Talk:Italian lira

Latest comment: 1 year ago by John Maynard Friedman in topic Lira [sic]

Math edit

According to the article:

  1. 1 lira (0.052 Eurocent; rarely used)
  2. 2 lire (0.0103 cent; rarely used).

This means that that one lira is worth approxiamtely five times two lire. Someone should attempt to fix the math. 72.194.193.198 22:31, 17 July 2006 (UTC)Reply

Should the line in the 'History' section, which reads; "All the two characteristics have been adopted by the Euro coin." be replaced by: "Both of these characteristics have been adopted by the Euro coin."?

Fair use rationale for Image:1lira1863front.jpg edit

 

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Fair use rationale for Image:1lira1863front.jpg edit

 

Image:1lira1863front.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in Wikipedia articles constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

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Fair use rationale for Image:1lira1863front.jpg edit

 

Image:1lira1863front.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in Wikipedia articles constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

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Fair use rationale for Image:1lira1863front.jpg edit

 

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Fair use rationale for Image:1lira1863front.jpg edit

 

Image:1lira1863front.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in Wikipedia articles constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

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Italian Lira conundrum edit

Can anyone answer this...if the Italian lira went out of circulation in 2002 when the euro was introduced, why is the lira still quoted on the London Stock Exchange? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.68.15.182 (talk) 17:30, 9 February 2008 (UTC)Reply

Fair use rationale for Image:2000 Lire Italy.jpg edit

 

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BetacommandBot (talk) 03:55, 12 February 2008 (UTC)Reply

Production of the 1 and 2 lire edit

"Large volume production of the 1 and 2 lire coins ceased in 1959"

After 1959 1 & 2 lire coinage stopped. It begun again in 1968 but only for "collector set".

References are:

and italian manuals:

  • Eupremio Montenegro. Manuale del collezionista di monete italiane . , Torino.
  • Fabio Gigante. Monete italiane dal '700 ad oggi. , Varese.

--Carlo Morino aka zi' Carlo 10:25, 28 March 2008 (UTC)Reply

Reintroduction edit

Berlusconi wants to increase exports and cannot devalue Italy's currency without leaving the Euro. He is threatening or promising to explore REINTRODUCING THE LIRA. At this stage, with some support from Paris/Sarkozy he is probably only SAYING this to put pressure on the ECB in Frankfurt. The article makes no mention of this, or are these developments too insubstantial to be "encyclopaedic".

Since lots of lira coins, and possibly notes are still out there in households and are exchangable for Euros until 2012, old coins could still be used after a reintroduction if the designs are kept the same. Changing them and invalidating the old ones completely would presumably cause a scandal. I have few thousand Lira in coins and I'm not in Italy!

http://www.eurointelligence.com/article.581+M595ca3cc327.0.html

--81.105.243.17 (talk) 15:04, 21 April 2008 (UTC)Reply

The 1997 1000 Lire coin edit

Would it be appropriate to mention in this article the errors made in the first issue of the 1997 bimetallic 1000 Lire coin. This coin depicted a stylised map of Europe to celebrate increasing European union but separated West and East Germany (which was still shown merged into an Eastern Bloc with Poland), and also included Holland and Denmark within the same outline as West Germany. Following protests a new coin was issued which corrected these points. I'm not quite sure what counts as a reliable source material for this, although it is mentioned on a number of sites: http://www.iltrogolo.it/Attila/coins/1000_lire.htm http://www.brainyhistory.com/events/1997/january_10_1997_174725.html http://www.maphist.nl/ill/1997b15.htm http://www.pcgs.com/articles/article_view.chtml?artid=1647&universeid=105&type=1 http://www.historyorb.com/events/date/1997 Additionally, I have a number of the coins in question myself. Ma1cius (talk) 15:06, 5 January 2009 (UTC)Reply

Mint Marks edit

There needs to be a section on the mints used before the current mint in Rome (est. 1922). With there mint marks kinds of coins etc.. minted and where / when noteable occurences happened to them!--Ant2242 (talk) 03:07, 22 July 2012 (UTC)Reply

1990s collapse and levy edit

In reporting of the 2012–2013 Cypriot financial crisis, Foxnews says ".. in the 1990s, Italy levied a tax on every bank account to stave off the collapse of its lire currency. The rate, however, was minuscule — 0.06 percent ..". Does anyone know when this happened? See also Talk:Bank deposit levy. --John Vandenberg (chat) 21:42, 19 March 2013 (UTC)Reply

Eurotassa edit

Do you mean this? https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contributo_straordinario_per_l'Europa 194.95.59.130 (talk) 10:18, 1 June 2016 (UTC)Reply

Cognate words edit

In the second paragraph of this article, the words “pound” and “lira” are called “cognates.” That doesn’t agree with the definition and examples in Wikipedia’s own article “Cognate.” The words “pound” and “lira” are rather translations of each other, or, more accurately, are descended from such translations. 79.205.96.62 (talk) 10:32, 28 May 2017 (UTC)Reply

What Coin Did the 1861 Replace? edit

The article offers no information on what currency the lira replaced when it came into use in 1861. That information should be added. Abenr (talk) 00:34, 8 September 2018 (UTC)Reply

L. as the typical abbreviation for Lira in Italy: Bold, revert, discuss edit

 
Italian postage stamp (1944) that uses the two-bar ₤ form

Per WP:BRD, I have reverted wp:BOLD edit by TheCurrencyGuy because such a major change needs consensus. I do not believe that the changes are valid. The article at Italian Wikipedia (IT:Lira italiana) is consistent with the unchanged version: the norm was to suffix L. (for example, 10.000 L. (thousands separator is period). I think we may assume that the contributors to IT.Wiki know what they are talking about.

I was particularly concerned by the apparent misrepresentation of the Unicode standard, which actually says

Lira Sign: A separate currency sign U+20A4 lira sign is encoded for compatibility with the HP Roman-8 character set, which is still widely implemented in printers. In general, U+00A3 pound sign may be used for both the various currencies known as pound (or punt) and the currencies known as lira. Examples include the British pound sterling, the historic Irish punt, and the former lira currency of Italy.[1]

NB may be used. This is not a citation for actual use or actual Italian standard (for either form), it is merely the Unicode Consortium's documentation for their code points.

A clear case, supported (accurately) by citations needs to be made if consensus is to be achieved. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 23:35, 12 June 2022 (UTC)Reply

References

  1. ^ "Chapter 22 Symbols" (PDF). The Unicode Standard |Version 8.0 – Core Specification. The Unicode Consortium.
In actual practice there was no single established norm – the prefixes "L." and "Lit. " were commonly and indiscriminately used, as was the lira symbol; as a postfix, the word "lire" was commonly written in full. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 07:55, 13 June 2022 (UTC)Reply
The reason I support the use of "£" or "₤" is for the sake of consistency with the notation Wikipedia uses for historic lira system currencies in Italy, which tend to use the double bar lira sign or the single bar pound sign. "L" without qualification is used by multiple currencies, such as the lek, leu, the lilangeni, the lempira and the loti, which could invite confusion when used without a link to this article. The double bar lira sign without qualification is not currently used for any non-Italian currencies. The article for the Maltese lira uses it, but not without the qualifying suffix ("₤M").TheCurrencyGuy (talk) 11:06, 18 June 2022 (UTC)Reply
@TCG, I would prefer that you be correct because it would be tidier, but unfortunately reality must take priority. JL&N's description matches what I have seen elsewhere. It does seem that the error is with the practice you found elsewhere on Wikipedia. Can of worms! --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 13:11, 18 June 2022 (UTC)Reply
@JMF, I would like to get an Italian person's view on the matter: whether the use of "L." instead of "₤." was always a deliberate choice or if it was due to limited character availability on typewriters and metal typesets, for example if a person was writing by hand which one did they use? The Italian Wikipedia's entry seems a little suspect to me, because I have never seen the "L." version suffixed after the numerals anywhere on period materials. Coins and stamps always used it as a prefix. Italian banknotes, of the Italian lira and earlier currencies, tended not to use any currency symbol at all. The "Lit." abbreviation seems like the closest thing to a generally recognised specific sign. But as I say, I would like an Italian's view on it all. TheCurrencyGuy (talk) 16:15, 18 June 2022 (UTC)Reply
Olivetti MP1 Ico (1932): with ₤ key.
Olivetti Lettera 35 L : no explicit currency sign key
I agree, though formally we would still need a wp:RS. It would probably fall foul of WP:NOR to trawl old books and newspapers to see what they used. Yes, only typeset sources would be reliable as typewriters always suffer from restricted repertoire.
I had a look in Commons for images of Italian typewriters and found these two. NB that there are many Olivetti typewriters on Commons, intended for foreign markets. These ones have the Italian layout.
As an aside, I think whoever it was who 'bent' the Uncode Consortium citation about 00A3 v 20A4 to support their POV managed to trap themselves in an anachronism. Yes, it is certainly true that the pound sign can be shown with one or two bars at the type-designers whim but the Unicode specification post-dates the ITL merging into the EUR and is thus incidental. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 18:01, 18 June 2022 (UTC)Reply
On further reflection, I think we must assume that the it.wiki article was written and reviewed by Italians, so is more likely to represent their consensus than an isolated recollection by an arbitrary Italian acquaintance. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 19:12, 18 June 2022 (UTC)Reply
Usage on Italian Wikipedia is very inconsistent. Their articles for the Tuscan lira ("Lira toscana"), the Papal lira ("Lira pontificia"), the Luccan lira ("Lira lucchese") and the Somalian lira ("Lira somala") all use either "£" or "₤". They also on occasion use "lire" as the currency sign on non-Italian currencies such as the Turkish lira. The 1939 series 1 and 2 lira banknotes used "ℒ". Italian cheques tended to use "ℒ.", "ℒ𝒾𝓉." or "Lit.". The handwritten material on Commons uses "£" or "₤". The consensus appears to be that there was no consensus and one could use whatever one deemed appropriate.
Royal Italian Automobile Club registration form using "£" (1933)
Invoice for decoration work at a cinema using "£"
A cheque using "ℒ𝒾𝓉." (1928)
A miniassegno using "Lit." (1975–1978)
TheCurrencyGuy (talk) 03:12, 19 June 2022 (UTC)Reply
Yes, I think a fair summary of the rule would be that there was no rule. Insofar as we can say anything, it would be that (a) we can find no evidence of a statutory currency symbol, nor any reliable source saying that any single one emerged as favoured through "custom and practice" as happened with the pound sign; (b) the letter L in various typefaces (L, L, ℒ, no doubt   in blackletter type too) was the most common abbreviation:, then Lit/Lit, then ₤ or £ (one or two bars depending on typesetter's whim?). IT.Wiki seems to reflect that relaxed approach.
So we can't declare a rule without violating WP:NOR and skirt perilously close by even claiming any one "common practice".
I suggest that
  1. we may legitimately leave the infobox largely stand as it is, using L., because that appears to be the most common practice; but we must delete the symbol= line because there is no evidence that it is true.
  2. we (aka you  ) needs to write a new section documenting examples of the various practices but without drawing a conclusion in the absence of a RS.
Does that seem satisfactory? --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 08:03, 19 June 2022 (UTC)Reply
I might try hashing something out later once I've had time to think on it. There is an example of a symbol being consistently used for the Italian lira I can think of: customisable price boards in cafes always used "₤", to be perfectly frank that was the thing that had stuck in my mind when I initially decided to use the sign. The reasons I advocate for "₤" are that it is unique when used without a qualifying abbreviation and in Italy is universally recognised as the lira's symbol with no confusion as to what currency is being referenced. Most users of the Italian Wikipedia will be Italians living in Italy and so will be familiar with and understand the lack of full standardisation, while a person browsing the English Wikipedia to take a cursory glance at numismatic topics may be from almost anywhere in the world and could easily become confused, especially if he comes from a country that uses "L." as well (for the same reason I generally prefer the use of "lek" or "leu/lei" in full without any abbreviation in reference to the Albanian and Romanian currencies). TheCurrencyGuy (talk) 12:00, 19 June 2022 (UTC)Reply
Ok let's leave further discussion pending more searching of sources. I'd be a lot happier if we had a RS because just looking at examples equals WP; original research. Maybe HP recorded a reason for putting in their printers? --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 14:51, 19 June 2022 (UTC)Reply
I've been doing some deep research. The Banca d'Italia seems to have considered "Lit." to be the lira's "offficial" (or at least semi-official) symbol, it is used on most of their annual reports (these are available in both English and Italian on their website). I would be willing to accept the adoption of "Lit." in the article since this was both very commonly used and explicitly identifies the currency. I will write a draft section on "symbols and notation" referencing all used symbols for the currency and the flexibility of their use. Most of the miniassegno used "Lit." in either standard type or a script form ("ℒ𝒾𝓉."). TheCurrencyGuy (talk) 19:44, 19 June 2022 (UTC)Reply

My bold edit while discussion in progress edit

I'm afraid I couldn't let the misrepresentation of the Unicode specification stand any longer, so I have corrected it. I believe it is largely incidental to the discussion above but if anyone disagrees, please feel free to revert. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 14:03, 18 June 2022 (UTC)Reply

Some search results: 1. Currency symbol on Italian postage stamps as an indication of the 'official' [state body] symbol edit

I looked in Commons for ever postage stamp displayed for the 20th century. The result may not be totally conclusive but L. has it since the end of WWII. However most stamps just had the word "Lira".

Of course there would have been other issues between 1975 and 2002 but for copyright reasons Commons does not have them. Are they visible elsewhere? (I don't care enough to spend £27.95 on the relevant Stanley Gibbons catalogue!) --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 20:33, 19 June 2022 (UTC)Reply

By my reckoning, if one includes the stamps of the Italian Islands of the Aegean, Commons has 14 x "L.", 16 x "£" and 157 x "LIRE" if one adds up all the pre- and post-war stamps. "£" was much more common before the war and very shortly after it, before disappearing from stamps by the 1950s. TheCurrencyGuy (talk) 21:59, 19 June 2022 (UTC)Reply

Some search results: 2. Searching Google Books for "Simbolo di valuta" and "Lira" edit

I only found one 'hit' where the relevant page was available:

  • Romano Zoppi Pellegrini (2004). "p. 35". Come si fa tutto o quasi con Excel 2003 (in Italian). Milano: Tecniche nuove. ISBN 9788848116817. 6. nella casella A, selezionate ITL - Lira italiana: è l'unità monetaria di destinazione; 7. nella casella Formato di output scegliete Valuta: in questo modo, in ogni cella compare automaticamente il simbolo di valuta; [6. in box A, select ITL - Italian Lira: it is the target monetary unit; 7. in [the] box, Format of output, select Currency: in this way, the currency symbol appears in each cell;]. In the figure, the resulting currency symbol displayed is L..

Is this a more reliable source than the pre-war documents above? Are there other free-text search engines? --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 20:33, 19 June 2022 (UTC)Reply

Google Books produces a lot of hits with available pages for "Lit." as the symbol, both in Italian and international contexts, such as here here, here, here, here and here (please excuse the formatting), these are all dedicated financial sources.TheCurrencyGuy (talk) 22:15, 19 June 2022 (UTC)Reply
Ok, that persuades me that we have enough reliable sources for Lit. as being the primary abbreviation. I'm less sure that we have any evidence for a formal currency symbol but the new section can address that. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 23:52, 19 June 2022 (UTC)Reply
Oh I agree there is no single symbol for the lira, I just want there to be a degree of consistency. I have updated the article using the "Lit." abbreviation in only the most appropriate places (such as exchange rates and listings of denominations not contained within sentences), otherwise "lira" or "lire" is used. TheCurrencyGuy (talk) 01:14, 20 June 2022 (UTC)Reply
I have also found that the CIA World Factbook regarded "Lit." as the lira's sign, I have edited the article accordingly citing it as international recognition.TheCurrencyGuy (talk) 18:01, 21 June 2022 (UTC)Reply

Some search results: 3. Italian coinage, the authorative source? edit

All the Italian lira coins use L. without exeption.

This is the one that for me is conclusive. We can't get a more reliable source than the Bank of Italy. Can there now be any argumemt the standard symbol was L. ? --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 21:30, 19 June 2022 (UTC)Reply

In its published documentation, the Bank of Italy used "Lit.", also used by commercial banks on miniassegno notgeld. TheCurrencyGuy (talk) 22:02, 19 June 2022 (UTC)Reply

Usage by the Bank of Italy edit

The Bank of Italy seem to have considered "Lit." to be the most "official" symbol for the lira, they used it on their annual reports for many years, until they had to omit a currency sign altogether by the late 1980s when the figures just became too large to include one, examples include page 197 of the 1982 report. It also enjoyed extensive usage by both Italian and international financial documentation. TheCurrencyGuy (talk) 22:40, 19 June 2022 (UTC)Reply

Just to repeat what I wrote above but this is a more appropriate place for it: that persuades me that we have enough reliable sources for Lit. as being the primary abbreviation. I'm less sure that we have any evidence for a formal currency symbol but the new section can address that. I think you will need to distinguish between domestic usage and international usage, which won't be easy. [Was "Itl." really used domestically?] --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 23:57, 19 June 2022 (UTC)Reply
I've been mulling this over, perhaps the best solution might be to use "Lira/Lire" as one would use a conventional currency symbol as a prefix separated from the numerals by a non-breaking space.TheCurrencyGuy (talk) 14:49, 20 June 2022 (UTC)Reply

My proposed solution edit

I am still in very early drafts of a "notation and symbols" section, but here is my proposal for the infobox, updated with rough draft for "symbols" section.

Italian lira
Lira italiana (Italian)
   
Lira banknotes ranging from Lit.2,000 to Lit.500,000Lit.1,000 coin (1997)
ISO 4217
CodeITL
Unit
Plurallire
SymbolNone official, see notation and symbols section
Denominations
Subunit
1100Centesimo
(withdrawn after World War II)
Plural
Centesimocentesimi
Banknotes
 Freq. usedLit.1,000, Lit.2,000, Lit.5,000, Lit.10,000, Lit.50,000, Lit.100,000
 Rarely usedLit.500,000
Coins
 Freq. usedLit.50, Lit.100, Lit.200, Lit.500, Lit.1,000
 Rarely usedLit.1, Lit.2, Lit.5, Lit.10, Lit.20
Demographics
User(s)

  Kingdom of Albania (1939–43)
  San Marino (local issue: Sammarinese lira)

  Vatican City (local issue: Vatican lira)
Issuance
Central bankBanca d'Italia
 Websitewww.bancaditalia.it
PrinterIstituto Poligrafico e Zecca dello Stato
 Websitewww.ipzs.it
MintIstituto Poligrafico e Zecca dello Stato
 Websitewww.ipzs.it
Valuation
Inflation2.3% (2001)
EU Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM)
Since13 March 1979, 25 November 1996
Withdrawn17 September 1992
Fixed rate since31 December 1998
Replaced by euro, non cash1 January 1999
Replaced by euro, cash1 March 2002
1 € =Lit.1,936.27

Cat:IB currency unk param:iso_exponent Cat:IB currency unk param:iso_number

Notation and symbols edit

There was no standard sign or abbreviation for the Italian lira, the abbreviations Lit. (standing for Lira italiana) and L. (standing for Lira) and the signs , and £ were all acceptable representations of the currency. Banks and financial institutions often used Lit.[1][2], handwriting and signs at market stalls would often use "£" or "₤"[3][4] while printed media used "L." in contexts where no confusion with other currencies could arise.TheCurrencyGuy (talk) 00:08, 20 June 2022 (UTC)Reply

The text of that looks good but unfortunately the citations don't really meet Wikipedia's WP:RS criterion. They are examples of usage rather than descriptions of usage. But they are better than nothing so maybe will have to do for now.
The currency code ITL needs a mention for completeness.
At ISO/IEC 646, I found the Italian standard ISO-IR-015 ECMA (1976). Variant of the ISO 7-bit coded character set (graphics only) for the Italian language (PDF). ITSCJ/IPSJ. ISO-IR-15. which suggests that in 1976 at least, the Italian Standards body was so uninterested in ₤ that they allocated one of their national variant code points to £ and called it "pound sign" (as did the French). So until Unicode arrived on the scene with a unique code point for ₤, it was almost too late to matter. For 20-odd years, if anybody wanted a ₤ on a computer-printed document, they would need a font with that glyph at A3 and probably a HP printer too. How did the average fruttivendolo possibly manage?   --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 08:18, 20 June 2022 (UTC)Reply
Is there a version of the pdf in Italian? Because I'm wondering if the Italian version may have said "lira". TheCurrencyGuy (talk) 14:34, 20 June 2022 (UTC)Reply
Not that I can find easily. It appears that the working languages were English and French but it seems that only the french one is in the national language (I've read the Portuguese and Spanish ones). Here is the French one from 1973
Can you see a use for it? --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 17:16, 20 June 2022 (UTC)Reply
Its listed as "symbole livre" in French. Both French and Italian refer to all currency units named "pound", "lira" etc. as "livre" and "lira" respectively so I'm not sure whether this indicates the opinion of the standards body or not. TheCurrencyGuy (talk) 19:42, 20 June 2022 (UTC)Reply
TBH, I made a leap of faith. The European Computer Manufacturers Association included Ollivetti: it seems reasonable to assume that they had at least the blessing of the Italian Standards Institute (is that what it is called?). The various national variants of ISO/IEC 646 are listed in https://www.itscj-ipsj.jp/ir/NNN.pdf, replacing NNN with a number with leading zeroes as needed (for ex, https://www.itscj-ipsj.jp/ir/015.pdf for the Italian one in English). I didn't find an index so a brute force search seems the only option. But is it really worth pursuing?
BTW, while I think of it, the modern Italian PC keyboard has a (one bar) £ sign: I have no idea when that started. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 20:28, 20 June 2022 (UTC)Reply
I'm not at all convinced "£" and "₤" were ever considered separate distinct signs before Unicode, in all the documentation I've ever seen they're completely interchangeable. TheCurrencyGuy (talk) 21:14, 20 June 2022 (UTC)Reply
I agree completely. That is certainly true of the sterling sign: for centuries the BoE has used either style apparently at random, even for two denominations issued in the same year. At the pound sign article, there are font samples showing some that use two bars and some one. The odd thing to me is that the two-bar ₤ was ever given a code point when the cifrao was not, despite having a far stronger record of distinctive use. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 23:08, 20 June 2022 (UTC)Reply


Some suggested changes to the draft edit

  1. "Acceptable" -> "accepted" (de jure v de facto)
  2. "Lit.": add note to say that this was the style used by the Bank of Italy in its documents.
  3. "L.": add note to say that this was the style used on all lira coins

Agree? --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 08:59, 20 June 2022 (UTC)Reply

I have done #1 and #3, would you do #2? --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 17:16, 20 June 2022 (UTC)Reply
Done, I see. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 20:28, 20 June 2022 (UTC)Reply

Lira [sic] edit

I deleted the dubious plural "Liras" because the OED doesn't recognise it. It is the illiterate equivalent of "panini's" [sic]. However, there at many instances of "Turkish Liras" on the web, so perhaps it belongs int the generic Lira article? --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 20:38, 9 July 2022 (UTC)Reply

Lira [sic] edit

I deleted the dubious plural "Liras" because the OED doesn't recognise it. It is the illiterate equivalent of "panini's" [sic]. However, there at many instances of "Turkish Liras" on the web, so perhaps it belongs int the generic Lira article? --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 21:29, 9 July 2022 (UTC)Reply