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

En réponse à Tristan McLeay :


>Is this (saying 'a hundred five-and-twenty') where the 'and' came from in
>'a hundred and twenty-five'? Did they say 'a hundred and twenty' or 'a
>hundred twenty'.*
I wouldn't know. The use of "and" between hundreds and tens is very 
English. All other Germanic languages I know use "and" only between tens 
and units (French uses it between tens and 1, i.e. "vingt-et-un", but 
"vingt-deux"). Same with Spanish.


>Numbers in Quenya are written in the opposite direction. I've always
>considered our numbers to be backwards, going from small to large seems to
>better agree with my sense of aesthetics or something.
I completely agree with you. The majority of my languages give numbers in 
order units-tens-hundreds-thousands (or equivalents when they use 
non-decimal bases), even Maggel. But Maggel is complicated by the fact that 
it does that only up to 7999 (it's vicesimal). 8000 is a simple noun in 
Maggel, not a number. The result is that Maggel has order 
units-twenties-fourhundreds, but eightthousands can be put before or after 
the smaller numbers as wanted. Moreover when completing a noun (including 
the number nouns like 8000), only the smallest value is put in front of the 
noun. The other ones are put afterwards, and the noun agrees in number only 
with the one in front (as if when saying "twenty-one apples", you'd say 
"one apple and twenty"). Imagine the complication when counting things with 
more than 8000 :))) . And then there's the fact that the numbers above 8000 
are borrowings and decimal instead of vicesimal, and since they are simple 
nouns there is no single way to give big values. And then there are the 
optional substractive forms. And I don't even know how they handle 
fractions and other non-integers!!! (I know they handle them complicatedly, 
but that's all :))) )

Christophe Grandsire.

http://rainbow.conlang.free.fr

You need a straight mind to invent a twisted conlang.