https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_new_shekel
"With the issuing of the third series, the Bank of Israel has adopted
the standard English spelling of shekel and plural shekels for its
currency.[30] Previously, the Bank had formally used the Hebrew
transcriptions of sheqel and sheqalim (from שְׁקָלִים).[31]"
BTW, Google flags "sheqel" in its search box as an incorrect spelling.
On 2019-07-25 2:23 AM, Mark E. Shoulson via Unicode wrote:
Just looking at document L2/19-291,
https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2019/19291-missing-currency.pdf "Currency signs
missing in Unicode" by Eduardo Marín Silva. And I'm wondering why he feels it
necessary for the Unicode standard to say that a more correct spelling for the
Israeli currency would be "shekel" (and not "sheqel"). What criterion is being
used that makes this "more correct"? I think it's more popular and common, so
maybe that's it. But historically and linguistically, "sheqel" is more
accurate. The middle letter is ק, U+05E7 HEBREW LETTER QOF (which is not "more
correctly" KOF), from the root ש־ק־ל Sh.Q.L meaning "weight". It's true that
Modern Hebrew does not distinguish K and Q phonetically in speech; maybe that is
what is meant? Still, the "historical" transliteration of QOF with Q is very
widespread, and I believe occurs even on some coins/bills (could be wrong here;
is this what is meant by "more correct"? That "shekel" is what is used
officially on the currency and I am misremembering?)
Just wondering about this, since it seems to be stressed in the document.
~mark
