Someone wrote:-
> Hence, we obtain IndoT *kWat:Wa "four" (with residual labialisation
> and a bit of a semantic shift). ...
Some remote tribal peoples even now have a very limited number set,
and it could be that some languages did not have a good number set
until they had (and needed to count) domestic animals. IE 1,2,3 sem /
oino-, duwo-, trey-, seem basic words, but I am tempted to treat 4 and
5 as later inventions made from "the corners number" (Latin "quetrum"
= corner) and "the fingers number" (English "finger", "fist" from IE
*penkwros, *penkwstos). And 8 [okto:] is a dual whose singular occurs
in Avestic. I suppose that the derivation with 5 could have govne the
other way, compare modern English slang "bunch of fives" for "fist".
s regards making new names for numbers, compare Russian, whose wored
for 40 is not the outcome of IE *[kwetra-(d)ktmta] or the like but
"sorok"; I read a theory that this "sorok" started as "the hides
number" because the Rurikid Viking dynasty in early Russia demanded
tax as batches of 40 animal fur hides: Old Norse `sark' = "skin".