15
votes
Accepted
Why did Japanese borrow words for simple numbers from Chinese?
Besides prestige reasons, there is also the fact that the Old Japanese numeral systems can be seen as inconvenient, especially for higher numbers. Disadvantages compared to the Chinese system are:
...
- 441
14
votes
Which cultures are big-endian?
This is potentially a very interesting question, but it suffers from conflation of “language”, “culture”, and “country”. It is the same sort of confusion that happens when people who do not speak ...
- 24.6k
14
votes
Apparent sound crespondences between Eurasian, Trans-New-Guinean, Pama-Nyungan and Burushaski
I don't see any regular correspondences in the data you've presented.
A regular correspondence involves a series of forms in which, whenever language A has sound X, language B has sound Y. For example,...
- 11k
12
votes
Why did Japanese borrow words for simple numbers from Chinese?
The reason is similar to the reason why English has borrowed (French) words for beef, pork, mutton even though there are Germanic words for cows, swine and sheep. There is a tendency to borrow words ...
- 83.4k
8
votes
Can we make a case for Eurasiatic numerals for one and two?
Definitely not.
Two words only aren't enough to establish any kind of relationship.
The best you can do with it is to use them as seeds for possible sound relations and look of regular sound laws ...
- 31.1k
8
votes
Accepted
4 or 5: is thumb a finger? Distribution across languages
What about the idiom “five finger discount” that is popular in at least modern English? Giving someone a “high five” also indirectly refers to the five fingers of one’s hand. To me the “thumb” has ...
7
votes
Accepted
What numeral system is on this Hyderabad banknote?
This is really an extremely interesting question that made me make a little investigation and with the help of @fdb I learned about the unique Siyaq (Arabic سياق siyāq ‘order’) numerical system I had ...
- 18.6k
5
votes
Accepted
(PIE) déḱm̥ vs déḱm̥t (ten)
The only language to preserve both is Sanskrit: dáśa- 'ten' ~ daśát- f. 'a set of ten; decade'.
A similar form is Lith. dešimtìs which reflects a Balto-Slavic consonant stem, as shown by gen.pl. ...
- 121
5
votes
Apparent sound crespondences between Eurasian, Trans-New-Guinean, Pama-Nyungan and Burushaski
Below are my comments on the Eurasiatic data, and why I think @Anixx's forms are not Proto-Eurasiatic numerals. As I am not a specialist of Burushaski, Trans-New-Guinean, or Pama-Nyungan, I cannot ...
- 159
5
votes
Why did Japanese borrow words for simple numbers from Chinese?
They are pronounced that way, before the importing of the Chinese characters, and even to this day: ひとつ、ふたつ、みっつ、よっつ、いつつ、むっつ、ななつ、やっつ、ここのつ、とお.
There even is the shortened way of counting: ひ、ふ、み、よ、い、む、な、...
- 159
4
votes
What is the name of the category that describes the ways a number can be read?
The rhythmic grouping of numbers is usually called "phrasing", e.g. "4-3 2-1-7 9-1-5-6". Within a "phrase", at least in English, there are still options regarding reading ...
- 83.4k
4
votes
Accepted
Is the numeral or the noun the head? Does it vary depending on the language?
Yes, I think that it not only varies between languages, but it can vary within a language for different numerals. I think large numerals have a greater tendency to function as heads.
I think that the ...
- 18.7k
3
votes
Accepted
Is there a term for cardinal numerals that don't express quantity?
It is a nominal number. It is like a cardinal in writing, but doesn't really express a number. It is kind of like an ordinal in some contexts. For example, 2020 says "the 2020th year after the Birth ...
- 1,559
3
votes
What is the name of the category that describes the ways a number can be read?
I am not aware of any linguistic terminology for this particular kind of conventions. However, there is some applicable terminology from software engineering, particularly from the field of ...
- 31.1k
3
votes
Word form for Number in Ancient Obscure Language
Peina-bumfit is 17 - These are all corruptions of older Brythonic languages once spoken throughout England.
Peina is "2", Bumfit is "15", so essentially, '15 and 2'.
The older ...
- 61
3
votes
Accepted
Devanagari digit variants
They are regional variants:
Numerical Notation: A Comparative History, Stephen Chrisomalis (p.198, 199, 211)
http://software.sil.org/downloads/r/annapurna/AnnapurnaSIL-features.pdf
https://www....
- 3,132
3
votes
Accepted
Do Urdu Numerals belong to the Persian Script?
I think I understand what you are asking. Urdu, like Persian, is written with Arabic script, with a few extra letters. The numbers are written with the Eastern form of the Arabic (originally Indian) ...
- 24.6k
3
votes
What kind of a word class are numbers?
It seems in English, numbers can be adjectives, determiners, and nouns.
(Though I feel the nouns are really just adjectives that have an implied noun.)
Types of numbers
Ordinals: first, second...
...
- 31
3
votes
Word for eighteen expressed as Twenty Minus Two
Ainu is one of those: (http://www.sf.airnet.ne.jp/ts/language/number/ainu.html)
1 sinep 1 obj.
2 tup 2 obj.
3 rep 3 obj.
4 inep 4 obj.
5 asiknep 5 obj.
...
- 1,282
3
votes
Which modern, spoken languages do not use the decimal number system?
By "modern" do you mean a language that's still spoken by living people nowadays?
The most unusual modern example is the Telefol and Oksapmin languages, which use a base-27 counting system
...
- 794
3
votes
Why did Japanese borrow words for simple numbers from Chinese?
It's not only Chinese numerals that were imported to Japanese, but also Chinese counter suffixes (these are akin to units and are specific to the category of object being counted). Now how could ...
- 131
2
votes
Are there languages with indefinite articles but for which the word for "one" is not related etymologically to any of the indefinite articles?
Czech seems to be developing some sort of definite/indefinite articles with definite ones being evolved from demonstrative pronoun "ten" (this), while indefinite ones from the undetermined pronominal ...
- 2,363
2
votes
What numeral system is on this Hyderabad banknote?
This is a very interesting question. The numbers at the top of the columns on this note, and the other three helpfully supplied by Yellow Sky, are heavily stylised Persian or Arabic words:
“Five” is ...
- 24.6k
2
votes
Numeral-noun number agreement - how popular it is
This feature or lack thereof is common enough across language families. Besides Hungarian, Turkish and Georgian, it also occurs in Armenian, Persian and apparently Hindi, which are of course Indo-...
- 8,189
2
votes
Accepted
Word form for Number in Ancient Obscure Language
Although there is already an accepted answer, I will give some more clues on how to decode this kind of riddle.
Decoding without resorting to linguistic background information
There are single ...
- 31.1k
1
vote
What is the name of the category that describes the ways a number can be read?
The syllables of an utterance are normally split into intonational phrases, or IPs, for short. You can think of each IP as consisting of a miniature tune, or musical phrase.
In a situation where the ...
- 4,118
1
vote
Prevalence of Western/Latin Arabic numerals (digits 0-9) in cultures using the Hindu-Arabic Numeral System?
This relates to the linguistic ecology of these Latin Hindu-Arabic numerals in the respective cultures.
In the Sinosphere proper, although the "Chinese numeral" glyphs are 一、二、三..., they ...
- 7,626
1
vote
Devanagari digit variants
I have a feeling that these are regional. I've only ever used and read the standard "Bombay" forms (I'm actually from Delhi though).
- 1,144
1
vote
Numeral-noun number agreement - how popular it is
In most Berber languages (In Riffian, a numeral does not agree with a noun), agreement for numerals concerns the number and the gender. The noun agrees in number with the numeral and, inversely, the ...
- 1,535
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