Hryvnia
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The hryvnia or hryvnya (Ukrainian гривня; Russian гривна; Russian transliteration grivna) has been the national currency of Ukraine since 1996 when it replaced the "coupon" (or karbovanets), the temporary currency used after Ukraine left the Soviet Union and the ruble zone.
The hryvnia is divided into 100 kopiykas (singular kopiyka).
The hryvnia symbol is a cursive Ukrainian letter He, with a double horizontal stroke symbolizing stability. Hryvnia is abbreviated "грн." (hrn.) in Ukrainian. The hryvnia is represented by the ISO 4217 currency code UAH, or 980. The hryvnia symbol '₴' [may not be rendered in all browsers] has been accepted for encoding in Unicode as U+20B4 in 2004.
History
Hryvnia/grivna was used as currency in Kievan Rus' in the 11th century. The word hryvnia (or grivna) was derived from the Slavic griva. Originally the word meant neck as opposed to the current mane. Hryvnia meant something valuable worn around the neck, usually made of silver or gold. Later the word was used to describe silver or gold ingots of a certain weight. The other lesser currency units were nogata — a fur of a large animal such as a bear or a wolf, kuna — a fur of smaller animals, like mink or sable (compare Croatian kuna), and the cheapest was veksha — a fur of a squirrel.
In 2004 the National Bank of Ukraine has officially recommended to distinguish between hryvnia and hryvna in both historical and practical means. Linguistic researches cited to prove that hryvnia refers to medieval currency and hryvna to the female decoration of that time. The proper name for modern Ukrainian currency is гривня (hryvnia).
External links
de:Hrywnja no:Hryvnia ru:Гривна sv:Hryvnia uk:Гривня
