Shake and Rattle: The Story of the Piggy Bank
Money, when we see numbers on an app, doesn't make a sound. But real money will shake and rattle — and you can even guess how much you have from those exciting sounds!
Of course, banking apps are a much easier way to manage your money. But for some of us, there's nothing like saving for things with the rattle-rattle of coins inside an old piggy bank.
But have you ever wondered why we might want to put our money into pigs? Not everyone agrees on the reason!
One idea that has been shared a lot online is that, hundreds of years ago, people in Western Europe used to put their money in old jars made from a type of clay called "pygg."
That word was pronounced "pug," but in time, as people and languages moved and changed, people in the UK started pronouncing it "pig."
The story is that potters — the people who made the jars — decided to begin making them in the shape of pigs, because that sounded like a fun idea!
However, not everyone believes that story, which was included in a 1989 book by Charles Panati called The Extraordinary Origins of Everyday Things.
Others think pigs are used because in some countries, like Germany, the animal is thought to bring luck, so a pig-shaped jar might be a good place to put money.
There are similar beliefs in China. And there is evidence that pig-shaped jars were used in Java, Indonesia, in the 14th century or earlier. So some think this tradition was brought from the East to Europe.
We may never know for sure, because not many very old piggy banks still exist — since the only way to get the money out was to break them!
