Trilingual coins of the world

Finding bilingual coins is easy, but trilingual coins is a different story.  There are some really nice ancient, medieval, and modern trilingual coins out there, so go ahead and post them in this thread.  I'll start off with the following coin:

Arakan: Min Khamaung (1612-1622) AR Tanka (Mitchiner-LW.334; G&G-RA4; KM#7)

Obv: Inscription in Arakanese; ၉၇၄ ဆင်ဖြူ သခင် ၀ရဓမ္မ ရာဇာ ဥသှေင် သှာ (hsin byu shin waradhamma raza ushaung shah; Lord of the White Elephant Waradhamma Raja Husain Shah)
Rev: Bilingual inscription in Arabic and Bengali; صاحب الفيل الابيض الملك العادل حسين شاه سلطان (sahib al-fil al-abyad al-malik al-adil husain shah sultan; Lord of the White Elephant the just king Husain Shah sultan); ধাভালা গাজেস্ভারা শ্রী শ্রী ধামা রাজা হুচনা সহ (dhavala gajesvara sri sri dhama raja huchana saha; Lord of the White Elephant the most exhalted Dhama Raja (King of Righteousness) Husain Shah)

Most coins from the Netherlands East Indies contain text written in Dutch, Malay (using the Jawi alphabet), and Javanese (using the traditional Javanese alphabet). Today all three of these languages are usually written in the Latin alphabet.

The British trade dollar is too !
https://en.numista.com/catalogue/pieces8472.html

Quote: nalaberong
Most coins from the Netherlands East Indies contain text written in Dutch, Malay (using the Jawi alphabet), and Javanese (using the traditional Javanese alphabet). Today all three of these languages are usually written in the Latin alphabet.

True. They're beautiful and I do still have a couple to swap!    

Coins of the Yugoslavian 'Hard dinar' (1966-1989) were regularly featuring four languages: Serbian, Croatian, Slovenian and Macedonian.

Quote: nalaberong
Most coins from the Netherlands East Indies contain text written in Dutch, Malay (using the Jawi alphabet), and Javanese (using the traditional Javanese alphabet). Today all three of these languages are usually written in the Latin alphabet.

Some of the nicest trilingual coins are from the Netherlands East Indies.  Since I love the analysis of scripts, here is the transcription of Javanese using unicode, which seems to be missing in Numista:

ꦱꦥꦫꦱꦠꦸꦱ꧀  ꦫꦸꦥꦶꦪ (One Hundredth Rupee)

Quote: Mark240590The British trade dollar is too !
https://en.numista.com/catalogue/pieces8472.html

Another lovely coin, but missing from my collection.  The Numista entry seems to be missing the Malay transcription:

ساتو رڠڬيت (One Dollar)

How about 5?

British-Indian 1946 Anna with "One Anna" written in English, Urdu, Telugu, Bengli and Devnagari legends on Reverse.

Israel and Cyprus both have the country's name in three languages, but Singapore has it in four.

In response to Sujit's coin, here is one from Medieval India with three different scripts:

Western Kshatrapas: Nahapana (ca. 100 CE) AR Trilingual drachm (Fishman-3.xx)

Obv: Bust of Nahapana facing right with collar showing, wearing a satrapal cap, Greek inscription around: ΡΑΝΝΙW ΣΑΗΑΡΑΤΑC ΝΑΗΑΡΑΝΑC
Rev: Arrow pointing down to the left, thunderbolt to the right, dot between them; two inscriptions - on in Brahmi (Rajno KsaHaRaTaSa NaHaPaNaSa) and one in Kharoshti (RaNo KsaHaRaTaSa NaHaPaNaSa)

The administration of vast culturally diverse areas was always a challenge for most of the great civilizations, including the Romans, Greeks, Mongols, and the Arabs.  Hence, trilingual and bilingual coins have existed throughout history.  In Georgia, we see the issuance of trilingual coins in Arabic, Persian and Georgian:

Georgia: Giorgi IV Lasha (1208-1223) AE unit (Kap-66; Bennett-179)
Obv: Design of six knots surrounding two-line central Mtavruli legend: ႢႨႻႤ / ႧႫႰႱႠ (Giorgi son of Tamar). Outside of knot design, circular Mtavruli legend: † ႱႾႤႪႨႧႠ ႶႧႠ ႨႵႬ ႽႤႣႠ ႥႺႾႪႱ ႠႫႱ ႵႩႱ ჃႪ († In the name of God, this coin was struck in the year 430 of the koronikon)

Rev: Central four-line Arabic inscription:

ملك الملوك (The King of kings,)
جلال الدنيا و الدين (Glory of the world and faith,)
كيوركى بن تامار (Giorgi, son of Tamar,)
حسام المسيح (sword of the Messiah)

Marginal Persian legend: بنام خداى پاك اين سيمرا زده اند بتاريح چهار صی وسی سال (In the name of God most pure, this coin was struck in the year 430)

All coins from Cyprus have three languages on them. Greek is spoken by some Cypriots, Turkish is spoken by some other Cypriots, and English was spoken by the British, who used to own the island. Today, the island is still divided between Cyprus proper and the "Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus", a self-declared nation recognized only by Turkey. Fortunately for all Numista forum users, the TRNC does not issue its own coins. Because of this difficult political situation, the coins of Cyprus are intentionally made to be as inclusive as possible, hence the trilingual legends.

Quote: nalaberong
All coins from Cyprus have three languages on them. Greek is spoken by some Cypriots, Turkish is spoken by some other Cypriots, and English was spoken by the British, who used to own the island. Today, the island is still divided between Cyprus proper and the "Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus", a self-declared nation recognized only by Turkey. Fortunately for all Numista forum users, the TRNC does not issue its own coins. Because of this difficult political situation, the coins of Cyprus are intentionally made to be as inclusive as possible, hence the trilingual legends.

All except euro coins


Oh, wait...

Isn't that a 4-language coin? Latin, French, Flemish, German... Sounds good.

Sri Lanka/Ceylon seems trilingual too.

Very nice!  I am glad you guys are expanding   .  Trilingual and multilingual coins shows how diverse countries are and the rich history that is present.  Here is another one with English, Persian, and Kannada:

Mysore: Krishna Raja Wodeyar (1799-1868) AE 20 Cash (C#193.2)

Obv: Lion to the left with right paw upraised; Kannada legend above - ಶ್ರೀ ಚಾಮುಂಡಿ (Sri Chamundi) with sun and moon between ಶ್ರೀ (Sri); date below the lion; the whole enclosed in lined circle and ring of dots.
Rev: ಕೃಷ್ಣ (Krishna) and ضرب بمیسور.  (Struck in Mysore) on the field; ಮಯಿಲಿ ಕಾಸು ೨೦ (Mayili Kasu 20) , MEILEE/MILEE/MILAY XX CASH in margin, enclosed in lined circle.  

Let's go back in time to another trilingual coin with Brahmi, cursive Bactrian Greek, and Pahlavi.  I haven't had the luxury of transcribing the legends due to the difficulty of cursive bactrian greek...

Hephthalites: Vasu Deva (early 7th Century) AR Tri-lingual Drachm (Göbl Hunnen Em.244, MACW-1560)

Obverse: Bust of Vasu Deva right in Persian style. Bull head above crown ; tamgha countermark, gold plug countermark. Brahmi legend in field. Cursive Bactrian Greek Legend around.
Reverse: Zoroastrian fire altar and attendants. Pahlavi legend in fields, Cursive Bactrian Greek Legend around.

Quote: evynrIsrael and Cyprus both have the country's name in three languages, but Singapore has it in four.

Singapore :

 

Singapore is written in the Singapore's four official languages : Malay, Chinese, English, and Tamil.

SINGAPURA   /    新加坡  /   SINGAPORE   /  சிங்கப்பூர்

Quote: Quant.Geek

Quote: Mark240590The British trade dollar is too !
https://en.numista.com/catalogue/pieces8472.html

Another lovely coin, but missing from my collection.  The Numista entry seems to be missing the Malay transcription:

ساتو  ريڠڬيت (One Dollar)

I'm not adding that, what do you think I am the UK Referee ?? :P

There are several coins on Numista that has either incorrect legends or no legends at all and I am neither a cataloger nor a referee, so hopefully someone notices this thread and updates the entries   .  With the advent of Unicode, transcribing coins is so much easier and hopefully more collectors pitch in to aid and verify the entries...

Besides the odd one or two coins I don't really have the time to go in and start modifying coins myself with the refereeing. I will add the details to the trade dollar coin in the coming days though :)

I came across this one too showing the diversity in India !

Great topic. Thumbs up.

Most of Israeli coins ( English, Arabic,Hebrew)

Most of South African coins.
obverse - two native languages
reverse - English ( denomination)

by the way - I would like to introduce You with the first Georgian commemorative coin, 500 Lari. " Victory in WW II 1945 - 1995", and with my own research and discovery on this coin :)

Look at this coin:


reverse contains both - Georgian and English language / საქართველოს რესპუბლიკა REPUBLIC OF GEORGIA /
but what about obverse?
Well, - Roosevelt, Churchill and De Gaulle writing equally on both - English and French, but STALIN is "STALIN" on English, and "STALINE" on French ! So, it becomes trilingual coin !
Why?
If designers idea was to include all four Victory giants languages ( English, french and Russian) , - where is Russian? so, this version is wrong.
French is not popular language in Georgia, - probably just 0.1% of all Georgians can read and understand French. So, version about "another international language for Georgians" is also wrong.

I wrote a letter to our national Bank` numismatic dep. . And they answered me that they have not any idea why Stalin is with "E" and, actually they fixed their attention only after my letter  :) ( they even didnot know that its probably FRENCH language !!! )

So, I think that reason is maybe in insufficient responsibility of Georgian designers, who didnot knew that Stalin has different writings on English and French, or French engravers ( who probably thought that STALINE is STALINE on all latin-based languages :) ( coin were struck at Paris Mint). Or, probably they saw " DE GAULLE" which is actually French writing, and also they knew that Roosevelt and Churchill on French are same, but they "found" a mistake in " STALIN" and wrote it " correctly" on French :)
There were hard times in Georgian History, - just a few years after Independence, wars, and other social problems, so probably there nobody cared if it would be STALIN or STALINE  :)
Finally, I dont know is this error or not, but, anyway - we have trilingual coin :)

best
David

Interesting

Quote: "BluHawk"​Interesting

​Indeed. Is someone out there willing to show more trilingual coins?

Palestine used 3 languages and the 3 languages were adopted by Israel





English, Hebrew, Arabic

Switzerland



You see one language, but it's three, all abbreviated!

German - 1 Frank or 1 Franken (Sorry I only speak English and Maori and don't know other languages)
Italian - 1 Franchi
French - 1 Franc

All start with Fr!

Quote: "evynr"​Israel and Cyprus both have the country's name in three languages, but Singapore has it in four.

​
Cyprus has both Greek & Turkish as official languages, but English is recognised as a linking language.

Aidan.

Quote: "Moneytane"​Switzerland
​
​
​
​You see one language, but it's three, all abbreviated!
​
​German - 1 Frank or 1 Franken (Sorry I only speak English and Maori and don't know other languages)
​Italian - 1 Franchi
​French - 1 Franc
​
​All start with Fr!

​Couldn't it be argued that it's the Latin version "Francus"? They use Latin to avoid the multiplication of languages, including for the name of the country, derived from the tribe which Caesar used as a pretext to start his (illegal) invasion of Gaul.

There's a Vicipaedia page for the Francus Helvetivus.

In Italian, BTW, it would be "franco" in the singular.

Germany has issued multi-lingual coin(s) too - 9 Languages!

https://en.numista.com/catalogue/pieces10715.html

Republic of India coins are generally Bilingual - Hindi & English, however, on atleast one ocassion it has issued a trilingual Hindi-English-Punjabi coin as well

https://en.numista.com/catalogue/pieces13791.html

Switzerland actually has 4 official languages - including Romansch, which is natively spoken in the Canton of Graubunden.

Latin inscriptions on Swiss coins attempt to convey linguistic neutrality.

Belgium has had medal-coins inscribed in German as well as in Dutch & French, especially denominated in Francs.

Aidan.

Here's a private proposed pattern for Kosovo that is inscribed in Albanian, Serbian Latin,& in English;

http://worldcoinnews.blogspot.com/2014/02/kosovo-5-ilire-2013-5th-anniversary-of.html .

Only 25 of them were ever struck.

Aidan.

Quote: "aephi"​

​which country and denomination/year is this one?

Reverse image search is your friend (LINK)

Sinkiang: Kuang Hsu (1875-1908) AR ½ miscal, Yarkand, ND (KM#Y-A7.18; L&M-664)

Obv: Kuang Hsu (光緒銀錢)
Rev: Five cents (五分); Yarkand (Schache) mint name in Arabic (ياركند) and Manchurian (ᠶᡝᡵᡴᡳᠶᠠᠩ)

Coins from Jugoslavia had four different languages

Coins of the former Yugoslavia had 4 languages on them in some cases



The coin above has Serbian, Croatian, Slovenian and Bosnia or Macedonian I think.
All are Slavic languages and thus quite similar.

What I do know and that makes these coins interesting is the Slovenians and Croatians used Latin Script for their languages and the others (Serbian, Bosnian, Macedonian etc) all used Cyrillic.

Hence why the other side merely has Yugoslavia in Latin and Cyrillic Script.

Bosnian actually uses the Latin alphabet.

Serbian & Macedonian both use Cyrillic - although Serbian also uses the Latin alphabet as well today.

Aidan.

Quote: "Idolenz"​Reverse image search is your friend (LINK)

​that’s interesting.. thanks!