Etymology of numbers
Little to do with this post.
Etymology is the study of the history of words, so the etymology of numbers is the study of the words we use to represent numbers: e.g. thirteen, twenty-two. Numbers are strange because they can be written in several ways, such as their 'standard form': 1, 2, 3, and words: one, two, three.
This will just be a brief discussion of my ideas of number etymology rather than indepth overview. No research was done, these are only my own ideas.
I've noticed that from 1-11, the English words use to represent numbers are unique.
one two three four five six seven eight nine ten eleven
I guess the word 'two' is similar to 'three' - in German they rhyme, zwei and drei. And is it a co-incidence that 2 and 3 begin with the same letter, as do 4 and 5, and 6 and 7?
I stopped at eleven because twelve, to me at least, looks like eleven with a two at the start. Twelve is the word 'tweleven' with a couple of letters dropped. Therefore I think the word twelve is semi-unique: it's based on the words for earlier numbers (2 and 11) but it's dropped some of the letters of the original words, so it's somewhat unique in its own right.
If we didn't know the word for 13, we would expect it logically to be 'threeleven' or 'threleven'. (3 and 11). Maybe 'leven' is a word for 'ten'? Regardless, for the numbers 13-19, a different rule is applied: the word for ten gains an extra 'e' and becomes 'teen'.
Fourteen = four + teen = four + ten = 4 + 10 = 14
Sixteen = six + teen = six + ten = 6 + 10 = 16
Seventeen = seven + teen = seven + ten = 7 + 10 = 17
The words thirteen and fifteen are strange. 'Thir' represents three, but why don't we say 'threeteen' instead? The same with fifteen, where 'fif' represents five - we don't say 'fiveteen'. I think 'thir' comes from the word 'third' and 'fif' from the word 'fifth'. So instead of 'three ten' for 13 we have 'third ten'.
Thirteen = third + teen = third ten = 13
Fifteen = fifth + teen = fifth ten = 15
The rule probably applies to all the other teen numbers too:
Fourteen = fourth + teen = fourth ten = 14
Sixteen = sixth + teen = sixth ten = 16
Seventeen = seventh + teen = seventh ten = 17
Eighteen = eighth + teen = eighth ten = 18
The rule doesn't work for 19, where the 'nine' in nineteen is a nine instead of resembling the word 'ninth'. Although I bet the word nineteen started as the word 'ninteen'.
Applying the rule to the numbers 11 and 12:
11 = first ten = firteen (probably unsuitable because it's a homophone of thirteen)
12 = second ten = secondteen (unsuitable as a word because there's too many syllables?)
What about the words, for 20, 30, and 40, etc? Well they're essentially the same as the teen numbers except 'teen' is replaced by another form of ten, which is 'ty'.
third ten = third ty = thirty = 30
fourth ten = fourth ty = fourty = 40
fifth ten = fifth ty = fifty = 50
Twenty is weird. Does it mean, twelve ten? Or two ten?
To get to numbers which aren't multiples of ten, such as 34, 78 and 42, we put together existing numbers. Doing this creates what I call 'non-unique' numbers, which are put together using existing numbers without changing their words.
E.g.
34 = 30 and 4 = thirty and four = thirty four
78 = 70 and 8 = seventy and eight = seventy eight
Interestingly, in German they keep the word 'and', and they swap their numbers around compared to us:
34 in German = 4 and 30 = vier und dreizig = vierundreizig
Comments
2011-04-17 Anonymous
“ To study without thinking is futile. To think without studying is dangerous”
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php
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2012-06-11 MyMindToYourMind
Actually, it's what 11 and 12 have in common that make them interesting. It's the 'leven/-lve' part.
In our Indo-European language family (most Western languages plus the languages of Iran, India, Afghanistan and some others), there are two concepts of the number 'one'; there is one meaning alone or unique. That is what our number one comes from. The Latin word for one unus and the German word ein also come from that root. The Greek word 'oine' also comes from this root. This word measn the one spot of a die, that is, one one of the two pair of dice.
But there is a second concept of one, that is, one meaning one and the same. We see examples of this word in the English word simple (literally means 'one ply' or 'one fold'). We see it in the Latin word semel (once), similis and other such words. We see it in the Greek word "homos". That word was once spelled "somos" and it means 'same'. The Greek number 1 is an example of this word. The classic Greek word for one is 'heis'. If you go back far enough in the development of Greek, you can see how 'heis' was once 'hems' and back a little farther you can see 'hems' was once 'sems'.
The numbers two through eight are failry straight forward. There is some controversy about 9 and 10. Some believe that the original counting system of our IE language family was octal not decimal. They see the number 'nine' as meaning 'the new number' or the first number after 8. The Latin number 9 is novem and does look like the word for new in Latin 'novum'. They also see the Latin number 10, decem, as meaning 'two fives'. The issue about the origin of 9 and 10 are interesting and controversial but I am more comfortable with the idea that our language family used a decimal system of numbering and that 'nine' and 'ten' are just as unique as two through 8. I am open, though, to other ideas.
Now, back to 11 and 12. The basic meaning of 'leven' in 'eleven' and, in a shortened form 'lve' in 12 is 'left over'. So 'eleven' literally means 'one left over' (after counting to 10) and 'twelve' means 'two left over'. You can begin to think in terms of 10 fingers and two feet. Note that there are 12 inches in a foot. 12 months in a year. Twice 12 hours in a day etc. After 12 English starts compounding ten (thirteen = three and ten). Some think that twenty simply means 'two tens' but that too is just speculation.
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2012-07-13 Anonymous
Thank you for your comments. I am wondering why the teen numbers are set up so that the order is the number plus 10 (thirteen = 3 + 10; eighteen = 8 + 10) but the subsequent 20s, 30s,40s etc. have the tens and then the numbers (twenty-three = 20 + 3, Fifty-five = 50 + 5. Why this change in order? ALSO, in regards to the orginal system being octal, I have always found it curious that the number 80 in French is quatre-vingts.
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2020-12-01 Ste Richardsson
Well, an older way of counting was to put the units before the tens. In fact, it wasn't that long ago that we still used both ways of counting. Do you recall the nursary rhyme "Song a song of sixpence"? The earliest attestation of this rhyme is from the 18th century, and one of the lines is: "Four and twenty blackbirds, baked in a pie". The practise of placing live birds in baked goods was a form of "entremet" or "subtlety", an elaborate dish served between courses, designed to entertain, amuse and wow guests. Live bird entremetage was most popular in the 16th century, so we may assume that the poem was commonly told orally before being commited to paper in the 18th century.
2012-07-13 Anonymous
From the etymology website cited above
-ty (1)
suffix representing "ten" in cardinal numbers (sixty, seventy, etc.), from O.E. -tig, from a Germanic root (cf. Du. -tig, O.Fris. -tich, O.N. -tigr, O.H.G. -zig, -zug, Ger. -zig) that existed as a distinct word in Gothic tigjus, O.N. tigir "tens, decades."
English, like many other Germanic languages, retains traces of a base-12 number system. The most obvious instance is eleven and twelve which ought to be the first two numbers of the "teens" series. Their Old English forms, enleofan and twel(eo)f(an), are more transparent: "leave one" and "leave two." Old English also had hund endleofantig for "110" and hund twelftig for "120." One hundred was hund teantig. The -tig formation ran through 12 cycles, and could have bequeathed us numbers *eleventy ("110") and *twelfty ("120") had it endured, but already during the Anglo-Saxon period it was being obscured. Old Norse used hundrað for "120" and þusend for "1,200." Tvauhundrað was "240" and þriuhundrað was "360." Older Germanic legal texts distinguished a "common hundred" (100) from a "great hundred" (120). This duodecimal system, according to one authority, is "perhaps due to contact with Babylonia."
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2012-07-13 Anonymous
Another interesting tidbit from the website
-teen
combining form meaning "ten more than," from O.E. -tene, -tiene, from P.Gmc. *tekhuniz (cf. O.S. -tein, Du. -tien, O.H.G. -zehan, Ger. -zehn, Goth. -taihun), an inflected form of the root of ten; cognate with L. -decim (cf. It. -dici, Sp. -ce, Fr. -ze). The combining form of ordinal numbers, -teenth, developed from O.E. -teoða, -teoðe (W.Saxon), teogoða (Anglian) "tenth."
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