TYIYN

by Joseph
(Pennsylvania)

A monetary unit in Kyrgyzstan, equal to 1/100th of a som.

(From the Kyrgyzstani ti-yi-n, meaning squirrel, referring to when squirrel skin was a monetary unit itself)

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I asked my mother to help me study for the upcoming district spelling bee, after we got through all twenty pages of words, my mother wanted to challenge me. Of course, I accepted the challenge and she gave me this word.

Having not studied Kyrgyzstani, I was completely stumped. So, basing off of what I knew for Arabic, Russian, Hindi and such, I spelled it "tiyen", which needless to say was wrong. I truly love this word because it's so fun to say and spell.