LL-L "Currency" 2002.03.14 (08) [E]

[Lowlands-L]

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 L O W L A N D S - L * 14.MAR.2002 (08) * ISSN 189-5582 * LCSN 96-4226
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 A=Afrikaans Ap=Appalachian D=Dutch E=English F=Frisian L=Limburgish
 LS=Low Saxon (Low German) S=Scots Sh=Shetlandic Z=Zeelandic (Zeeuws)
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From: "oettlepe" <oettlepe at iafrica.com>
Subject: LL-L "Currency" 2002.02.03 (04) [E]

Hello all –

the debate on euros calls to mind the debates that raged over the rand
in South Africa in the 1960s (our racist, Brit-hating, pro-republican
government threw out pounds, shillings and pence in February 1961, three
months before the country became a republic).

The government used all its resources (such as the Akademie vir
Wetenskap en Kuns, the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research,
the English Academy of South Africa) to persuade people that the word
“rand” had to be pronounced Afrikaans-style, not as if it were an
English word, and that it had no plural.

They had already, over a few decades, established in Afrikaans the
German concept of mentioning money using only a singular. (I notice that
a few correspondents point to the German usage, but seem to forget that
the first stamps in pfennig issued by the German Empire gave the plural
form “pfennige”, and there was previously no standard:
Schleswig-Holstein stamps gave the value in “schillinge”, but Lübeck had
it [for multiples] as “schilling”.)

But after about a decade the English Academy put out a dissenting view,
saying that the English pronunciation of “rand” was acceptable, as was
the plural, “rands”. Nowadays nobody seems quite sure which form to use,
and you hear people speaking English and using the Afrikaans
pronunciation, the English pronunciation without a plural, and the
English with a plural. What’s rare, though, is to hear people speaking
in Afrikaans of “rande”.

In 1961 some newspapers held competitions for names for the new coins,
but none of them seem to have stuck, which is a pity. Especially in
certain local dialects we had some very colourful names for the old
coins. I forget what coins were called by these names, but in the
“Capie” dialect (an Afrikaans-English mixture spoken by Cape Coloureds,
mainly in greater Cape Town, and sometimes rather grandly called
“Kaaps”) they spoke of oulap and stuiwer.

One uniquely South African name was “tickey” (Afrikaans “tiekie”), which
belonged to the silver 3d (threepenny/thruppenny/thrippence) coin. The
word seems to be derived from the Xhosa word “cici” (the C is a click
sound made with the tongue coming off the front teeth), and seems to
refer to the size of the coin as being similar to small coin-like ear
ornaments. (The Xhosa word for “small” is “ngcingci”).

The tickey coin illustrated a variety of protea (which grows especially
on the Highveld, particularly in the eastern parts of Gauteng), and the
flower came to be known as the tickey protea (even though this protea
also appeared on the 6d [sixpenny/sixpence] coin). A famous South
African clown, who was a dwarf, was known as Tickey.

Afrikaans retains the statement “geen duit werd” – I am informed that
the duit was a very small coin in pre-revolutionary times in the
Netherlands.

But no new names have really stuck, partly because since 1961 we have
had a succession of new styles of coin, progressively smaller as the
currency lost value. At first all rand denominations were in notes, and
the largest was R10 (previously the largest had been 5 pounds, the
equivalent amount). It was a sensation to have a R1 coin in the 1970s,
but now we have a R5 coin (smaller than the original R1), the R1 coin is
about the size of a sixpence, and notes go up to R500.

In township slang some nicknames have cropped up, but they don’t seem to
have become fixed. The current R10 note is green, and the R20 brown.
They are called “cabbages” and “chocolates”.

An old name that kept its use until sometime around 1900 was the
rixdollar (rijksdaalder). This money was introduced in note form under
the rule of the Dutch East India Company, and when the British took over
at the Cape it was worth four shillings. By the time sterling was
introduced at the Cape in the 1830s, inflation had reduced the rixdollar
to 1 shilling and 6 pence (1s 6d or 1/6). Rixdollar notes were
withdrawn, but the rixdollar remained as money of account, used for real
estate transactions, its value remaining at 1s 6d.

The compilers of Afrikaans dictionaries retained the value of 1s 6d, and
from 1961 dictionaries began appearing that stated categorically (and
ludicrously) that the rixdollar was 15c!

Greetings from Port Elizabeth,

Mike Oettle

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