The Turkish Lira’s Armenian Faux Pas

THE TURKISH LIRA’S ARMENIAN FAUX PAS

EurasiaNet.org

March 6 2012
NY

March 6, 2012 – 8:12am, by Giorgi Lomsadze

Tensions between Turkey and Armenia have manifested themselves before
in many forms, but, now, some ultra-nationalist numismatists have
come up with a brand-new cause for alarm — the new symbol for the
Turkish lira, they claim, is pretty much the inverted symbol of the
Armenian dram.

The resemblance, far-fetched as it may sound, was also detected inside
Armenia itself, where, as in many other small countries, there is
sometimes an eagerness to trace various things around the world back
to Armenia. One Armenian blogger, no doubt with thoughts of former
Armenian-populated territory that’s now part of Turkey in mind, even
called the new lira design a Freudian slip on the part of the Turks.

The voice of reason came from the designer of the Armenian dram, Karen
Kamendarian, who told Mediamax he’d already discussed the similarity
with some concerned Turks on Facebook. The design of the Turkish lira
symbol is clearly based on the Latin letters “t” for “Turkish” and
“l” for “lira,” he asserted, and its two intersecting lines are also
sported by the Mongolian tugrik and the euro as well as the dram.

But amidst the jingoistic shouting on either side, don’t expect
anybody necessarily to listen.