Names
The name "markka" was based on a medieval unit of weight. Both "markka" and "penni" are similar to words used in Germany for that country's former currency, based on the same roots as the German Mark and pfennig.
Although the word "markka" predates the currency by several centuries, the currency was established before being named "markka". A competition was held for its name, and some of the other entries included "sataikko" (meaning "having a hundred parts"), "omena" (apple) and "suomo" (from "Suomi", the Finnish name for Finland).
With numbers, Finnish does not use plurals but partitive singular forms: "10 markkaa" and "10 penniä" (the nominative is penni). In Swedish, the singular and plural forms of mark and penni are the same.
When the euro replaced markka, mummonmarkka "grandma's markka" (sometimes shortened to just mummo) became a new slang term for the old currency. The sometimes used "old markka" can be misleading, since it can also be used to refer to the pre-1963 markka.
In Helsinki slang, the post-1963 new markka was known as huge (from Swedish hundra "hundred").
Read more about this topic: Finnish Markka
Famous quotes containing the word names:
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