numbers in English

[N4521U]

I have to tell yous the story behind One Bro...

Annie teaches third grade. One of her tricks to get the classmates to appreciate one another is to ocassionally do language things with them. Many different cultures in her classes and will have them refer to a chair, for instance, in Chinese. A book in Tongan, a door in Japanese, you get the drift.

One day Annie had several count in their First language from home. Yep, there was a little Maori boy, One Bro, Two Bro.... it was soooooo funny. Annie loves her kids......

 

[pbehn]

Sounds like your grandmother and I would understand eachother perfectly. My childtime language was Gronings, a dutch version of Plat Deutch. We did not even notice when crossing the border. The language in Ost Friesland was exactly the same.

So it could be that some of these dialects played a role in the London language, as the Holmes stories alll take place in London? Yorkshire is quite some distance away, I believe?


It's actually similar to Germanic languages. "Ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fiveteen, sixteen" is in Dutch: "tien, elf, twaalf, dertien, veertien, vijftien, zestien", very similar.

Marcel. I have a good German friend who was born an lived until his twenties 10Km from the border with The Netherlands when he speaks his plat he sounds like a Dutchman speaking the wrong words, it sounds Dutch but isnt. Plat isn't a language as such but a huge family of dialects which change from village to village. In lower Saxony where I worked some words or pronunciations identified people as from a particular town or village. Hoch Deutsch is the standardised language and is a little more uniform across Germany but that doesn't mean I understand a word of what a guy from Bayern says. Don't misunderstand what I say, my Grandmother spoke a dialect with strong Plat influence, but it was English, just a little comical to those who didn't understand it. In Lower Saxony when the old boys and their ladies are chatting in plat at a distance, close enough to hear but not close enough to understand the words they sound just like my gran and her mates did. She would habitually put a verb at the end of a sentence and when that verb was "doubt" it didn't mean doubt it meant "that is what I truly believe".

English is a mix, there is a strong Germanic influence, English is officially a Germanic language and the Brits are referred to as "Anglo Saxons" for a good reason, however there are other influences even in numbers. First place is first and clearly comes from the German erste but second clearly comes from the Italian secundo. Yorkshire is about 300km from London but the Germanic roots to English cover the whole of the UK and Ireland it is perhaps stronger in Scotland than in England. Laughably the slang name for a hard on is the same in Ireland as Germany (latt?). Konan Doyle wrote most of his Sherlock Holmes works before 1914, it would be interesting to see if his use of such profoundly Germanic words/syntax stopped when the war started.

 

[gumbyk]

Marcel. I have a good German friend who was born an lived until his twenties 10Km from the border with The Netherlands when he speaks his plat he sounds like a Dutchman speaking the wrong words, it sounds Dutch but isnt. Plat isn't a language as such but a huge family of dialects which change from village to village. In lower Saxony where I worked some words or pronunciations identified people as from a particular town or village. Hoch Deutsch is the standardised language and is a little more uniform across Germany but that doesn't mean I understand a word of what a guy from Bayern says. Don't misunderstand what I say, my Grandmother spoke a dialect with strong Plat influence, but it was English, just a little comical to those who didn't understand it. In Lower Saxony when the old boys and their ladies are chatting in plat at a distance, close enough to hear but not close enough to understand the words they sound just like my gran and her mates did. She would habitually put a verb at the end of a sentence and when that verb was "doubt" it didn't mean doubt it meant "that is what I truly believe".

English is a mix, there is a strong Germanic influence, English is officially a Germanic language and the Brits are referred to as "Anglo Saxons" for a good reason, however there are other influences even in numbers. First place is first and clearly comes from the German erste but second clearly comes from the Italian secundo. Yorkshire is about 300km from London but the Germanic roots to English cover the whole of the UK and Ireland it is perhaps stronger in Scotland than in England. Laughably the slang name for a hard on is the same in Ireland as Germany (latt?). Konan Doyle wrote most of his Sherlock Holmes works before 1914, it would be interesting to see if his use of such profoundly Germanic words/syntax stopped when the war started.

Sounds a lot like pidgin english. In PNG some dialects frequently finished with tru, as in emphasising what they said was true. It was weird to listen to, because all of the sounds were familiar, you thought you should be able to understand it, but it was very difficult to, unless they spoke very slowly.

 

[Marcel]

Marcel. I have a good German friend who was born an lived until his twenties 10Km from the border with The Netherlands when he speaks his plat he sounds like a Dutchman speaking the wrong words, it sounds Dutch but isnt. Plat isn't a language as such but a huge family of dialects which change from village to village. In lower Saxony where I worked some words or pronunciations identified people as from a particular town or village. Hoch Deutsch is the standardised language and is a little more uniform across Germany but that doesn't mean I understand a word of what a guy from Bayern says. Don't misunderstand what I say, my Grandmother spoke a dialect with strong Plat influence, but it was English, just a little comical to those who didn't understand it. In Lower Saxony when the old boys and their ladies are chatting in plat at a distance, close enough to hear but not close enough to understand the words they sound just like my gran and her mates did. She would habitually put a verb at the end of a sentence and when that verb was "doubt" it didn't mean doubt it meant "that is what I truly believe".

English is a mix, there is a strong Germanic influence, English is officially a Germanic language and the Brits are referred to as "Anglo Saxons" for a good reason, however there are other influences even in numbers. First place is first and clearly comes from the German erste but second clearly comes from the Italian secundo. Yorkshire is about 300km from London but the Germanic roots to English cover the whole of the UK and Ireland it is perhaps stronger in Scotland than in England. Laughably the slang name for a hard on is the same in Ireland as Germany (latt?). Konan Doyle wrote most of his Sherlock Holmes works before 1914, it would be interesting to see if his use of such profoundly Germanic words/syntax stopped when the war started.

Hmm, we'll see when I reach the end of the series

Gronings and the Ost Frisian language are actually saxon-languages. We have a couple of those dialects here in the Netherlands, while Dutch and German are considered Germanic languages. Gronings seems to be more similar to English than German, although the strong Dutch influence must have levelled that by now. But I noticed that understanding both German and English come quite naturally to me, I guess the German comes from the similarity with Dutch.

 

[mikewint]

Animals as well as humans have a "Number Sense" which is the ability to detect a reduction within a group. This is NOT the same as the ability to count. A bird with two eggs in a nest will abandon the nest if you take one egg. A bird with three Eggs will abandon the nest if one is taken but a bird with four will not if only one is taken.
Crows seem to have a very well developed number sense: A squire wanted to trap a crow that lived in his watchtower. Each time he came over with a trap, though, the crow flew into a nearby tall tree, and returned to the watchtower when the squire left. The squire decided to trick the crow by bringing along a friend, leaving that friend hidden inside the base of the watchtower. The crow, however, wasn't tricked. The crow remained in the tree until the friend grew weary and left. The next day, the squire tried with two friends (one remaining in the tower). No fooling that crow. The next day, three friends. The crow was still not fooled. It wasn't until the squire brought five friends that the crow was tricked, flying back to the tower while the person holding the trap was still hidden in the tower.
One would think that humans would have a very well developed "Number Sense" but studies have shown that humans have trouble around the same number i.e. Four.
Children who have not learned to count (under 3yo) have difficulties with groups greater than 2 or 3 objects and apparently see a group of 5 as being the same as group of 4. Studies of primitive human tribes show that many only have words for 1 and 2. Anything above 2 is simply "many". Some tribes had words for 1,2,3, and 4 while above 4 became a "handful" and was often applied to groups of 6-12 objects.

 

[Marcel]

Sometimes it's hard to predict your next post, Mike

 

[razor1uk]

Hmm, we'll see when I reach the end of the series
....But I noticed that understanding both German and English come quite naturally to me, I guess the German comes from the similarity with Dutch.

My step father is Danish, and growing up during the 40's, before later moving the the US in te late 50's and back to Europe in the 80's; anyway, he is fluent in Danish Swedish, German, English, and good enough in French Italian and Spanish too, (so he says) but he can read about up to 5 -70% of Dutch, due to its mix of words, meanings and rules of language he knows from his fluent Danish, German and English knowledge. Its only everyday sayings and colloqualisms and modern expressions and shortened compounds that he can't fathom.

 

[mikewint]

Got to keep you guys on your toes!! I personally have always found numbers facinating and intuitively obvious. Equaly facinating is number history: from the Babylonians and their base 60 numbering system, to the Mayans and their base 20 (theory is that they did not wear shoes and so could use fingers and toes) except for the third place which was power 18. Roman numerals (can you imagine adding, subtracting, multiplying, dividing). Chinese sticks laid on a table. Egyptian hieroglyphics, a staff is one a heel bone is 10 (ten toes?), a coil of rope 100. Facinating

 

[pbehn]

Also Marcel even today numbers are spoken in the German way for effect as in the poem "Four and twenty virgins came down from Inverness, when the ball was over there were four and twenty less"

 

[mikewint]

Sounds plagiarized:
Sing a song of sixpence,
A pocket full of rye.
Four and twenty blackbirds,
Baked in a pie.

 

[ARTESH]

Numbers 11 to 19 in Persian:

YAAZDAH: 11

it is shortened for YEK AZ DAH, which means 1 after 10.

DAVAAZDAH: 12

it means 2 after 10.

SIZDAH : 13

3 after 10

And so on ...

 

[Robert Porter]

Centre is how it is spelled. Yes it's spelling is rooted in French as is colour but it is how these words are properly spelled...in English.

Yes... and no... most major dictionaries allow for both spellings, color and colour, as well as Center and Centre. The language is still evolving and even French is although the government spends a great deal of time and money trying to prevent that. Depending on whom you ask neither, or both spellings are correct.

Language is such a tricky thing to deal with in so many ways. As an American raised in New England, rural Connecticut, married to an English woman from Hertfordshire. I can truly attest to the old saying "Two countries separated by the same language". Indeed when I first met her family the most common remark was that I spoke using outdated and disused words. Only example that came to mind was our use of linen closet to describe where we kept bedsheets and so forth.

But over time we each began using the others vocabulary for some things, and our boys often hyphenated terms such as tap-faucet to describe the knob you turn on the sink to turn water flow on or off. What made it even more interesting was my brother-in-law was married to a Scotts woman. The first year I knew them I had to have him translate for me.

 

[fubar57]

My laptop is set to English English so color and other words that should end with "our" always come up as errors

 

[mikewint]

Yea them Britishers think they invented the blimey language:
TYRE, AEROPLANE, CHEQUE, THEATRE, GREY, PYJAMAS, PROGRAMME, APOLOGISE

Then all the -OUR words: PARLOUR, COLOUR, HONOUR...

Took a long time to figure out: TREACLE, COURGETTE, AUBERGINE, RUNNER BEAN

Then who knew that the FIRST FLOOR was actually UP one flight of stairs

Let's see, CHANGE THE NAPPY AND GIVE THE BABY A DUMMY.

AFTER LEAVING THE PUB JAN WAS PISSED. Thought he was angry.

I heard a man say: LET ME HAVE A BUTCHERS AT YOUR SPOTTED DICK. Figured a knife was going to cure a social disease.

Happened to be in a QUEUE when a lady turned to me and asked if I had a RUBBER. Nope wasn't going to get lucky

 

[Robert Porter]

Indeed, have been confuddled by several of those over the years. But one of my favorites was when we were at a turtle hatch at night, and the ex's Mother asked someone to "put the torch" on the nest. Thought she was going to be summarily executed right there on the spot. Then when I mentioned I had taken Shagging lessons her grandmother fainted dead away! And of course there was the incident with my Mom when she mentioned she had her "fanny" pack to one of the ex's relatives who was then convinced my Mom was a low class tart!

 

[pbehn]

Yea them Britishers think they invented the blimey language:
Took a long time to figure out: , COURGETTE, AUBERGINE,

Then who knew that the FIRST FLOOR was actually UP one flight of stair.

AFTER LEAVING THE PUB JAN WAS PISSED. Thought he was angry.

Dear me whatever is happening in the colonies? Are the British and especially the English being held responsible for courgettes and aubergines, we have none at all spelling, looks, taste the whole lot is a continental plot.?

How does your maths work out there in colony land. If I am on the first floor in a hotel entrance and floor minus 1 in the cellar or garage your number system has no "zero" in it.


In reality misunderstandings occur in all languages, not just a problem between those on either side of the pond.

 

[mikewint]

How does your maths work out there in colony land. If I am on the first floor in a hotel entrance and floor minus 1 in the cellar or garage your number system has no "zero" in it.

Yup, because you are counting real objects and you do not count what you do not have, that is why the very concept of zero as a digit took a long time to develop (7th century), i.e. "how can nothing be something?". Roman Numerals, eg., derived from tally sticks did not have a zero because you do not tally what you do not have. A building cannot have NO (zero) floors but it can have ONE floor, i.e., the FIRST floor or level.
If you go below that level, i.e. the level that is ON the ground, you are in the building's BASEMENT except in Jolly Olde where the term BASEMENT applies only when that space is habitable with windows and often its own entrance, sans windows and entrance it becomes a CELLAR

 

[pbehn]

Yup, because you are counting real objects and you do not count what you do not have, that is why the very concept of zero as a digit took a long time to develop (7th century), i.e. "how can nothing be something?". Roman Numerals, eg., derived from tally sticks did not have a zero because you do not tally what you do not have. A building cannot have NO (zero) floors but it can have ONE floor, i.e., the FIRST floor or level.
If you go below that level, i.e. the level that is ON the ground, you are in the building's BASEMENT except in Jolly Olde where the term BASEMENT applies only when that space is habitable with windows and often its own entrance, sans windows and entrance it becomes a CELLAR

I was only joking Mike, I have had the discussion many times abroad. Both systems work as well as one another, the problems only arise when someone used to one system is confronted with the other. It is like the metric and imperial discussion, both have a logic, but they are different logics. If it were absolutely necessary for counting to be done only in multiples of 10 then we wouldn't have 60 seconds in a minute, 60 minutes in an hour and 24 hours in a day. This I believe is the only worldwide system of measurement, although some countries did have others (like Japan) in the past.

The terms basement and cellar mean what the writer wants them to mean and depends where they come from. No UK supermarket says their hardware department is in the cellar, but if a large drinking establishment serves beer downstairs they may well call it a beer keller.

 

[mikewint]

we wouldn't have 60 seconds in a minute, 60 minutes in an hour and 24 hours in a day.

Say thank you to the Egyptians who used a Duodecimal (base 12) number system (most likely because each finger has 3 joints). They divided the day into 12 parts and eventually the night into 12 parts thus 24 parts per day-night cycle. Every day and every night were divided this way irrespective of the actual length of time. Thus short winter days and long winter nights still had 12 parts each and long summer days and short summer nights the same 12 divisions each. That these parts "hours" be of equal length each was not considered until the Greeks (Hipparchus) and did not became common until after mechanical clocks were developed in the 14th century.
As for the 60-parts say thank you to the Sumerians who used a Sexagesimal (base 60) system. Why 60 is unknown but it is convenient for expressing fractions, since 60 is the smallest number divisible by the first six counting numbers as well as by 10, 12, 15, 20 and 30.
The Greek astronomer Eratosthenes used this system to divide a circle into 60 parts in order to devise an early geographic system of latitude. A century later, Hipparchus normalized the lines of latitude, making them parallel and obedient to the earth's geometry. He also devised a system of longitude lines that encompassed 360 degrees and that ran north to south, from pole to pole. In his treatise Almagest, Claudius Ptolemy subdivided each of the 360 degrees of latitude and longitude into smaller segments. Each degree was divided into 60 parts, each of which was again subdivided into 60 smaller parts. The first division, partes minutae primae, or first minute, became known simply as the "minute." The second segmentation, partes minutae secundae, or "second minute," became known as the second. Clock faces which were circular eventually followed this plan though not until the 16th century. Initially the hour was simply divided into 12 parts though 1/2, 1/4, and 1/3 were more convenient.
By the by, since the advent of UTC timekeeping, in order to keep atomic time in agreement with astronomical time, leap seconds occasionally must be added to UTC. Thus, not all minutes contain 60 seconds. A few rare minutes, occurring at a rate of about eight per decade, actually contain 61.

 

[pbehn]

I prefer to thank the Babylonians who the Egyptians copied

Babylonian records of observations of heavenly events date back to 1,600 BCE. The reason for adopting their arithmetic system is probably because 60 has many divisors, and their decision to adopt 360 days as the length of the year and 3600 in a circle was based on their existing mathematics and the convenience that the sun moves through the sky relative to fixed stars at about 1degree each day.


The constellation Taurus, the bull, a symbol of strength and fertility, figures prominently in the mythology of nearly all early civilizations, from Babylon and India to northern Europe. The Assyrian winged man-headed bull had the strength of a bull, the swiftness of a bird and human intelligence.

From about 700 BCE the Babylonians began to develop a mathematical theory of astronomy, but the equally divided 12-constellation zodiac appears later about 500 BCE to correspond to their year of 12 months of 30 days each. Their base 60 fraction system which we still use today (degrees / hours, minutes and seconds) was much easier to calculate with than the fractions used in Egypt or Greece, and remained the main calculation tool for astronomers until after the 16th century, when decimal notation began to take over.