From: andythewiros
Message: 65059
Date: 2009-09-19
>Most handfuls wouldn't contain a hundred items, unless they were grains of cereal or other small things; I can't really see how a swollen hand could be interpreted as a thousand things. So I fail to see why these interpretations would be appealing. I think hundred and thousand developed after *dkmt had come to mean "ten" rather than the possible earlier "hand", and that *(d)kmtóm is something like "derivative of ten (ten tens)", and *tu:s(d)kmti: is "swollen hundred (swollen derivative of ten)". But ten as 'two hands' is perfectly understandable, and I believe the most natural and likely original denotation of the concept of 'ten'. I don't see why this popular explanation should be dismissed.
>
> Is there no chance that 'hand' might be related to the word for 'ten', *dk^mt-, which might be analyzed as *du k^mt- "two hands" (ten fingers)?
>
>
>
> Andrew
> That's a popular explanation, in popular books, blogs, etc. I've never seen it pursued by any professional linguists, though.But ten < taihun as "two hands" is appealling, hundred as "hand-rad/rath" i.e. handful and thousand as thous-hand "swollen hand' do sound appealling.
>The problem is that I don't know of any other IE Â language that parallel thisYou could try to stretch things and claim a relationship between Latin capio and centum --I can just see Brian laughing himself out of his chair over that onecapio and centum - now there's a stretch. The medial consonants don't agree.
>