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Fasulye Heptaglot Winner TAC 2012 Moderator Germany fasulyespolyglotblog Joined 5849 days ago 5460 posts - 6006 votes 1 sounds Speaks: German*, DutchC1, EnglishB2, French, Italian, Spanish, Esperanto Studies: Latin, Danish, Norwegian, Turkish Personal Language Map
| Message 1329 of 3959 25 September 2009 at 11:46am | IP Logged |
Iversen wrote:
The etymology of the Danish words for 50 (halvtreds), 60 (tres), 70 (halvfjerds), 80 (firs) and 90 (halvfems) shows that we once had a numbersystem based on the number 20 (presumably invented by barefoot people). But those who learn the language now should just learn the words without doing the mathematics inherent in them. |
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That's encouraging for my future Danish project. But it's interesting to know the logic behind this because the Danish number system is very unusual. It always costs me a lot of time to understand mathematics well, so perhaps I should not dig to deeply into that.
Fasulye
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| Rameau Triglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6109 days ago 149 posts - 258 votes 4 sounds Speaks: English*, GermanC1, Danish Studies: Swedish, French, Icelandic
| Message 1330 of 3959 25 September 2009 at 12:36pm | IP Logged |
Iversen wrote:
The etymology of the Danish words for 50 (halvtreds), 60 (tres), 70 (halvfjerds), 80 (firs) and 90 (halvfems) shows that we once had a numbersystem based on the number 20 (presumably invented by barefoot people). But those who learn the language now should just learn the words without doing the mathematics inherent in them. |
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Somehow my brain has difficulty fully accepting the Danish numbering system. When I hear syvoghalvfjerds, I know this is seventy-seven. And when I want to say seventy-seven in Danish, it is not so especially difficult to call up the word syvoghalvfjerds. Yet when I see the digits 77 printed on the page, I generally have to pause a short moment to "convert" it into the word "syvoghalvfjerds". I suppose my brain simply doesn't like the idea that two sevenish looking numbers should not be identified by two similar words--and it really doesn't like the idea that one of these words should be so similar to a word normally associated with a completely different number. Interestingly enough, this doesn't seem to affect numbers like tres or firs to nearly the same degree, possibly because the numbers they look like at least factor easily into those numbers they represent. It's rather the halv-whatevers that always seem to requite a bit of a pause. I admit, I've gotten significantly better with this over time simply by hearing the numbers over and over again, but my brain still doesn't want to completely accept it--especially those meddlesome halv-numbers. Troublemakers, the lot of them.
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| Darobat Diglot Senior Member Joined 7190 days ago 754 posts - 770 votes Speaks: English*, Russian Studies: Latin
| Message 1331 of 3959 25 September 2009 at 3:07pm | IP Logged |
Some sort of relevant humor concerning the Danish language...
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| Lizzern Diglot Senior Member Norway Joined 5911 days ago 791 posts - 1053 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English Studies: Japanese
| Message 1332 of 3959 25 September 2009 at 4:20pm | IP Logged |
My Norwegian-speaking dad once switched to German when speaking to a Dane - everything was going well, "men så begynte han å telle, og det likte jeg ikke". ("but then he started counting, and I didn't like that...") Whenever I'm in a store in Denmark I just round up to the nearest hundred when I pay. I still can't work out the numbers without doing the math.
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| tommus Senior Member CanadaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5868 days ago 979 posts - 1688 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Dutch, French, Esperanto, German, Spanish
| Message 1333 of 3959 25 September 2009 at 4:56pm | IP Logged |
Rameau wrote:
when I see the digits 77 printed on the page, I generally have to pause a short moment to "convert" it into the word "syvoghalvfjerds". |
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I have a similar problem in Dutch where the digits of two-digit numbers are also reversed. For example, 47 is zevenenveertig. After many years of learning Dutch, my mind still stumbles through re-arranging the order. Similar issue in French for numbers 70 - 99, although I understand Belgian French has specific names for seventy, eighty (maybe) and ninety. These sorts of things make languages fascinating, but somewhat more difficult to learn.
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| patuco Diglot Moderator Gibraltar Joined 7017 days ago 3795 posts - 4268 votes Speaks: Spanish, English* Personal Language Map
| Message 1334 of 3959 25 September 2009 at 10:34pm | IP Logged |
Iversen wrote:
patuco wrote:
... apologies for both the late reply (school's started, so I'm quite busy) and for not having read Iversen's log religiously and discovered this for myself. |
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So you could in principle have missed that I have written about your airport, which has a public road crossing its tarmac (see 21/9). |
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I did indeed miss it. If I'm not mistaken, it's the only international airport in the world where this occurs, but please correct me if I'm wrong. It's bloody annoying too when the traffic backs up all the way into town just because there are a couple of flights one after the other.
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Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6705 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map
| Message 1335 of 3959 26 September 2009 at 9:32am | IP Logged |
FR: Le système des numéros en Danois est drôle, mais nous ne sommes pas le seuls à avoir un système avec des traces vigintésimales (basés sur le nombre 20 au lieu de 10) -c'est aussi le case dans le Francais en France: 80 = quatrevingts = 4 x 20 etc. Et inversion des chiffres (47, cfr. ci-dessus) est en effet le système normal dans les langues Européennes
GER: Dieses Wochenende bin ich übrigens mit einem Ereignis in meinem Reiseclub beschäftigt. Wir haben Gäste - ein Dutzend Mitglieder eines Berliner Reisevereinigung. Oder Mitglied is vielleicht ungenau, veil ihre Vereinigung ist ganz locker organisiert, während die unsere straff organisiert mit Mitgliedbeitrag, eine Verzeichnung, Statistik, Statuten uzw. Ich habe gestern mehrere Stunden Deutsch gesprochen mit dieser Leuten, und nicht nur ist es ganz selten für mich so was zu erleben in meinem eigenen Lande, aber es hat mich auch verwundert dass so viele Kopenhagener gut Deutsch sprechen - das kann man in Südjylland erwarten, aber normalerweise nicht in Kopenhagen, wo die leute sich eher an Schweden orientieren (and natürlich auch Englisch sprechen). Interessant is auch, dass ich noch heute Morgen immer wieder auf Deutsch statt Dänisch denke - nur ein par Stunden wo ich eine andere Sprache spreche, und dann glaube ich offensichtlich, dass ich im Ausland bin!
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The French also have traces of a number system based on fingers AND toes. And putting the 'ones' before the 'tens' is quite normal in the European languages.
This weekend I'm busy with a visit from Berlin to our travel club, - last evening I spoke German for several hours to our guests. I was happily surprised to see how many of our members from Copenhagen spoke German, - in Southern Jutland that would be quite normal, but in Copenhagen they are more oriented towards Sweden (and then they of course speak English). For me it is so rare to speak other languages in my own country that I continued to think in German even this morning - thia happens often in English, but I normally habe to 'press the button' manually with other languages.
Btw. this hotel computer - I can use letters with diacritics when I write, but I can't correct anything because then the offending letter is converted into noise and 3 letters after it simply disappear.
(strange symbols removed 27/9)
Edited by Iversen on 27 September 2009 at 6:57pm
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Fasulye Heptaglot Winner TAC 2012 Moderator Germany fasulyespolyglotblog Joined 5849 days ago 5460 posts - 6006 votes 1 sounds Speaks: German*, DutchC1, EnglishB2, French, Italian, Spanish, Esperanto Studies: Latin, Danish, Norwegian, Turkish Personal Language Map
| Message 1336 of 3959 27 September 2009 at 2:11am | IP Logged |
GER: Ich bin mit dem "Tagging" hier so beschäftigt, dass mir etwas die Zeit fehlt, normale Posts im Forum zu schreiben. Super, dass du soviel deutsche "Immersion" hattest. Die Deutschkenntnisse der Kopenhagener kann ich insgesamt nicht gut einschätzen. Der eine Gastherr von mir hatte zeitweilig in Luxemburg gelebt, daher konnte er Deutsch. Als ich in der Stadt war, wollte ich gar kein Deutsch sprechen. Wenn ich mal seltenerweise im Ausland bin, dann will ich meine Fremdsprachen anwenden. Ich habe in Kopenhagen daher nur Englisch und Esperanto gesprochen.
FR: J'ai acheté au station de Düsseldorf un interessant magazine scientifique qui s'appelle "Sciences et Avenir", que je n'ai jamais vu. Toutes les personnes en gestion de ce magazine sont des femmes! Le style est très serieux et les articles ne sont pas trop longues, donc c'est idéal pour moi. Aussi j'ai vu "Focus" en italien et "Geo" en espagnol.
Fasulye
Edited by Fasulye on 27 September 2009 at 8:54pm
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