Curaçao
Curaçao is a Lesser Antilles island in the southern Caribbean Sea and the Dutch Caribbean region, about 65 km north of the Venezuelan coast. It is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands; the country was part of the Curaçao and Dependencies colony and is now formally called the Country of Curaçao. Curaçao has a population over 160,000 in an area of 444 km2 and its capital is Willemstad. Before the dissolution of the Netherlands Antilles on 10 October 2010, Curaçao was administered as the "Island Territory of Curaçao", one of five island territories of the former Netherlands Antilles. In the 16th and 17th centuries, sailors on long voyages would get scurvy from lack of vitamin C. According to some accounts, Portuguese sailors who were ill were left at the island now known as Curaçao; when their ship returned, they had recovered cured from scurvy after eating fruit with vitamin C. From on the Portuguese referred to this as Ilha da Curação. Another explanation is that it is derived from the Portuguese word for heart, referring to the island as a centre in trade.
An unstressed o in Continental Portuguese is pronounced, so the Portuguese word for heart, coração, is pronounced. Spanish traders took the name over as Curaçao, followed by the Dutch. Another explanation is that Curaçao was the name by which the indigenous peoples of the island identified themselves, their autonym. Early Spanish accounts support this theory, as they refer to the indigenous peoples as Indios Curaçaos, or "healing Indians". From 1525, the island was featured on Spanish maps as Curaçote and Curasaore. By the 17th century, it appeared on most maps in Portuguese as Curazao. On a map created by Hieronymus Cock in 1562 in Antwerp, the island was referred to as Qúracao; the original inhabitants of Curaçao were Arawak people. Their ancestors had migrated to the island from the mainland of South America hundreds of years before Europeans arrived, they were believed to have migrated from the Amazon Basin. The first Europeans recorded as seeing the island were members of a Spanish expedition under the leadership of Alonso de Ojeda in 1499.
The Spaniards enslaved most of the Arawak as their labour force. They sometimes forcibly relocated the survivors to other colonies. In 1634, after the Netherlands achieved independence from Spain caused by Eighty Years' War, Dutch colonists started to occupy the island. European powers were trying to establish bases in the Caribbean; the Dutch West India Company founded the capital of Willemstad on the banks of an inlet called the Schottegat. Curaçao had been ignored by colonists; the natural harbour of Willemstad proved to be an ideal spot for trade. Commerce and shipping -- and piracy -- became. In addition, in 1662, the Dutch West India Company made Curaçao a centre for the Atlantic slave trade bringing slaves here for sale elsewhere in the Caribbean and on the mainland of South America. Sephardic Jews with ancestors from the Iberian Peninsula settled here with the Dutch and in then-Dutch Brazil. In the Franco-Dutch War, Count Jean II d'Estrées planned to attack Curaçao, his fleet – 12 men of war, three fireships, two transports, a hospital ship, 12 privateers – met with disaster, losing seven men-of-war and two other ships when they struck reefs off the Las Aves archipelago.
They had made a serious navigational error, hitting the reefs on 11 May 1678, a week after setting sail from Saint Kitts. Curaçao marked the events by a day of thanksgiving, celebrated for decades into the 18th century, to commemorate the island's escape from being invaded by the French. Although a few plantations were established on the island by the Dutch, the first profitable industry established on Curaçao was salt mining; the mineral was a lucrative export at the time and was a major factor for the island being part of international commerce. Many Dutch colonists grew affluent from the slave trade, the city built impressive colonial buildings. Curaçao architecture blends Dutch and Spanish colonial styles; the wide range of historic buildings in and around Willemstad has resulted in the capital being designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Landhouses and West African style kas di pal'i maishi are scattered all over the island; some can be visited. In 1795, a major slave revolt took place under the leaders Tula Rigaud, Louis Mercier, Bastian Karpata, Pedro Wakao.
Up to 4000 slaves on the northwest section of the island revolted. More than 1,000 slaves took part in extended gunfights. After a month, the slave owners suppressed the revolt. Curaçao's proximity to South America resulted in interaction with cultures of the coastal areas more than a century after independence of Netherlands from Spain. Architectural similarities can be seen between the 19th-century parts of Willemstad and the nearby Venezuelan city of Coro in Falcón State; the latter has been designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Netherlands established economic ties with Viceroyalty of New Granada, which includes present-day countries of Colombia and Venezuela. In the 19th century, Curaçaoans such as Manuel Piar and Luis Brión were prominently engaged in the wars of independen
Rhenish guilder
Rhenish guilder is the name of the golden, base currency coin of the Rhineland in the 14th and 15th centuries. Most weighed between 3.4 and 3.8 grams. The Rhenish gold guilder was created when the electors of Cologne and Mainz were rewarded for their support in the election of Charles IV with a right to mint gold coins, a right derived from the Golden Bull. Trier was given the privilege on 25 November 1346, Cologne on 26 November 1346 and Mainz on 22 January 1354; as a result of the widespread minting of gold guilders by the electors of Cologne, Mainz and the Electorate of the Palatinate, Rhenish guilders achieved significance in the 14th and 15th centuries and became the base currency of the Rhine region. Due to a lack of gold there was a shortage of guilders in the late 15th and 16th century, they were minted with a gold content reduced by up to a half. Rhenish gold guilders were of central importance to the German monetary system until modern times, it developed into the most common long-distance trading coin in Bohemia, Germany, Moravia, the Netherlands and France.
Not only gold, but silver coins were valued according to their value in Rhenish guilders, thus their rate was set. The annual rent in the Augsburg Fuggerei is to this day a Rhenish guilder; when the imperial minting ordinance was passed, the silver equivalent of the gold guilder became the standard coin. The Rhenish guilder was replaced as a gold coin by the ducat; however the Rhenish guilder continued to be used as a coin, valued at 60 Kreuzer, until the 17th century. Guilder Pictures
Netherlands Antillean guilder
The Netherlands Antillean guilder is the currency of Curaçao and Sint Maarten, which until 2010 formed the Netherlands Antilles along with Bonaire and Sint Eustatius. It is subdivided into 100 cents; the guilder was replaced by the United States dollar on 1 January 2011 on Bonaire and Sint Eustatius. On Curaçao and Sint Maarten, the Netherlands Antillean guilder was proposed to be replaced by a new currency, the Caribbean guilder, but this has been stalled indefinitely by negotiations over the establishment of a separate central bank for Curaçao. In Papiamentu, the local language of Aruba and Curaçao, the guilder is called a "florin"; the ISO-4217 code, ANG, is derived from ANtilliaanse Gulden, while the currency symbol, NAFl, is derived from Netherlands Antilles Florin. In the 18th century, the Dutch guilder circulated in the Netherlands Antilles; this was supplemented in 1794 by an issue of coins specific for the Dutch holdings in the West Indies. At this time, the guilder was subdivided into 20 stuiver.
Between 1799 and 1828, the reaal circulated on the islands, with 1 reaal = 6 stuiver or 3 1⁄3 reaal = 1 guilder. The Dutch guilder was reintroduced in 1828, now subdivided into 100 cents; when currency began once more to be issued for use in the Netherlands Antilles, it was issued in the name of Curaçao, with the first banknotes and coins, denominated in the Dutch currency, introduced in 1892 and 1900, respectively. The name "Netherlands Antilles" was introduced in 1952. In 1940, following the German occupation of the Netherlands, the link to the Dutch currency was broken, with a peg to the U. S. dollar of 1.88585 guilders = 1 dollar established. The peg was adjusted to 1.79 guilders = 1 dollar in 1971. In 1986, Aruba thereby left the Netherlands Antilles. Shortly after that, Aruba began to issue its own currency, the Aruban florin, which replaced the Netherlands Antillean guilder at par. In 2011, a year after the dissolution of the Netherlands Antilles, Bonaire and Sint Eustatius switched to the United States dollar, the Netherlands Antillean guilder ceased to be legal tender in those territories.
Curaçao and Sint Maarten intended to replace the currency, thus ceased production of the currency, but as of December 2018, these territories still use the Antillean guilder. Since 2018 banknotes and coins now require replacement and there are only two years of the Antilles guilder physical currency remaining: there is still a possibility that the islands could opt for the euro instead or the US dollar. In 1892, the Curaçaosche Bank introduced notes in denominations of 25 and 50 cents, 1 and 2 1⁄2 guilders; this was the only issue of the cent denominations. Notes for 5, 10, 25, 50, 100, 250 and 500 guilders followed in 1900; the 1 and 2 1⁄2 guilder notes were suspended after 1920 but reintroduced by the government in 1942 as muntbiljet. From 1954, the name "Nederlandse Antillen" appeared on the reverse of the notes of the Curaçaosche Bank and, from 1955, the muntbiljet was issued in the name of the Nederlandse Antillen. In 1962, the bank's name was changed to the Bank van de Nederlandse Antillen.
Starting in 1969, notes dated 28 AUGUSTUS. The front of these notes all feature the Statuut monument at front left instead of the allegorical seated woman found on the preceding issues, on the back there is a new coat of arms. In 1970, a final issue of muntbiljet was made in denominations of both 2 1⁄2 guilders; the 500 guilder note was not issued after 1962. The 5 and the 250 guilder note was not issued after 1998; the 5 guilder was replace with a coin. Economy of the Netherlands Antilles Central banks and currencies of the Caribbean Banknotes of the Netherlands Antilles
Silver coin
Silver coins are the oldest mass-produced form of coinage. Silver has been used as a coinage metal since the times of the Greeks; the ancient Persians used silver coins between 612-330 BC. Before 1797, British pennies were made of silver; as with all collectible coins, many factors determine the value of a silver coin, such as its rarity, demand and the number minted. Ancient silver coins coveted by collectors include the Denarius and Miliarense, while more recent collectible silver coins include the Morgan Dollar and the Spanish Milled Dollar. Other than collector's silver coins, silver bullion coins are popular among people who desire a "hedge" against currency inflation or store of value. Silver has an international currency symbol of XAG under ISO 4217; the earliest coins in the world were minted in the kingdom of Lydia in Asia Minor around 600 BC. The coins of Lydia were made of electrum, a occurring alloy of gold and silver, available within the territory of Lydia; the concept of coinage, i.e. stamped lumps of metal of a specified weight spread to adjacent regions, such as Aegina.
In these neighbouring regions, inhabited by Greeks, coins were made of silver. As Greek merchants traded with Greek communities throughout the Mediterranean Sea, the Greek coinage concept soon spread through trade to the entire Mediterranean region; these early Greek silver coins were denominated in its fractions. More or less with the development of the Lydian and Greek coinages, a coinage system was developed independently in China; the Chinese coins, were a different concept and they were made of bronze. In the Mediterranean region, the silver and other precious metal coins were supplemented with local bronze coinages, that served as small change, useful for transactions where small sums were involved; the coins of the Greeks were issued by a great number of city states, each coin carried an indication of its place of origin. The coinage systems were not the same from one place to another. However, the so-called Attic standard, Corinthian standard, Aiginetic standard and other standards defined the proper weight of each coin.
Each of these standards were used in multiple places throughout the Mediterranean region. In the 4th century BC, the Kingdom of Macedonia came to dominate the Greek world; the most powerful of their kings, Alexander the Great launched an attack on the Kingdom of Persia and conquering it. Alexander's Empire fell apart after his death in 323 BC, the eastern mediterranean region and western Asia were divided into a small number of kingdoms, replacing the city state as the principal unit of Greek government. Greek coins were now issued by kings, only to a lesser extent by cities. Greek rulers were now minting coins as far away as central Asia; the tetradrachm was a popular coin throughout the region. This era is referred to as the hellenistic era. While much of the Greek world was being transformed into monarchies, the Romans were expanding their control throughout the Italian Peninsula; the Romans minted their first coins during the early 3rd century BC. The earliest coins were - like other coins in the region - silver drachms with a supplementary bronze coinage.
They reverted to the silver denarius as their principal coin. The denarius remained an important Roman coin. During the 3rd century AD, the antoninianus was minted in quantity; this was a "silver" coin with low silver content, but developed through stages of debasement to pure bronze coins. Although many regions ruled by Hellenistic monarchs were brought under Roman control, this did not lead to a unitary monetary system throughout the Mediterranean region. Local coinage traditions in the eastern regions prevailed, while the denarius dominated the western regions; the local Greek coinages are known as Greek Imperial coins. Apart from the Greeks and the Romans other peoples in the Mediterranean region issued coins; these include the Phoenicians, the Carthaginians, the Jews, the Celts and various regions in the Iberian Peninsula and the Arab Peninsula. In regions to the East of the Roman Empire, that were controlled by the Hellenistic Seleucids, the Parthians created a kingdom in Persia; the Parthians issued a stable series of silver drachms and tetradrachms.
After the Parthians were overthrown by the Sassanians in 226 AD, the new dynasty of Persia began the minting of their distinct thin, spread fabric silver drachms, that became a staple of their empire right up to the Arab conquest in the 7th century AD. In the Byzantine Empire, what was left of the eastern Roman Empire, the currency system was reorganised, but the coinage consisted of copper and gold. A silver miliaresion was developed with a cross on steps obverse and an inscription forming the reverse; the cup-shaped trachy were issued, but the silver content of these declined towards only a few per cent ending up as a pure copper coin after the Fourth Crusade. Muhammad established the Constitution of Medina in 622 in the Arabian Peninsula. After the death of Mohammed in 632, the state was governed by caliphs, thus named'the Caliphate'; as the caliphate expanded into Byzantine territories to the Northwest and conquered the Sassanian Empire to the Northeast, the question of a caliphal coinage became imminent.
The caliphate adapted the Sassanian drachm as their silver coin. Arabic inscriptions were added to the Sassanian coin type; the type was c
Surinamese guilder
The guilder was the currency of Suriname until 2004, when it was replaced by the Surinamese dollar. It was divided into 100 cents; until the 1940s, the plural in Dutch was cents, with centen appearing on some early paper money, but after the 1940s the Dutch plural became cent. The Surinamese guilder was at par with the Dutch guilder. In 1940, following the occupation of the Netherlands, the currency was pegged to the U. S. dollar at a rate of 1.88585 guilders = 1 dollar. The Surinamese guilder suffered from high inflation in the beginning of the 1990s, it was replaced by the Surinamese dollar on 1 January 2004 at a rate of 1 dollar. To save cost of manufacturing, coins of less than 5 guilders were made legal for their face value in the new currency. Thus, these coins increased their purchasing power by a thousandfold overnight; until 1942, Dutch coins circulated in Suriname. Starting that year, coins were minted in the United States for use in Netherlands Guiana, some of which circulated in the Netherlands Antilles.
These coins were in denominations of 5, 10 and 25 cents. In 1962, coins were introduced bearing the name Suriname for the first time; these were in denominations of 5, 10 and 25 cents and 1 guilder. The 1 cent was bronze, the 5 cent nickel-brass, the 10 and 25 cents were cupro-nickel and the 1 guilder was silver. Aluminium 1 and 5 cent coins were introduced in 1974 and 1976. In 1987, copper-plated steel replaced aluminium in the 1 and 5 cent coins and cupro-nickel 100 and 250 cent coins were introduced. In 1826, the Algemene Nederlandsche Maatschappij issued 3 guilder notes; these were followed in 1829 by notes of the West Indies Bank in denominations of 1⁄2, 1, 2, 3, 5, 10 and 50 guilders. The Bank introduced 10, 15 and 25 centen and 25 guilder notes in 1837, followed by 100, 200 and 300 guilder notes in 1865; the Surinaamsche Bank introduced 50 guilder notes in 1901, followed by 10 guilders in 1915, 200 guilders in 1925, 50 guilders in 1926, 100 guilders in 1927, 5 guilders in 1935, 2 1⁄2 guilders in 1940, 25 guilders in 1941, 1000 guilders in 1943 and 300 guilders in 1948.
The government issued silver certificates between 1920 for 1⁄2, 1 and 2 1⁄2 guilders. Further issues for 50 cent and 1 guilder were introduced in 1940; the 50 cent coin was issued until 1942, with 2 1⁄2 guilders introduced in 1950. The silver certificates were superseded in 1960 by muntbiljet for 1 and 2 1⁄2 guilders, which were issued until 1985. In 1957, the Central Bank of Suriname took over paper money production, issuing notes for 5, 10, 25, 100 and 1000 guilders. 500 guilder notes were introduced in 1982, followed by 250 guilders in 1988. 2000 guilder notes were introduced in 1995, followed by 5000 and 10,000 guilders in 1997 and 25,000 guilders in 2000. The last series of banknotes was introduced in 2000 in denominations of 5, 10, 25, 100, 500, 1000, 5000, 10,000 and 25,000 guilders; this colorful issue has native flowers on the backs. Economy of Suriname Media related to Surinamese guilder at Wikimedia Commons
Aruban florin
The florin is the currency of Aruba. It is subdivided into 100 cents; the florin was introduced in 1986. Although the Aruban florin is pegged to the United States dollar at the rate of 1.79 florin per USD, the used street value is at 1.75 florin per USD. In 1986, coins were introduced in 10, 25 and 50 cents and 1 and 2 1⁄2 florin; the 5-florin banknote was replaced by a square coin and the 2 1⁄2-florin coin was removed from circulation. The 5-florin was replaced in 2005 with a round gold-coloured coin, because the old square 5-florin coin was too easy to counterfeit. All coins are struck in nickel-bonded steel with exception of the 5-florin, an alloy of copper and other metals; the 50-cent is the only square-shaped coin remaining commonly referred to as a "yotin" by the locals. On the back of each 1-, 2 1⁄2- and 5-florin coin is a profile view of the current head of state of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. From 1986 to 2013, this was queen Beatrix and since 2014 it has been king Willem-Alexander.
Moreover, only these three denominations have writing on their edge, namely "God Zij Met Ons" meaning'God Be With Us'. The Central Bank of Aruba introduced banknotes in denominations of 5, 10, 25, 50 and 100 florin and dated January 1, 1986. In 1990, the bank issued the same denominations in a colorful new family of notes designed by Aruban artist Evelino Fingal; as director of the Archaeological Museum, Fingal found inspiration in old Indian paintings and pot shards. Fingal combined decorative motifs found on pre-Columbian pottery with pictures of animals unique to the island; the 500-florin notes were introduced in 1993, with the 5-florin note replaced by a square coin in 1995. As of 2003 a new print was started of the already existing banknotes of 10, 25, 50, 100 and 500 florin; these new banknotes were made with new safety features to counteract counterfeiting, but retained their look. Economy of Aruba Central banks and currencies of the Caribbean Banknotes of Aruba Nos Florin
Middle High German
Middle High German is the term for the form of German spoken in the High Middle Ages. It is conventionally dated between 1050 and 1350, developing from Old High German and into Early New High German. High German is defined as those varieties of German. While there is no standard MHG, the prestige of the Hohenstaufen court gave rise in the late 12th century to a supra-regional literary language based on Swabian, an Alemannic dialect; this historical interpretation is complicated by the tendency of modern editions of MHG texts to use normalised spellings based on this variety, which make the written language appear more consistent than is the case in the manuscripts. Scholars are uncertain as to whether the literary language reflected a supra-regional spoken language of the courts. An important development in this period was the Ostsiedlung, the eastward expansion of German settlement beyond the Elbe–Saale line which marked the limit of Old High German; this process started in the 11th century, all the East Central German dialects are a result of this expansion.
"Judeo-German", the precursor of the Yiddish language, sees attestation in the 13th–14th centuries, as a variety of Middle High German written in Hebrew characters. The Middle High German period is dated from 1050 to 1350. An older view puts the boundary with New High German around 1500. There are several phonological criteria which separate MHG from the preceding Old High German period: the weakening of unstressed vowels to ⟨e⟩: OHG taga, MHG tage the full development of Umlaut and its use to mark a number of morphological categories the devoicing of final stops: OHG tag > MHG tac Culturally, the two periods are distinguished by the transition from a predominantly clerical written culture, in which the dominant language was Latin, to one centred on the courts of the great nobles, with German expanding its range of use. The rise of the Hohenstaufen dynasty in Swabia makes the South West the dominant region in both political and cultural terms. Demographically, the MHG period is characterised by a massive rise in population, terminated by the demographic catastrophe of the Black Death.
Along with the rise in population comes a territorial expansion eastwards, which saw German-speaking settlers colonise land under Slav control. Linguistically, the transition to Early New High German is marked by four vowel changes which together produce the phonemic system of modern German, though not all dialects participated in these changes: Diphthongisation of the long high vowels /iː yː uː/ > /aɪ̯ ɔʏ̯ aʊ̯/: MHG hût > NHG Haut Monophthongisation of the high centering diphthongs /iə yə uə/ > /iː yː uː/: MHG huot > NHG Hut lengthening of stressed short vowels in open syllables: MHG sagen /zaɡən/ > NHG sagen /zaːɡən/ The loss of unstressed vowels in many circumstances: MHG vrouwe > NHG Frau The centres of culture in the ENHG period are no longer the courts but the towns. The dialect map of Germany by the end of the Middle High German period was much the same as that at the start of the 20th century, though the boundary with Low German was further south than it now is: With the exception of Thuringian, the East Central German dialects are new dialects resulting from the Ostsiedlung.
Middle High German texts are written in the Latin alphabet. There was no standardised spelling, but modern editions standardise according to a set of conventions established by Karl Lachmann in the 19th century. There are several important features in this standardised orthography which are not characteristics of the original manuscripts: the marking of vowel length is entirely absent from MHG manuscripts; the marking of umlauted vowels is absent or inconsistent in the manuscripts. A curly-tailed z is used in modern handbooks and grammars to indicate the /s/ or /s/-like sound which arose from Germanic /t/ in the High German consonant shift; this character has no counterpart in the original manuscripts, which use ⟨s⟩ or ⟨z⟩ to indicate this sound. The original texts use ⟨i⟩ and ⟨u⟩ for the semi-vowels /j/ and /w/. A particular problem is that many manuscripts are of much date than the works they contain. In addition, there is considerable regional variation in the spellings that appear in the original texts, which modern editions conceal.
The standardised orthography of MHG editions uses the following vowel spellings: Short vowels: ⟨a e i o u⟩ and the umlauted vowels ⟨ä ö ü⟩ Long vowels: ⟨â ê î ô û⟩ and the umlauted vowels ⟨æ œ iu⟩ Closing diphthongs: ⟨ei ou⟩. No such orthographic distinction is made in MHG manuscripts; the standardised orthography of MHG editions uses the following consonant spellings: Stops: ⟨p t k/c/q b d g⟩ Affricates: ⟨pf/ph tz/z⟩ Fricatives: ⟨v f s ȥ sch ch h⟩ Nasals: ⟨m n⟩ Liquids: ⟨l r⟩ Semivowels: ⟨w j⟩ The charts show the vowel and consonant systems of classical MHG. The spellings indicated are the standard spellings
