Re: Asian Number Systems (was Re: FYI re: Greenberg's Universals)

On Wed, 4 Oct 2000 Togonakamane@AOL.COM wrote:

> yl112@CORNELL.EDU writes:
>
> > :-)  And as for numbers--there are
> >  two number systems, and I know one's from Chinese (il, i, sam, sa, o,
> >  yuk, ch'il, p'al, ku, sip) and one possibly isn't, and I seem to remember
> >  being told it's "native" (hana, dul, saet, naet, daseot, yeoseot, ahop,
> >  yeol).  I think they're used in different situations--the Chinese?
> >  system is sure faster for reciting multiplication tables.  <G>
> >
> >  han saram = one person (Chinese?)
> >  il saram...it sounds odd and I don't ever remember hearing this
> >
> >  However,
> >  sip won = 10 Won (unit of currency) (Chinese?)
> >  yeol won...sounds odd and I also don't remember hearing this.
> >
> >  Maybe one's used with money and the other with people/objects?
>
> Japanese has two sets too. The Chinese set (ichi ni san shi/yon go roku hachi
> shichi kyuu jyuu) and a native set (hitotsu, hutatsu, mitsu, yotsu.... seven
> is hanatsu....I forget the rest, but you get the idea) They are used in
> different situations; as mentioned below for Korean, different "counters"
> take different sets. (counters: suffixes such as -ban "number": ichi-ban
> "number one"; -hai "glass": ippai "one glass [of a drink]" ...there's some
> irregularities in the counters in there, sorry. but anyway, there's lots of
> counters.) People are counted with hitori, hutari, sannin, yonnin, for an
> extra weird one.
<wry g>  I saw a list of various counters in Japanese and they convinced
me maybe I'd better look for an easier language (as if such a thing
exists).  (OTOH, when I first saw separable verbs in German during
self-study, I gave up.  But they're really aren't so bad now that I'm
used to them.)  I don't *think* Korean has so many counters, if any, but
I could be badly wrong.

> Japanese also has this thing about "shi"="death" (shinu: to die.... the shi
> part is written with the "death" kanji). So, in a hospital, you must never,
> ever say "shi" (four) or "shichi" (seven).... you have to use "yon" (four)
> and "hana" (seven) instead. This may be why "four people" is "yonnin" rather
> than "shi'nin"....a) shi'nin might already mean dead people!- I'm not real
> sure. b) you don't want to jinx the fourth person or anything. I just know,
> for whatever reason, that you don't use "shi'nin" for fourth person/four
> people. Even more ways to complicate the number system, aside from all the
> pronunciation irregularities (eight: hachi [different romanizations may call
> this hati], 100: hyaku; 800: happyaku... [<-- incidentally... look,
> nonisolating])
Korean does this too--elevators have floors 1, 2, 3, F (handily borrowed
from English!) but usually not 4, though this is changing.  I think my
mom told me it's because the Chinese for "four" looks and/or sounds like
the word for "death."  I'm thinking it must be visual because to my
knowledge you can use "sa" or "naet" (four) in a hospital when referring
to, oh, dates of the year without repercussions.  (Since my dad's a
surgeon I've had some experience in Korean hospitals.  <G>)

YHL