Re: [tied] Re: The Dravidian Salesman

From: Piotr Gasiorowski
Message: 13036
Date: 2002-04-05

 
----- Original Message -----
From: tgpedersen
To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Friday, April 05, 2002 12:58 PM
Subject: [tied] Re: The Dravidian Salesman

 
> Older Germanic languages had a "small hundred" (100) and a "large hurdred" (120). With that kind of sloppy terminology, no wonder they borrowed a more exact hundred from the Iranic-speakers (astronomers, methematicians and all that).

Three objections: -- (1) The Sarmatians are not reputed to have been great mathematicians or astronomers. -- (2) All the other old Germanic languages had the same decimal/duodecimal hundred problem but none of them solved it by borrowing. The terminology was not all that sloppy, anywise, since when precision was required they resorted to composite numerals, as in Old English:
 
 70 hund-seofontig
 80 hund-eahtatig
 90 hund-nigontig
100 hund-te:ontig (= hund, Goth. taíhuntêhund/taíhuntaíhund)
110 hund-ændlæftig
120 hund-twelftig
 
-- (3) The 'thousand' word was not ambiguous, and yet it too was replaced.
 
Piotr