In high old German, the term "scaz" generally takes the place of our word money. In Gothic the word "skatts" is employed, although Ulpilas translates the word ἀργύριον (which appears in Mark, 14, 11, where it refers to money in general) by "faihu" (cattle, money). The Old High German word "gelt" can be found in a tenth century glossary to the Bible with the meaning of "payment," "ransom," or "fine," as a translation of the Latin word "aes." In Old Norse, on the other hand, the word "giald" was already commonly used in the sense of our present-day term money. In Middle High German the term "gelt" was customarily used to designate "payment" (kind and object of payment), "wealth," or "income," but was also frequently used with the present-day meaning of "money" — by Hugo von Langenstein, for example, in Martina (ed. by Adelbert von Keller, Bibliothek des Litterarischen Vereins in Stuttgart, Stuttgart, 1856, XXXVIII, 543) where he employs the form “ze gelte keren” (to measure in money); and by Peter Suchenwirt, Werke (ed. by Alois Primisser, Wien, 1827, pp. 29, 115 and passim, esp. p. 329). (See E.G. Graff, Althochdeutscher Sprachschatz, Berlin, 1838, IV, 191; G.F. Benecke and Wilhelm Müller, Mittelhochdeutsches Wörterbuch, Leipzig, 1854, I, 522ff.; Lorenz Diefenbach, Vergleichendes Wörterbuch der gothischen Sprache, Frankfurt am Main, 1851, II, 403.)

It is interesting to consider how other peoples designate money. The Greeks, the Hebrews, and in one manner of speech the Romans as well, used the word silver (αργψριον, keseph, argentum) for money. The French do so today (argent). The English, Spaniards and Portuguese, and in another manner of speech, the Hebrews, Greeks and French also, employ words meaning coin to designate money (money, moneda, moeda, maoth, νομισμα, monnaie). The Italians and Russians speak of pieces of monetary metal (denars) if they wish to designate money in general (danaro, dengi) and the same is true of the Spanish and Portuguese in an alternative manner of speech. The Poles, Czechs, and Slovenes designate money by pennies, i.e., pieces of monetary metal (pienadze, penize, penize), and the Croatians, Bosnians, and Dalmatians do the same. The Danes, Swedes, and Magyars also speak of pieces of monetary metal, i.e., pennies, when they wish to designate money (penge, penningar, penz). The Arabs do the same, since their word for money, “fulus,” really means “coins.” In the language of the Bari, who live on the upper Nile, the word “naglia” means glass beads as well as money (Friedrich Müller, “Die Sprache der Bari,” Sitzungsberichte der Kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Wien, Philosophisch-Historische Classe, XLV ³¹, 117). Among the Nubians, metallic money is called “shongir” which means lettered shell (i.e., a cowrie shell with letters imprinted on it — coinage!).

There is a connection between the designations for money and cattle, the earliest medium of exchange, in most languages. In Old Norse the word “naut” means both cow and money, and in Old Frisian the word “sket” means both cattle and money. The Gothic “faihu,” the Anglo-Saxon “feoh,” the Northumbrian “feh” and corresponding expressions in all the other Germanic dialects were used interchangeably to designate cattle, wealth, money, etc. (See Wilh. Wackernagel, “Gewerbe, Handel und Schiffahrt der Germanen,” Zeitschrift für deutsches Alterthum, IX 1853, 549, note 101; Diefenbach, op. cit., I, 350ff. and II, 758; and the interesting note in Richard C. Trench, A Select Glossary of English Words Used formerly in Senses Different from their Present, London, 1873, p. 30.) In the Lex Frisionum, Additio Sapientium, Tit. X, (in Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Hannover, 1863, XV, 695) we read “equum . . . vel quamlibet aliam pecuniam”; and in the Glossa Cassellanae we read “pecunia fihu” (in Johann Georg Eckhart, Commentarii de Rebus Franciae Orientalis et Episcopatus Wirceburgensis, Frankfurt, 1729, I, 853-855). The Old Slavic word “skotum,” meaning “cattle” is used in its Lithuanian diminutive form, “skatikas” or “skatiks,” in the meaning of groat (see Georg H.F. Nesselmann, Wörterbuch der littauischen Sprache, Königsberg, 1850). The derivation of the Latin words pecunia, peculium, etc., from the word pecus (cattle) has frequently been pointed out. Similarly, a legend mentioned by Julius Pollux has often been cited, since according to it the earliest money of the Athenians was called βονζ a designation which is said to have been preserved in the proverb βονζ επιγλωστζ. The terms dekaboion, tesseraboion and hekatomboion are also known to have served as designations for amounts of money. The view that these terms came, not from cattle money which was once in existence, but from the earliest metallic money that bore an animal sign, can be found already in the writings of Pollux and Plutarch, and has been revived more recently by Beulé and others. But I am inclined to consider as more correct the alternative view that with the gradual transition from a customary cattle standard to a metallic standard, the value of an animal in terms of metal originally constituted the principal denomination of the new currency, and hence that term that designated quantities of animals was transferred to metallic coins and to amounts of such coins.

The concepts cattle and money are also related in Arabic. There is evidence of this in the fact that the word “māl” means property, or cattle in the singular, and wealth or money (amwāl) in the plural. (See Georg W. Freytag, Lexicon Arabico-Latinum, Halle, 1837, IV, 221; and Maninski, p. 4225.)