Even worse. 90 in old Danish is “halvfemsindstyve” but it is rarely used today. The “sinds” part is derived from “sinde” means multiplied with but it is not in use in Danish anymore. That leaves halvfems, meaning half to the five (which is not used alone anymore) and tyve meaning twenty (as it still does).
We are in current Danish shortening it to halvfems which actually just means “half to the five” in old Danish (4.5) to say 90. 92 is then “tooghalvfems” (two and half to the five, or 2+4.5). The “sindstyve” part (multiplied with 20) fell out of favour.
So we at least have some rules to the madness. Were just not following them at all anymore.
How did you guys even get to this thought process for saying this sort of thing? Why would you work in fractions for whole numbers in language to start? Is this a monarch thing like they fancied themselves a math wizard so they said it like it was a solution on countdown and others mimicked to keep them happy/sound smart themselves?
The reason is that the Danish numbering system is based on a vigesimal (base-20) system instead of the decimal system. Why is a good question but it might have been influenced by French during a time where numbers from 50-100 is less frequently used, making them prone to complexity. The fractions simply occur since you need at least one half of twenty (10) to make the change from e.g 50 to 60 in a 20-based system.
why would you avoid the fraction and use it up to 100 then minus 8. I dont have a lot of an issue with it being base 20 but the idea that talking in numbers you have to know fractions for a child is WILD to me. You have to do like a month of understanding math fractions to get how to speak whole numbers.
We don’t really learn the reason, we just memorise the word for the number. Kinda like you know the word “dog” means a four legged cute creature, but not why the name is “dog”. The old rules are not something we are teached, I just got curious after a confused foreigner made me think about the system for a second :p
No idea. We probably had a period where we traded a lot with the French and got influenced by the vigesimal system that way, creating the abomination of a Frankenstein monster we have today.
English also has words like dozen (12) and score (20).
I guess it came from the physical counting in trading. Imagine counting 96 small items. It makes sense to group them into scores and then count the scores. 1 score 2 score 3 score 4 score and a half score. Then there are few remaining that didn’t fit it neatly in scores and then counted last. That’s a total of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 plus the 4 and a half scores.
Little fun-fact: We still have a trace of this left in Norwegian, where the most common way to say “1.5” is not “en og en halv” (“one and a half”) but “halvannen” which roughly translates to “half second”.
We abandoned the “half third”, “half fourth” etc. very long ago (if we ever used them), but “halvannen” just rolls nicely off the tongue.
Even worse. 90 in old Danish is “halvfemsindstyve” but it is rarely used today. The “sinds” part is derived from “sinde” means multiplied with but it is not in use in Danish anymore. That leaves halvfems, meaning half to the five (which is not used alone anymore) and tyve meaning twenty (as it still does).
We are in current Danish shortening it to halvfems which actually just means “half to the five” in old Danish (4.5) to say 90. 92 is then “tooghalvfems” (two and half to the five, or 2+4.5). The “sindstyve” part (multiplied with 20) fell out of favour.
So we at least have some rules to the madness. Were just not following them at all anymore.
Edit: Minor old Danish math correction.
How did you guys even get to this thought process for saying this sort of thing? Why would you work in fractions for whole numbers in language to start? Is this a monarch thing like they fancied themselves a math wizard so they said it like it was a solution on countdown and others mimicked to keep them happy/sound smart themselves?
The reason is that the Danish numbering system is based on a vigesimal (base-20) system instead of the decimal system. Why is a good question but it might have been influenced by French during a time where numbers from 50-100 is less frequently used, making them prone to complexity. The fractions simply occur since you need at least one half of twenty (10) to make the change from e.g 50 to 60 in a 20-based system.
why would you avoid the fraction and use it up to 100 then minus 8. I dont have a lot of an issue with it being base 20 but the idea that talking in numbers you have to know fractions for a child is WILD to me. You have to do like a month of understanding math fractions to get how to speak whole numbers.
We don’t really learn the reason, we just memorise the word for the number. Kinda like you know the word “dog” means a four legged cute creature, but not why the name is “dog”. The old rules are not something we are teached, I just got curious after a confused foreigner made me think about the system for a second :p
That’s the technical reason, another reason is that the Danes tried to out-French the French, as they were very hip at the time.
But how did Danish end up like that even though it’s quite similar to Germanic languages and obviously neighbouring Germany?
No idea. We probably had a period where we traded a lot with the French and got influenced by the vigesimal system that way, creating the abomination of a Frankenstein monster we have today.
English also has words like dozen (12) and score (20).
I guess it came from the physical counting in trading. Imagine counting 96 small items. It makes sense to group them into scores and then count the scores. 1 score 2 score 3 score 4 score and a half score. Then there are few remaining that didn’t fit it neatly in scores and then counted last. That’s a total of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 plus the 4 and a half scores.
Little fun-fact: We still have a trace of this left in Norwegian, where the most common way to say “1.5” is not “en og en halv” (“one and a half”) but “halvannen” which roughly translates to “half second”.
We abandoned the “half third”, “half fourth” etc. very long ago (if we ever used them), but “halvannen” just rolls nicely off the tongue.