Talk:Mongolian dollar

Local name

Was the dollar called the tögrög in Mongolian? I can see this word on the unissued State Treasury Notes of 1924 ([1]) but not on the 1921 notes that were issued. Unfortunately, I've only got a rather grainy catalogue image to go on and my Mongolian is less than 24 hours old, so I might have missed it.
Dove1950 21:20, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Very unlikely. Why would it have been called "dollar" if it had a name of its own? --Latebird 09:53, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Given that the two names both appear on the later, unissued notes, it struck me as quite likely. At the time, the Chinese yuan was often called a dollar in English. The real question is whether anyone has a better picture of the 1921 notes to say whether or not the word tögrög appears in the Mongolian text.
Dove1950 13:24, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Looks like I misread your original comment, then. Since it seems that you can read the old script, you already have better information than most of us anyway... Does that mean that the Mongolian Dollar and the Tögrög aren't really seperate currencies, but they just gradually changed the name?

Btw: I don't think it's wise to just write "The Dollar" in the introduction. That doesn't make it clear to the unaware reader that we're not talking about one of the more commonly known currencies of the same name (ie. the US Dollar). --Latebird 14:24, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

That's pretty much what I was thinking but proof is needed before this article is merged with tögrög. As to the opening line, I removed the word Mongolian because it doesn't form part of the official name of the currency, which is simply "dollar". To have Mongolian dollar implies that that was its name, which it wasn't.
Dove1950 15:27, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Just that nobody would just say "Dollar" in English when they mean the Mongolian one. Style guides and naming conventions require to match the page name and take the most commonly used term. I'm not sure if we even have an "official name" in English here, but in either case "most common" takes precedence. --Latebird 17:20, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

I suppose the real issue is the following: What do most people mean when they say dollar in English? If you think the answer is the U.S. dollar, what about the millions of people living in Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the East Caribbean States, The Bahamas, Zimbabwe, Guyana, Barbados, Belize, Fiji, Jamaica, Liberia, Namibia, Singapore, the Solomon Islands, Suriname, Tuvalu and Trinidad and Tobago? They don't think of the U.S. dollar, they think of their own. We simply can't define "most common" since usage varies over time and geographically. The name written in English on the notes is dollar, which seems pretty official to me. If it turns out that the name was something else in Mongolian, that would take precedence as it was the local name. Until such time as that can be ascertained, giving the impression that an official name of "Mongolian dollar" existed could very well be misleading.
Dove1950 20:21, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

It doesn't really matter what the answer will be in any specific case. What matters is that in the vast majority of cases, it will be the wrong answer, unless you name it specificly. With "most common", I mean that the Mongolian Dollar is most commonly called "Mongolian Dollar" in English language sources, and not just "Dollar", exactly because of all that multitude of ambiguity. Compare how the "most common" vs. "official" issue is solved eg. in the article Germany. --Latebird 20:48, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

I could ask when you've ever heard of the "Mongolian dollar" before, given that the sole source I've seen (a banknote catalogue) simply calls it the dollar. The point I'm trying to make is that articles in Wikipedia shouldn't give misleading information. It would be as much a sin to give the impression that this dollar was in fact one of the other dollars in existence as to imply that it had an official name "Mongolian dollar". I don't think that the article as it currently starts gives either impression, which is why I made the change, as I've done to the other dollar articles. Some of these changes get reverted but the majority appear to be as is here. On another, perhaps more aesthetic point, having the words Mongolian and Mongolia in the same sentence seems a bit unwieldy. Not the most important argument but one worth bearing in mind.
Dove1950 21:02, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Naming conventions#Be precise when necessary:

Convention: Please, do not write or put an article on a page with an ambiguously named title as though that title had no other meanings. If all possible words have multiple meanings, go with the rule of thumb of naming guidelines and use the more popular term.

Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Article titles:

If possible, the article’s title is the subject of the first sentence of the article, for example, “This Manual of Style is a style guide” instead of “This style guide is known as …”.

Can you support your diverging opinion and editing with official Wikipedia policy? Or can you show me a single English language source that calls it just "Dollar" instead of "Mongolian Dollar"? And no, the print on that bill is not a relevant "English language source". --Latebird 23:37, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

My source is

Pick, Albert (1990). Standard Catalog of World Paper Money: Specialized Issues. Colin R. Bruce II and Neil Shafer (editors) (6th ed.). Krause Publications. ISBN 0-87341-149-8.

I'm not only referring to what's printed on the note (which is in itself highly significant and written in English) but also to the accompanying text, which refers to the denomination as the "dollar". I hope we agree that the title of this article is correct and that our disagreement is solely with the opening line. As to the second policy which you quote, the key words are "If possible". In this case, my argument is that it is not possible because to do so would be misleading. Further more, I am not aware of a single source which calls this currency the "Mongolian dollar". Are you? I'd be very interested to see anything else written about this currency as it's very obscure.
Dove1950 09:56, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

possible source

There is a blue booklet now for sale in Ulaanbaatar with the title Coins and Banknotes of Mongolia or something similar. As I'm not really so interested in Numismatics and the book sold for 15 USD, I just had a look into it and did not buy. The info just added is basically from that book. Yaan 15:29, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

I also removed the reference (was

• Pick, Albert (1994). Standard Catalog of World Paper Money: General Issues. Colin R. Bruce II and Neil Shafer (editors) (7th ed.). Krause Publications. ISBN 0-87341-207-9.

) as it referred to the older version and probably references none of the info I added.

Could you add a reference for the booklet your information came from? There's nothing wrong with the SCWPM reference as it has everyhting in the article except for the name of the government and the comment on the dollar's value. That latter point really does need a reference.
Dove1950 22:23, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

It's called "The Coins and Banknotes of Mongolia" (and this is what it looks like). IMO the government is a really important detail as it was fundamentally different from the one that followed later in 1921. Unfortunately I'm a bit hesitant to directly reference this blue booklet - I don't have access to it now, and I don't remember the page number. Does the SCWPM catalogue give any hint that the money was issued under Ungern-Sternberg and not under the communists? Yaan 11:58, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

I agree entirely that the govenment doing the issuing was very significant. It may explain why these issues had little value given the government's nature and short tenure. I'll add the reference despite your not having it any more. Think of it as being like a book you borrowed from a library. SCWPM doesn't indicate the issuer.
Dove1950 19:36, 6 October 2007 (UTC)