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Languages withDeficient Counting Systems | ||
Tags: Number System | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Philological Room |  | |
| GibberMeister Bilingual Pentaglot Groupie Scotland Joined 5809 days ago 61 posts - 67 votes  Speaks: Spanish, Catalan, Lowland Scots*, English*, Portuguese | Message 9 of 26 05 April 2009 at 11:07pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I remember seeing Dravidian wordlists and noticing that some languages have extensivley borrowed numbers from the Indo-European languages, no doubt through contact with neighbours and reinforced through Sanskrit scriptures (??)
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| stelingo Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5833 days ago 722 posts - 1076 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, French, German, Italian Studies: Russian, Czech, Polish, Greek, Mandarin | Message 10 of 26 06 April 2009 at 1:36am | IP Logged | |||||
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I have noticed, here in the UK at any rate, that people speaking Hindi or Urdu will often use English numbers. Perhaps the complicated number system in these languages is the reason why? Could it be that native speakers find them tricky too?
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| Fat-tony Nonaglot Senior Member United Kingdom jiahubooks.co.uk Joined 6141 days ago 288 posts - 441 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Russian, Esperanto, Thai, Laotian, Urdu, Swedish, French Studies: Mandarin, Indonesian, Arabic (Written), Armenian, Pali, Burmese | Message 11 of 26 06 April 2009 at 10:37am | IP Logged | |||||
The natives certainly find them difficult, especially without regular practise to keep them "active". It noticeable that foreign-based correspondents for Hindi/Urdu news stations more often than not use English numbers, especially for the less-used higher numbers (i.e. those not ending in 5 or 0). I took one Urdu exam at the same time as a British-Pakistani officer, who spoke Punjabi at home, who said that it's not unusual for people in his situation to take until 17-18 to finally master all the numbers. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| izan Bilingual Tetraglot Newbie Spain letmewritealittlebit Joined 5870 days ago 20 posts - 34 votes 1 sounds Speaks: Spanish*, Basque*, EnglishC1, FrenchC1 Studies: German | Message 12 of 26 06 April 2009 at 10:39am | IP Logged | |||||
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In Basque we have:
40=berrogei (two twenties), 60=hirurogei (three twenties), ... 30= hogeita hamar (twenty and ten), 50= berrogeita hamar (two twenties and ten)... 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| stelingo Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5833 days ago 722 posts - 1076 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, French, German, Italian Studies: Russian, Czech, Polish, Greek, Mandarin | Message 13 of 26 06 April 2009 at 12:17pm | IP Logged | |||||
That's intersting. So how do they cope in a Maths class then? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Alkeides Senior Member Bhutan Joined 6149 days ago 636 posts - 644 votes | Message 14 of 26 06 April 2009 at 2:47pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Singaporean Chinese seem to have the habit of using 千 instead of 万 in numbers that really should require the latter.
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| TBerg Newbie United States Joined 4519 days ago 7 posts - 7 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Danish | Message 15 of 26 14 July 2012 at 3:25am | IP Logged | |||||
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When I learned some Mandarin, one of the things that relieved me was their incredibly straightforward numeric
system. I could apply the same nine words in the same way all the way up to 99 or, in Chinglish, jiushijiu! 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Teango Triglot Winner TAC 2010 & 2012 Senior Member United States teango.wordpress.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5557 days ago 2210 posts - 3734 votes Speaks: English*, German, Russian Studies: Hawaiian, French, Toki Pona | Message 16 of 26 14 July 2012 at 4:10am | IP Logged | |||||
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On a related note, I recall that counter words in Japanese weren't exactly a walk in the park.
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