Ukrainian hryvnia

The hryvnia or hryvnya ((hə)ˈrɪvniə ; гривня ˈɦrɪu̯njɐ, : грн hrn; sign: ₴; code: UAH) has been the national currency of Ukraine since 2 September 1996. The hryvnia is divided into 100 kopiyok. It is named after a measure of weight used in Kievan Rus'. The currency of Kievan Rus' in the eleventh century was the 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). The nominative plural of hryvnia is hryvni (гривні), while the genitive plural is hryven’ (гривень). In Ukrainian, the nominative plural form is used for numbers ending with 2, 3, or 4, as in dvi hryvni (дві гривні, "2 hryvni"), and the genitive plural is used for numbers ending with 5 to 9 and 0, for example sto hryven’ (сто гривень, "100 hryven’"); for numbers ending with 1 the nominative singular form is used, for example dvadtsiat’ odna hryvnia (двадцять одна гривня, "21 hryvnia"). An exception for this rule is numbers ending in 11, 12, 13 and 14 for which the genitive plural is also used, for example, dvanadciat’ hryven’ (дванадцять гривень, "12 hryven’"). The singular for the subdivision is копійка (kopiyka), the nominative plural is копійки (kopiyky) and the genitive is копійок (kopiyok). The hryvnia sign is a cursive Ukrainian letter He (г), with a double horizontal stroke (₴), symbolizing stability, similar to that used in other currency symbols such as the yen and Chinese yuan (¥, a symbol the currencies share), euro (€), and Indian rupee (₹). The sign was encoded as U+20B4 in Unicode 4.1 and released in 2005. It is now supported by most systems. In Ukraine, if the hryvnia sign is unavailable, the Cyrillic abbreviation "грн" is used (which can be transliterated as "hrn").