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German Numbers, why said backwards? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Medulin Tetraglot Senior Member Croatia Joined 4463 days ago 1199 posts - 2192 votes  Speaks: Croatian*, English, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Norwegian, Hindi, Nepali | Message 9 of 18 07 June 2015 at 5:28pm | IP Logged | ||
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In Croatian
11 = 1 on top of10 jedanaest from jedan na deset all numbers from 11-19 are like this other are not this is similar to English 13-19 Origin of 19 according to SOED; Old English niġontȳne = Old Frisian niogentena, Old Saxon nigentein (Dutch negentien), Old High German niunzehan (German neunzehn), Old Norse nítján, from Germanic base of nine, -teen Edited by Medulin on 07 June 2015 at 5:32pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| beano Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4417 days ago 1049 posts - 2152 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Russian, Serbian, Hungarian | Message 10 of 18 11 June 2015 at 2:03pm | IP Logged | ||
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I'm sure Dutch also does the numbers "backwards".
There are references in English nursery rhymes to this type of counting, e.g. "four and twenty blackbirds, baked in a pie". I'm guessing that this is some sort of link to Old English. Just curious, but when a German person jots down numbers that they hear orally, do they wait to hear the whole number before writing it down or for, say vierundzwanzig do they write the 4 upon hearing but leave a gap for the leading number? Edited by beano on 11 June 2015 at 2:04pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Monox D. I-Fly Senior Member Indonesia monoxdifly.iopc.us Joined 4930 days ago 762 posts - 664 votes Speaks: Indonesian* | Message 11 of 18 11 June 2015 at 3:30pm | IP Logged | ||
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I used to troll my friends when they asked for someone's phone number which contained the number 1. For example, if the 6 last digits of the asked number is 071428, I would spell it out as "Zero seven four..." and when they had pressed the 4 button, I continued with punctuation "...teen two eight". They got mad after that.
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| Josquin Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4639 days ago 2266 posts - 3992 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Latin, Italian, Russian, Swedish Studies: Japanese, Irish, Portuguese, Persian | Message 12 of 18 11 June 2015 at 5:03pm | IP Logged | ||
Personally, I write numbers from left to right, so I mentally process "vierundzwanzig" into "24" before writing it. However, there actually are people (especially children) who would write the four first, leaving a space for the two, and then write the two. So, I guess it has to do with the ability to convert speech into abstract numbers. EDIT: And yes, numbers provide some of the craziest stuff some languages have to offer. I just say Russian, Danish, and Scottish Gaelic... Russian numbers themselves aren't terribly illogical, but you need to decline them and the words following them according to complicated rules. I don't want to go into detail now, but after every numeral containing 2, 3, or 4 as the last digit (except for 12, 13, and 14!) a masculine noun takes the genitive singular, while the adjective takes the genitive plural. Feminine nouns also take the genitive singular, however, their adjectives take the nominative (!) plural. Needless to say this rule is only valid if the numeral itself is in the nominative or accusative. Danish simply has an abysmal vigesimal system, while Scottish Gaelic is absolutely crazy, combining a vigesimal system with initial mutations. 1, 20, and numbers over 40 take the singular of the noun, 2 takes the dual, and all other numbers take the plural. Some numbers mutate the initial consonant of their noun and some nouns mutate their numbers. The vigesimal system itself is very illogical as well, because compound numbers can be formed in two different ways, and the components of a compound number surround the noun (13 sheep = "three sheep ten", 23 sheep = "three sheep on twenty", 39 sheep = "nine sheep ten on twenty", and 43 sheep = "two twenty sheep and three"). Needless to say that the word "twenty" in these numbers can also be mutated when it follows the number "two" or is in the dative after the word for "on"... Oh, I forgot Japanese, which has the great invention of "counters" and Japanese vs. Chinese numbers. I think it's even worse in Korean, if I remember correctly. Also, Japanese doesn't have "millions", it has a special word for "ten thousand" ("man"), which serves for big numbers. So you need to convert big numbers like hundred thousands or even millions into units of ten thousand. Good luck doing that on the spot! Edited by Josquin on 11 June 2015 at 5:37pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Josquin Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4639 days ago 2266 posts - 3992 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Latin, Italian, Russian, Swedish Studies: Japanese, Irish, Portuguese, Persian | Message 13 of 18 11 June 2015 at 5:58pm | IP Logged | ||
The Julian calendar originally started in March, so September really was the seventh month of the year. The beginning of the year was changed to January only later and then adopted by the Gregorian calendar. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| stelingo Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5627 days ago 722 posts - 1076 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, French, German, Italian Studies: Russian, Czech, Polish, Greek, Mandarin | Message 14 of 18 12 June 2015 at 12:31am | IP Logged | ||
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In Czech, probably due to the prominence of German when Bohemia was part of the Habsburg
Empire, you have a choice, for example 25 dvacet pět or pětadvacet. The former seems to be the more commonly used way of counting. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Ogrim Heptaglot Senior Member France Joined 4434 days ago 991 posts - 1896 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, French, Romansh, German, Italian Studies: Russian, Catalan, Latin, Greek, Romanian | Message 15 of 18 12 June 2015 at 9:22am | IP Logged | ||
Actually, in Norwegian the German way was the usual way to count until the 1950s, when the Ministry of Communication and Transport decided that whe should count saying the tens first. The reason was that this would lead to less errors when, for example, you asked the telephone central for a phone number. To explain, back then in Norway you could not just dial the number of the person you wanted to talk to, you had to pass through a central and quote the number, and the person at the central would pass you through. You will still hear especially older people in Norway counting the German way, whilst most young people have been educated to count the "new" way. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| beano Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4417 days ago 1049 posts - 2152 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Russian, Serbian, Hungarian | Message 16 of 18 12 June 2015 at 1:49pm | IP Logged | ||
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I'm sure I read that Greenlandic just has numbers up to 12 and then they substitute Danish numbers for larger amounts.
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