 When the two-dollar coin was introduced in 1996, the derivative word "toonie" ("two loonies") became the common word for it in Canadian English slang.In French, the currency is also called ; Canadian French slang terms include or (the original word used in 18th-century French to translate "dollar") and (equivalent to "loonie", since is French for "loon," the bird appearing on the coin).The French pronunciation of (pronounced similarly to English as or , not like the word for hundred, or ) is generally used for the subdivision; is another, informal, term for 1¢.