Re: EAK numerals

2007/5/27, Philip Newton <philip.newton@...>:
> > Also, rather like the Malay-Indonesian sa-/ satu = 1, I am adopting EAK
> > e-/ enó = 1. Therefore, the EAK numerals from 10 to 99 are formed thus:
> > e-déka = 10; e-déka enó = 11; e-déka dúo = 12; e-déka tría = 13 etc.
> > dúo déka = 20; dúo déka tétra = 24; dúo déka pénta = 25 etc.
> > tría déka = 30, tétra déka = 40 etc. up to _ennéa déka ennéa_ = 99.
>
> Do 10 and 100 need a prefix at all, in the first place?
>
> I'm thinking of German, for example, which has "hundert, zweihundert,
> dreihundert, etc." -- "einhundert" also exists, but it's not necessary
> to include "ein". Also, Chinese has no morpheme for "one" in its word
> for "ten", nor Japanese in its word for "a hundred" (though I think
> Chinese usually does say explicitly "one hundred").
>
> ...hm, my arguments are not particularly good; some languages do have
> explicit "one", others don't, so either way has good precedent.
>
I think, that given that EAK is after all derived from Greek, it
should as far as possible follow the Greek way of doing things --
namely, in this case, to exclude the lexeme for "one" in words like
"ten" and "hundred".

Eugene

Reply