What is the official name of the Swiss currency main denomination and
its subdenomination (both singular and plural) in German, French,
Italian, and Rumantsch(sp?)? I believe it's "der Franken, die Franken;
der Rappen, die Rappen" in German, but I'd like to know it in the
other official languages of Switzerland as well. Also, if there are
official English forms of the names, I'd like to know that, too.

Hello Pne,

that was a fun question for me. Here some authoritative answers and
references. I hope they are of use to you.

German     der Franken die Franken der Rappen   die Rappen
French     le franc    les francs  le centime   les centimes
Italian    il franco   i franchi   il centesimo i centesimi
Rumantsch  il franc    ils francs  il rap       ils raps
English    the franc   the francs  the centime  the centimes

The Swiss National Banc (SNB) conducts the country's monetary policy
as an
independent central bank. The SNB is also responsible for the
production of
swiss currency (both banknotes and coins). You can find their website
at
http://www.snb.ch
The production of coins is done by the Swiss Mint which can be found
at
http://www.swissmint.ch

The german, french and italian names were verified in the Federal Law
concerning the currency and means of payment, which can be found here:
http://www.admin.ch/ch/d/sr/941_10/a1.html
http://www.admin.ch/ch/f/rs/941_10/a1.html
http://www.admin.ch/ch/i/rs/941_10/a1.html

The english, german, and french names can also be verified at the
Swiss Mint, where you can also find good reproductions and technical
data of the coins.
http://www.swissmint.ch/e/products/index.shtml
http://www.swissmint.ch/d/produkte/index.shtml
http://www.swissmint.ch/f/produits/index.shtml

Good pictures of and data on the banknotes can be found at
http://www.snb.ch/e/banknoten/alle_serien/alle_serien.html

For the rumantsch version of the names, I pulled a banknote out of my
vallet and had a look at it. And then I called a friend of mine in
Chur,
and asked for centimes etc. The comment by astra4 is correct. No URL,
sorry...

It may be interesting for you to know that 'Rumantsch Grischun'
(or Romansch, as it is sometimes called) is a composite language,
created from the five dialects Sursilvan, Sutsilvan, Surmiran, Puter
und Vallader. Only this allowed to treat it as an official language,
following a voting in 1996. As of 2000, ca. 70000 ppl spoke rumantsch,
less than 1% of the population.

In case you wonder, 'Franken' comes from France's coin named 'le
franc'.
The Swiss franc was adopted by the Helvetic Republic (made up of some
of
the cantons of today's Switzerland) in 1799.

I have no idea where 'Rappen' comes from. The following (german) URL
helps:
http://www.moneymuseum.com/standard/raeume/geld_machen/bank/geschichte/namen/etymologisches/etymologisches_unten.html

Google searches involved:
'franken batzen rappen'
'romantsch rumansch franken francs'
'notenbeschriftung franken'

Thank you for the answer and for the links!
I guess if the SNB uses "centime" on its English-language pages,
that's pretty official.
Also interesting that it's so hard to get hold of an official
statement of the name in Rumantsch... even though it's an official
language, it seems to be very poorly represented generally. Thanks
again for taking the trouble to find it out.
Thanks also for the link on the etymology of "Rappen" (and other
coins); it was an interesting read.

Hi!

I could find it in German, Italian and French, but I could not find it in Rumantsch

German: der Franken, die Franken, der Rappen, die Rappen
French: le Franc les Francs, le Centime, les Centimes
Italian: il Franco, i Franchi, il Rappo, i Rappen

I hope someone else will find that to you.

Regards,
pietrobello-ga

I also found centesimi given for the plural of the small coins in
Italian http://www.nato.int/ccms/general/countrydb/switzerland.html

As an aside, http://www.about.ch/economy/index.html#CH_Eco_Currency
has the common Swiss-German names used for the different coins, plus
images of coins and notes.

Romantsch speakers seem to use the word 'francs' but don't know about
the smaller denominations:
http://www.gr.ch/cgi-shl/as_web.exe?staka22.ask+f

German: Der Franken, die Franken, der Rappen, die Rappen
French: Le franc, les francs, le centime, les centimes
Italian: Il franco, i franchi, il centesimo, i centesimi
Romanch: Il franc, ils francs, il rap, ils raps

QUOTE (originally posted by philip_lynx)
English:    the franc, the francs, the centime, the centimes
/QUOTE

Are you sure it's "centime"?
I would have said it's like in the US: "cent" and "cents".

Hi astra-4,

in a word: Yes. I was surprised myself, but check out the links, and
you will see what the SNB and Swiss Mint have to say.

Pne: Thank you for the nice rating, I am glad my answer was of use ;-)