Re: Borrowed numerals (was: Inuktitut (Canada))

Thomas R. Wier scripsit:

> And of course English borrowed one
> number, the ordinal of "two", from Latin/French, as the citation
> ordinal. ("Other" has of course remained with altered semantics.)
What's more, the ordinal in question ("secundus") is itself an
internal borrowing, displacing the inherited "alter", which is a
cognate of "other"!

The entire High German ordinal system from "zwanzigste" on up is a
pseudo-calque:  the Latin apparent ending -e:simus in vice:simus
fell together with the Latin superlative ending -issimus (as -iesme),
giving the Germans the impression that Romance-speakers said "twentiest",
"thirtiest", and so on: hence the perfect parallelism
fleissig:fleissigste::dreissig:dreissigste.

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