Re: Ebisedian number system (I)

Steg Belsky sikyal:

> > The 3- prefix seems odd to me.  I don't know of any language that
> > regularly marks numbers themselves as plural (although words
> > modified by
> > numbers may be mandatorily plural).  It also is semantically
> > dubious--"eight" is not a plural concept, but a single concept that
> > denotes a collection of other things, like "herd" or "pile."
>
> > Jesse S. Bangs jaspax@u.washington.edu
> > http://students.washington.edu/jaspax/
> -
>
> Well, Hebrew (and Arabic, if i remember correctly) multiples of 10 are
> plural in form:
>
> 20 `esrim
> 30 sheloshim
> 40 arba`im
> 50 hhamishim
> etc.
> with the |-im| masculine plural ending.
Is this like the Romanian practice of writing "30" (for example) as
_treizeci_ "three tens" ?  That's clearly something else.  I don't know
Hebrew, but trying to parse the forms it doesn't look like it.

> Also, the Hebrew and Arabic words for "2" are dual: |shtayim| (-ayim) and
> |ithnaan| (-aan/-ayn), respectively.
Actually, this is also true in Greek, so I should have mentioned this as a
common exception.

Jesse S. Bangs jaspax@u.washington.edu
http://students.washington.edu/jaspax/

"If you look at a thing nine hundred and ninety-nine times, you are
perfectly safe; if you look at it the thousandth time, you are in
frightful danger of seeing it for the first time."
--G.K. Chesterton

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