Why is Iraqi Dinar in english?

Factual Questions
1

I recently ordered a one hundred iraqi dinar bill off of ebay for about $.99

What is the worth in US Dollars?

Also, it is in english on one side. It says “Central Bank of Iraq” and “One Hundred Dinars”

Why is it in english?

2

Speculative answer, which I hope Tamerlane or another expert on MENA will react to:

Iraq was after World War I in the “British sphere of influence,” where U.K. forces would be stationed there in a quasi-protectorate status. Obviously the “official” inscription on the bills is in Arabic, the primary and official language of the country. But it’s not uncommon for a country with a non-Roman script to also have captioning in a Roman-script language, predominantly English or French. In Iraq’s case, owing to its past, English is the preferred Roman-script language.

As noted, this is purely derived from a little historical knowledge and a general sense of how stamps and currency of various nations are labelled, not any certain knowledge of what Iraq does. But it’s a “best guess” answer until someone with the SD comes along to respond.

3

According to www.xe.com it’s worth 7 cents.

I’d presume the reason for having English is simple for the note to be easily identifiable outside of the Arabic world - after all, there was a time when Iraq had a fairly strong economy, and there’d have been plenty of these things changing hands at currency exchange counters everywhere.

4

I think Polycarp and GorillaMan pretty much have the answer. The fact is that the earliest Iraqi currency was designed and adminstered from London. Here is an article that goes into some detail on the early evolution of the Iraqi currency:

http://www.pjsymes.com.au/articles/Iraq-CB.htm

Note also Syrian currency:

http://www.kcshop.com/fc/p.php?pic=F1726

Or Jordanian:

http://www.kcshop.com/fc/p.php?pic=F3470

Or Moroccan:

http://www.kcshop.com/fc/p.php?pic=F2750

For a French-themed counter-example, witness Lebanon:

http://www.kcshop.com/fc/p.php?pic=F1565

Or Tunisia:

http://www.kcshop.com/fc/p.php?pic=F843

Or an older Algerian bill:

http://www.kcshop.com/fc/p.php?pic=F2185

However this slightly newer Algerian bill dispenses with the French:

http://www.kcshop.com/fc/p.php?pic=F2186

You get the idea :).

  • Tamerlane
5

Much as the Algerians did… :smiley:

6

The old Afghani whateveryacallit, had no English IIRC, but all other local banknotes are in both Arabic and English.

7

There are probably more currencies in the world with English on them than not, especially when the major native languages are in non-Roman script, thus the new dinar is fairly typical.

That, and the US and UK have a couple hundred thousand personnel in the country with no plan of withdrawal in the foreseeable future.

8

Just a slight nitpick - the Roman-alphabet inscription on Moroccan banknotes is in French, not English. (Note “Bank Al-Maghrib”, not “Al-Magrib Bank”). Of course, with an inscription this brief, it doesn’t make much difference.

Iraqi stamps also use English, and always have done, as far as I recall. (Lots more pics here).

9

One more question - that page Tamerlane linked to has images of Afghani currency, which features the Roman script “Da Afghanistan Bank”. Is that English? Did Ali G have a hand in the design? What gives?

10

Joke answer: that’s not strictly English, but Brooklynese! :smiley:

11

In Pashto, da means ‘of’. Similar to the French de, which it is related to as an Indo-European cognate. It makes the possessive, same as of in English. But yeah, I can’t look at it without thinking of “Boys 'n da Hood”, etc.

12

In other words, the Pashto for “Afghanistan Bank” is “Afghanistan Bank” – and it’s preceded by the preposition da to produce a prepositional phrase “[Currency] of the Afghanistan Bank”??

13

No. It means ‘Bank of Afghanistan’, but their word order is different. In Pashto, the modifier always precedes the noun it modifies. In English, too, the modifier usually precedes the headword, but when it comes to possessive phrases that use “of”, e.g. “Bank of Kreplachistan”, English uses the French-style syntax. “Banque de Kreplachistan.”

14

“Bank” is spelled “banque” in French. What is “bank” in Arabic?

15

Get ready for this. OK. Ready? Here goes…

Bank in Arabic is… wait for it… “Bank”!

Bank fits into the usual Arabic phonetic pattern. So it gets an Arabic broken plural: bunûk. Likewise the word film can pass as a native Arabic word, so it gets a broken plural too: aflâm.