Talk:Egyptian pound

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Currency sign

I provided extremely good reliable sources (including Encyclopaedia Britannica and the Bank of Egypt itself) for my previous formatting of the article. My reliable sources (including Encyclopaedia Britannica and the Bank of Egypt itself) for my previous formatting of the article. My reliable source references have now been taken out and replaced with informal references that state their claims as fact without providing examples of use outside of the websites themselves, which is second or third hand information at best. This is extraordinarily frustrating. TheCurrencyGuy (talk) 04:19, 18 July 2022 (UTC)

I also note repeated edits have just been made to deliberately make it difficult to revert. TheCurrencyGuy (talk) 04:30, 18 July 2022 (UTC)

From what I have been able to gather, "LE" is used in place of "£E" when £ is not available, this makes sense as £ is a stylised letter L. Historically Egyptian banknotes and stamps sometimes used a proprietory symbol merging "£" and "E" together into a single character, although I haven't been able to find any recent use of this symbol because it isn't supported by Unicode. E£ looks extremely strange to me, almost all currencies using "£" place the abbreviating qualification after the symbol, not before it, such as £A, £C, £L, £M, £NZ, £P, £S, £SA and £Sd.. I am not sure of the reliability of sites such as Investopedia, but I suspect actual Egyptian banknotes and stamps are a more reliable source than an American one. TheCurrencyGuy (talk) 12:22, 18 July 2022 (UTC)

While £ is indeed a stylized L for libra (“pound” in Latin), LE was never used in place of £E, LE is just an archaic French abbreviation from the times when French was a second language in Egypt. It is simply livre égyptienne abbreviated. The other Wikipedia articles also just assume their version of L(place country letter here) is a lack of £ replaced by an L for convenience, but it is also simply a French abbreviation from the old days. In English, most currencies that are similarly named in different countries (US dollar vs. Canadian dollar for instance), simply use the dollar sign unless in context it is needed to specify which dollar is meant, thus adding a country abbr. before the currency sign, not after. C$ or CA$ in the case of Canadian dollars. Also A$ or AU$ for the Australian dollar. Or simply $ in contexts where it is naturally assumed that Canadian dollars must be the intended currency, in the case of CA$.

-MatthewS. (talk) 17:08, 18 July 2022 (UTC)

The practices surrounding the dollar sign and the pound sign are quite different, the pound sign and its surrounding practices originate from French, the official language of England was French for a surprisingly long time. So the way I see it is that "£E" and "LE" are both abbreviations of the same term, the difference being that one uses the special stylised L to indicate currency. In French, historically, a capital L was used for the pound sign in all instances (for example "Lstg." for the sterling pound). The dollar sign's origins however are ultimately unknown (there are multiple contradictory origin stories) and as such is not directly comparable, as we know the origin of "£" for certain. I have never seen an unqualified £ used for the Egyptian pound, always "£E" or "LE". TheCurrencyGuy (talk) 01:28, 19 July 2022 (UTC)

I tried my hardest to fix this website, but it is just so monumentally broken that I give up. TheCurrencyGuy (talk) 21:30, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

You are far too impatient. Not everybody has the time to spend here, let alone on such a narrow set of articles.

How do you justify From what I have been able to gather, "LE" is used in place of "£E" when £ is not available, As I explain next, I suggest that people are misreading the sources to see what they expect to see. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 11:05, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

You must admit they are extraordinarily alike. The only distinction being the lack of a bar. TheCurrencyGuy (talk) 11:21, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

ℒ and £ seem to be considered interchangeable on revenue and postage stamps. This revenue stamp clearly uses £E [1]. One of the most recent Egyptian stamps to use anything other than LE uses £e[2]. This article from the Egyptian Daily News uses both "LE" and "£E". TheCurrencyGuy (talk) 11:55, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

In that case, we have to treat it as we do the Italian lira. There is no set standard and there are multiple customs and practices. We must not assert otherwise. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 13:38, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

I have created a new subsection for material on the notation in, like we did in that article. It might be worth looking into creating more options for the template I made for the currency to reflect the multiple styles, and also scrutinising the Sudanese pound, as that uses a symbol merging ℒ and 𝒮, much like the Egyptian pound's ℒℰ. TheCurrencyGuy (talk) 22:02, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

It looks good. I haven't seen your template but be careful not to confuse style with substance. ℒℰ, LE, LE and 𝔏𝔈 are allographs, the first uses a script typeface, the second a sans-serif Roman typeface, the third a serif Roman and the fourth a blackletter typeface: they are each simply a style choice and all mean the same thing – LE. It just so happens that Unicode provides code-points for the script and blackletter forms so that we can write about them easily without needing the reader to install a suitable font first. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 23:12, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

I didn't so much mean distinguishing between fonts so much as allowing the user to choose between £E 100, LE 100 and

100 Egyptian pounds. TheCurrencyGuy (talk) 00:54, 1 August 2022 (UTC)

Misreading of evidence

1938 One Egyptian Pound

I deleted an assertion supported only by WP:OR reading of the source

• Historically Egyptian postage stamps and some banknotes used a version of this sign, merging £ with E into a single glyph.

The sentence cited the image (right), but the components of glyph are unclear. Yes, it could be interpreted as "merging £ with E". But is far more likely to be a merger of ℒ and ℰ because that is the style used on immediately recent banknotes where they are distinct elements, as on this "One Egyptian Pound" banknote of 1930. It was far too dubious to be left as simply "failed verification", so I have deleted it. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 11:05, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

Then ℒℰ ought to be considered the sign. IIRC it was once included in the article, but was taken out. TheCurrencyGuy (talk) 11:16, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

You might think so but your opinion, like mine, is irrelevant. The only thing that matters is what Egyptian law says and if it doesn't mandate a currency sign, we have no business creating one. We can observe that this was a style (typeface) preferred in the early part of the 20th century. We can equally observe modern Roman faces being used today. And the £ sign. None with statutory status. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 13:38, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

From my research, it appears LE is used 95% of the time, £E the other 5%, ℒℰ appears in historical contexts, and E£ does not appear to have any notable use at all. I had already settled on LE in the main body of the article. TheCurrencyGuy (talk) 14:00, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

I don't see any problem with using LE as an abbreviation (is anyone questioning that?). What we cannot do is assert that it is the currency symbol and I have changed the infobox accordingly. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 14:18, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

Apologies, my brain was using "symbol" and "abbreviation" interchangeably. TheCurrencyGuy (talk) 14:55, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

Guinea

It will be a real pity if "The Arabic name genēh [ɡeˈneː(h)] is derived from the British guinea, which was close in value to 100 piastres at the end of the 19th century." has to stay out of the article because it can't be cited. I so wanted it to be true, but it does look rather like a spoof! Citation anyone? John Maynard Friedman (talk) 22:50, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

It seems like one of those things "everybody knows" to be true, but just can't be 100% verified. I can't find any sources at all (one seemed promising, but then I realised it had been copy-pasted from Wikipedia!). The Arabic Wikipedia article seems to largely be a direct translation of an earlier iteration of this one. I don't read or speak Arabic and Google translate can only get you so far. The same word was also used for the Palestinian and Israeli currencies in Arabic. TheCurrencyGuy (talk) 03:44, 1 August 2022 (UTC)

The removal of my latest referenced sources

I had added citations referencing the Central Bank of Egypt, the CIA World Factbook, the World Bank Style Guide and several others, but these have since been deleted and substituted with random FOREX sites. The sources I cited are reliable sources, the unsourced approximations cited by these FOREX sites are given WP:UNDUE weight by the current form of the article. I referenced this style and noted that it only appears on FOREX websites, but did not give it an equal status to the forms LE and £E, which have verifiable usage by multiple reliable sources, including the currency issuing body itself. I implore @MatthewS. to actually engage rather than attempt to trigger an edit war. I want to know exactly why you feel more weight ought to be given to a couple of FOREX sites over sources such as the Central Bank of Egypt, the CIA and the World Bank. TheCurrencyGuy (talk) 02:06, 16 August 2022 (UTC)

What do I have to do to get engagement?

I implore @MatthewS. to engage with me. I have tried extremely hard to do this by many routes. TheCurrencyGuy (talk) 16:47, 24 August 2022 (UTC)

You took it to disputes and I thought it was resolved. MatthewS. (talk) 16:48, 24 August 2022 (UTC)

You have thus far given no explanation for taking out the sources I provided, tell me why. This is far from resolved. Do you want to get us both permanently banned? I am trying to engage with you, but you just ignore me and talk past me. TheCurrencyGuy (talk) 16:49, 24 August 2022 (UTC)

I proved by sources and photos that E£ is in actual current use. You didn’t do that in the case of £E. The CBE only mentions LE which is not in dispute, and the only sources than ever mention £E are at least 100 years old. But I agreed to mention all of those as valid symbols, but you insist on taking E£ out and forcing the other one instead. MatthewS. (talk) 16:52, 24 August 2022 (UTC)

The CIA World Factbook entry I provided was published in 2000, hardly "at least 100 years old". Good grief. Your sources for "E£" are seemingly citogenesis, examples where somebody used Wikipedia as a reference. Do you want another edit war? How can I "get consensus" when you simply refuse to even acknowledge differing opinions on the validity of sources? TheCurrencyGuy (talk) 16:55, 24 August 2022 (UTC)

I won’t give in, if that’s what you’re asking. E£ is here to stay, I provided proof and that’s all that’s needed. Thanks. MatthewS. (talk) 17:04, 24 August 2022 (UTC)

So you are saying you are prepared to be banned for blunt-forcing your personal viewpoint. TheCurrencyGuy (talk) 17:06, 24 August 2022 (UTC)

No, if anything you are the one who’s wanted to “edit war”, I didn’t say that. Who gets banned in this case I wonder? MatthewS. (talk) 17:07, 24 August 2022 (UTC)

Do you really want to risk it? I am the only person so far to have taken you to task on imposing your personal opinion. TheCurrencyGuy (talk) 17:08, 24 August 2022 (UTC)

You are threatening to edit war, you haven’t been on Wikipedia as an editor a full six months even, and you are the one imposing personal opinions, not me. MatthewS. (talk) 17:10, 24 August 2022 (UTC)

I have attempted to get you to engage with me through multiple channels over this dispute, and thus far you have simply refused to do so, leaving me with no options whatsoever. Could you at least be courteous enough to use the "reply" button, or do you think I do not even deserve a proper response? TheCurrencyGuy (talk) 17:15, 24 August 2022 (UTC)

I do reply thru the mobile website and for some reason each time as if it starts another thread for some reason, not sure why. No disrespect intended. MatthewS. (talk) 17:21, 24 August 2022 (UTC)

To make it easier for other editors to help achieve consensus in this discussion, would you both mind posting a concise list of the sources that support your preferred symbol, here on the talk page? I know you have been posting them in various places but as this dispute seems to not be resolving itself, it would be helpful to compile here the complete list of the sources so that other editors can evaluate them without trawling through the history of this dispute. CapitalSasha ~ talk 23:56, 24 August 2022 (UTC)

Here is a list of sources I had used initially plus a pair of recent public transport tickets.

Sources for "LE"

• "Central Bank of Egypt – Historical Overview". cbe.org.eg. Retrieved 2022-07-03.
• "World Bank Editorial Style Guide 2020 - page 135" (PDF). openknowledge.worldbank.org. Retrieved 2022-08-15.
• An Egyptian railway ticket of 2011
• A Cairo bus ticket of 2021

This format is used by all current Egyptian postage stamps and banknotes.

Sources for "£E"

• "CIA World Factbook 2000 - page 146". 2000. Retrieved 2022-08-15.
• Wood, Evelyn (1911). "Egypt/1 Modern Egypt" . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 9 (11th ed.). pp. 21–39, see page 28. Currency.—
• "Statesman's Year-Book 1899 American Edition – page 178". en.wikisource.org. 1899. Retrieved 2022-07-03.

Sources using both "LE" and "£E"

• Daily News Egypt (10 June 2008). "Alexandria City Center to undergo LE 370 million expansion". Retrieved 15 August 2022. The expansion project, which will cost an estimated £E 370 million, will add 29,117 square meters of gross leasing space to take its total offering to 62,162 square meters and over 90 additional stores.

TheCurrencyGuy (talk) 07:53, 25 August 2022 (UTC)

Just giving this a ping @CapitalSasha @MatthewS.

I am unsure if the other party will respond, but I decided to check how many sources they provided.

It seems they offered just two:

EGP - Egyptian Pound rates, news, and tools | Xe.com for "£"

Egyptian Pound (EGP) Definition - Investopedia.com for "E£"

Both of these pages appear to have used Wikipedia as their source, all of the information they include is already included in this article. TheCurrencyGuy (talk) 18:48, 28 August 2022 (UTC)

I spent a little time today trying to find what sources they'd offered for "E£" and only found that Investopedia one.

• Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Perennial sources#Investopedia says there is no consensus that Investopedia is a reliable source, and links to four discussions.
• Investopedia' Egyptian Pound article is poor. It begins The Egyptian Pound (EGP) is the official currency of the Arab Republic of Egypt, as designated by ISO 4217, the International Standard for currency codes, as if it's the ISO that designates currencies as official. The Egyptian pound's symbol is E£. The currency can also be noted by the symbol LE is odd; it's easy to find LE and L.E. but I only find E£ at Investopedia and online exchange-rate sites, all of which I siuspect of having used Wikipedia per WP:CITOGENESIS.

E£ was added to this article a little before MatthewS started editing it, so it's easy to see how he'd have become accustomed to it and assume it fully sourced. Even so, if we reach a week, say, since CapitalSasha's question without more sources, perhaps JMF, CS, TCG and I at least might reach consensus that

• EGP is the code
• LE/L.E. is the common current Latin-script abbreviation
• £E is historical but now comparatively rare
• we should remove E£ from the article as a historical accident at Wikipedia
• we should replace E£ with LE rather than £E in text and captions, except where mentioning that £E was and sometimes still is one abbreviation.

Does that sound like a plan we can agree on if no persuasive sources for E£ are found soon? NebY (talk) 19:41, 28 August 2022 (UTC)

I am 100% in agreement with this proposal.

I had initially preferred "£E", but per the previous discussions it became clear to me this variant seems to have fallen out of favour in the last 15 years or so. My preference is most certainly for "LE" as the primary abbreviation, mentioning £E as a historically common but now rare variant. TheCurrencyGuy (talk) 21:44, 28 August 2022 (UTC)

That sounds fine to me, given the sources currently available. CapitalSasha ~ talk 21:53, 28 August 2022 (UTC)

Just giving a ping @CapitalSasha. @NebY, @MatthewS.

So do we have consensus?

My proposal is this:

• LE is demonstrably the primary Latin script abbreviation as of the 2010s-2020s
• £E was common until the 2000s but is rare to-day and may be appropriate for representing historic values on other articles, but should not be considered the primary contemporary abbreviation
• E£ should be removed from the article as an error and substituted with LE.

TheCurrencyGuy (talk) 14:52, 1 September 2022 (UTC)

I avoided specific dates from my five bullet points above and I don't think we have sufficient evidence to include them. I also avoided saying anything about what might or might not be appropriate in other articles. I'm still happy with that set of 5 points, with which you did say you were 100% in agreement, but not your triad. NebY (talk) 17:28, 1 September 2022 (UTC)

No I don’t agree. E£ is in current use by websites such as PayPal, Google Hotels, Google Flights, Uber, and have seen it used on paper receipts in Cairo a few times. Other than the 2000 CIA Factbook source (22 years old), and the one DNE article from 2008, the second most recent source provided by TCG is from 1911, more than a hundred years old. I don’t see why this is more reliable than proven current day use of the E£. Under the dispute that was started by TCG, I provided screenshots from PayPal and Google Flights using both E£ and the standalone £ for the Egyptian pound (I added their links to this thread here again). MatthewS. (talk) 15:18, 1 September 2022 (UTC)

That Paypal screenshot is a hot mess - E£10 EGP?! If we could accept screenshots as sources and draw inferences from them, the inference from that would be that Paypal don't think E£ is clear. The Google screenshot doesn't use E£. I would oppose any text in the article saying that E£ isn't used, but we shouldn't carry on using it. NebY (talk) 17:36, 1 September 2022 (UTC)

Again, can you prove this using better sources than probable WP:CITOGENESIS?

Is the World Bank an august enough source?

• World Bank - 8th of December, 1959
• World Bank - 14th of May, 1982
• World Bank - 9th of June, 1983
• World Bank - 27th of June, 1984
• World Bank - 29th of May, 1986

From a quick Google search, it seems the majority of paper receipts in Egypt either use "LE" or no currency abbreviation/symbol at all.

All I am seeking to achieve is consensus that "LE" should be the main abbreviation used on this page, as that is by far the most common with demonstrable use by multiple reliable sources. "£E" was historically used, but is not common to-day. TheCurrencyGuy (talk) 18:45, 1 September 2022 (UTC)

As it has now been over a week since @CapitalSasha opened this particular discussion, have edited the article to exclude "E£" as the primary abbreviation as there is no evidence to suggest this enjoys wider recognition than "LE". TheCurrencyGuy (talk) 22:18, 1 September 2022 (UTC)

ا 41.233.77.239 (talk) 05:48, 10 June 2023 (UTC)

History Section Restored to April version

There was a misunderstanding in April when I was mistaken for TheCurrencyGuy and my edits to the history section were reverted.The matter has now bee resolved so I have tried as best as possible to restore it. Some minor tweaks may however be necessary. Specialrequestaccount (talk) 11:52, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

The lack of citations is a serious problem. If you can't fix it within a week or so, you will have to transfer it to your wp:sandbox (User:Specialrequestaccount/sandbox) and work on it offline until it is ready to reinstate. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 13:24, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

JMF, the relevant references were there before you reverted it all on 12th April. I tried to restore it to the way it had been before you reverted it, but I was unable to do so. Is there a way of going back to the state it was in on 12th April and finding the references? Meanwhile, I'll look at the citation requests and perhaps put in new references. Specialrequestaccount (talk) 15:31, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

Regarding the citation requests at the beginning of the article, I got the information from here,

https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Handbook_of_World_Exchange_Rates_1590_19.html?id=2T7l7Wi2ESsC&redir_esc=y On page 599 a chapter begins about Egypt 1869-14 and all the relevant information can be found there about the historical linkage with the Turkish piastre. If you show me how to insert such a reference, I will study the format and then I should be able to add more references further down the section. Also, how would I post a screenshot of page 599. I do have such a screenshot available. Specialrequestaccount (talk) 15:59, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

Here is the Main Source for the History Section

https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/mono/10.4324/9781315253664/handbook-world-exchange-rates-1590%E2%80%931914-markus-denzel Chapter 32|8 pages Egypt (1869–1914)1 Abstract Sources: The Economist, London (1869-1890); Egyptian Gazette, Alexandria & Cairo (1884, 18931914). Concordance: WdW VIII, pp. 135-167

Currency: The basis of the Egyptian currency in the 19th century was the piastre (kurus) of 40 para. After the Turkish-Egyptian treaty of 1840, the piastre of both Turkish and Egyptian strikes should be equal by value, but the piastre of the Egyptian currency was commonly regarded as being of higher value than the Turkish one (see Chapter 13). Therefore 10 Egyptian piastres were equal to 11 Turkish piastres in Alexandria around the mid-19th century, whereas 10 Egyptian piastres were equal to 11.71 (since 1839) and later on to 11.27 Turkish piastres. In 1834 Egypt adopted the bimetallic standard on the basis of the Marie Theresa thaler, the famous Austrian trade coin for the Levant which was called abu taqa in Egypt, as the main coin unit equal to 20 piastre (confirmed by the Coin Act of 1842 and the government tariff of February 15th 1859). The piastre of 1839 contained 1.146 grammes of fine silver, the piastre of 1801 approximately 4.6 grammes of fine silver. The most important Egyptian coins, the bedidlik in gold (= 100 piastres; 7.487 grammes of fine gold) and the rial in silver (20 piastres; 23.294 grammes of fine silver), were minted since 1836/39 in the wake of the currency reform of December 1835, in force from May 1836. In addition, official money rates were fixed for these foreign coins whose circulation was allowed, but all these coins were undervalued, such as the British sovereign with 97½ piastres. This reform brought little improvement, because “foreign coins circulated much above the tariff rate, their value often fluctuating greatly from one part of the country to another” (OWEN [1969], p. 384). To make the quoting of the exchange rates independent of the devaluations of the Egyptian government, during this decade and those that followed the quotation was either done in Marie Theresa thalers or in piastres Egyptian money, as Egyptian money, both the actually minted Egyptian silver coins and the internationally accepted trade coins were understood, each at their daily price. Due to the pressure imposed by the British occupying power, the fall in silver prices from the end of the 1860s and the unsuccessful coin policy of the Egyptian government led to a currency reform in 1885. So bimetallism was superseded by the gold standard. Based on the model of the British sovereign and the Turkish lira, the Egyptian pound or lira (guinée el maes; 7.4375 grammes of fine gold) of 100 piastres became the basic monetary unit. Pieces of 10 piastres, the so-called Parisi, were minted in silver (11.25 grammes of fine silver) and 20 Egyptian piastres were equal to the 5-francs piece (the so-called real franca) or 1 piastre (1 1/8 grammes of fine silver) was equal to ¼ franc. Therefore the Marie Theresa thaler was fixed at 21 piastres and the sovereign at 97½ piastres as was done since 1835 (cf. ISSAWI [ed.] [1966], p. 523). This decree of November 14th 1885 remained in force even after the period documented here: “On the outbreak of the First World War Egypt shifted to a sterling exchange standard, and the link between the Egyptian pound and sterling was maintained until 1947” (ibid., p. 524).Specialrequestaccount (talk) 16:05, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

Can someone please show me how to insert the above reference into the history section at the places were it says, citation required. Specialrequestaccount (talk) 22:20, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

I've just tried to put the source in, but I can't get it right. If someone can fix it please, then I will be able to see the format for the next source. Specialrequestaccount (talk) 22:33, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

It's OK, it's all sorted. The source came back again automatically when I used the original template to restore the brackets. Specialrequestaccount (talk) 22:43, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

"and in 1834, by which time Egypt was now nominally independent from Ottoman rule"

Came from Egyptian piastre. It says it was used until 1834, but here it says it was still used? So which is it? Also that quote is misleading since coins were still minted in the name of the sultan, which means they're not nominally independent. Can anyone who edited that section reply? Beshogur (talk) 19:25, 22 May 2025 (UTC)