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Several linguistic issues have resulted from the inclusion of the new word euro into the vocabularies of the languages of the member states of the European Union.
English
Official practice followed in English-language EU legislation is to use the words euro and cent as both singular and plural. [1] (http://europa.eu.int/comm/economy_finance/euro/faqs/spelling_en.pdf) This practice arose out of legislation intended to ensure that the banknotes were uncluttered with a string of plurals (as the Soviet ruble notes were). Because the s-less plurals had become "enshrined" in EU legislation, the Commission decided to retain those plurals in legislation, but the European Commission Translation Service strongly recommends that in all material generated by the Commission intended for the general public, "the natural plurals" of each language be used.
In Ireland, however, the Irish Ministry for Finance decided to use the word euro as both the singular and plural forms of the currency, and because Irish broadcasters took their cue from the Ministry for Finance, the "legislative plurals" tend to also be used on the news and in much Irish advertising. This has the effect of reinforcing the s-less plurals, though many advertisers (particularly those in the UK) prefer the natural plurals in -s.
While many people in Ireland strongly prefer the natural plurals – and at the time the s-less plurals were introduced, some complained that the EU had no business changing English grammar – other people have become accustomed to what they hear on daily television and radio, and to the s-less plurals which they see written on the notes and coins. While usage in Ireland is disputed, common usage in the UK prefers euros and cents as the plural forms. Broadcasts of currency exchange rates outside the European Union tend to use the -s plural; with NPR in the United States and the CBC in Canada being two examples.
Irish
In Irish, the English words euro and cent are used, as foreign borrowings without change in spelling or pronunciation, and immune to the natural rules of Irish mutation after numbers. The masculine noun eoró (pl eorónna) has been coined from the word Eoraip ('Europe'), and ceint pl. ceinteanna has been in the lexicon since at least 1959. The words eoró and ceint are attested in printed literature, though the foreign borrowings tend to be more frequent, again due to a lack of coordinated language planning.
French, Spanish and Portuguese
French, Spanish, and Portuguese all use their natural plurals euros. Although cent/cents is official in France and Belgium, almost all French and French-speaking Belgian people still use the older term centime/centimes (French for "cent", used with the old Franc) to avoid confusion with the word cent meaning hundred. Likewise, in Spain céntimo is used (although the Spanish peseta had not been divided into fractionary parts since the 1980s). In Portugal, the words cêntimo/cêntimos are widely used instead of cent/cents.
Finnish
Finnish doesn't have irregular plurals, so euro and sentti are regular and agglutinate accordingly. With singular numerals, the partitive singulars euroa and senttiä are used, e.g. 10 euroa. "The euros" is eurot, "into euros" is euroiksi, "with euros" is euroilla, etc. The problem with the word sentti is that its primary meaning is "centimeter". Thus, the recommended abbreviation of sentti is snt, although Finnish merchants generally use a decimal notation (for example 0,35 ).
Dutch
In Dutch, the plural of euro is euro's and that of cent is centen but euro is also used for both singular and plural (as was used for the guilder: één gulden, twee gulden...). The Dutch also tend to make fun of the euro (to express some frustration over losing the guilder?) by using the plural form euri, which makes the plural sound very undignified and ridiculous.
German
Plural
In German, Euro and Cent is used as both singular and plural, in analogy to the former currency Mark and Pfennig, which also had no plural form in german. The plurals Euros and Cents are rather used when designating several coins. This had always been the pratice with the former Austrian currency, the Schilling, where Schillinge was used to refer to a number of coins.
Pronunciation of "Cent"
The word Cent is not well-adapted to German pronunciation. Traditionally, words derived from the Latin centum (hundred) were transposed into German with a Z (as in Zentrum (center), Zentimeter (centimeter) etc.), which is pronounced as [ts]. Equivalently, German pronunciation rules require C before an e to be pronounced that way. (Such words are relatively rare and always loanwords.) However, since German speakers are familiar with the American unit cent from television, most people pronounce the c in Cent as [s].
Greek
In the Greek language the immutable word ευρώ (pronounced evró) is used as the currency's name. It was decided to use Omega rather than Omicron as the last letter of the word, partly because a noun ending with Omicron would encourage mutability, and partly to stress the origin of the Euro in the Greek word Ευρώπη (Europe) which is also spelled with Omega. For the cent, the terms used are λεπτό, pl. λεπτά (leptó, pl. leptá), a name used for small denominations of various ancient and modern Greek currencies, including the drachma (which the Euro replaced).
Hungarian
In Hungarian the currency (expected to be introduced in 2010) is named euró and cent, the former with a long ó, as decided by the Research Institute for Linguistics of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, since Hungarian words cannot end in short o neither in writing nor in speech (except for one or two interjections), see these international words as examples: fotó, videó, sztereó. Thankfully, plural is not marked in Hungarian after numerals, but both names can take suffixes like euróval, euróért, euróból etc. ("with, for, from etc. euro").
As of October 2004, Hungary is struggling along with Lithuania, Latvia, and Slovenia for the euro to be written in their official documents according to their own usage and spelling, in contrast with a 1998 EU decree which would call for a single name all through the Union.
Italian
In Italian the words euro and cent are used without change for plural as stated in government rulings and by the prestigious Accademia della Crusca, the national language academy of Italy. Since Italian has many invariable nouns, it does not strike Italians as strange that euro does not change in the plural. However, there is an uneducated or jocular plural: euri. Centesimo / centesimi is virtually always used in speech rather than the foreign-sounding "cent".
Latvian
In Latvian there are still at least two concurrent usages. Some say and write eiro (which somewhat resembles the West European 'euro', but has also taken its sound from Eiropa, the Latvian word for Europe), while the standardised usage (http://www.vvk.lv/index.php?sadala=236&id=792) is eira - a word that is declinable according to the normal and convenient Latvian pattern. Eirai clearly means for the euro, eirās means in euros, and so forth. In contrast, eiro, like all Latvian words ending in an '-o', is unable to take on inflections therefore it results in ambiguous phrases like "samainīt eiro", which can be interpreted in a variety of ways: to exchange into euros, to exchange euros [for something else], to exchange one euro - and this limits the fluency of communication. The official usage of eira has been affirmed by Terminology Commission of the Latvian Academy of Sciences (http://www.lza.lv/), with the argument that a potentially frequently used term needs to fit especially well in the structure of grammar. Latvian language routinely adapts foreign words by adding declinable endings (like Ņujorka for New York, freska for fresco), although internationalisms ending in '-o' (like foto, auto) are common as well. See also ().
Lithuanian
In Lithuanian the euro and cent are called euras and centas (in common language usually eurocentas, to distinguish from the cents of the current Lithuanian currency, Litas), while plural forms are eurai and centai (eurocentai). The Lithuanian language routinely adopts foreign words by adding standardised endings, resulting in words like kompiuteris or Tonis Bleiras. Lithuania is expected to join the eurozone in 2007.
Slovenian
In Slovenian the euro and cent are called evro and cent, while plural forms are 2 evra/centa, 3 evri/centi and 10 evrov/centov. Slovenian language often adopts foreign words by substituting u after vowel with v (cf. Evropa for Europe or avtomobil for automobile). Slovenia is expected to join the eurozone in 2007.
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