Re: The centum-word.

--- In cybalist@..., "Mark Odegard" <markodegard@...> wrote:

> Last night, I went to sleep reading the EIEC article on numerals

(yes, EIEC

> is bedtime reading; it explains why my copy of this cheaply bound

but

> expensive to purchase volume is rapidly falling apart, and keeps

together

> only by the grace of duct tape).
>
> The interesting thing is that the ten-word probably means twice-

five

> (duo-dkm), and that the centum/satem word

means 'big/enhanced/raised by ten

> ten'.
>
> It does raise questions about the exact number of a hecatomb (a 100

cattle

> sacrifice).
>
> Germanic used the this root as a 'fundamental counting unit'; it

appears in

> compound-words up to 120.
>
> I also read how 1-4 are adjectives, but 5 onwards are nouns, the

two words

> for 'one' (un and sem), and especially, the peculiarity

of 'three': 'the

> one, distinct from the other two, as in latinate 'testimony' (i.e,
> 'witness'). Eight seems to be a dual (four-*dual ending*).
>
> PIE cannot claim a complete set of home-grown numerals from 1 to

10. 1, 2,

> 3, yes, but innumerately. Maybe four. Definitely five. After that,

there

> seems to no agreement beyond the observation that there was a lot

of

> inter-stock borrowing. Nine is the 'new-numeral'. Everyone comments

about a

> Semitic borrowing for 7. Germanic 11 and 12 are 'one left' and 'two

left'

> (after ten).
>
> The interesting thing is that base-ten counting took a while to

impose

> itself semi-completely. We still tell time and count by 12s.

lifted from my 'Austric' page:

Numerals

As for the Indo-European numerals:

one ?

two has a cognate in AfroAsiatic and Austronesian

three has a cognate in AfroAsiatic and Austronesian

four has a cognate in Austronesian

five has a cognate in AfroAsiatic and a related
cognate in the Austronesian word for "hand"

six has a cognate in AfroAsiatic

seven has a cognate in AfroAsiatic

eight is reconstructible from within Proto-IndoEuropean

nine has been related to the Proto-IndoEuropean root
for "new" i.e. the next after eight

which speaks volumes of the antediluvian cultural level
of Indo-European speakers (or perhaps not, cf the use of
Chinese numerals in Japanese or Danish numerals in Greenland
Eskimo).

cf.
http://www.angelfire.com/rant/tgpedersen/numbers.html

Torsten