--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "petusek" <petusek@...> wrote:
> From: "Richard Wordingham" :
> >--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Exu Yangi" <exuyangi@...>
>wrote:
> >Petusek:
> >> >Thanks for the list of the first five numerals in Japanese. In
Old
> >> >Japanese,
> >> >the first decade was organized in pairs:
> >> >
> >> >1 fitö 2 futa
> >> >3 mi 6 mu
> >> >4 yö 8 ya
> >> >5 i-tu 10 töwö
<snip>
Richard:
> >Well there does seem a cross-linguistic tendency for short runs
with >
> >the same initial letter. Has anyone checked the statistics on it?
> >It's not as simple as it seems, for it seems that numbers above 5
can >
> >share a common morpheme.
> >Perhaps there is a similar organising tendency behind the Japanese
> >numbers, though it seems a lot rarer. I suppose it's possible that
> >pre-PIE had such a 'system' - all that's left is the similarity of
> >the words for '4' and '8'.
Petusek:
> I see. So, do you think it was due to alliteration? (As for
Japanese, I
> mean)
Richard:
Neither the Japanese system, nor the Nama system, which I quote from
your earlier post, show any regularity in the formation, if that is
what it is.
Nama:
1 /gui 2 /gaw
3 !nona 6 !nani (though, alternatively, in !Gora !nani-b =
"thumb")
4 haka 8 //haisa (dual -sa seems to imply "4x2")
Thus it seems quite plausible that the alliterative 'doubling' system
has been built up by a choice of appropriate variants or even new
words, as we might even see with _!nani-b_ above.
How sure are you of your Nama forms? In www.zompist.com/numbers.htm
they are given as:
1 /úí 2 /ám
3 !noná 6 !naní
4 hàká 8 //xáísá
(I'm not complaining about what appears to be the suppression of tone
marks.) The parallelism is then less striking. In any case, don't
the initials of '4' and '8' contrast as non-click and click - surely
a big difference. The numbers for 1 to 3 as I quote them seem to be
the same as the Proto-Central Khoisan (PCK) forms.
Nama '8' as a dual certainly seems plausible - compare tAu.//eî (sp?)
||kai '4'. (Are ||k and //x equivalent spellings?) The Nharo
numerals are cognate to Nama, and it has //kaisa '8'. Another IE-PCK
parallel!
Richard.