decreed word ‹ (qahwa) was borrowed via a variety that the spelling of the currency and of its of routes into a number of naturalized forms by subunit shall be identical in all official lan- the languages of Europe: kafe (Basque); cafè guages of the EU.1 It has also directed that the (Catalan); kaffe (Danish); koffie (Dutch); coffee plural and the singular of the words euro and (English); kahv (Estonian); kahvi (Finnish); café cent shall be identical in a number of these (French); (qava – Georgian); Kaffee (Ger- languages. man); ηʤ˜ (kafés – Greek); kávé (Hungarian); It is difficult to summarize the far-reaching kaffi (Icelandic); caife (Irish); caffè (Italian); káffe consequences such directives would have (Northern Sami); kawa (Polish); café (Portu- should they be accepted by legislators or lay- guese); кофе (kofe – Russian); kava (Slovene); persons in Europe. They violate the principle café (Spanish); kaffe (Swedish); kahve (Turkish); of subsidiarity, which guarantees certain realms coffi (Welsh). In each of these languages, the

1 See Directive (EC) No. 1103/97 of 17 June 1997 languages of the European Union, taking into account from the European Council: Whereas … the the existence of different alphabets.… This Regulation European Council furthermore considered that the name shall be binding in its entirety and directly applicable in of the single currency must be the same in all the official all Member States. © 2001 Michael Everson. First published in Irish in An Aimsir Óg 2001, vol 2. Baile Átha Cliath: Coiscéim. ISSN 1393-9351. 1 word has been assigned its appropriate gender The simplest thing to do to derive the name of and/or declension. the currency would be to clip the end off of the The name of the new European currency name of the continent – as is done in Danish, and its subdivision are not given to us ex nihilo. Dutch, English, French, German, Greek, The name of the subdivision is a truncation of Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish. According to the Latin word centum ‘100’, and has been used the European Council’s Directive (EC) No. as a subdivision of other currencies, such as the 1103/97, however, the spelling of the name of Australian, Canadian, Hong Kong, New the currency must be euro. Does this really Zealand, and US dollars (cent), and the imply that the forms eiro, eora, evro, evró, and Estonian kroon (sent). Many languages have a ewro are not “allowed”? pre-existing form of this word already in use. The banknotes will bear the text ÿŸ⁄¤ and The currency name is a truncation of the ÿÕfiœ in two different scripts, Latin and name of the continent. The form of the name Greek. One may presume that Cyrillic ÿ›fi¤ of the continent has a number of spellings and would also appear, should Macedonian, pronunciations in different languages: Russian, Serbian, or Ukrainian become official EU languages. Will Armenian –—“” and Eiropa [·ejropa] Latvian Georgian ‘’÷◊ also be “allowed”? What Eoraip [·jU\Vÿpj] Irish about Belarusian ÿflfi¤? Eurohpa [·eurohpa] Sami One may note with interest that in the Eurooppa [·euro:ppa] Finnish former Soviet Union, national languages were Europa [øw·Ro:pa] Danish respected, allowing the Union Republics to use [Oy·Ropa] German entirely different words, spellings, and declen- [eu·rOpa] Italian sions for the national currency. On a 1961 Portuguese three-ruble note, as can be seen below, the [eu·ropa] Dutch following forms all appear – grammatically Spanish these are the forms that follow the number 3 in Európa [eu·ro:pa] Hungarian the respective languages: rubla (Estonian); rubl,i Europe [·jÜÿ®ÿp] English (Latvian); rubliai (Lithuanian); карбованці [ø·Rop] French (karbovanci – Ukrainian); манат (manat – Evropa [Ev·ropa] Swedish Azeri, Turkmen); рублe (ruble – Moldavian); Evrópa [Ev·roÜpa] Icelandic рублі (rubli – Belarusian); рубля (rublja – Ewrop [eu·rUp] Welsh Russian); сом (som – Kazakh, Kyrgyz); су¯ м (su¯m ∂˘ÚÒ· (Eyrópa)[Ev·ro:pa] Greek – Tajik); су˘м (su˘m – Uzbek); (roublu – вропа (Evropa)[ev·ropa] Bulgarian Armenian); (maneti – Georgian). [jiv·ropÿ] Russian Slovenians are at present “permitted” to use ўропа (Eu˘ ropa)[ew·ropa] Belarusian their natural spelling evro. Does it follow from (Evropa)[jEv·ropa] Armenian the Directive that on their accession to EU (evropa)[Ev·ropa] Georgian membership, they will be required to change their spelling? What then would be the poten- tial social and economic cost of such a change-

2 SINGULAR AND PLURAL

That the Directive requires that the plural form of the currency name – at least when combined with a figure – should remain unchanged naïvely assumes that all languages do, or can, treat nouns following numbers in the same way. In reality, however, this grammatical environment is particularly rich over, in terms of the necessary revision of ele- where European languages are concerned. In mentary educational materials, dictionaries and many European languages, it is true, the encyclopaediae, electronic spell-checkers, re- nominative plural is used with numbers above education of users, and so on? 1. In Celtic languages, however, a digit is followed by a noun in its singular, usually with IDEOGRAPHS initial consonant mutation caused by the digit preceding. In Russian, the numbers 2, 3, and 4 Such questions arise from the assumption are followed by the genitive singular, and implicit in the European Council’s Directive numbers from 5 on are followed by the genitive which takes no cognizance of either socio- plural. In Estonian and Finnish, the partitive linguistic or ordinary linguistic reality – that singular is used with numbers greater than 1. the written form of the currency name must be The European Council’s Directive goes far constant and unchanged, as though the four beyond the scope of its powers, in that it im- letters were equivalent in an ideographic sense pinges upon the grammar of natural languages. to the abstract currency symbol – note that “$” The Finns refused to accept the Directive. means both dollar and peso – or to a digit – one Nominative singular: euro, sentti; nominative sees “2” but says [erkowk‘], bi, dos, to, plural: eurot, sentit; partitive singular: euroa, twee, two, kaks, kaksi, deux, [ori], zwei, ‰‡Ô senttiä. In Italy, there are two factions: those [dy´o], ketto˝, tveir, a dó, due, guokte, dwa, dois, два who consider the correct plural of l’euro to be [dva], dva, dos, två, iki, dwy…. gli euro (following the Directive), and those What has been ignored are two simple who consider the correct plural to be gli euri. facts. One, that European languages have The latter group includes l'Accademia della orthographies which are based on the conven- Crusca, the most important normative institu- tional values of the Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic tion for the Italian language. letters as adapted to those languages, and two, Let us consider the problem we have in that languages which employ alphabetic Ireland with the European Council’s Directive. writing systems generally do not treat strings of As is reflected in the English of the Economic letters as ideographs, independent of the and Monetary Union Act, 1998, and in the Irish normal reading rules. of the Acht um Aontas Eacnamaíoch agus Airgeadaíochta, 1998, the State has accepted the Directive. In the former, the terms euro and

3 cent are used invariantly, ignoring the normal plural formation in -s which is natural to the English language. From section 11(1) of the Act:

The Minister may provide coins denomi- nated in euro or in cent.…

Let us assume for a moment that the pound were being established as Ireland’s currency. The text would not read denominated in pounds or in pence according to the Act above, but would rather read denominated in pound or in penny. Likewise, if the dollar were being established as Ireland’s currency, denominated in dollar or in cent would be used instead of denominated in dollars or in cents. Why then should the text of the Act not read denominated From a poster by the Euro Changeover Board of Ireland. in euros or in cents, that is, in standard English? dollar and the cent, we would expect sa phunt nó What we see is that, in the English version of sa phingin, or sa dhollar nó sa cheint (cf. Tomás de the Act, the nouns euro and cent have been Bhaldraithe, English-Irish Dictionary, 1959, s.v. magically transformed (without popular con- “cent”). If the Irish text were faithful to the sensus or consent) into special plurals like that English text (assuming that the English text of the word sheep. employed plural forms as it should), we should Turning now to the Irish text, we find in then have i bpuint nó i bpinginí or i ndollair nó i section 11(1) of the Act: gceinteanna. This would then imply that we should have in eoraí (or in eorónna) nó i gceint- Féadfaidh an tAire monaí arna n-ainmniú san eanna. euro nó sa cent a sholáthar.… GENDER This text attempts to avoid the problem by translating the English in euro or in cent as san According to article 6(1) of the Acht um Aontas euro nó sa cent ‘in the euro and in the cent’. But Eacnamaíoch agus Airgeadaíochta, 1998, follow- we have a problem here with sa cent: Nouns ing the European Council’s Directive (EC) beginning in c- (pronounced [k]) must lenite No. 974/98 of 3 May 1998, it is stated that is é after sa and the word at a minimum should be an euro airgeadra an Stáit, ‘the currency of the written sa chent ([sÿ çEnjtj]).2 State is the euro’. Although the masculine pro- If the text of the Acht as written above were noun é is used, the feminine form an euro is applied to the pound and the penny, or to the used instead of the masculine form an t-euro.

2 Unless the c- here means [s], in which case a muta- either [sÿ sVEnjtj] or [sÿ tVEnjtj]. But this cannot be tion may apply, and the pronunciation would be written with ch-; it must be written either s- or ts-.

4 The genitive also appears in the Act, in the title tSoláthair 1959) and in the official government of Chapter II, Córas Airgeadra an Euro ‘the business dictionary Foclóir Staidéir Ghnó (An Euro Currency System’. If the word is femi- Gúm 1989) as well. nine, the two clauses have to read is í an euro Finally, since pronunciation is not indicated airgeadra an Stáit and Córas Airgeadra na hEuro; in the Act above, guidance has to be given as to if the word is masculine, the two clauses have to whether euro is to be pronounced [·e:ro:] or read is é an t-euro airgeadra an Stáit and Córas [·jÜÿ®oÜ] and whether cent is to be pronounced Airgeadra an Euro.3 The mixing of genders seen [kjEnjtj] or [sVEnjtj]. above is not permitted in the Irish language. Rather more shocking is that it seems to CONCLUSIONS have been accepted that the words euro and cent shall be “immune” to grammatical mutation We have seen above that ceint m4, pl. ceinteanna following numbers, implying that the name of already exists. The correct Irish Gaelic forms our national currency is considered to be a for- should be eora f4, pl. eoraí (cf. deora ‘furrow’, pl. eign word, attracting neither séimhiú ‘lenition’ deoraí), or – more likely perhaps, on the nor urú ‘nasalization’. One cannot but consider strength of the English word – eoró f4, pl. *ocht euro, *cúig cent, and *eight cent – instead of eorónna (cf. bró ‘millstone’, pl. brónna). The ocht n-euro, cúig chent, ocht gcent4 – to be anything genitive singulars should be na heora (or na but errors according to the most basic of nor- heoró) and an cheint, and normal mutations mal rules of Irish grammar and orthography. must apply: ocht n-eora (or ocht n-eoró), cúig Further, the spelling of the word euro itself, cheint, ocht gceint. In the English language, the when compared with the ordinary rules of Irish correct plurals in all contexts must be euros and orthography, would imply that the first half of cents. The other options are both ungram- the word, eu-, should signify what is now matical Irish and ungrammatical English. written éa-; cf. reul ‘sixpenny piece’ > réal. The European Council has no right to There must also be an error in the second half prescribe, or even to endorse, the ortho- of the word, since -o should be -ó; cf. for graphical or grammatical forms of any word in example that e precedes -o in daideo [·dVadjo:] any language, whether official or not. This ‘grandfather’, compared to mamó [·mVamVo:] right belongs to the people of Europe. Will we ‘grandmother’). in Ireland exercise this right, and insist on the We already have an official word for cent proper terms eora (or eoró) and ceint for the anyway. As we saw above, ceint appears in de Irish name of our new currency? Bhaldraithe’s English-Irish Dictionary (Oifig an

3 It is just possible that the word euro is being nominative and genitive would probably have been considered a neuter noun, but since the neuter an n-euro and an euro if the neuter had survived. gender was lost in Irish before the ninth century, 4 ‘Eight euros’, ‘five cents’, ‘eight cents’. one may consider this to be unlikely; in any case the

5