Re: IE numbers

--- In cybalist@..., MCLSSAA2@... wrote:

> 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

I've read somewhere that *oino- could mean something like 'bound
(together to form a unit)'.

> 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".

This is quite probable as the meanings like 'bag; batch' are attested
for <sorokU> in Old Russian.

Sergei