The Anarchyz on 31 December 2008
| Diomedes1976 said: Yes its bizarre but for all the latin-speaking countries of Europe (France,Spain ,Portugal,Italy ,Rumania) the Pound is the Sterling Livre and London is Londres ....thats the way it is ! |
It's simple, pound is the English term for the weight measuring unit... In Spanish or Portuguese to measure weight, the same unit is called "libra", in french is "livre", in Dutch is "pond", in German is "pfund", etc.
Now, the official name of UK's currency is the "Pound sterling", although a lot of people call it "British pound" or just "pound" (even "quid"), so, non-English speaking countries all they do is changing "pound" for the equivalent in their language and take "sterling" as an anglicism, that's why in Spanish and Portuguese we say "Libra esterlina", in French is the "Livre sterling", in Dutch is "pond sterling", in German is "Pfund sterling" and so on...
