Currency symbol

A currency symbol or currency sign is a graphic symbol used to denote a currency unit. Usually it is defined by a monetary authority, such as the national central bank for the currency concerned.

A symbol may be positioned in various ways, according to national convention: before, between or after the numeric amounts: €2.50, 2,50€ and 250.

Symbols are neither defined nor listed by international standard ISO 4217, which only assigns three-letter codes.

Usage

When writing currency amounts, the location of the symbol varies by language. For currencies in English-speaking countries and in most of Latin America, the symbol is placed before the amount, as in $20.50. In most other countries, including many in Europe, the symbol is placed after the amount, as in 20,50€. Exceptionally, the symbol for the Cape Verdean escudo (like the Portuguese escudo, to which it was formerly pegged) is placed in the decimal separator position, as in 250.

Design

Older currency symbols have evolved slowly, often from previous currencies. The modern dollar and peso symbols originated from the mark employed to denote the Spanish dollar, whereas the pound and lira symbols evolved from the letter L (written until the seventeenth century in blackletter type as ${\displaystyle {\mathfrak {L}}}$) standing for libra, a Roman pound of silver.

Newly invented currencies and currencies adopting new symbols have symbolism meaningful to their adopter. For example, the euro sign € is based on ϵ, an archaic form of the Greek epsilon, to represent Europe; the Indian rupee sign ₹ is a blend of the Latin letter 'R' with the Devanagari letter र (ra); and the Russian Ruble sign ₽ is based on Р (the Cyrillic capital letter 'er').

There are other considerations, such as how the symbol is rendered on computers and typesetting. For a new symbol to be used, its glyphs needs to be added to computer fonts and keyboard mappings already in widespread use, and keyboard layouts need to be altered or shortcuts added to type the new symbol. For example, the European Commission was criticized for not considering how the euro sign would need to be customized to work in different fonts. The original design was also exceptionally wide. These two factors have led to most type foundries designing customized versions that match the 'look and feel' of the font to which it is to be added, often with reduced width.

List of currency symbols currently in use

Rupee symbols by language

List of historical currency symbols

Some of these symbols may not display correctly.

See also

• List of currencies
• List of circulating currencies
• Currency Symbols (Unicode block)
• International currency symbol

References

1. Currency sign (generic)
2. Indian rupee sign
3. List of typographical symbols and punctuation marks
4. Currency
5. Cent (currency)
6. List of circulating currencies
7. Dollar sign
8. Currency Symbols (Unicode block)
9. Euro sign
10. European Currency Unit
11. ISO 4217
12. Indian rupee
13. Pound sign
14. Philippine peso sign
15. Turkish lira
16. Azerbaijani manat
17. Renminbi
18. Z with stroke
19. Salvadoran colón
20. Turkish lira sign