You can read about "History of Banking in Iran" here:
http://www.iranchamber.com/history/articles/banking_history.phMany Iranian linguists believe that the word "bank" and some other related words have Persian origin, among these words I have just found about the Persian origin of the word "cheque" in the English dictionaries.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheque
Etymological dictionaries attribute the financial meaning to come from
"a check against forgery," with the use of "check" to mean "control"
stemming from a check in chess, a term which came into English through French, Latin, Arabic and ultimately from the Persian word "shah" or "king." |
Of course that etymology is wrong, and I don't how "check in chess" can mean "king", the Persian verb "chik" and Arabicized "siq" means "to sick", anyway we also read about an Arabic origin of cheque:
http://wikiislam.net/wiki/How_Islamic_Inventors_Did_Not_Change_The_World
The modern cheque comes from the Arabic saqq, a written vow to pay for
goods when they were delivered, to avoid money having to be transported
across dangerous terrain. In the 9th century, a Muslim businessman could
cash a cheque in China drawn on his bank in Baghdad. |
The fact is that Both English "cheque" and Arabic "saqq" come from Middle Persian "chak" which means "document, written evidence".
But about the word "bank", we read in wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bank
Iranian linguists believe that "bank" comes from the Persian word "
bangah/bongah", this word is still used in the Persian language and means "business or financial place", the second part is the suffix "-gah" which forms words of location, but the first part is "bon" which means "fund" (bon and fund have the same Indo-European origin).