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0 pointsshever731mo ago0 comments

I think the three-and-ten, four-and-ten way of expressing numbers is primarily an ancient Greek thing. The modern numbers are expressed differently (δεκατέσσερα / dekatessara for fourteen, for example). In a lot of older European languages 11 and 12 behaved irregularly. You could argue that they do in English too (we don't have oneteen and twoteen).

I haven't read of any particular reason for this, but I'd posit that numbers up to twelve were more commonly used in everyday life, so shorter, irregular forms were easier to use and remember. Much like many of the irregular verb forms in spoken language happened because they were so commonly used.

The ancient Greek system also gave us triskaidekaphobia - the fear of the number 13.

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8 comments · 4 top-level

shagie1mo ago· 4 in thread

French has some weirdness to its counting. 11 - 16 is specific words, 17 - 19 is "ten {number}" (dix-sept, dix-huit, dix-neuf).

There's also some fun when you get to 70... which is soixante-dix (sixty ten)... and 80 which is quatre-vingts (four twenties)... and 90 as quatre-vingt-dix (four twenties ten).

Some dialects of French outside of France have changed how they count.

dylan6041mo ago

With Spanish being similar with distinct words for 11-15 with 16-19 being 10+number. Taking Spanish in high school made me consider that for the first time while never having thought about 11,12 being similar in English until that same thought process.

shagie1mo ago

Latin has 1 to 10 as quite reasonable. 11 is "undecim" (one ten), and 12 is "duodecim" (two ten)... 16 is "sedecim" (six ten), 17 is "septendecim" (seven ten)...

18 is duodeviginti (two from twenty) and 19 is undeviginti (one from twenty).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin_numerals

anthk1mo ago

On_ce, do_ce, tre_ce, cator_ce, quinc_e seem to share similar Latin roots with uno, dos, tres, cuatro, cinco...

shever73OP1mo ago

Yes, there are lots weird remnants of the vigesimal system around in French. You can see it in names like the Quinze-Vingts hospital - literally "fifteen twenties" because it was designed to have 300 beds.

gapan1mo ago

Indeed, in ancient greek they put the "δέκα" (ten) part second. Τρία και δέκα (13), τέσσερα και δέκα (14), πέντε και δέκα (15), etc, but 11 and 12 was (and still is in modern greek) irregular, έντεκα (enteka) and δώδεκα (dodeka) respectively.

colechristensen1mo ago

There were plenty of base-12 number systems in Europe, one way of counting to 12 is using your thumb to count the bones in the other 4 fingers, one hand for the 1's digit, the other for the 10's digit.

12 being divisible by 2,3,4,6; 10 being divisible by 2,5 -- means base 12 is easier to multiply and divide to reach whole numbers.

onlypassingthru1mo ago

>we don't have oneteen and twoteen

But we do have duodecim, aka dozen. So we just need to add "onezen" to the current vernacular to make the set complete. Let's go team onezen!

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