Re: The English/French counting system (WAS: number systems from conlangs)

----- Original Message -----
From: "Carsten Becker" <post@...>
To: <CONLANG@...>
Sent: Monday, September 15, 2003 8:09 PM
Subject: The English/French counting system (WAS: number systems from
conlangs)


> Good evening everyone!
>
> Some days ago, I wondered about why English/German/French etc. (I guess
all European languages)
> have separate names for 11 and 12: eleven, twelve; elf, zwölf; onze,
douze, instead of oneteen,
> twoteen; einzehn, zweizehn; dix et un, dix et deux.
Why not dix-deux, following the model vingt-deux, trente-deux, etc.?

> We count in tens, but have numbers which you can
> count in twelves with.
Yes, that's strange. And in French, we could count in sixteens too: 13, 14,
15 and 16 are treize, quatorze, quinze and seize, not dix-trois, dix-quatre,
dix-cinq and dix-six. ;-)

In French I think that comes from a distortion of the Latin words:
11   onze       undecim
12   douze      duodecim
13   treize     tredecim
14   quatorze   quattordecim / quatuordecim
15   quinze     quindecim
16   seize      sedecim

>
> Another question: Why are the French counting so odd? Quatre-vingt (4
times 20) for 80, soixant-dix
> (60 and 10) for 70 etc. (instead of Swiss "huitante" and "septante" (and
"nonante"))  is really difficult
> when you're not used to it. How did this develop?
You're right: it's odd and I use it only in France. In Belgium I use
septante (70), quatre-vingts (80) and nonante (90).

I don't know where the French counting system comes from.
A Google search gave me some hundreds of links.
http://www.langue-fr.net/index/S/septante.htm is a page about the use of
septante, huitante, octante and nonante.
At http://eureka.povlab.org/reponse.php?qid=358 there's a text about the
(uncertain) origin of the partly vigesimal French system.

Jean-François Colson
jfcolson (a) belgacom.net

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