Language and the euro European currency. Of other national Slavic languages using the Cyrillic alphabet, Macedonian, Russian and Serbian also use the spelling евро. Ukrainian uses євро and Belarusian uses еўра/эўра. In Catalan the official plural is the same as its regular plural "euros". The standard pronunciation of "euro" is . For the cent, the word "cèntim" (, plural "cèntims") is used, since historically this term has been used as the hundredth part of a currency unit. The fraction of the peseta was also called "cèntim", but it was withdrawn from circulation decades ago. In the Cornish language, euro is written "ewro" (like "Ewrop"
Euro in Madrid. The euro was introduced to world financial markets as an accounting currency on 1 January 1999, replacing the former European Currency Unit (ECU) at a ratio of 1:1 (US$1.1743). Physical euro coins and banknotes entered into circulation on 1 January 2002, making it the day-to-day operating currency of its original members, and by March 2002 it had completely replaced the former currencies. While the euro dropped subsequently to US$0.83 within two years (26 October 2000), it has traded above the U.S. dollar since the end of 2002, peaking at US$1.60 on 18 July 2008. In late 2009, the