Economists are eager for Microsoft to update the “insert symbol” function

India has a new, attractively-designed symbol for the rupee.  It’s a combination of the Latin letter “R” and the Devanagari “ra”. (It looks like this: र) I’m not sure yet what strokes I would use to write it: R-bar-bar, or bar-R-bar, but I approve.  Now I think either China or Japan should come up with an alternative to ¥…

For those interested, Slate’s The Explainer has a quick article about the origin of common currency symbols here. 

The Ghana cedi is noted with the symbol GH¢,  or the ISO code GHS.  (The ISO code for the rupee is INR; the U.S. dollar is USD, etc.) The name “cedi” comes from a word for cowry shell, which were once used in Ghana as currency.

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