this post was submitted on 30 Aug 2023
991 points (95.9% liked)
Memes
45189 readers
1357 users here now
Rules:
- Be civil and nice.
- Try not to excessively repost, as a rule of thumb, wait at least 2 months to do it if you have to.
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
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