Lebanon: Why not 10 piastres as written on the coin?

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N#10514

 

Where is the logic behind the name of the denomination. It's written PIASTRES on the coin

 

Lettering: 
١٠ قروش
١٩٥٥
الجمهورية اللبنانية

Translation: 
10 Qirsh On the other side of the coin it's written PIASTRES, so why use Qirsh?
1955
Lebanese Republic

Reverse

Sailing boat, denomination above, date and legend below.

Script: Latin

Lettering: 
10 PIASTRES
REPUBLIQUE LIBANAISE
1955

Translation: Lebanese Republic

 

In the features it's also written PIASTRES and not QIRSH!!!

 

The motto of numista must be: If it's simple, then make it complicated?

Globetrotter
Coin varieties in French:
https://monnaiesetvarietes.numista.com

Well i guess قروش actually translate to kurush, hence Qirsh.

 

And on the other side it indeed says piastres.

kommodore

Well i guess قروش actually translate to kurush, hence Qirsh.

 

And on the other side it indeed says piastres.

So it's all a hoax, where it says Qirsh it should be Kurush (like in turkey)?

 

It gets better and better, so the only true thing is the Piastres?

Globetrotter
Coin varieties in French:
https://monnaiesetvarietes.numista.com

Turkish Kurush and Arabic Qirsh (and variations) are different because the letter K would be ك in Arabic but Arabic coins mostly use ق which is closer to Q than to K

kommodore

Well i guess قروش actually translate to kurush, hence Qirsh.

 

And on the other side it indeed says piastres.

No, it isn't a translation, it is a transliteration or a transcription. It is a representation of the word in a different script. The result of a transliteration or transcription into the English alphabet isn't necessarily an English word and isn't necessarily the translation of the original.

 

For this coin the designer clearly showed the English translation of the denomination. (The translation at that time, languages do change.) And the Numista guidelines to use English mean the translation should be used.

HIstorically, Middle East countries use double name for a specific denomination, namely Qirsh in Arabic, or Piastre in European languages.

It's like in Switzerland where small coins are called rappen in German but centime in French.

 

In Canada, instead of dollars and cents, people in Quebec often say pièces (piastres) and sous, although these names are both informal. However, in the pre-Confederation times, Lower Canada did use denominations in sous on its copper tokens (2 sous = 1 penny of the Upper Canada).

 

In Austro-Hungary and the Netherlands, guilder was also known as a florin (hence the symbol Fl. for the Dutch guilder). To add more complication to it, the Austro-Hungarian guilder was called gulden on the coins and banknotes for Austria, and forint on those for Hungary.

 

Finally, in the Soviet Union, ruble  banknotes contained texts in the 15 languages of all Soviet Republics. And I remember since my childhood that ruble had different names in other languages: karbovanets in Ukrainian (which later became the name of the independent Ukraine's first currency), sum or som in some Central Asian languages, manat in Azeri and Turkmenian, and maneti in Georgian.

My (still modest) collection:
https://en.numista.com/echanges/voir_collection.php?id=75443

قروش or Qirush or Qurush is the Arabic plural form of قرش or Qirsh.

In the translation field there is written “10 Qirsh” to not confuse everyone, but in Arabic is written “10 Qurush”

I'm not orange and also in other things I'm not a Donald at all. DonChori like Don Felipe or Doña María, por favor.

It's not uncommon for currency to be called two or more different things in other countries.  Not every country has a dominant language, and in some countries, different cultures were thrown together when the ‘map makers or peace’ carved up the spoils after war. 

 

One huge example of this is in South Africa, where the coins are in totally different languages on a cycle, which is a pain for collecting every single type.

 

A smaller example might be China, where the unit of account is almost universally called the ‘yuan, ' while the actual name of the unit of account is the renmenbi (RMB).

 

One of the most dangerous things we can do in collecting world coins is to impose the ‘normalcy’ of our own culture on the rest of the world--because it will lead to a whole lot of confusion and mistakes! 

I have added an explanation for the Arabic in the “Comments” section. But I forgot to fix the name: it's not “qirush” but "qurush".

 

I may try to do more of this once in a while for other Islamic coins…

₱o$₮ag€ $₮am₱$ a₹€ mo₹€ £€₲i₮ima₮€ a$ a ƒo₹m oƒ ¢u₹₹€nc¥ ₮ha₦ ₮h€ €₦₮i₹€ "¢oi₦" ₱₹odu¢₮io₦ oƒ ₦au₹u o₹ ₦iu€. ••• £€$ ₮im฿₹€$-₱o$₮€ $o₦₮ ₱£u$ £é₲i₮im€$ €₦ ₮a₦t qu'o฿j€₮$ mo₦é₮ai₹€$ qu€ £a ₱₹odu¢₮io₦ €₦₮iè₹€ d€ «mo₦₦ai€$» d€ ₦au₹u ou d€ ₦iu€.

Same issue of consistency in french with at least these three spelling qirsh, qirush, girush

But anyway from my understanding Qirsh is just transliteration of Piastre (hence inconsistencies), which is official name in both french and english languages, it is why I agree we should only use Piastre as name.

Cf bank of Lebanon

 

it is like for medieval coins we dont write “1 Denier / Denarius” but just “1 Denier” as numista is not in latin language, but french and english

I proposed those various spellings as search equivalents.

Yes, I agree that all the terms should be searchable. 

 

Can anyone confirm that “qirush”/"girush" actually exist? At any rate, the correct MSA (Modern Standard Arabic) form is “qurush”, as you will find out if you use any Arabic dictionary (such as the popular Wehr/Cowan) or copy & paste قروش in Google Translate, where you'll get the pronunciation.

 

And I have just sent the same explanations of the Arabic legends for the French page as I did yesterday for the English page.

₱o$₮ag€ $₮am₱$ a₹€ mo₹€ £€₲i₮ima₮€ a$ a ƒo₹m oƒ ¢u₹₹€nc¥ ₮ha₦ ₮h€ €₦₮i₹€ "¢oi₦" ₱₹odu¢₮io₦ oƒ ₦au₹u o₹ ₦iu€. ••• £€$ ₮im฿₹€$-₱o$₮€ $o₦₮ ₱£u$ £é₲i₮im€$ €₦ ₮a₦t qu'o฿j€₮$ mo₦é₮ai₹€$ qu€ £a ₱₹odu¢₮io₦ €₦₮iè₹€ d€ «mo₦₦ai€$» d€ ₦au₹u ou d€ ₦iu€.

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