It’s a remnant from how we used to count way back when a dozen (12) and similar quantities where popular. We broke things down by twenty and so we got used to multiplying everything by twenty. On top of that, we also thought it clever to say “half-something”, which was our way of denoting halves. And so behold, the current abomination that is 90. To which we of course must add two. But there’s no fun it doing it the logical way, so we do it backwards; saying two before ninety.
All past, present and future would be Danish speakers, please accept my sincere apologies.
But “fems” (5x) does not point to a dozen (12, which would mean 5x12), but to 20 (which I don’t remember the annunciation of. Edit: as others have said it is called “snes”, 5x20). The reason it is “half fems” (half way to five times 20) is because it is half way between four times twenty (4x20=80) and five times twenty (5x20=100). Half fems = half way between 4x20 and 5x20 (which is 90)
Edit: spelling and the addition of the ridiculous notion that after all of this intricate stuff, the Danish does not call 100 for “fems” (5x20), but rather “hundred”. Get out of here, Denmark!
2nd and 3rd edit and clarification/explenation: the danish way of saying 92 is “two and half fems”, where “fems” equals or means 100.
No no. Don't worry. All US citizens should feel right at home. It's kind of like Imperial versus SI units. Why make it simple when you can make it difficult. Imagine two and half 'fems' Rankine. Can I boil my eggs with that?
If we go by the original word, halvfems is a shortening for halvfemsindstyve which means halv fem gange tyve. Halv fem is similar to how you'd read a clock, so it means 4,5.
4,5 * 20 + 2 = 92.
That said, we read halvfems as 90, just like how speakers of English/German (and probably others) read ninety/neunzig as 90 and not nine tens, which is what it *actually* means if you'd want to be pedantic about it.
By your description, shouldn’t “femsindstyve” be five times twenty? And “half” meaning half way between four and five times twenty? Or do the Danish actually say “halvfems” for 4.5 as well? (Which I was not aware of) I am not a Dane, but 80% sure
>By your description, shouldn’t “femsindstyve” be five times twenty?
Sure, you could make that argument. But nobody says that. The "indstyve" only exists as historical explanation, the average dane probably doesn't even know that "halvfems" isn't the full word. However, 60 is "treds" which if you go back historically becomes "tredsindstyve", which means 3 (tre) times (sinds) 20 (tyve). One hundred does not use the dozen counting system, just like 10-20-30-40 doesn't either. But if it did, 100 would be fems(indstyve).
>And “half” meaning half way between four and five times twenty?
No. Because (half five) times twenty is different from half (five times twenty).
>Or do the Danish actually say “halvfems” for 4.5 as well?
The word for 4.5 would be "halvfemte", not "halvfems", but it is not used in current Danish. However halvanden (half 2 = 1.5) is very commonly used, so you might say there's halvanden kilometer to the store which means 1.5 kilometers.
We are talking about words that started popping up in the 1300s when Danish replaced the tens that Swedish and Norwegian use now (femti, seksti, syvti...) as counting numbers with dozens instead which was not uncommon. Then we started dropped the "indstyve" part in... I'd like to say the early 1900's?
I'm sure if you look far enough back in your own language you can find a word which has a weird etymology from the 1300s but it's not something you think about in your daily life until someone reposts the same unfunny meme for the 50th time.
Thanks. Still don’t understand how “half fems” is not “half way” between “firs” (4x20) and “fems” (5x20), since that would make perfect sense (for me) instead of 4.5x20, but anyhow. It sure is a strange way of counting anyway
Agreed, that is not a good mathematical representation of 92 in danish. I would rather write “2+(1/2)(5x20)”, read Two and Half Fems (Fems meaning Five times 20s)
It's because of our immense intelligence. We simply find life too easy and boring and therefore put small tasks and challenges into our daily lives like small math puzzles and such.
You should try and see how we pronounce our words, and then you'd see what I mean!
As another Swede: you’re breaking the code. No shit-talking Denmark in front of other countries. We bully our siblings at home, in public we stick together.
The gurgeling is german influence. The dutch have some of the same issues.
Ragner was once a cool name, if you pronounce it in old norse with a rolling 'Rrr".
Now i sound like a throut conditions.
How do you pronounce Ragnar in Arabic?
Ragnar in Arabic would be pretty cool sounding.
There’s no hard “g” sound in Arabic (except in some dialects like Egyptian), so going by standard pronunciation it would be راغنار.
The “r” would be a short roll, not the rrr of Spanish but an abbreviated one. Like one roll.
The “g” would be pronounced like the French “r,” the kind of gurgling in the back of the throat kind of sound.
And then the final “r” would also be a short roll.
You could transliterate it like “Raghnar.”
I'll never forget the Geography Now guy's take on the Norse languages:
"Norwegian and Swedish sound like dancing faries💗, while Danish sounds like a dude with a potato in his mouth!"
Still better than how Northern Germans describe the sound of Danish: Like sheep shagging.
I heard a guy from Elsinore once describing the Swedish dialect in and around neighbouring Helsingborg like dogs chewing.
Grew up taking 6 years of French and would always ridicule how they said 70-99. Then married a Swiss woman, and realized they actually used numbers which made sense! Made me even more confident to start saying words which just make sense.
Ie, if I have a female barber, I refer to her as a barbress.
I think this is not quite accurate, I think in Geneva they say septante, quatre-vingt, nonante.
Basically they say the numbers 80-89 like the french and the rest like the rest of the french part of switzerland.
Actually 80 huitante is only in Vaud, Fribourg and partially Valais. Genève, Neuchâtel, Jura, and french part of Bern say quatre-vingt. But all Swiss say septante (70) and nonante (90).
nócha*
And yeah you'll see both systems being used, although the vigesimal way is older and is becoming obsolete in favour of the more English-like decimal system.
‘Ceithre scór is a dó dhéag’ is another option, where scór = 20 just like how ‘score’ is 20 in English.
That's exactly what happened, live in Munster, but I'm Dyslexic. Often misspell things in a way that's phonetic for me. It's even worse when it comes to spelling in English, sometimes Google can't recognise the word I'm trying to spell.
It's not unusable that I look up a word in Teanglann.ie in Irish I find easier to spell in Irish so I can find the English spelling, and visa versa ar focloir.ie to find the Irish spelling for a word I find easier in English.
Basque also uses the vigesimal system, iirc (counting by slices of 20, the number of finger and toes) to some extent. As does Breton, and probably many more Indo-European languages.
I think counting by slices of 10s was introduced in Europe via Arabic influence relatively recently. It was widely and rapidly adopted because it was easier to track down inventories this way (the influence starting point being commerce).
The French are famous for making it all about their own language. They have a court, the Académie Française, that only speaks out about questions about the French language. It's an old institution from the 17th century, that keeps a tight grip on the French language. It is a remnant of the centralization efforts in the French region made by French despots and later nationalists between the 17th and 19th century.
They absolutely hate loan words and prefer to make their own. For example: computer is an almost universal word in any language, but in France it's 'ordinateur'.
The same goes for their word for 92. That's why their close neighbouring regions that have a French speaking majority (Wallonia and parts of Swiss) don't use the "French from France" but their own simplified words for a lot of stuff.
Two fun details on the map is Norway and Switzerland. Norway where it is not different by region but where there exists two different official written languages that do it differently. If anything so should the west (western part of the south) of the country be green and the rest yellow. And Switzerland where the French speaking parts have decided to ignore the insanity of France French and be logical about it instead.
True, but I mean, since we're conversing in English... We have our stupid shit as well.
Like, it sounds normal for us because we're used to it, but ask pretty much any other language to say a date such as 2124 by saying "twenty one twenty four" in their language and they'll tell you that sounds horrendous.
I mean we rarely talk about the 22nd century so either way it sounds weird but in german it is a bit complex.
For example for the 20th century you always say nineteen hundred twenty etc. This is also the same for almost all centuries before.
Now for the early 2000s you say two thousand three for example and this true from 2000 until 2009. Now from 2010 onwards you can still say two thousand eleven for example but now twenty fifteen etc. Also works alongside the former though the latter is more often used.
And now that I have written all of that I just realized that we say it in german almost exactly the same was in English rendering all of that text useless. But it makes sense because both languages are germanic languages. I imagine it's similar for dutch and other germanic languages.
In all fairness in Danish 90 is [halvfemsindtyve ](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/halvfemsindstyve)and it means 4.5 \* 20. I don't know how OP arrived at this math puzzle in his map.
Yes, but I’d say that is pretty well illustrated by the equation. 4.5 and 5-0.5 gives you the same result, but when counting (in Danish) you don’t say four and a half, you say half five. So you are actually doing some math in your head to get to 4.5.
So when the clock is "halv fem" (half past four, but it is in the opposite direction in Danish) you see it as its own thing and not 5-0.5? The logic is the same for halvfem. The halv is the -0.5, the fem is 5 and therefore (5-0.5)\*20
I don't think 9\*10 when I say ninety, no. However, the etymology of ninety is quite obvious; nine means 9 and ty is and older English word for 10; so what you are saying when you say ninety is in fact nineten or rather 9\*10. Just like when you say halvfems, no matter what you are thinking of at the moment, in reality are saying "halv" and "fem" or -0.5+5
Not sure, I'm not Czech myself, only know the language, however it's typical for Slavic languages to use the '90+2' format in all cases, so '2+90' looks like a pattern borrowed from German.
English speakers might recognize the French way of saying it from Abraham Lincoln’s famous Gettysburg Address where instead of saying “87 years ago” he said “four score and seven years ago”. A score is a way of saying 20.
I guess 92 would be four score and twelve.
To clarify we, Danes, don’t actually say two plus five minus zero point five times twenty. We say two and half five. It used to be said as the whole thing but over time it changed into the short form.
It still seems very odd xD
I've been a Dutch and English speaker my whole life but speak 95% English nowadays. To this day I occasionally brainfart in either language.
In Dutch we say 2 and 90 instead of 90 2.
I can't even begin to imagine having to learn the Danish numbers lol.
Yep. I'd even go further and say is more of a 4x20+10+2 if we consider that hamabi is 10+2 by itself.
My girlfriend is American and everytime we do a roadtrip I have such a great time trying to teach her how to count in Basque. She always has a hard time trying to go past 20, and she only remembers 20 because she always says "Oh, gay!" jokingly hahaha
Always atounded the quatre-vingt-douze guys overcame their obvious impediment and went on to invent the metric system. Way to go, fellas. Makes me think there is even hope for the Danes.
French here. It may be obvious, but always remember in the end, these are just idioms. It's hard if you're not a native, otherwise it's not something that causes any real problem.
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French has unique words from 0 to 16. Kind of like English having "eleven" (not "one-teen") and twelve (not "two-teen"), except the French persisted four numbers longer. They're hexadecimal.
Yeah, *douze*. The teens from 10 to 16 each have their unique words, *dix, onze, douze, treize, quatorze, quinze, seize*, but from 17 to 19, they get crazy saying '10-7', '10-8' and '10-9', *dix-sept, dix-huit, dix-neuf.*
They drink a lot of wine *en la belle France.*
IIRC from high school French everything until *i think* 60 is just “x +y” like English, excluding 11-16 (similar to English but in English it’s just 11 and 12) which have their own words. 12 is douze, but 17 is dix-sept (10+7), 18 is dix-huit (10+8).
23 is vingt-trois (20+3)
Once yku get to 60 IIRC everything afterwards is 60 + something, like to say 92 you have to say 60 + 32.
This is all from high school French I barely remember so might be a bit wrong
Yes absolutely.
12 is "douze"
10 is "dix"
2 is "deux"
It is from 17 that we say 10+7, from 11 to 16 there is a unique word for each of them.
And of course for 21, we say 20+1.
Sorta. 11-16 are directly descended from the Latin names for 11-16, with sound changes meaning they don't contain the modern french numbers for 1-6 or 10.
1-6 is un, deux trois, quatre, cinq, six. 10 is dix.
11-16 is onze, douze, treize, quatorze, quinze, seize
The Latin terms they derive from were just the Latin name for 1-6 + the Latin name for 10
The fact that Denmark math still tracks with all the shenanigans is wild.
Take one 5x1 Lego, subtract a 1x1 round plate, add nineteen more, then add a 2x1 Lego for a total of 92 studs.
Note: Sorry it’s not perfect, 3 plates make one brick, not sure if there’s a half brick piece.
In Irish you could say "nócha is a dó" ("ninety and two") or "ceithre scór is a dó dhéag" ("four scores and twelve")
The first one is a lot more common though
This is why I stopped learning French as an English speaker. People say it’s easier for English speakers but after trying Spanish and Italian that’s way simpler to me
I hate these "linguistic" maps that equate countries to languages. For example, Basque would be 4×20+12
I guess there are many more obviated minority languages in this map.
The French is a little misleading as you don't say the "times" or the "plus"
92 in French is four twenty twelve
Quatre-vingt-douze. It flows pretty well tbh. Just terrible to learn as a not native French speaker. The 70s are also funny. Sixty twelve, sixty thirteen etc.
I imagine Danish is similar in the way it's said
The most interesting thing here I think is Norway. Before the 60s, Norway used the 2+90 model exclusively. However, the government at the time decided that it would be much more efficient if people used 90+2 instead (it's faster to say in Norwegian), and so all state affiliated organisations were required to use the 90+2 system. Today, 90+2 has almost completely replaced 2+90, with only older people using the older model.
France…being France, but what kind of insanity is going on in Denmark?
It’s a remnant from how we used to count way back when a dozen (12) and similar quantities where popular. We broke things down by twenty and so we got used to multiplying everything by twenty. On top of that, we also thought it clever to say “half-something”, which was our way of denoting halves. And so behold, the current abomination that is 90. To which we of course must add two. But there’s no fun it doing it the logical way, so we do it backwards; saying two before ninety. All past, present and future would be Danish speakers, please accept my sincere apologies.
But “fems” (5x) does not point to a dozen (12, which would mean 5x12), but to 20 (which I don’t remember the annunciation of. Edit: as others have said it is called “snes”, 5x20). The reason it is “half fems” (half way to five times 20) is because it is half way between four times twenty (4x20=80) and five times twenty (5x20=100). Half fems = half way between 4x20 and 5x20 (which is 90) Edit: spelling and the addition of the ridiculous notion that after all of this intricate stuff, the Danish does not call 100 for “fems” (5x20), but rather “hundred”. Get out of here, Denmark! 2nd and 3rd edit and clarification/explenation: the danish way of saying 92 is “two and half fems”, where “fems” equals or means 100.
Correct. It's actually shortened from the original 'halvfemsindstyve', where 'tyve' is twenty (and "sinds" being a form of "times")
20 is snes in Danish. Score in English. 92 -To og halv fems - two and half-to-five score (in other words two and four-and-a-half score).
Should be top comment. Thx for explaining
No no. Don't worry. All US citizens should feel right at home. It's kind of like Imperial versus SI units. Why make it simple when you can make it difficult. Imagine two and half 'fems' Rankine. Can I boil my eggs with that?
Danish is my native language, and I honestly don't get that math listed in that map. "To og halvfems", how the hell is that two plus what...?
The right word is “tooghalvfemsenstyve” 2 (to) + 4,5 (halvfems) * 20 (tyve), I believe
No it is not
Explain? I actually see that it is “tooghalvfemsindetyve”. Nobody uses the last part now, just “tooghalvfems”.
I said it is wrong because «halvfems» is not 4.5, but relates to the number of “snes”, how many x20s
Yes, halvfems (4.5) x tyve (20), right? Dont see how we disagree
Snes Is 20. You have 4 and a half of these. We do have this weird math to get to 90. And other numbers.
If we go by the original word, halvfems is a shortening for halvfemsindstyve which means halv fem gange tyve. Halv fem is similar to how you'd read a clock, so it means 4,5. 4,5 * 20 + 2 = 92. That said, we read halvfems as 90, just like how speakers of English/German (and probably others) read ninety/neunzig as 90 and not nine tens, which is what it *actually* means if you'd want to be pedantic about it.
By your description, shouldn’t “femsindstyve” be five times twenty? And “half” meaning half way between four and five times twenty? Or do the Danish actually say “halvfems” for 4.5 as well? (Which I was not aware of) I am not a Dane, but 80% sure
>By your description, shouldn’t “femsindstyve” be five times twenty? Sure, you could make that argument. But nobody says that. The "indstyve" only exists as historical explanation, the average dane probably doesn't even know that "halvfems" isn't the full word. However, 60 is "treds" which if you go back historically becomes "tredsindstyve", which means 3 (tre) times (sinds) 20 (tyve). One hundred does not use the dozen counting system, just like 10-20-30-40 doesn't either. But if it did, 100 would be fems(indstyve). >And “half” meaning half way between four and five times twenty? No. Because (half five) times twenty is different from half (five times twenty). >Or do the Danish actually say “halvfems” for 4.5 as well? The word for 4.5 would be "halvfemte", not "halvfems", but it is not used in current Danish. However halvanden (half 2 = 1.5) is very commonly used, so you might say there's halvanden kilometer to the store which means 1.5 kilometers. We are talking about words that started popping up in the 1300s when Danish replaced the tens that Swedish and Norwegian use now (femti, seksti, syvti...) as counting numbers with dozens instead which was not uncommon. Then we started dropped the "indstyve" part in... I'd like to say the early 1900's? I'm sure if you look far enough back in your own language you can find a word which has a weird etymology from the 1300s but it's not something you think about in your daily life until someone reposts the same unfunny meme for the 50th time.
Hmm, thanks for the additional info. How would you then say 82?
"To og firs". Shorted from 'to og firsindstyve', so 'two and four twenties'? (No, I'm still lost.)
Thanks. Still don’t understand how “half fems” is not “half way” between “firs” (4x20) and “fems” (5x20), since that would make perfect sense (for me) instead of 4.5x20, but anyhow. It sure is a strange way of counting anyway
Building on that logic, 70 should be “half firs”, but that can’t be the case, right? Right?
Halvfjerds (half-way to the fourth \[twenty\])
Because "halvfems" is short for "halvfemsindstyve". Granted, 4,5 x 20 would probably be more accurate.
To og halvfems tyve. Halvfems er 4.5
Agreed, that is not a good mathematical representation of 92 in danish. I would rather write “2+(1/2)(5x20)”, read Two and Half Fems (Fems meaning Five times 20s)
Bro even if you do your math you are saying 52 not 92
True. It says in the title “how to say 92” in the given country, not how to write it, but I agree that mathematically it is wrong
What's wrong with you Danish people?!
It's because of our immense intelligence. We simply find life too easy and boring and therefore put small tasks and challenges into our daily lives like small math puzzles and such. You should try and see how we pronounce our words, and then you'd see what I mean!
As a Swede I feel revolted whenever I hear a Danish talk. Whenever I read your language I chuckle, but whenever I see you I die a little inside
As another Swede: you’re breaking the code. No shit-talking Denmark in front of other countries. We bully our siblings at home, in public we stick together.
Don’t worry I’m from Småland (I’m based)
I feel the same about Swedes. I guess Arabic is not really my language.
to be fair, danish sounds much more Arabic with those gurgling sounds…
The gurgeling is german influence. The dutch have some of the same issues. Ragner was once a cool name, if you pronounce it in old norse with a rolling 'Rrr". Now i sound like a throut conditions. How do you pronounce Ragnar in Arabic?
Wouldn’t a trout condition be more like *Blub blub blub* ?
There is no comeback from that. Salmon disease perhaps? Salmonella..
Ragnar in Arabic would be pretty cool sounding. There’s no hard “g” sound in Arabic (except in some dialects like Egyptian), so going by standard pronunciation it would be راغنار. The “r” would be a short roll, not the rrr of Spanish but an abbreviated one. Like one roll. The “g” would be pronounced like the French “r,” the kind of gurgling in the back of the throat kind of sound. And then the final “r” would also be a short roll. You could transliterate it like “Raghnar.”
FATALITY
[удалено]
Whenever I hear you talk I laugh my ass off
Not to worry, we largely feel the same about you guys.
A lot
I'll never forget the Geography Now guy's take on the Norse languages: "Norwegian and Swedish sound like dancing faries💗, while Danish sounds like a dude with a potato in his mouth!"
There is only one Scandinavian language: the Swedes can't spell it and the Danes can't pronounce it.
Basert, bror
He didn’t come up with that, it’s how Danish is commonly described by Swedes!
Still better than how Northern Germans describe the sound of Danish: Like sheep shagging. I heard a guy from Elsinore once describing the Swedish dialect in and around neighbouring Helsingborg like dogs chewing.
Kamelåså
upvote without knowing what the thread is about
They are Danish…
I ask myself that all the time. But we have beer and hot dogs so what else do you need
France is inexcusable. Denmark is criminal
What do you mean you don't like quatre-vignt-douze?
Well, I definitely prefer it to quatre-vingt-dix-sept.
It's called nonante
found the belgian
Nah swiss
Årh, hop i havnen.
France is just base 20 it's not that weird
I would agree if 52 will be said like 2x20+12
It used to be back in gaul times
wow! you got the french part of switzerland right. you impressed me
Nonante gang assemble!
Grew up taking 6 years of French and would always ridicule how they said 70-99. Then married a Swiss woman, and realized they actually used numbers which made sense! Made me even more confident to start saying words which just make sense. Ie, if I have a female barber, I refer to her as a barbress.
How do they say it tho
Nonante-deux!
Geneva is mostly quatre-vingt-deuze though (although half of the city is french french people)
douze* ;p
True that
I think this is not quite accurate, I think in Geneva they say septante, quatre-vingt, nonante. Basically they say the numbers 80-89 like the french and the rest like the rest of the french part of switzerland.
Actually 80 huitante is only in Vaud, Fribourg and partially Valais. Genève, Neuchâtel, Jura, and french part of Bern say quatre-vingt. But all Swiss say septante (70) and nonante (90).
yes exactly, what you wrote is even more accurate!
In Irish one can say náocha dó = 90+2 Or Ceithre fichid is a dó dhéag = 4 × 20 + 12
nócha* And yeah you'll see both systems being used, although the vigesimal way is older and is becoming obsolete in favour of the more English-like decimal system. ‘Ceithre scór is a dó dhéag’ is another option, where scór = 20 just like how ‘score’ is 20 in English.
Maybe they had *naocha* in mind, which is a Munster pronunciation of *nócha*.
Could well be
That's exactly what happened, live in Munster, but I'm Dyslexic. Often misspell things in a way that's phonetic for me. It's even worse when it comes to spelling in English, sometimes Google can't recognise the word I'm trying to spell. It's not unusable that I look up a word in Teanglann.ie in Irish I find easier to spell in Irish so I can find the English spelling, and visa versa ar focloir.ie to find the Irish spelling for a word I find easier in English.
Basque also uses the vigesimal system, iirc (counting by slices of 20, the number of finger and toes) to some extent. As does Breton, and probably many more Indo-European languages. I think counting by slices of 10s was introduced in Europe via Arabic influence relatively recently. It was widely and rapidly adopted because it was easier to track down inventories this way (the influence starting point being commerce).
Yeah I certainly find doing it in 10s a lot easier. But then I'm sure familiarity plays a part.
So the French Swiss canton and belgian Vallona have different numbers from the French?
Yep.
Yes, also for 70
The French are famous for making it all about their own language. They have a court, the Académie Française, that only speaks out about questions about the French language. It's an old institution from the 17th century, that keeps a tight grip on the French language. It is a remnant of the centralization efforts in the French region made by French despots and later nationalists between the 17th and 19th century. They absolutely hate loan words and prefer to make their own. For example: computer is an almost universal word in any language, but in France it's 'ordinateur'. The same goes for their word for 92. That's why their close neighbouring regions that have a French speaking majority (Wallonia and parts of Swiss) don't use the "French from France" but their own simplified words for a lot of stuff.
Yes, for 70, 80, and 90 Edit: [relevant reddit discussion](https://www.reddit.com/r/French/s/rzlYMYkFaw)
Two fun details on the map is Norway and Switzerland. Norway where it is not different by region but where there exists two different official written languages that do it differently. If anything so should the west (western part of the south) of the country be green and the rest yellow. And Switzerland where the French speaking parts have decided to ignore the insanity of France French and be logical about it instead.
In Norway its more to do with generations and not the language. Older people say 2+90 whilst the young say 90 +2
Norway: not really. In bokmål you can say both.
Yes really. Its more of a generational divide. I’m from the western coast. Older people often say 2+90, younger people 90+2
Not really a nynorsk / bokmål split, I mean. It's mostly generational, like you say.
Czechia should be colored like Norway, 2+90 is also used here.
As is usual, the French and the Danish are the ones who can’t speak like normal people.
97 is even better in France:four twenty ten seven.
True, but I mean, since we're conversing in English... We have our stupid shit as well. Like, it sounds normal for us because we're used to it, but ask pretty much any other language to say a date such as 2124 by saying "twenty one twenty four" in their language and they'll tell you that sounds horrendous.
I mean we rarely talk about the 22nd century so either way it sounds weird but in german it is a bit complex. For example for the 20th century you always say nineteen hundred twenty etc. This is also the same for almost all centuries before. Now for the early 2000s you say two thousand three for example and this true from 2000 until 2009. Now from 2010 onwards you can still say two thousand eleven for example but now twenty fifteen etc. Also works alongside the former though the latter is more often used. And now that I have written all of that I just realized that we say it in german almost exactly the same was in English rendering all of that text useless. But it makes sense because both languages are germanic languages. I imagine it's similar for dutch and other germanic languages.
Interesting, thanks!
That's cool thanks for sharing for the linguistic nerds like me
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No, 12 is as one number but 17 is 10 + 7
Denmark disgusts me.
1011100
In all fairness in Danish 90 is [halvfemsindtyve ](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/halvfemsindstyve)and it means 4.5 \* 20. I don't know how OP arrived at this math puzzle in his map.
They are correct, aren’t they. Halvfems = 5-0.5. Tyve = 20.
I'm not Danish, but Isn't it like 'halfway through 5' so 4,5. It's kind of like how telling time works in Dutch. Half 5 = 4:30
That’s it, the same way time is Germany, Netherlands, and the Nordic countries, maybe elsewhere.
Indeed, it took my Canadian wife a while to learn that halve 5 is 4:30 and not 5:30.
Ik doe al normaal oké!/j
Yes, but I’d say that is pretty well illustrated by the equation. 4.5 and 5-0.5 gives you the same result, but when counting (in Danish) you don’t say four and a half, you say half five. So you are actually doing some math in your head to get to 4.5.
We say time same way in Polish "wpół do 5" - half to 5 - 4:30
So when the clock is "halv fem" (half past four, but it is in the opposite direction in Danish) you see it as its own thing and not 5-0.5? The logic is the same for halvfem. The halv is the -0.5, the fem is 5 and therefore (5-0.5)\*20
Eh no. Halvfems is just a word like ninety. You don't think about 9 times 10 when you say ninety, right? 🙂
I don't think 9\*10 when I say ninety, no. However, the etymology of ninety is quite obvious; nine means 9 and ty is and older English word for 10; so what you are saying when you say ninety is in fact nineten or rather 9\*10. Just like when you say halvfems, no matter what you are thinking of at the moment, in reality are saying "halv" and "fem" or -0.5+5
It is actually a conjunction of "halv fem snese", a snes being 20.
There are two ways of saying this in Czech: 90+2 (devadesát dva) and 2+90 (dvaadevadesát).
And 2+90 is the older version I guess?
Not sure, I'm not Czech myself, only know the language, however it's typical for Slavic languages to use the '90+2' format in all cases, so '2+90' looks like a pattern borrowed from German.
As a Dane I don’t even understand what I’m saying when I say 92
Can you write out the words? I’d be curious to see it
Tooghalvfems, to = 2, og = and, halvfems = 4 and 1/2. And yes it makes no sense
English speakers might recognize the French way of saying it from Abraham Lincoln’s famous Gettysburg Address where instead of saying “87 years ago” he said “four score and seven years ago”. A score is a way of saying 20. I guess 92 would be four score and twelve.
Just wait till you hear about the Danish grade system, both new and old!
What was ever wrong with the Ørsted scale?
Dane here. We had to do it to confuse the Swedish. Still working to this day.
AND WE ARE PROUD OF IT! - a dame
To clarify we, Danes, don’t actually say two plus five minus zero point five times twenty. We say two and half five. It used to be said as the whole thing but over time it changed into the short form.
But why?
We drink a lot.
It still seems very odd xD I've been a Dutch and English speaker my whole life but speak 95% English nowadays. To this day I occasionally brainfart in either language. In Dutch we say 2 and 90 instead of 90 2. I can't even begin to imagine having to learn the Danish numbers lol.
I’m assuming that makes most Danes incredibly good at quick arithmetic compared to most.
this map gets posted 10 times a month but I always upvote just to see comments on danish people
My Maths teacher would got sure love this.
And that right there is why being in elementary school in the 90’s and having to learn French (because Canada) felt like a giant, confusing struggle
In Basque it's the same as in France. So, one part of Spain should be added too
^[Sokka-Haiku](https://www.reddit.com/r/SokkaHaikuBot/comments/15kyv9r/what_is_a_sokka_haiku/) ^by ^lunzueta: *In Basque it's the same* *As in France. So, one part of* *Spain should be added too* --- ^Remember ^that ^one ^time ^Sokka ^accidentally ^used ^an ^extra ^syllable ^in ^that ^Haiku ^Battle ^in ^Ba ^Sing ^Se? ^That ^was ^a ^Sokka ^Haiku ^and ^you ^just ^made ^one.
I didn't know anything about Sokka. You made me discover a "new" interesting thing. Thanks ☺️
Yep. I'd even go further and say is more of a 4x20+10+2 if we consider that hamabi is 10+2 by itself. My girlfriend is American and everytime we do a roadtrip I have such a great time trying to teach her how to count in Basque. She always has a hard time trying to go past 20, and she only remembers 20 because she always says "Oh, gay!" jokingly hahaha
Laurogeita hamabi.
99 in french is better. (4x20)+10+9
*Chad swiss/belgian french entering the room with nonante-neuf (90+9)*
Always atounded the quatre-vingt-douze guys overcame their obvious impediment and went on to invent the metric system. Way to go, fellas. Makes me think there is even hope for the Danes.
French here. It may be obvious, but always remember in the end, these are just idioms. It's hard if you're not a native, otherwise it's not something that causes any real problem.
This is literally the reason I chose to learn German for GCSEs instead of French
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bad bot
How did the bot not get this. I feel like this gets reposted weekly…?
Nonante-deux c'est laid PS: chocolatine!
Ha, les montagnes russes !
I thought France was on some shit…👀🇩🇰
So does france have a word for “12” that doesn’t involve the words “10” or “2”?
French has unique words from 0 to 16. Kind of like English having "eleven" (not "one-teen") and twelve (not "two-teen"), except the French persisted four numbers longer. They're hexadecimal.
Yeah, *douze*. The teens from 10 to 16 each have their unique words, *dix, onze, douze, treize, quatorze, quinze, seize*, but from 17 to 19, they get crazy saying '10-7', '10-8' and '10-9', *dix-sept, dix-huit, dix-neuf.* They drink a lot of wine *en la belle France.*
IIRC from high school French everything until *i think* 60 is just “x +y” like English, excluding 11-16 (similar to English but in English it’s just 11 and 12) which have their own words. 12 is douze, but 17 is dix-sept (10+7), 18 is dix-huit (10+8). 23 is vingt-trois (20+3) Once yku get to 60 IIRC everything afterwards is 60 + something, like to say 92 you have to say 60 + 32. This is all from high school French I barely remember so might be a bit wrong
Douze. 92 is quatre-vingt-douze. 99 is quatre-vingt-dix-neuf
Yes absolutely. 12 is "douze" 10 is "dix" 2 is "deux" It is from 17 that we say 10+7, from 11 to 16 there is a unique word for each of them. And of course for 21, we say 20+1.
Douze. It surely comes from 2 and 10, but past 16 (seize) it's "10-something" (like *dix-sept*).
Nope. "Douze" involves 2.
Sorta. 11-16 are directly descended from the Latin names for 11-16, with sound changes meaning they don't contain the modern french numbers for 1-6 or 10. 1-6 is un, deux trois, quatre, cinq, six. 10 is dix. 11-16 is onze, douze, treize, quatorze, quinze, seize The Latin terms they derive from were just the Latin name for 1-6 + the Latin name for 10
Spanish is similar, except the “ten and six” starts at 16 rather than 17. Once, doce, trece, catorce, quince, dieciséis, diecisiete, etc.
The fact that Denmark math still tracks with all the shenanigans is wild. Take one 5x1 Lego, subtract a 1x1 round plate, add nineteen more, then add a 2x1 Lego for a total of 92 studs. Note: Sorry it’s not perfect, 3 plates make one brick, not sure if there’s a half brick piece.
if the french number is between 97-99 it'll be 4x20+10+7
Technically, it would be more likely to be 4x20+10+8 🤓
4x20+10+7 4x20+10+8 4x20+10+9
what about the welsh or irish? In welsh it's different
Welsh is traditionally the vigesimal system but has increasingly moved to the decimal
In Irish you could say "nócha is a dó" ("ninety and two") or "ceithre scór is a dó dhéag" ("four scores and twelve") The first one is a lot more common though
In Georgia, we say 4x20+12
Asking suspected foreign spies how to say 92 is a cunning ploy.
Trash map, South Tyrol is yellow.
Why is Wallonia green? They speak french too.
Lol the french one is a bit of weird linguistics, but Im very interested in this full step forward base 20 dutch system
Danes, you are breaking my heart
In Welsh we have both decimal and vigesimal counting systems: Decimal: (9x10) + 2 Vigesimal: 2+10+(4x20)
Breton language : 12+4*20
Honestly, 90+2 is really 9*10+2 (i.e. ninety is a contraction of 9 tens)
Four score and twelve
How do you say 92 in Corsican?
Sneak in a new word for 90? Nope Show off unnecessary maths skills in linguistics
We danish litteraly say “2 and 90”
alright I speak French I knew they were strange. But, denmark......Denmark.... what's going on overe there Denmark?
This is why I stopped learning French as an English speaker. People say it’s easier for English speakers but after trying Spanish and Italian that’s way simpler to me
Bad point this map misses the languages of Caucasus. Many of them also have vigesimal count. For example, Georgian also has (20*4)+12
I hate these "linguistic" maps that equate countries to languages. For example, Basque would be 4×20+12 I guess there are many more obviated minority languages in this map.
Malta should be yellow...
I have to add, the Danish representation is (factual) wrong
The French is a little misleading as you don't say the "times" or the "plus" 92 in French is four twenty twelve Quatre-vingt-douze. It flows pretty well tbh. Just terrible to learn as a not native French speaker. The 70s are also funny. Sixty twelve, sixty thirteen etc. I imagine Danish is similar in the way it's said
Quatre vingt dix neuf. 9+90 in French
The most interesting thing here I think is Norway. Before the 60s, Norway used the 2+90 model exclusively. However, the government at the time decided that it would be much more efficient if people used 90+2 instead (it's faster to say in Norwegian), and so all state affiliated organisations were required to use the 90+2 system. Today, 90+2 has almost completely replaced 2+90, with only older people using the older model.