Moderator:Forum Administrators
Dormouse559 wrote:I don't know how it compares to North Indian languages, but France French? I get base-20, but I find it super challenging to use it only from 70-99.
As far as replacing all three of soixante-dix, quatre-vingts and quatre-vingt-dix with more-regular words, that only happens in a few Swiss cantons (septante, huitante, nonante). More common are dialects that just replace the first and third (septante, quatre-vingts, nonante). As far as I know, most dialects that aren't in France or Canada do the second thing.Hent wrote:Dormouse559 wrote:I don't know how it compares to North Indian languages, but France French? I get base-20, but I find it super challenging to use it only from 70-99.
Is it Belgian or Swiss French that uses the fully normal system?
Hent wrote:What's an eyesore is the Indian placement of the "comma".
1,00,00,000?
eskandar wrote:In what other language can someone have learned enough to comfortably read a newspaper without a dictionary but still struggle to count to 100?
Dormouse559 wrote:I don't know how it compares to North Indian languages, but France French? I get base-20, but I find it super challenging to use it only from 70-99.
I find it super challenging to use it only from 70-99.
JackFrost wrote:Isn't it normal to struggle counting very comfortably in another language that isn't really your native one?
Of course, but I’m not complaining about baseline difficulty. It’s the added challenge of switching to base-20 a third of the time. Without that, French numbers are really pretty simple from an Anglophone perspective. You just have to deal with that baseline, remembering the words.JackFrost wrote:Isn't it normal to struggle counting very comfortably in another language that isn't really your native one? Even after speaking French for a little more than half of my life, I still glitch full hard saying something like 3456. At least in my mind. But then, it could be that it's not really my strength to do mental numbers and maths as it's always easier for me to use a pen and paper to quietly process all of those.
vijayjohn wrote:JackFrost wrote:Isn't it normal to struggle counting very comfortably in another language that isn't really your native one?
Yes, but I've never seen a counting system in any language that's as unintuitive (to basically anyone) as the Indo-Aryan ones, and in India, there are plenty of people who don't even count in their native languages and use English instead. I'm sure there are plenty who can't as well. I remember Meera once saying most Hindi-speakers don't even bother with the counting system in their language and just use the English equivalents instead.
JackFrost wrote:If it becomes complex and speakers actually find it so, then there's a pressure to "simplify" it. Like, French and Danish didn't have the base-20 system as Latin and Old Norse didn't count like that and that's what we actually have now.
vijayjohn wrote:JackFrost wrote:If it becomes complex and speakers actually find it so, then there's a pressure to "simplify" it. Like, French and Danish didn't have the base-20 system as Latin and Old Norse didn't count like that and that's what we actually have now.
I'm not sure the motivation for a sub-base-20 system has much to do with simplification per se, if that's what you're implying. I was more under the impression that base-20 is just not all that rare in Europe and happened to spread from some European language varieties to others (but sometimes in only a limited fashion as in French and Danish).
JackFrost wrote:Counting is pretty deep in the mind
so just like pronouns, they're usually the last bits of language to change if my guessing is valid.
French were a mix of Celtic, Germanic, and Latin influences.
Wasn't just the case for a single one, Pirahã?vijayjohn wrote:JackFrost wrote:Counting is pretty deep in the mind
Counting doesn't even exist in some languages.
Return to “General Language Forum”
Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 15 guests