Re: numeration system

Hi!

Ray Brown <ray.brown@...> writes:
>...
> Similarly in german the standard 'zwei' is not used when giving numbers
> over the phone,
Oh, that's too strong a restriction.  It is.  But it might be replaced
by 'zwo' if the listener asks.  OTOH, some people use it regularly
without the needs for constraining situations like phone talks.

> because it gets confused with 'drei'; the (archaic?  dialect?) 'zwo'
> is used instead.
'zwo' is originally a different form of the number two in those days
when it had declension.  Just like English 'two' I assume it derives
from the masculine accusative form.  Compare the Icelandic declension
of 'two', which retains a lot more forms:

         m      f     n
   nom   tveir  tvær  tvö
   acc   tvo    tvær  tvö
   ...

BTW, English 'fifty' and 'fifteen' is also very error prone,
especially in larger numbers like 'fifty/fifteen thousand', and
especially for foreigners that put the accents on the wrong
syllables. :-)

**Henrik