# Some thoughts on the etymology of dollar.



## sotos

The common wisdom is that it is an abbrev. of _Joachimstaler_, an old German coin of 1519, with ultimate etymology from the PIE root *dhel- "a hollow": http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=dale&allowed_in_frame=0

But there is no way that the bible-savvy Germans of 1500's did not know the Gr. _talanton_, coin mentioned in the Gospel (http://concordances.org/greek/talanton_5007.htm), if not the same unit of precious metals in Homer (IL. 9.22) http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper...betic+letter=*t:entry+group=3:entry=ta/lanton
This w. is etymologically related to the "balance, weight".

I assume that the Protestants who introduced this term (dollar), being experts both in banking and the Bible, could not avoid the associations with the highly symbolic _talanton_. But possibly due to  religious respect  did not want a deliberate connection of dollar to a word used by the Lord as a symbol. So, they chose the -taler that was subconsciously convenient and made God's name obvious on the dollar. 
If the etymology from the *dhel- is correct, then still the taler/dollar is (accidentally?) within a range of words that are unofficial measuring units. This root may be the origin of the Gr. _talaros_ (a kind of basket or bowl, Od. 4.125 "silver talaron") and the modern Gr. and It. telaro (frame, wooden box for various products). Fruits, fish etc are commonly measured in _telara_ (pl.) in the market. 
This *dhel- may also be the origin of the Gr. _thylax, thylakion_ (*pocket, pouch*). Don't you love folk etymology?


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## osemnais

I've read somewhere that it comes from *doll *+ *ar*, and that ar being found in couple of other words, like scholar.


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## berndf

sotos said:


> The common wisdom is that it is an abbrev. of _Joachimstaler_, an old German coin of 1519, with ultimate etymology from the PIE root *dhel- "a hollow": http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=dale&allowed_in_frame=0
> 
> But there is no way that the bible-savvy Germans of 1500's did not know the Gr. _talanton_, coin mentioned in the Gospel (http://concordances.org/greek/talanton_5007.htm), if not the same unit of precious metals in Homer (IL. 9.22) http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper...betic+letter=*t:entry+group=3:entry=ta/lanton
> This w. is etymologically related to the "balance, weight".


Educated Germans were and are aware of a "Talent" (this is the German rendering of the word) being an old Greek unit of weight and coinage. But you are definitely stretching it a bit too far, if you suggest this has played a role in naming the coin. _Thal_ (modern spelling _Tal_) is the usual German word for _valley_ and the silver mine from where the silver came from which the coin was struck came from a valley called _Joachimsthal_.



sotos said:


> I assume that the Protestants who introduced this term (dollar)...


Protestants have nothing to do with it. The colonial _Peso_, also called _Dollar_, was a Spanish and not an English coin. After independence, the Americans introduced this coin as their national currency because it was the most widely used coin in the Americas.

The word entered Spanish via Dutch (large parts of the Netherlands were Spanish at the time; after the separation of the German and Spanish possession of the _Habsburgs_ following the reign of Karl V/Carlos I who was German emperor and Spanish king, the Habsburg possessions in the Netherlands became Spanish) where the coin was called _daler_ or _daalder_ (modern spelling). The shift in spelling from _t-_ to _d-_ in the Dutch and Low German names of the coin is a reversal of the _d-_ > _t-_ shift in High German: The Dutch and Low-German words for valley are _dal_ and _daal_ (cognate to English _dale_). The long Low-German and Dutch "a" is pronounced as a slightly rounded back vowel, somewhere between [ɑ:] and [ɒ:] ([ɒ] is the vowel in British English_ n*o*t_) and sounds a bit "o"-ish; this explains the change of "a" to "o" in Spanish.


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## LilianaB

Hello, There was also a Polish word, _talar_,which was a currency in certain European countries, in the Middle Ages. I could find out more about it. 

Added: the Polish _talar_ started being issued in the 16th century. In the Middle ages, there was _denar_. I am not sure if the two are related.


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## berndf

osemnais said:


> I've read somewhere that it comes from *doll *+ *ar*, and that ar being found in couple of other words, like scholar.


The _-ar_, originally _-er_ suffix appended to a place name means _a person coming from XXX_, as in_ London->Londoner, New York->New Yorker_. In German the suffix can also be used to derive adjectives meaning _coming from XXX _or _pertaining to XXX_. The full name of which _Thaler_, the etymon of _dollar_, is an abbreviated form is _Joachimsthaler Guldengroschen_.(_guilder-penny from Joachimsthal_) A _Guldengroschen_ (_guilder-penny_) was a silver coin equaling in value one guilder which as the name suggests was a gold coin. This type of coin came up around the year 1500 because Germany didn't have enough gold to coin the number of guilders needed. As the guilder was a high value coin, a silver equivalent had to be very heavy (about a troy ounce of pure silver; this is 5 times the weight of an English silver shilling which was also coined in the same period for the first time) and was difficult to produce. The first mint to strike _Guldengroschen_ in large quantities was that of _Joachimsthal_ (under the authority of the counts Schli(c)k, the owners of the silver mine) and therefore the name became associated with that coin.


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## Perseas

There is also the Greek _τάλιρο_ /'taliro/. It was a vernacular form for the 5 drachmas coin.
_τάλιρο_ < Italian _tallero_ < Venetian _talaro_ < German _T(h)aler_ < _Joachimst(h)aler_  (according to Prof. Babiniotis)


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## berndf

LilianaB said:


> Hello, There was also a Polish word, _talar_,which was a currency in certain European countries, in the Middle Ages.


This is just the Polish spelling for _Thaler_, influenced by the Czech spelling _tolar_.


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## LilianaB

Thank you. So this will be really the same currency.


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## francisgranada

The Hungarian version is _tallér _(used between 1499 and 1867).


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## sotos

osemnais said:


> I've read somewhere that it comes from *doll *+ *ar*,


Interesting material for the psychoanalytic approach. 
I could also imagine toll (tax) + ar. In fact telones (tax collectors) and talents are strongly associated in the Gospel.


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## berndf

I am afraid this has really nothing to do with the etymology of the word.


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## francisgranada

The right etymology is, of course, _Joachimsthaler _(as explained by Berndf #3,5). I want to add that the Hungarian _tallér _confirms indirectly also the original German suffix *-er* versus the later _-ar _in some variants (e.g. Western Slavic _talar, toliar, _etc...). 

The "natural" Hungarian form should be *_tallár _(eventually *_tellér_) due to the vowel harmony, but later loanwords tend to maintain the original vowels unchanged.


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## francisgranada

Apropos: what is the explanation for the double _"ll_" both in the word "_dollar_" and the Hungarian "_tallér_" ?

As to the Hungarian, the double consonants are clearly distinguished from the "simple" ones also in the pronounciation, so my question is, if we can imagine some German dialects (probably bayerisch-österreichisch in case of the Hungarian) where the word "taler" sounds approximately "taller" ?


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## berndf

I can only guess: To prevent that the "o" is pronounced like in "dole" (i.e. as a diphthong).


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## francisgranada

Yes, this could explain the "dollar". 

As to the Hungarian, probably a more complex study of the German-to-Hungarian phonetical correspondencies would be needed. I've mentioned the "bayerisch-österreichisch" only because most of the (older) German loanwords in Hungarian are evidently of such origin (of course, by the way ...)


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## berndf

How would _talér _and _tallér _differ in Hungarian? BTW: The Italian version also has a double "l".


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## francisgranada

berndf said:


> How would _talér _and _tallér _differ in Hungarian? BTW: The Italian version also has a double "l".


_
Talér _would be pronounced with a simple* l* (like "vale" in Italian) and _tallér _is pronounced with a "long _*l*_" (like "valle" in Italian).

Supposing a direct loan from the German _taler_, we should expect rather _táler _(long "a" and simple "l"), or _tálér_ (long "e", because of the German pronounciation of the "r").

To be exact, in Hungarian, the "long"* a* and* e *differ also in quality (not only in quantity) from their "short equivalents", but I do not want to "overcomplicate" our discussion ... 

Do you think that the Hungarian "_tallér_" might also be of (Northern) Italian origin rather than a direct German loanword?  (I do not exlude this possibility ... )


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## berndf

So Hungarian has phonemic consonant length like Italian. Standard German hasn't while Bavarian/Austrian have it in some contexts. In Thaler I would find a long "l" odd. The Bavarian/Austrian long "a" is like Hungarian un-accented "a".


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## francisgranada

To be precise: in Hungarian, the accent is always on the first syllable and all the vowels and consonants can be short or long, independently on their position in the word and/or the accent. So, in theory, all the following variants could be possible: taler, táler, tálér, talér,  taller, táller, tállér, tallér (some of them may sound "weird" but only because they are "unusual" ...)


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## berndf

francisgranada said:


> To be precise: in Hungarian, the accent is always on the first syllable and all the vowels and consonants can be short or long, independently on their position in the word and/or the accent. So, in theory, all the following variants could be possible: taler, táler, tálér, talér,  taller, táller, tállér, tallér (some of them may sound "weird" but only because they are "unusual" ...)


By "un-accented" I meant there is no accent written on the "a", i.e. "a" [ɒ] and not "á" [a].


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## francisgranada

berndf said:


> By "un-accented" I meant there is no accent written on the "a", i.e. "a" [ɒ] and not "á" [a].


Yes, of course ... Sorry, it was not intended as "criticism" but rather an explanation for others that eventually read this thread ...


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## Forero

The Spanish _dólar_ has one _l_, since _ll_ has a very different sound than _l_.


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## berndf

francisgranada said:


> Yes, of course ... Sorry, it was not intended as "criticism" but rather an explanation for others that eventually read this thread ...


I see.


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## ThomasK

Just one note: the Dutch word (for 'gulden', guilder) was* 'daalder', *but I discovered afterwards that Berndf did mention it.But then what is the meaning of that* 'da(a)l'* element? Does it refer to a valley indeed, and the full name to an inhabitant? How does one account for that evolution then?


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## berndf

ThomasK said:


> Just one note: the Dutch word (for 'gulden', guilder) was* 'daalder', *but I discovered afterwards that Berndf did mention it.But then what is the meaning of that* 'da(a)l'* element? Does it refer to a valley indeed, and the full name to an inhabitant? How does one account for that evolution then?


I am not sure it makes sense to ask that question. _Daler _is simply the Low German rendering of High-German _Thaler_ and the word entered Dutch through Low German where it became _Daalder_. In Dutch of the time both spellings were used. Here is an early 17th century text from Groeningen written in Dutch, not in Low German (for the benefit of readers who don't the region so well: Groeningen is a historically Low German speaking province of the Netherlands), where the spelling _Daler_ is used. On the other hand you find texts from the same period, even earlier, where the spelling _Daalder_ is used, e.g. here in a late 16th century text from Holland.

In German the ending _-er_ serves as a general adjective derivation for place names and _Joachimsthaler_ means _of/from/pertaining to Joachimsthal_. Re-nominalized, this can be mean _inhabitant of Joachimsthal_ but in this case it doesn't.


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## Lugubert

berndf said:


> _Daler _is simply the Low German rendering of High-German _Thaler_ and the word entered Dutch through Low German where it became _Daalder_.


Add Sweden to the _daler_ countries. We even had a _riksdaler_ (cf. Dutch _rijksdaalder_).

There were years when copper coins were issued to correspond to silver _daler_. To get the same metal value, they were of course quite heavy. You'd have to use a wheelbarrow for your money when shopping. The highest denomination 1644-45 (10  daler) weighed 19,7 kg. That is the world's heaviest coin.


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## berndf

Lugubert said:


> Add Sweden to the _daler_ countries. We even had a _riksdaler_ (cf. Dutch _rijksdaalder_).


In Swedish, it is almost certainly a Low German loan.


Lugubert said:


> There were years when copper coins were issued to correspond to silver _daler_. To get the same metal value, they were of course quite heavy. You'd have to use a wheelbarrow for your money when shopping. The highest denomination 1644-45 (10  daler) weighed 19,7 kg. That is the world's heaviest coin.


That was heavy, because it was copper, wasn't it? I remember having seen photos of the "coin".


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## ThomasK

berndf said:


> In German the ending _-er_ serves as a general adjective derivation for place names and _Joachimsthaler_ means _of/from/pertaining to Joachimsthal_. Re-nominalized, this can be mean _inhabitant of Joachimsthal_ but in this case it doesn't.



I suppose I had not read the other entry well. The 'Tal' refers to the Johannestal, I guess, is just an abbreviation of that, is it. In that case my question did not make sense indeed, sorry.


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## berndf

Yes, it is just an abbreviation.


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## francisgranada

I think that, from the etymological point of view, it is not very important if it is _Joachimsthal _or _Whicheverthal ... _The substance is that the words _dollar, thaler, daler, daalder, tallero, dólar, tallér, talar _etc ... all derive from the German _thal _plus the suffix _-er_. 

From the historical point of view, _Joachimsthal _(in historical documents also _Sankt Joachimsthal_) is a town in Bohemia (today Czech Republic) founded in the 16th century. It's Czech name is_ Jáchymov_.


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## Perseas

francisgranada said:


> The substance is that the words _dollar, thaler, daler, daalder, tallero, dólar, tallér, talar _etc ... all derive from the German _thal _plus the suffix _-er_.


...or _-ar_!  Incidentally, doll-ar is very good rhyme for another historical and much older currency name, which is still in use by several countries, ..._din-ar_!


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## berndf

francisgranada said:


> The substance is that the words _dollar, thaler, daler, daalder, tallero, dólar, tallér, talar _etc ... all derive from the German _thal _plus the suffix _-er_.


The substance is that it is derived from a place name + er and that the meaning of the component "Tal"=valley has no significance as such.


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## francisgranada

Perseas said:


> ...or _-ar_!  Incidentally, doll-ar is very good rhyme for another historical and much older currency name, which is still in use by several countries, ..._din-ar_!


_dinar, danaro, dinero, denar, denier_  ... all from the Latin _denarius _(_deni _- a distributive numeral, meaning  cca. "each ten", -_arius _a regular and productive suffix in Latin).


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## Youngfun

Some Italian "purist" linguists claim that Italian doesn't need the word "dollaro", because the ancient word "tallero" with the same etymology already exists.


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## francisgranada

E.g. the eventual Hungarian "purists" could say the same: there is no need for the word _dollár_, because there exists an ancient word _tallér _... . Do you thing there are _really _some "purists" in Italy that instead of _dollaro _prefer to say _tallero_? 

(Non è questione di purismo ma neanche di etimologia ...)


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