Is there a scientific/historic explanation for the reversed word order for numbers in some languages?
For example, while we have for 32:
- in English: thirty two (tens units), Hebrew: shloshim weshtaim (tens units), the same in Russian, Spanish, Bulgarian (I am a native speaker), Italian, Turkish, French, etc.
- on the other hand, we have in German: zwei und dreißig (units tens) and in Arabic: athnan wethlathun.
Maybe that structure exists in other languages too, but I am aware of these two.
I suppose that this is due to some local dialects which then evolved in the national language. But it would be interesting if someone knows how this evolved.