canadian dollar?

Question

How come in canada they call their money the dollar? Copying the US?
Countries have so many names. Pound, franc, euro, yen.....
Why did they choose to copy the US dollar?
They were closer to the UK. They could have copied the pound?

Answer 1

On top of what every one else has pointed out (the dollar isn't an American creation nor uniquely American) the franc, euro and yen were never limited to one single country.

The franc was/is used by:
France
Switzerland
Liechtenstein
Comoros
Belgium
Luxembourg
and fourteen African countries

The euro is used by Austria, Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Slovenia, and Spain) and will extend to include Cyprus and Malta from 1 January 2008.

The yen is used by Japan and has been used by Korea and Taiwan.

So it's not uncommon for multiple countries to share currency names.

Answer 2

Many countries use the "dollar" as their currency, including Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, New Zealand, Singapore, and Taiwan. Notice these are former British colonies?

Canada did not "choose" to copy the US currency. Both Canada and US started out as British colonies. Britain enacted laws prohibiting the export of British silver coinage because they did not want precious metals leaving to the colonies, devaluing their monetary system. As a result, British colonists started using Spanish silver and calling their money the dollar, based on the Dutch word "daalder" (similar to the German "thaler").

My guess is that the name originated within the Dutch colonies in Pennsylvania, but it was pretty much widely used in both the US and Canadian colonies by the time 1776 came around and the Americans decided they were not going to pay the tax on their tea anymore.

Since Canada was already using the same system as the US and we were one of the largest trading partners of the newly formed United States at that time, we essentially just kept the same currency to make things easier in the 1850's.

So essentially, you can have Britain to thank for your US Dollar. If they had not restricted the export of their coins in the 1700's, then you and I would be using the US and Canadian Pound today.

And ours would still be worth about five pence more than yours... :-)

Answer 3

The name Thaler (from German thal, or nowadays usually Tal, "valley", cognate with "dale" in English) came from the German coin Guldengroschen ("great guilder", being of silver but equal in value to a gold guilder), minted from the silver from a rich mine at Joachimsthal - Jáchymov (St. Joachim's Valley) in Bohemia (then part of the Holy Roman Empire, now part of the Czech Republic). The basis of "thaler" comes from Joachimsthaler.[1] The name is historically related to the tolar in Slovenia (Slovenian tolar) and Bohemia, the daalder in the Netherlands and daler in Sweden, Denmark, and Norway.

In the early 19th century, a British five-shilling piece, or crown, was sometimes called a dollar, probably because its appearance was similar to the Spanish dollar. This expression appeared again in the 1940s, when U.S. troops came to the UK during World War II. At the time a U.S. dollar was worth about 5s., so some of the U.S. soldiers started calling it a dollar. Consequently, they called the half crown "half a dollar", and the expression caught on among some locals and could be heard into the 1960s.

Answer 4

the word dollar was around way before the yanks claimed it

many countries use the dollar
Canada,Australia.
newzealand,bahamas.fiji.taiwan,caribbean.
barbados

Answer 5

The word dollar pre-dates anything the "all-mighty" Americans came up with.

http://www.projects.ex.ac.uk/RDavies/arian/dollar.html

Answer 6

steve n is right
question is why do americans think they invented/started everything ???!!!!!