While looking at Greek coins on eBay, I noticed that smaller denominations had the word Lepta on it (ЛЕПТА). To a native Russian speaker, the word immediately rang a bell. There is a Russain expression: to contribute your Lepta. Everyone there is familiar with a phrase and knows that it means to make a contribution (not necessarily a monetary one), but nobody used the word Lepta on it’s own or questioned what it meant (at least I didn't). Seeing that coin, made it obvious that the word comes from a small Greek coin which apparently comes form an ancient Greek word that means small or thin. I thought it was funny that years after leaving the country, numismatics made me stumble upon this coin which lead me to learn the meaning and the origin of the word that I’ve heard countless times, but never knew the meaning or origin. After buying the 1973 20 Drachmai with Athena that I was originally searching for, I bought this one too:
Very interesting. It's funny that languages are borrowing words from other languages referring to a value. For instance in french we sometimes say "it's not even worth a kopeck" to express the idea that something doesn't have any value.
I'd be curious to see if there are any other expressions in other languages that borrow a foreign currency name.
