Dhaavak and AB tell us that Tamil script is found not just on Indian and Sri Lankan banknotes, but also on those of Singapore and Mauritius:
Anyone know whether other South Asian languages are found on banknotes outside the subcontinent? I would have guessed Trinidad (40% desi), Guyana (44%) and Fiji (38%), but not so.
Trinidad: According to the 1990 census, Indo-Trinidadians make up 40.3% of the population, Afro-Trinidadians 39.5%, Mixed-race people 18.4%, Whites 0.6% and Chinese and others 1.2%. [Link]
Guyana: … the three largest groups are the Indians or Indo-Guyanese (43.5% in 2002) who have remained predominantly rural, the Africans or Afro-Guyanese (30.2%) who constitute the majority urban population, and those of mixed origin (16.7%). [Link]
Fiji: The population of Fiji is mostly made up of native Fijians, a people of mixed Polynesian and Melanesian ancestory (54.3%), and Indo-Fijians (38.1%), descendants of Indian contract labourers brought to the islands by the British in the 19th century… A 1990 constitution guaranteed ethnic Fijian control of Fiji, but led to heavy Indian emigration; the population loss resulted in economic difficulties, but ensured that Melanesians became the majority. [Link]
<
p>Guyanese notes carry the signature of Bharrat Jagdeo, former finance minister and current president:
-donatedsb_f.jpg)
Bharrat Jagdeo (born January 23, 1964) is the socialist president of Guyana (since August 11, 1999). He had previously been a member of Janet Jagan’s cabinet, and became president after Jagan resigned for health reasons. He is the youngest head of state of the Caricom countries…
After obtaining a Master’s in Economics in Moscow in 1990, Jagdeo returned to Guyana and worked as an Economist… In March 2001, Bharrat Jagdeo won a second term in elections that underscored Guyana’s bitter racial tensions. The reelection of Jagdeo, a member of the Indo-Guyanese majority, caused rioting among the minority Afro-Guyanese, who claimed widespread election fraud. [Link]
<
p>
<
p>
Indonesian currency is called rupiahs, while the Maldives call them rufiyaa:
More notes with Tamil script — Mauritius, Sri Lanka and India:
Related post: Today in 1819, Sir Raffles Finds Simha Pura
bharrat jagdeo is probably more like it, old chap.
i’m familiar with pramoedya ananta toer’s work – and have seen a strong tamizh presence in his writings – but indonesian currency not packeth the curly sue’s … mmm… murukku’s.
I have a $1 and a $5 Trini dollar note on me, and there is nothing but English on them.
Awesome!
Which probably explains why I got spammed today by Mauritian wire-scammers purportedly from a Hon. Rajesh A Bhagwan.
Sepia Mutiny does a great job of educating us on the people of Indian origin who are spread all over the world. Before I started coming to SM, I had no clue about these Indian communities.
dhaavak – i love pramoedya toer’s works…and you’re the only other person i know (outside of my family) who has even heard of him! his stories are heart-breakingly gritty but written so well!
Is it not ILLEGAL to make copies of currency notes (or scan them)? Hmmm, just wondering…
Is it not ILLEGAL to make copies of currency notes (or scan them)? Hmmm, just wondering…
Its not allowed in public places like Kinkos etc. At home, it depends on your intent.
Illegal in which country?
‘Tis a sore point. Photoshop and scanners refuse to work with banknotes, cutting out the 95% case of legitimate usage, because of government arm-twisting. It even happens when you’re in America trying to create a thumbnail of overseas banknotes for editorial commentary such as this post.
Did you know that color laser printers print a nearly invisible serial number on every page you print, even blank pages? Same thing, over-intrusive regulation, in this case a key privacy loss.
Aiyo money, aiyo problems. While you’re at it, why not post a stereotypical caricature of Tamils ala “Padosan”. It’s sad that despite having witty contributers like Karthik, the most you could come up with in regards to Tamil was “aiyo”.
My lame puns are sad. Your unfamiliarity with the Notorious B.I.G. is sadder.
Manish,
You’ve further elucidated your ignorance of the language, and impudent proclivity to prove a point. If it was “Mo money, mo problems” that you were going for, you would have titled the post as “Innum money, innum problems”. Calling it aiyo money, aiyo problems not only fails to be a pun, it doesn’t even make sense.
That’s not a Tamil phrase, dear creative writing teacher. That’s Tambonics.
If it was colloquial vernacular that you were going for, or Tambonics as you call it, this is it. Get hip with it and stop grasping.
SD: ‘Southie’ is considered offensive by many Tamilians, ‘aiyo’ is an everyday Tamil expression, and I decline to write in the vernacular of your choice, but thank you for your offer.
Great, and now I’m getting the spiel on what hurts the sensitivites of Tamilians and the sensibilities of Tamil expressions from you. Yenaku ithuvum theve, innamum theve. (Loosely translated: I deserved this, perhaps even more)
Very few Indians in Trinidad or Guyana speak a subcontinental language. Both countries were poor backwaters under British rule, and they didn’t exactly thrive during the Cold War, after their independence, when the US was concerned about the spread of socialism and kept both places isolated. Racial politics were intentionally exacerbated, too, so putting an Indian language on the national currency wouldn’t exactly have been a good idea. The idea would be non-starter today.
manish and southie–call a truce…come on… come on… i’ll make you both a bowl of hummus that you can eat and smooth out your verbal banterings with each other…
Also, that wiki info about Guyana is misleading. To say that Indian-Guyanese form the majority of the rural population and the Afro-Guyanese make up most of the urban population misses the fact that Guyana has no cities. Georgetown, the capital, hardly qualifies. By any measurement, it’s just a town–but it is majority Afro-Guyanese. Guyana’s people live predominantly in villages along the northern coast and a few towns along the rivers. Indians and blacks tend to live in separate settlements, which are often just long, straight, single roads running south into a well-designed grid of rice paddies and cane fields.
hey… i will insult someone too if that gets me a bowl of hummus… roasted red pepper …
hey southie-D … while I am not Tamil, I truly believe the veezher didnt mean to belittle tamil… here’s what shyam selvadurai had to say on this…
but i am not clear why you are offended … can you please explain… just interested in your experiences with the colloquialism and why you consider it derogatory or racist(?).
dhaavak:
you don’t need to insult someone to get a bowl of homemade hummus… hehe.. you just need to ask :)… and red pepper it is.. next time you’re in the dirty south lemme know.. some garbanzobeans await their fate (chuckle)
since we started out talking about money – i’m hoping some guru can explain the concept behind the paper currency we use for transactions… how is that different from canadian tire money for instance?
(ok… i’m going to hold you to that chick pea… ‘cuz I’m going to be in austin first week and in sanfran later in march… close enough to you?? 🙂
dhavaak,
It’s not so much being offended by the usage as it is irritating. The reason I gave the example of Padosan was due to its overt characterization of a South Indian Carnatic teacher, which draws from a repository of stereotypes that range from a bumbling, sing-song, exageratedly accented Tamil, with incessant “Aiyo”s, to a physical stereotype depicted by the “thirunoor” or tilaka worn on the forehead as per the Shiva-bhaktha tradition. I just found it exasperating that at a moment when there should have been nothing but pride for a South Asian language represented in disparate legal tenders, I had a nasty flashback of Padosan. Maybe it was just me who found it thorny.
chick pea, my kingdom, for some good hummus. 🙂
i see your point … shades of hrundi v bakshi, I guess.
I’d like to invite any artists out there to submit their own impressions of TamBrams (Tamil Brahmins) in cartoon form. I’ll take these cartoons to local Madurai newspapers and ask them to publish them, and then we can discuss their publication and the aftermath on SM.
chick pea… i looked up your web site… hmmm… – opens rolodex – hmmm… – atlanta… atlanta… hmm… i guess i need to find a client in atlanta… hmmm…
I’ve never seen The Party, but since it’s Peter Sellers, nuff said. I guess the subaltern dynamics are slightly different with Peter Sellers portraying Asian stereotypes, than with intra-societal prejudices. But shades of Hrundi V. Bakshi, if it is what I think it is.
But shades of Hrundi V. Bakshi, if it is what I think it is.
This post involves no Punjabis slapping around a chubby, dark-skinned buffoon with bug eyes, a kink-haired wig and a sloppy pasty moustache speaking in exaggerated Tamil phonemes based on the idea that ‘it just sounds funny.’ That’s Bollyprejudice I’m well aware of.
It’s a bad, rhyming musical reference involving Tamil and money, the subjects of the post. It’s not gibberish Tamil, it’s hip-hop pun. You have every right to dis the lazy punnery. The rest is, frankly, hyperventilation.
And I’m serious about your use of ‘southie,’ people take offense. You should reconsider:
Now go find a better target for your ire than a post about the eminence of the Tamil diaspora.
Southie – You don’t expect a non-tamil speaker to know better(-no insult to Manish’s intel) than what is commonly protrayed. How many times has someone asked you if you speak Indian? Does that irritate you as well? After a point you just have to understand that people cannot know everything, so quit being sensitive to everything. It makes sense only when the doer knows better.
Oh stick of mechanical stimulation, it makes sense only when the doer is trying to speak Tamil. This post is in English. You may have noticed.
Look, dudes, go start a blog for free and post all you want about North-South prejudice. I’m tired of wasting time defending a title inartful to begin with. That was the real sin.