Ukrainian hryvnia

The hryvnia, sometimes hryvnya (Ukrainian: гривня, pronounced [ˈɦrɪu̯ɲɑ], abbr.: грн (hrn in Latin alphabet)); sign: ₴, code: UAH), has been the national currency of Ukraine since 2 September 1996. The hryvnia is subdivided into 100 kopiyok. It is named after a measure of weight used in medieval Kievan Rus'.

Name

Etymology

The currency of Kievan Rus' in the eleventh century was called grivna. The word is thought to derive from the Slavic griva; c.f. Ukrainian, Russian, Bulgarian, and Serbo-Croatian грива / griva, meaning "mane". It might have indicated something valuable worn around the neck, usually made of silver or gold; c.f. Bulgarian and Serbian grivna (гривна, "bracelet"). Later, the word was used to describe silver or gold ingots of a certain weight; c.f. Ukrainian hryvenyk (гривеник), Russian grivennik (гривенник, "10-kopek piece").

The modern Ukrainian hryvnia is sometimes transliterated as hryvna, hrivna, gryvna or grivna, due to its Russian language counterpart, гри́вна, pronounced grívna. However, the standard English name for the currency is hryvnia.