Query Details

Query Subject:	Irregularity in French counting system
Author:	Kim Ruth
Submitter Email:	click here to access email
Language Family:	Indo-European

Query:	I am ''familiar'' with the counting system in English, French, Spanish, German, Farsi and Arabic. Arabic is Semitic, others are Indo-European. All of them, beginning with 21, have a similar structure, with the ones column either preceding or following the tens column. E.G., 31 Thirty One Trenta Uno Trente et Un Ein und driesig See o yek (Farsi) Ahad wa Thalathin (Ar.) French follows this scheme up to 69, at which point it goes ape, 70 - sixty ten - soixante dix 80 - four twenty - quatrevignt 90 - four twenty ten - quatrevignt dix Are there other Indo-Europen languages that do something similar, or was there some specific historical circumstance in French history that led to this peculiarity?
LL Issue:	14.3497
Date posted:	16-Dec-2003
Back

Sums main page

New from Cambridge University Press!