• supercriticalcheese@feddit.it
    7·
    1 year ago

    Ohh oui, french numbers I think they go mental after 69 ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

    70: 60+10 (soixante-dix)

    91: 4x20+11 (quatre-vingt-onze)

    Why? No clue I am not french.

    • jarfil@beehaw.org
      1·
      1 year ago

      May or may not have some relation, but next to France/part of, lies the Basque country, where all numbers under 100 are base 20+10, except 11 and 19…

      57: 2×20+10+7 (berr-ogei-ta-hama-zazpi)

      79: 3×20+19 (hiru-r-ogei-ta-hemeretzi)

      French (in Belgium, Switzerland, and former colonies) also allows simple base 10:

      70: 70 (septante)

      91: 90+1 (nonante-et-un)

      …so the geographic location seems to have an impact.

      And just next to it, in Spain, everything is base 10… except 11 to 15 change the order from n×10+m, into 1+10 to 5+10.

      Italian does the same, except it’s 11 to 16… just like in French.

      English has a hiccup with eleven and twelve, then goes to n-teen, before going base 10 with n×10+m above 20.

      German does the same, except it goes to m+n×10 above 20.

      Overall, 20 seems to be a magic number, France just seems to have mixed in different ways of using it.

      https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vigesimal