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Currencies Without Borders: How much is a million spesmiloj?

As I write more and more Esperanto fiction, I find myself referencing the currency spesmiloj in an attempt to create an immersive Esperanto environment for the reader. Here's an example from my mikronovelo La Kristala Ananso:

“Kun aroga certeco, juna entreprenisto proponis unu milionon da spesmiloj. Neniu aŭdacis proponi pli.”

The narrative doesn’t change whether it’s a million USD, a million CAD, or a million EUR... so why not a million spesmiloj? I’m certain most of my readers aren’t millionaires, so the exact amount really doesn’t mean much beyond “a lot of money.”

But then I wondered: how much is a million spesmiloj, really?

According to Wikipedia, the spesmilo was "equivalent to one thousand spesoj, and worth 0.733 grams (0.0259 oz) of pure gold (0.8 grams of 22 karat gold).”

So 0.733 g × 1,000,000 = 733,000 g

At the current spot price for gold per gram of 107.75 USD / 92.87 EUR, we get:

733,000 g × 107.75 USD = 78,980,750 USD
733,000 g × 92.87 EUR = 68,073,710 EUR

Yes, that’s a substantial amount of money in any currency.

... Or is it?

Thinking a little bit more on this, I realized there's another problem here. The number exists mainly to create atmosphere, but readers from different economies will perceive numbers differently.

Let's consider the Korean won. 4,000 KRW is less than 3 USD. To an American reader, 4,000 looks substantial. To a Korean, 3 is laughably small. Meanwhile, 1,000,000 KRW is roughly 720 USD.

I guess if I were to formalize it, perhaps I would say, “Numbers need context”. And in the case of prices, we expect that context to be the currency. This is an important point because if I’m writing in Esperanto, I am writing for an international audience. And if I'm not relying on currency, I have to provide the context in a different way.

Thankfully, I did this intuitively: “Neniu aŭdacis proponi pli.” It's the world reacting to the number that provides context.

At least now I realized I shouldn’t rely on readers to understand what constitutes expensive or cheap; I need to support it with prose to signal its weight. Yes, it's show, don't tell.

Maybe this lesson will be of help to other writers who use fictional currencies, too. Let your characters and their world respond to provide valuable context.

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