Re: OT coins and currency

Andreas Johansson wrote:
> Quoting R A Brown <ray@...>:
>
>
>>I notice that officially the Greeks alone are permitted to dispense with
>>those two vowels and call it /ev'ro/. But the rest of us must have 'eu'.
>
>
> I'm not sure what you're getting at here. Orthographically, the Greek is
> EYP&#937;, not EBP&#937;,
Yes - but EY is /ev/ or /ef/ (depending upon what follows). /ev/ does
not have to be spelled EB in Greek.

It will be interesting to see what the venerable Commissioners lay down
as the "correct" Cyrillic form of the name.

> and phone*ically the Swedish is [Evru]*, so Greek
> doesn't seem unique in either respect.
I did not know that - good for the Swedes!

>
> * My dictionary gives [e8)ru] as an alternate pronuncation, but nobody seems to
> use that. [e8)] is a very un-Swedish diphthong.
That was my point - [ew] is not exactly the most common of diphthongs.
Some languages, such as English, French & German, have their own
tradition of pronouncing the |eu| combo. But it would seem that some,
like Latvian, with its Eiropa = "Europe", might not so easily
accommodate it.

I still consider the name 'euro' to be poorly chosen for several reasons
(and Michael Everson seems to hold much the views); but there is little
point in dwelling on this. The name has been chosen & the currency is in
use. So maybe this aspect of the thread should close.

--
Ray
==================================
ray@carolandray.plus.com
http://www.carolandray.plus.com
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MAKE POVERTY HISTORY

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