onety one; onety two; onety three

[Perfection]

HOW WILL WE DESCRIBE PEOPLE FROM AGES 13-19 THEN?

 

[classical_hero]

There used to be only adults or children, none of the teenage nonsense.

 

[Hygro]

Because ten is the correct way to say one when added to another digit? It would be tenyone, tenytwo, tenythree. Instead they put the ten in the reverse order and you ended up with teen. Eleven and twelve are probably left overs of a 12 base system, that had 12 unique identifiers.

11 and 12 are holdovers from a base ten system for Germanic farmers. They translate roughly to "one more" and "two more" than the ten (fingers)

 

[BenitoChavez]

Slightly off topic, but this thread reminds me of the metric system vs imperial system debate:

Spoiler :

 

[timtofly]

11 and 12 are holdovers from a base ten system for Germanic farmers. They translate roughly to "one more" and "two more" than the ten (fingers)

You are probably right, but 12 has more significance than just two more than ten. I am probably off in that there was a base 12 system, but it would seem historically, that 12 was a defining point even outside of language. 12 inches does define an english foot. Even the pre-germanic languages though had specific terms for eleven and twelve.

 

[sophie]

You are probably right, but 12 has more significance than just two more than ten. I am probably off in that there was a base 12 system, but it would seem historically, that 12 was a defining point even outside of language. 12 inches does define an english foot. Even the pre-germanic languages though had specific terms for eleven and twelve.

I doubt there was a base-12 numbering system. Numbering systems in language for the most part develop into one of four systems:

binary system: "one" and "more than one"
base-five system: numbering system built around counting on one hand
base-ten system: numbering system built around counting on both hands
base-twenty system: numbering system built around counting on both hands and both feet

Base-ten tends to be the most common system in language for fairly obvious reasons. Celtic languages are the most prominent example of a language family which has traditionally employed a base-20 system (and in fact is one of the hallmarks of the family). To my knowledge most of the still extant Celtic languages have abandoned the base-20 system in favor of a base-10 one:

Spoiler Welsh numbers :

un, dau, tri, pedwar, pump, chwech, saith, wyth, naw, deg, un deg un, un deg dau, un deg tri, etc.

As you can see Welsh has actually adopted a very literal base-10 system, although remnants of their base-20 system stick around, most prominently in: how they do ordinal numbers and in telling time.

 

[classical_hero]

If we were to follow the Welsh example then we would be say ten one, ten two and so on, not what the OP described.

 

[sophie]

If we were to follow the Welsh example then we would be say ten one, ten two and so on, not what the OP described.

That is literally what "thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, and nineteen" mean.

 

[cybrxkhan]

Is that 80% of the vocabulary is Chinese, or the most commonly used words are Chinese?

The former. I think up to 90% of Vietnamese words are ultimately derived from Chinese but these tend to be technical jargon and the like (actually other than a few technical terms taken from French and English, I can't really think of any technical term that is based on native roots), while the most commonly used words are for the most part native.

Didn't help me too much when I was learning Chinese, but it was always cool when I learned a new word and had a "omfg I know that word!" Reaction.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Languages using duodecimal number systems are uncommon. Languages in the Nigerian Middle Belt such as Janji, Gbiri-Niragu (Gure-Kahugu), Piti, and the Nimbia dialect of Gwandara;2 the Chepang language of Nepal3 and the Mahl language of Minicoy Island in India are known to use duodecimal numerals. In fiction, J. R. R. Tolkien's Elvish languages use a hybrid decimal–duodecimal system, primarily decimal but with special names for multiples of six.

Germanic languages have special words for 11 and 12, such as eleven and twelve in English, which are often misinterpreted as vestiges of a duodecimal system.citation needed However, they are considered to come from Proto-Germanic *ainlif and *twalif (respectively one left and two left), both of which were decimal.4

Historically, units of time in many civilizations are duodecimal. There are twelve signs of the zodiac, twelve months in a year, and the Babylonians had twelve hours in a day (although at some point this was changed to 24). Traditional Chinese calendars, clocks, and compasses are based on the twelve Earthly Branches. There are 12 inches in an imperial foot, 12 ounces in a troy pound, 12 old British pence in a shilling, 24 (12×2) hours in a day, and many other items counted by the dozen, gross (144, square of 12) or great gross (1728, cube of 12). The Romans used a fraction system based on 12, including the uncia which became both the English words ounce and inch. Pre-decimalisation, Ireland and the United Kingdom used a mixed duodecimal-vigesimal currency system (12 pence = 1 shilling, 20 shillings or 240 pence to the pound sterling or Irish pound), and Charlemagne established a monetary system that also had a mixed base of twelve and twenty, the remnants of which persist in many places.

The importance of 12 has been attributed to the number of lunar cycles in a year, and also to the fact that humans have 12 finger bones (phalanges) on one hand (three on each of four fingers).5 It is possible to count to 12 with your thumb acting as a pointer, touching each finger bone in turn. A traditional finger counting system still in use in many regions of Asia works in this way, and could help to explain the occurrence of numeral systems based on 12 and 60 besides those based on 10, 20 and 5. In this system, the one (usually right) hand counts repeatedly to 12, displaying the number of iterations on the other (usually left), until five dozens, i. e. the 60, are full.67

A related hypothesis is that numbers in Chinese (and related languages) are much shorter to say.

Not only to say, but also to think and to remember.

Humans (at least most of us, probably not those who were born deaf) remember numbers on a syllable by syllable basis rather than whole number by number or charter by character basis. A three syllable number like eleven takes up three times as much mental space as three one syllable numbers like 10.

Mental math depends in part on our short term working memory. Shorter words for numbers allows more numbers to be held in this memory

 

[The_J]

I doubt there was a base-12 numbering system. Numbering systems in language for the most part develop into one of four systems:

Wikipedia disagrees ^^ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duodecimal .
Okay, didn't know that either, stumbled upon it while I was looking up the Babylonian counting system, because I remembered it as being related, but that's only because 12 is a fraction of 60 ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexagesimal ).

 

[classical_hero]

That is literally what "thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, and nineteen" mean.

It means that, but it doesn't say that, which is what the OP is about.

 

[warpus]

It's because the word "Ten" is singular while "twenty, thirty, fourty, etc." are all plural. So it doesn't make sense to say Ten one, but it does make sense to say Twenty one.

I'm probably wrong, but it's probably something like that. The same thing is done in German and Polish, hinting at this convention existing for quite a while..

(Another way to think about it is that Ten is one ten, while twenty is two tens.)

 

[Core Imposter]

Bilbo: "Alas, eleventy-one years is far too short a time to live among such excellent and admirable hobbits." [cheers abound.] "I don't know half of you half as well as I should like, and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve."

 

[IAM]

It's because the word "Ten" is singular while "twenty, thirty, fourty, etc." are all plural. So it doesn't make sense to say Ten one, but it does make sense to say Twenty one.

I'm probably wrong, but it's probably something like that. The same thing is done in German and Polish, hinting at this convention existing for quite a while..

(Another way to think about it is that Ten is one ten, while twenty is two tens.)

Saying Teny one seems reasonable. Someone suggested that earlier.

 

[warpus]

Saying Teny one seems reasonable. Someone suggested that earlier.

Yeah, but "Ten" is a reference to the "Tens" part of the number.

Ten = one ten
Twenty = two tens
Thirty = three teens
...

Teny sort of looks like it might imply that it's a plural amount of tens. It also sounds too close to "Twenty"

 

[gay_Aleks]

I thought you were Bulgarian?

That was a joke on people who say "I speak English, Irish and American".

 

[IAM]

Yeah, but "Ten" is a reference to the "Tens" part of the number.

Ten = one ten
Twenty = two tens
Thirty = three teens
...

Teny sort of looks like it might imply that it's a plural amount of tens. It also sounds too close to "Twenty"

Well then we are back to onety as a short for one ten.

 

[classical_hero]

No we are not because every other set starts with the last of the previous set, so twenty is the last of the second set and we then go twenty one and so on, so since ten is the last of the first set, then we should be going ten one and so on, if you are to be accurate, since it follows the rest of the convention.

 

[uppi]

I'd support any change, just because -ty and -teen sound awfully similar, so it is hard to decide whether the speaker meant fifty or fifteen, when it isn't pronounced clearly.