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QUERY: GERMAN EAST AFRICA BANKNOTE LANGUAGE
Kerry Rodgers submitted this question for readers concerning the language seen on a German East Africa banknote.
-Editor
Heritage sold a wonderful group of World War I emergency issue notes of German East Africa from the Ruth Hill Collection a few weeks ago. The back of each note carries the following statement:
There is a caution against counterfeiting in German in the box at the bottom. The text above the box is a promissory clause repeated twice in two different languages, the first of which is in German and occupies three lines. The second language is the next two lines. Question: what is the second language that repeats the promissory clause?
Caveat: respondents need to be clear that the note is from Deutsch-Ostafrika and not Deutsch-Südwestafrika nor Deutsch-Westafrika. The latter two German colonies had been occupied by allied forces long before this note was printed in 1916. And, just in case anyone wanted to know, the forces in Deutsch-Ostafrika were the only part of the German military never to be defeated in open warfare in the whole of WWI. They surrendered two weeks after the armistice had been signed in Europe.
Kerry has since figured this out, but now I'm curious to see if any of our readers can recognize the language. I was stumped!
-Editor
Wayne Homren, Editor The Numismatic Bibliomania Society is a non-profit organization promoting numismatic literature. See our web site at coinbooks.org. To submit items for publication in The E-Sylum, write to the Editor at this address: whomren@gmail.com To subscribe go to: https://my.binhost.com/lists/listinfo/esylum All Rights Reserved. NBS Home Page Contact the NBS webmaster 
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