# Talk:Hungarian pengő

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WikiProject Hungary (Rated B-class, Mid-importance)
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Hungary, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Hungary on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.
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## Numbers

Unless I'm very confused (wouldn't be the first time) there's something wrong with the numbers on this page.

Isn't a sextillion (1021) a thousand billion billion (in short scale) rather than a thousand million billion?
Similarly isn't 100 quintillion (1020) a hundred billion billion, not a hundred million billion?

cf. es:Pengő mil trillones & cien trillones (long scale)

Moilleadóir 15:02, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

Hi there!
Well, correct me if I'm wrong (I'm looking at Names of large numbers here)
• A sextillion (1021) should be a thousand billion billion (since a thousand is 103 and a billion is 109 and because ${\displaystyle 10^{3}\times 10^{9}\times 10^{9}=10^{21}}$), while a thousand million billion (million being 106) is ${\displaystyle 10^{3}\times 10^{6}\times 10^{9}=10^{18}}$, which corresponds to a quintillion, not a sextillion.
• 100 Quintillion (${\displaystyle 10^{2}\times 10^{18}=10^{20}}$) should be a hundred billion billion (just like above, but with a hundred instead of a thousand), while a hundred million billion is ${\displaystyle 10^{2}\times 10^{6}\times 10^{9}=10^{17}}$, which corresponds to a hundred quadrillion.
Hope to have explained it so that everyone can follow! So, now we're two hoping not to be all too wrong; I corrected the main entry. :-)
Note that you have to be careful when comparing the numbers with other european languages, since those usually use a different scale (though the numbers in the spanish article seem to be correct).
Also, right now, I am not really sure which of the numbers are correct; is really a sextillion meant or rather thousand million billion? Is really 100 quintillion or 100 million billion meant? Since I do not understand hungarian, I cannot tell from the images (which leads me to another problem: the image of the first link has a banknote depicted which says "1 milliard" — do they use another scale/word altogether, wrong link or just some weird coincidence?). --NicApicella, 18/Aug/2005
It says "Milliard B-pengo", the B- stands for Billion Nik42 22:08, 18 August 2005 (UTC)
Thanks; that's true, I didn't notice the leading "B-"! --NicApicella, 19/Aug/2005

I think it is very confusing to use the long scale for numbers. It has been almost totally replaced by use of the short scale, where 1 billion is 1,000,000,000. It would be much better to use the short scale in this article. 93.97.194.138 (talk) 07:42, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

## Hungarian terms

Modern English terms are the following (with the exponent given):

• million (6), billion (9), trillion (12), quadrillion (15), quintillion (18), sextillion (21) etc.

The corresponding Hungarian terms are, on the other hand, the following:

• millió (6), milliárd (9), billió (12), billiárd (15), trillió (18), trilliárd (21) etc.

As it is shown, the "long scale" is used in Hungary. For more on international usage and history of terms see the article on Names of large numbers.

The first image is of egymilliárd b.-pengő, out of which

• egy means 1
• milliárd is milliard, ${\displaystyle 10^{9}}$, a thousand million
• b.- refers to billió, trillion (${\displaystyle 10^{12}}$) in English (see above)

So it shows the denomination ${\displaystyle 10^{9}\times 10^{12}=10^{21}}$, i.e. sextillion in American and modern British usage.

The second image is of százmillió b.-pengő, out of which

• száz means 100
• millió is million, ${\displaystyle 10^{6}}$
• b.- is again billió, trillion in English

So it shows the denomination ${\displaystyle 10^{2}\times 10^{6}\times 10^{12}=10^{20}}$, a hundred quintillion in American and modern British usage.

So I think these names are correct in the article.

Adam78 19:27, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

Just in time... :-( Now I see your point is not about these but about their expanded clarification. I checked it; you were right with the correction. – At least I hope to have answered NicApicella's last question. -- Adam78 19:35, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

You sure did! :-) Thank you very much... NicApicella, 19/Aug/2005

## Introduction of Forint

The highest denomination in use was a 100 billion billion (100 quintillion, 1020) pengő, see image.

The Hungarian economy could only be stabilized by the introduction of a new currency, and so, on August 1, 1946, the forint was introduced at a rate of 400 octillion (4×1029) pengő.

Is this correct? According to this, 1 forint was equivalent to 4 billion of the highest denomination bills. Surely there must be some mistake? I can't believe that people would require billions of banknotes to purchase goods! Nik42 22:47, 31 August 2005 (UTC)

As it's mentioned in the article, adópengő (literally: "tax-pengő") was used instead. But I found a more exact reference ([1]): on the last day with pengő, July 31 1946, a newpaper named Szabad Szó cost 100 million adópengő, and it advertised various women's clothes for forint. Another ad: "Dollar? No! Gold? No! Forint? Yes! What is more, we will only sell all our goods for forint from August 1st. Textile wholesale store by Zsigmond Darvas. <adress>". The price of the same paper was 40 fillér (= 0.4 forint) on the following day. -- Adam78 00:09, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

So, was that 100 billion billion pengő actually a hundred billion billion adópengő? Nik42 01:17, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

No. Adópengő was used in everydays in the first half of 1946 (to my understanding), but the above sentence is about the official currency, pengő. Adam78 12:45, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

## In Romanian

Recent edit changed it to "penghel (pengel)". Here is a list of numbers written in Romanian that I got from Romanian banknotes

 1 un 2 doua? 5 cinci 10 zece 50 cincizeci 100 una sutǎ 1000 una mie

This image shows "doua pengő", this image shows sutǎ penghei. Most other plural value I found are "penghei". --ChoChoPK (球球PK) (talk | contrib) 15:58, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

I cannot deny what is written on the 2 pengo banknote (about the correct spelling in Romanian), but: In Romania Hungarians are known for their inability to realize the accord between the noun and the adjective (Romanian: acordul substantivului cu adjectivul) (please take it as a fact, not as a malicious joke!). So, it would not be surprising to make a mistake on an official banknote, in the 1920s. In Romanian: doua pengő (more correctly Romanian: douǎ pengő), standing for English: two pengő would mean that the pengő would be of female gender (like house: Romanian: douǎ case, meaning English: two houses). But the plural form (either penghei or pengei, both plausible in Romanian) found on several other banknotes indicates the male gender of the noun. Furthermore, on this banknote instead of pengő it would have bin correct to have penghei or pengei, as two asks for the plural form of the noun.
Below there is a table of some numerals in Romanian (for male/female genders of nouns)
 1 un/una 2 doi/douǎ 5 cinci 10 zece 20 douǎ zeci 50 cinci zeci 100 una sutǎ 200 douǎ sute 1000 una mie
Regarding the correct plural form, I will highlight the following images that show (though not at the same time i.e. not on the same banknote) the two forms: Image:HUP 10 1936 reverse.jpg Image:HUP 1000 1943 reverse.jpg Image:HUP 100 1930 reverse.jpg Image:HUP 1000 1927 reverse.jpg Image:HUP 1000 1945 NOS reverse.jpg Image:HUP 50 1932 reverse.jpg Image:HUP 1000 1945 OS reverse.jpg.
The singular form pengel/penghel is based on the derivation of the two plural forms found on the banknotes. We must not overlook the fact that, in Romanian, letters like Ü, and ő do not exist! --ES Vic (talk) 10:24, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

### Indication of value in Romanian

Date Denomination Romanian script Note
1 March 1926 5 P CINCI PENGEI
10 P ZECE PENGEI
20 P DOUĂZECI PENGEI
50 P CINCIZECI PENGEI
100 P UNA SUTA PENGEI
1 July 1927 1000 P UNA MIE PENGEI
1 August 1928 5 P CINCI PENGEI
1 February 1929 10 P ZECE PENGEI
2 January 1930 20 P DOUAZECI PENGEI
1 July 1930 100 P UNA SUTA PENGEI
1 October 1932 50 P CINCIZECI PENGEI
22 December 1936 10 P ZECE PENGEI
15 January 1938 50 f CINCIZECI FILLÉR not issued
1 P UNA PENGŐ
2 P DOUA PENGŐ specimen only
5 P CINCI PENGŐ
25 October 1939 5 P CINCI PENGŐ
15 July 1940 2 P DOUA PENGŐ
15 January 1941 20 P DOUĂZECI PENGEI
24 February 1943 10 P ZECE PENGHEI plan only
100 P UNA SUTĂ PENGHEI limited circulation
1000 P UNA MIE PENGHEI
5 April 1945 50 P CINCIZECI PENGEI reprinted 1926 issue
100 P UNA SUTA PENGEI
15 May 1945 500 P CINCI SUTE PENGHEI
15 July 1945 1000 P UNA MIE PENGHEI
10 000 P ZECE MII PENGHEI
23 October 1945 100 000 P UNASUTĂ MII PENGHEI
16 November 1945 1 000 000 P UN MILION PENGHEI
10 000 000 P ZECE MILIOANE PENGHEI
higher denominations have no script other than Hungarian

## German name

Is Pengő sure the german name ? German language has no ő letter, as far as I know, only ö. --Xerces8 (talk) 15:35, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

I was wondering about this, too. There is only ö in the German spelling. I also wonder about the plural pengi. Is there any evidence? --Thidrek (talk) 15:37, 4 August 2009 (UTC)
The German name of the currency is PENGÖ. The German name was used on the backside of the Hungarian banknotes, see it here: http://papirpenz.hu/reszletek/87

--Benutzer:Teutschvölkischer 14:03, 25. Lenzing [März] 2012 (MEZ) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Teutschvölkischer (talkcontribs) 12:04, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

It's correct that german has no "ő", but that's just because "ő" is simply an "ö" with accents and German doesn't use any accents.--195.16.249.250 (talk) 11:19, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

## Introduction date

There's clear disagreement about when this currency was introduced. [2] states 4 November, 1925, which is the same year that the first banknotes were dated. However, the 1927 date is well referenced (all be it in Hungarian), so could I ask those who might change to a different date to present their reference?
Dove1950 (talk) 22:17, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

The referenced homepage appears to be very unreliable, superficial and inaccurate. Let me cite a few sentences:
• "He began issuing denars and obols soon thereafter." - I doubt that any of the coins issued by St. Stephan are considered obols.
• "Louis I (1342-83) issued the first gold coins in Hungary" - it was Charles Robert, actually
• "Austria was a republic from 1918 until 1920, a kingdom without a king from 1920 until 1945, a People’s Republic from 1945 until 1989, and a republic since 1989." - I guess it wants to say Hungary, not Austria
• I have no idea where the unreferenced ISO-code like letterwords (XATC, XATG, ATP, ATG, ATK, HUK, HUP) come from. The ISO-4217 standard was created in 1978, and I have not seen any references on official coding of obsolate/historical currencies. Similarly, non of the dates, exchange rates or other data are referenced. The role of Reichskreditkassenschein (XDEK :-)) and Russian Roubles is negligible if any in the Hungarian monetary system, even during total occupation.
The "most" official source of date of introduction of Hungarian currencies can be found in laws. The introduction of the Pengő was regulated by the law no. 35 of 1925 (link here, google translation here). Timur lenk (talk) 14:43, 20 December 2009 (UTC)
The introduction of the Pengő was regulated by the law no. 35 of 1925 (see above links), and introduced on 1 January 1927 (same reference). —Coroboy (talk) 10:29, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

## Exchange rate for forint

The article states that the forint was introduced at a rate of 4×10^29 pengo, i.e. 400 octillion. However the Encyclopedia Britannica states that the rate was in fact 400 quintillion (4x10^20). Can someone provide a reliable source for the 4x10^29 figure ? If not, I'll change it to the figure provided by the EB. Passportguy (talk) 20:36, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Long scale quintillion is actually 10^30, I would excpect EB to use that, but maybe they actually mentioned the numbers? --OpenFuture (talk) 23:47, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
I checked that, and when descibing the German hyperinflation of 1922/23, they use the short scale (i.e. "trillion" not "billion" for 1,000,000,000,000). [3]. So I'd suspect they'd use the same scale for the Hungary article as well. Even if they did use the long scale, 400 quintillion would be 4x1032 - again not the 4x1029 stated in the Wikipedia article. Passportguy (talk) 21:32, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
For reference :
1. 400,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 = 4x1029 = 400 octillion (Ssc) / 400 quadrilliard (Lsc)
2. 400,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 = 4x1032 = 400 nonillion (Ssc) / 400 quintillion (Lsc)
3. 400,000,000,000,000,000,000 = 4x1020 = 400 quintillion (Ssc) / 400 trillion (Lsc)

## Names for large numbers

This is the first time I saw "quintillion" and "sextillion" outside mathematics articles. I really think we should express them in terms of millions, billions and trillions. People may not know what "quadrillion", "quintillion" and "sextillion" mean. Professor M. Fiendish, Esq. 04:14, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

I think linking the words should solve the problem. Lanthanum-138 (talk) 14:50, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

## Inconsistency

Under "Historical exchange rates" the dates are written in DD/MM/YY format for the USD to pengő table, the table under it, the adópengő to pengő table, the dates are in written format.

Could we get a standard format going? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.81.179.154 (talk) 12:39, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

## Details

I have noticed that the section on hyperinflation is rather small. Can someone who has more knowledge on this matter expand it (sch as reasons, etc), and perhaps split it off onto its own article. This is, after all, the worst inflation ever!