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

From:Roger Mills <romilly@...>
Date:Monday, September 15, 2003, 20:12
Mark J. Reed wrote:

> On Mon, Sep 15, 2003 at 08:09:51PM +0200, Carsten Becker wrote: > > 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. We count in tens, > > but have numbers which you can count in twelves with....... > > 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? > > That I've also wondered about. My impression was that the > Swiss system is a logical extension of the French, rather than > that the French is a reduction of the Swiss, but since > Latin had the full set of numbers up to 100 the French > system must have involved a reduction somewhere. >
Actually I think French is the innovator/odd language out here; supposedly the soixante-dix ~quatre-vingt (dix) etc. is due to Celtic substrate, a remnant of counting by 20s (as Basque does, too, IIRC). But a lot of French oddities are attributed to "substrate", the usual suspect for anything that doesn't obey the rules. The Swiss seem to have retained the Latin forms for the decades-- as do Span/Port and Italian. I suspect Provençal does too, but am not sure. Interesting about the teens-- Span. keeps the Latin reflexes only thru 15, after that it's "10 and six/seven etc.", while Fr/Ital. include Latinate 16, then go "10 seven/eight etc.". Perhaps the Spanish just didn't like the sound of "*sece" (*seice?). I wonder if it's ever attested in old texts.