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Re: Numbers from 1-10

From:Doug Dee <amateurlinguist@...>
Date:Sunday, August 31, 2003, 22:54
In a message dated 8/31/2003 6:15:04 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
endipatterson@YAHOO.COM writes:


>I suspect that proto-Germanic might have had [a base 12 system] because >
eleven and
>twelve don't end in -teen.
I suspect not. I seem to recall reading somewhere that the origin of "twelve" was a compound meaning something like "two-left" i.e., "a nice round group of ten with two spares left over," and that the etymology of "eleven" was similar. That is, both words reflect a base-10 system, just as "thirteen" does. I might be misremembering. Surely someone here can check that out. Doug

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Tristan McLeay <zsau@...>