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It's base 20 like in France, plus the quirk that we have an ordinal numeral way of saying half integers, i.e. 1.5 is "half second", 2.5 is "half third", 4.5 is "half fifth". So 92 is said as "two and half fifth times twenty". We've since made the "times twenty" implicit for maximum confusion, so it's just said as "two and half fifths".
Also, the ordinal numeral system for halves is only really used for 1.5 these days, so the numbers don't really make sense to anyone. When speaking to other Scandinavians, we often just say "nine ten two".
Why don't we just change it to the more sensible system then? Because language is stubborn.
Now imagine moving there as a foreigner from a normal country and someone telling you their phone number! It's like having a micro stroke.
1.5 is "half second", 2.5 is "half third", 4.5 is "half fifth"
Interesting. ~~Regionally, some~~ Germans measure time like this, i.e. "half two" is 01:30 resp. 13:30. (Which is different from English, where people who say "half two" mean "half past two".)
We've since made the "times twenty" implicit for maximum confusion, so it's just said as "two and half fifths".
I know very little about Danish, but I learned that Danes slur the middle of most words. So I suspect you actually pronounce even less of the word than you'd write..?
Because language is stubborn.
Belgian French gives me hope.
--
[Edited: Usage is not regional]
Regionally, some Germans measure time like this, i.e. "half two" is 01:30 resp. 13:30.
This isn't regional nor "some", I never met a German wo doesn't. Sure, there is "13 o'clock 30" and both are valid but I'd say the default is still the half system.
When it comes to quarters, there are regional differences and it's a common "ice breaker" or small talk topic when people from all over Germany come together.
It's pronounced "toh-år-hal-fems".
That's 3 syllables, because the first two are glissando, but even the most rural person needs some consonants between the rest to make any sense.
When we say "half two" we also mean 13:30. It's a pain when in Britain.
And yeah, I guess in pronouncing you'd say 92 as "to'å'l'fems" rather than "to-og-halv-fems".
So the Danish can do this bullshit with everyday numbers and it’s cool because language , but I mention that it’s 70 degrees outside and everyone starts arguing about metric?
Everything is arbitrary, I’m gonna go build a dresser in multiples of rabbit foot while you all figure something out.
I have to admit, as a French myself I found relief in that discovery. And thank you very much for the explanation.
I was confused by the "2 and" at first, then I realize you put the smallest part of the whole number first. It makes perfectly sense if you count in base 20.
We also have an habit to count in base 12 and half 12 in France. Like "half a dozen" (6) or "one dozen and half" (18), but only for multiple of 6.
I will now say "quatre vingtaine et demie" instead of "quatre-vingt-dix" just to tease my fellow Belgians (who say "nonante" and "septante" instead of "soixante-dix" et "quatre-vingt-dix")
EDIT: As a matter of fact, I will rather say "trois et demi-cinquième vingt" for 73 because it sounds better. Now I see it.
If I am correct, the 3rd 20 is everything between 60 and 79. The half-3rd 20 is everything between 70 and 79. So 7 and half-2nd 20 would be 37?
How would you say 40, 60 and 80 then ? 2nd 20, 3rd 20 and 4th 20?
# | 🇩🇰 |
---|---|
1 | en |
2 | to |
3 | tre |
4 | fire |
5 | fem |
6 | seks |
7 | syv |
8 | otte |
9 | ni |
10 | ti |
11 | elleve |
12 | tolv |
13 | tretten |
14 | fjorten |
15 | femten |
16 | seksten |
17 | sytten |
18 | atten |
19 | nitten |
20 | tyve |
21 | enogtyve |
22 | toogtyve |
30 | tredive |
40 | fyrre |
50 | halvtreds |
60 | tres (threes) |
70 | halvfjerds (½fourths) |
80 | firs (fours) |
90 | halvfems (½fifths) |
92 | tooghalvfems (twoand½fifths) |
100 | hundred |
In Czech, we say „čtvrt na osm“ (quarter to eight), „půl osmé“ (half of eighth) and „tři čtvrtě na osm“ (¾ to eight) to mean 19:15
, 19:30
and 19:45
, respectively, so I kinda get it.
Similarly, in German, 🕢=„halb acht“.
TIL that it not French with the weirdest way to count. I still don't really get the Danish way. Even with your explanation.
We play on Hardcore mode.
I love this topic, keep the comments going! It gets even wilder/weirder when reading historical German monastary documents from the early modern period that sometimes mixed German numerical grammar with latin letters and abbreviations. For example this was a common way to write prices in the early 17th century in my region of study:
xiv C Lviұ f xxv bb iy d
All of this was in early modern German Kurrent (old cursive), of course, and with not always obvious whitespaces inbetween. The letters v and x looked somewhat similar, too, and you better don't miss the small strikethroughs anywhere in the lower or upper end of a letter which indicated "minus half" (except for the letter capital C which always has it). This is the kind of fun that brings me joy during my day while simultaneously providing the content for nightmares at night.
For some closure:
The short example would read as: (10+(5-1))*100 + 50+((5+3)-0.5) florin, 10+10+5 batzen, and 1+1+1 denari.
And that would translate to a price of 1457 ½ florin (guilders), 25 batzen (silver coin) and 3 denari (pennies).
Am I correct in thinking that this would be a relatively enormous amount of money for a normal person in that time?
In Hungary we don't even have a separate name for 11 and 12, just 10 + 1 and 10 + 2. But at least we messed up the billions, it's called 'milliárd' and the trillion is 'billió'. We were so close to making it perfect.
*sigh* That's normal across Europe, including the UK until recently.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_and_short_scales
Anyway, don’t tell me Hungarian is sensible when second (unit of time) is “másodperc”.
Italy joins the club of messing up the billions 🙌
For us a billion is "un miliardo" and a trillion is "un bilione"
I think that's fairly normal in Europe, isn't it? In Germany we have Million, Milliarde, Billion, Billiarde instead of million, billion, trillion and so on, too.
Man and here I thought the English system was kinda screwy, where at first it's in base 12 and base 20 at the same time what with having special unique names for all digits up to twelve, and then thirteen through nineteen are also uniquely weird, then at twenty we decide "man fuck that" and then it's in base 10 until we repeat that pattern every 100, ie "one hundred seventeen." Or then we occasionally do stupid things like "seventeen hundred" instead of "one thousand seven hundred."
It just now hit me that "teenager" is an inherently English construct because that weird partial second decade we have. I'm curious, how does that work in languages? Like, in French they have special words up to 16 and only do "ten-seven, ten-eight, ten-nine." You spend seven years as a teenager in England but only three in France.
🇬🇧 ninety
🇫🇷 quatre-vingts-dix
🇩🇰 HALVFEMS
So what is going on in Walloon and Swiss French? Is it just the Parisian dialect that is messed up?
I’m not sure what’s more asinine, the colors chosen for this map, or the ~~Dutch~~ Danish.
Edit: worth it for the joke
Are all German numbers like that?
No, it gets more confusing the more numbers you add. 34563 4+30 thousand +500 3+60
Ow my brain.
Also funny because I had assumed English got the numbering system from German.
You probably did, but then you did the sensible thing and (mostly) changed it around. You can read some 19th century novels and find stuff like "I am two and twenty years old".
Mostly because it's still the old order for the teens. 1616 could be read as sixteen hundred sixteen, right?
Yes, Germans say numbers like that. (It only applies to the tens tho)
Roughly translated you'd say two-and-ninety (without the minus, I just made those so it doesn't look that cursed)
It's mainly because at least in German it flows better than ninety two would. There have been pushes to accept ninety two as well but acceptance has been and continues to be scarce.
Man I'd love for that to catch on, mostly so it's easier to learn. Kids get confused by the order all the time. It's even shorter in some cases.
Also, the reverse order makes dictating phone numbers such a pain.
You missed the traditional Celtic systems.
Welsh should be both 9 x 10 + 2 and 2 + 10 + 4 * 20.
And Irish – I didn't get it, they seem to have a modern 9 x 10 + 2 system, an old vigesimal and one for age?
Impressive that Norway has bands of different ways to say 92!
Afaik, they've changed the official system from the "German" to the "Swedish" order after WW2, but it is still used by many in spoken language.
I'll see you at twenty past nine
NL: oh you mean 10 before the half of 10