LINGUIST List 13.108

Thu Jan 17 2002

Sum: Pronunciation of "Cent" in European Langs

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  • Heinrich Pfandl, Pronunciation of "cent" in European languages

    Message 1: Pronunciation of "cent" in European languages

     Date: Wed, 16 Jan 2002 23:38:47 +0100
    From: Heinrich Pfandl <pfandlkfunigraz.ac.at>
    Subject: Pronunciation of "cent" in European languages


    Dear colleagues,

    First of all - once again many thanks to all of you who have responded to my question - I am very happy about each reply. I received more than 40 answers, concerning the following languages: BASQUE, CATALAN, DUTCH, ENGLISH (BRITISH), ENGLISH (IRELAND), FINNISH, FRENCH (BELGIUM), FRENCH (CANADA), FRENCH (FRANCE), GAELIC: IRISH (L), GERMAN (AUSTRIA), GERMAN (GERMANY), GREEK, ICELANDIC, ITALIAN, LITHUANIAN, POLISH, PORTUGUESE, SPANISH (SPAIN), SPANISH (MEXICO), SWEDISH, WELSH.

    It's a pity that I have no information about most of the Slavic languages, nor about Norwegian, Danish, Romanian, Albanian, Turkish. As for the Slavic languages, my own competence will allow some remarks (see below). I am still hoping for answers about the languages mentioned. The fact that in Norway and the Slavic speaking countries the Euro is not used is not an argument: we have no sea and no elephants in Austria, but we have words for these things ?

    As my English is far from being perfect and the time is very limited, I cannot here discuss all the answers, nor reply to everybody personally. Let me therefore point out some issues:

    GENERAL: Currency is, of course, part of our (national, individual, European etc.) identity. As Muriel Norde (muriel.nordehum.uva.nl) explains, the NETHERLANDS are in the most favoured position in this regard: ""Cent" is not taken from the "American model", as you suggest, but it is one of those very rare successes of Dutch diplomacy in Europe. A cent was the smallest unit in Dutch currency (100 cents was 1 "gulden"). One of the arguments used by the Dutch government to make people enthusiastic about the Euro was that "we will get our 1 cent back" (the Dutch 1 cent coin was withdrawn from circulation some time in the late 70s or early 80s, I don't quite recall). Since January 1 people mostly say "eurocent" when referring to the new unit, but I expect this will become "cent" again once Dutch currency can no longer be used and there will be no confusion whether one means Dutch cents or eurocents. So as far as cents are concerned nothing much will change here, no identity problems for us ;-)". Job M. van Zuijlen (zuijlenattglobal.net) makes a similar remark: "The DUTCH used to have a "cent" all along, pronounced /sent/, so I have to disagree with your observation that the European money has been modeled after or need to distinguish itself from its American counterpart (historically, the American cent was probably modeled after Europe, but I have no proof of that)."

    No identity problems either for the GREEKs, who have written on their cent coins the traditional "lepto"/"lepta". "The previous unit of currency, the drachma, was divided into 100 lepta, though the last denomination of less than a drachma became obsolete in about 1982." (cited from Andrew Wilcox). There are also a lot of other languages, who in different ways integrate the word for the new coin: In FRENCH there is still a fluctuation/variation between "cent" (pronounced [sent] or even [sents] to avoid homonymy with the word for "hundred"), "eurocents", "centimes", "eurocentimes", "centimes Euro". "Actually, directives in France ask the public to use (in cheques, for example) the old term "centimes" to avoid confusion with "hundred"" (cited from Rami Gideon, grlovenoos.fr). Some of the mentioned forms are also registered in Belgium by V�ronique Delvaux ([sent], [sents], eurocentimes, centimes d'euro), who besides mentions a zero-strategy of avoidance: "Ceci co�te 14,93 euros" [katorzvirgylnona~ttrwazOro] (end of citation) and the like (vedelvauulb.ac.be).

    There were also some contirbutions about CANADIAN FRENCH, where the American cent is rendered by "cenne" (info: Chris Miller: millercMs.UManitoba.CA). Marc Picard (picardvax2.concordia.ca) writes about this question with a lot of humour: Since Canada and the US have dollars and cents, speakers of North American French had to francisize cent(s) a long time ago. Colloquially, the word is pronounced /sEn/ though purists will try to change this to /sEnt/, which is absurd since it violates the phonotactics of the language. Other misguided souls, having come to believe that /sEn/ is an 'anglicisme', will substitute sou.

    Other Romance languages seem to have the following constellations: In Spain the word 'cent' is not used at all. In CATALAN, it is "c�ntim" (pron. ['sEntim] E = open /e/), In SPANISH, the word used for the word 'cent' is "c�ntimo" (pron. ['THentimo], TH = interdental voiceless fricative]. It is the name of an old fraction of the former currency, the peseta) (information given by . Juan C. Ruiz: ruiztrad.uji.es). "In Valencia, the first consonant is pronounced as an [s], whereas in Castillian it is pronounced as a voiceless dental fricative." (Laura Wright: lcw21cam.ac.uk) "This was the word for the 100th part of a peseta, when the peseta still had them, back to the 60�s and before. (...) There is another word in Spanish for "cent", i.e. "centavo", which is used in Latin America and the USA. (...) This term could hardly be used for the euro cents because of its (Latin) American connotations and because of the 2 century tradition of "c�ntimos" in Spain" (Cesar Montoliu-Garcia: Cesar.Montoliu-Garciacec.eu.int)

    Joaquim Brand�o de Carvalho (jbrandaoext.jussieu.fr)informs us, that in PORTUGUESE "middle class speakers of Portuguese often said "cent" and "cents" as [sents], instead of the normal native pronunciation, which would be [sentS], /-s/ being palatalized in coda position. However, since the introduction of the euro, the same people tend to replace the clearly American "cent" with "c�ntimo". (...) It will be interesting to see if any purist (and nationalist) attitude will be strong enough to reintroduce the traditional words "centavo" and "tost�o" for the 100th and the 10th part of the euro respectively."

    It is not surprising, that there was not a single answer from Italy about ITALIAN; the only Daniel Buncic (d.buncicuni-bonn.de) was the only one to communicate that Italians, as he heard from a friend, say "sents" and not "centesimi", as we expected. A student of mine from South Tirol (Italy), however, told me today, that Italians mostly use "centesimo/centesimi".

    In BRITISH and IRISH ENGLISH, the currency is pronounced as [sent] and [youro]. Amounts, where there are no euro should be spoken as "10 euro cent" (info and transcription: John Dunnion: johnkavanagh.ucd.ie). As for the plural, it seems to be "cent", rather than the expected "cents" (info: Steven Chin: schiniupui.edu). Steven Chin also refers to the homepage of the European Union (http://europa.eu.int/index_de.htm). On this site you can find the table of spellings for "euro" and "cent" in the official Community languages.

    In ISLANDIC the word for "cent" has not been integrated: In the South, the nasal consonant is voiceless, an the t not aspirated, whereas in the North the nasal consonant is voiced and the t is aspirated (Info: Gunnar Hrafn: hrafnIMS.Uni-Stuttgart.DE).

    CELTIC LANGUAGES: GAELIC speakers in Ireland pronounce the word according to the English pronunciation (John Dunnion). Speakers of WELSH will also probably borrow the English pronunciation first, though the spelling "cent" would suggest a pronunciation like "kent" (info: Bob Morris Jones: bmjaber.ac.uk).

    In IRISH GAELIC the situation seems to be rather complicated, as is shown by the article "Euro or eora? Cent or ceint? The new currency and Ireland" at http://www.evertype.com/standards/euro/euro-eora-en.pdf by Michael Everson.

    In BASQUE, the currency is pronounced "zentimo" (with a voiced s at the beginning). (Info: Juan C. Ruiz: johnkavanagh.ucd.ie)

    In LITHUANIAN, there are "centas" as a 1/100 part of "litas" with normal Lithuanian inflexion (centas, cento, centui etc.). It is not clear, if this word will also be used for the new Euro-cents. (Aleksas Girdenis: girdeniseunet.lt).

    In FINNISH, everybody uses the form "sentti" (Info: Raija Solatie": raija.solatiekolumbus.fi, Ekaterina Protasova: ekaterina.protassovahelsinki.fi), notwithstanding the fact, that "the word "sentti" has been used for a long time in Finnish not only with the meaning of a 100th part of a dollar, but also as a short form for "senttimetri" (centimetre)" (Info: Aino Piehl: aino.piehlkotus.fi)

    In all SLAVIC LANGUAGES (there is evidence for SLOVENIAN, CROATIAN, POLISH - thanks to Andrzej Zychla: zychlapoczta.onet.pl -, RUSSIAN), the pronunciation for the new euro-cents seems to coincide with the form used for the American money: [tsent], [tsenty]. In ambiguous cases, Slavic languages use forms like [evrotsent(y)].

    The only language that indiscriminately uses the American/English pronunciation, seems to be GERMAN. All given answers confirm my own observation, that the majority of Germans and Austrians use the pronunciation [sent], the plural seems to be either [sent], or [sents]. On the other hand, most German speaking people continue to use the pronunciation [tsent], when they speak about American, Canadian or Australian currency. My colleague Daniel Buncic (dbuncicweb.de) refers to a discussion "on http://www.teltarif.de/forum/s6194/tindex.html using the interesting argument that if you say [oiro], you have to say [tsent] as well (and if you say [sent] you have to be consistent and use the english pronunciation [juro). Anyway, my impression is that the majority of Germans does not care at all about this dispute (and therefore did not take part in the opinion poll mentioned above), and they say [sent] because English is cool." Furthermore, Daniel Buncic writes: "In Germany both the Gesellschaft f�r deutsche Sprache and the Verein Deutsche Sprache have pointed out that the correct pronunciation ought to be [tsent] (just as we pronounce Zentner ['tsentner] 'hundredweight' < Lat. centum). A call-in poll run by the TV station ZDF resulted in an overwhelming 70% majority for this pronunciation, too. For more information see http://vds-ev.de/ (the relevant information is currently located at their homepage)." I also appreciate Daniel Buncic's following lines: "Just the same, the Germans could go on calling 1/100 of their currency "Pfennig", and in situations where the new "Pfennig" could be confused with DM 0.01, "Europfennig". (The 10-Pfennig coin has always been called "Groschen", although this name has not been official since 1871) (....) Consequently, "Groschen" ought to be the name for the cent in Austria, "penni�" in Finland, "centimos" in Spain, and - yes, "cents" in the Netherlands, because they have had this name already for the hundredth part of a florin/gulden. In international communication there would not be any problem anyway, since you write Euro 0.01 or EUR 0.01 for a cent." (end of citation) On the other hand, I was just told by Walter Gr�nzweig (Dortmund; communication by telephone) that the pronunciation [tsent] is getting more an more popular in Germany, which is, maybe, explained by the difficulty for German speakers from Northern and Middle Germany to use a voiceless [s] at the beginning of a word (see below). In Austria I heard the joke "host zwoanzk [tsent]?" (upper Styrian dialect for "Hast du zwanzig Zaehne/Cent?"), which could also mean 'Do you have twenty teeth?'. Michael Riessler (michael.riesslerrz.hu-berlin.de) asks himself, whether such words as Groschen (used in Northern Germany for 10 pfennigs) and sechser (used in Berlin paradoxically for a coin of 5 pfennigs) will survive - I think, that there is no reason for them to survive.

    As is shown by this material, the German (not Austrian) linguistic reality reflects an anglicizm in at least two regards: first of all, a voiceless s is not common in German (except for English loans, like Sex - not always - , Single, Shopping-Center, City). In Austria, the loan is facilitated by the fact that there are no lenis consonants at the beginning of the word. Secondly, plurals on -s contradict the morphology of German, where plurals in most examples have a trochaic structure (T�ren, Kinder, Busse, B�ume vs. T�r, Kind, Bus, Baum). See also Neue Z�rcher Zeitung FEUILLETON Samstag, 05.01.2002 Nr.3 58, article by Joachim Guentner.

    The discussion has shown the necessity of systematically investigating at least three further questions:

    1. What is the plural of the word for "cent" in the European languages? (How do you say: "I have only 15 cent/s" and "I have a lot of cent/s in my pocket") 2. How is the word "euro" pronounced in different European languages? 3. What is the plural of "euro" in these languages? ("15 euro/s"; "I have a lot of euro/s in my pocket")

    (I will submit this questions to the list in an other mail).

    Questions 2 and 3 have already beendescribed by the Austrian linguists H.C.Lusch�tzky and Liliana Madelska in an article (which I have not received yet) in: Naturally!: linguistic studies in honour of Wolfgang Ulrich Dressler, presented on the occasion of his 60th birthday / ed. by Chris Schaner-Wolles ; John Rennison ; Friedrich Neubarth . - 1. ed. ital. . - Torino : Rosenberg & Sellier , 2001 . - XXXIV, 514 S. . - (Linguistica ; 19 ), pp ??