The tenge

The pound

The basic unit of money of the United Kingdom is the pound, also called the pound sterling. Today the pound is equal to 100 pence. The British adopted the decimal system in 1971. Things were far more complicated in the past. The pound was subdivided into 20 shillings. The shilling was subdivided into 12 pennies. The guinea was equal to one pound one shilling. It was a gold coin used in fixing prices of valuable goods. There also were crowns, 5 -shilling silver coins; half crowns worth 2 shillings and 6 pence; florins, 2 -shilling silver coins; bobs worth 12 pence. a sixpence was a 6 -penny coin and a 3 -penny coin was called a “three pence”. There also were “ha’ pennies”, copper coins, worth half a penny, and farthings, or quarter - penny coins.

The tenge is the currency of Kazakhstan. It is divided into 100 tiyin. It was introduced on 15th of November 1993 to replace the Soviet ruble at a rate of 1 tenge = 500 rubles. The ISO-4217 code is KZT.

The word tenge in the Kazakh and most other Turkic languages means a set of scales. The origin of the word is the Turkic teğ- which means being equal, balance. The name of this currency is thus similar to the lira, pound and peso.

Exercise 11. Answer these questions.

What is the basic unit of money in the USA? How much is dollar worth? Where does the dollar circulate? When was the dollar adopted in the United States? Were the first dollars issued in copper? Do gold coins circulate now? When was the dollar adopted in Canada?

What is the basic unit of money in the UK? When was the decimal system adopted in Great Britain? How many shillings were there in the pound before 1971? Was the guinea equal to one pound sterling? What was the crown equal to? Were there any copper coins in circulation? What is the basic unit of money in Kazakhstan?

Дата добавления: 2015-03-29