Talk:rupiah

English?

I'm not sure that 'English' is the language which best describes this word, given that it is most often used as part of the Indonesian language. American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language says the etymology of rupiah is the same as rupee :- Hindi. I see that our rupee page also uses 'English' as the language for the word.

It might be possible that 'rupiah' was already used in English before it was prevelant in bahasa Indonesian and before it was the name given to the Indonesian currency in 1945-6, however ...

1. back in 1862 'rupiyah' already existed in the Sunda language (See s:Page:A dictionary of the Sunda language of Java.djvu/431: "Rupiyah, a rupee; a Dutch guilder. The word is Persian and Hindu.")
2. The 1812 dictionary of the Malayan Language includes rupiah as a transliteration with a definition of 'a rupih' [1]

The simplest approach is to change the language to Indonesian, or keep the English block and create a duplicate block for Indonesian language. John Vandenberg (talk) 05:37, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

• That it is used in English is, in a word, indisputable, and thus the header is warranted. However, I agree that this needs better clarification than what is here now. At the very least it needs a header for Indonesian.Crisco 1492 (talk) 06:23, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

Two criteria to consider: 1) Is there an alternative in English? 2) Is it citable in English without it being part of its own definition and/or written in italics? Jamesjiao → ^{T ◊ C} 06:36, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

(after edit conflict) It definitely exists as an English word, since we borrow currency names all the time, and use them as English. There are cases where a non-English term is used only as a quote from the other language, but this isn't one of them: a sentence such as "What's the exchange rate for rupiahs today?" is perfectly good English, and even uses an English plural ending. A term can often be found in multiple languages, and we would have language sections for all of them. I'm sure we'll want an Indonesian section, but I'm not familiar enough with Bahasa Indonesia to add it myself. I'll add an attention template here to let Indonesian contributors know about this. Chuck Entz (talk) 06:38, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

(also edit conflict) I agree that it has a life within English, and it would be interesting to see where that life originated. It may have had an archaic use in English to refer without specificity to currencies of the East Indies, or even a specific one before the Indonesian rupiah (which was first minted in 1945). If it is merely a borrowed word, like café, then I think we should say where the word comes from. In the 21st century, is it used in English except as a shortened form of 'Indonesian rupiah' or some other currency? I doubt it. John Vandenberg (talk) 06:42, 27 May 2013 (UTC)