Piastre
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The piastre, originally a U.S. dollar-size silver coin, served as the major unit of currency of French Indochina (Present-day Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos), and in the Ottoman Empire.
Early private bank currency issues in French-speaking regions of Canada were denominated in piastres. The term is still unofficially used in Quebec and Acadian slang as a reference to the Canadian dollar (the official French term for the modern Canadian dollar is dollar). Piastre was also the original French word for the United States dollar, used for example in the French text of the Louisiana Purchase. Modern French uses dollar for this unit of currency as well.
The piastre still exists as the subdivision of the Egyptian pound, Syrian pound and Jordanian dinar. Theoretically, the piastre also still exists in Lebanon, where it is a subdivision of the Lebanese pound; inflation, however, has rendered it superfluous and it is not currently in use. The new kuruş, the subvision of the Turkish new lira, is commonly known as the piastre.
