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submitted 1 year ago by genfood@feddit.de to c/europe@feddit.de
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[-] MartinXYZ@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago

I've always found the Danish numbers intriguing. I understand the whole "halvfem-sinds-tyve"- thing and the other ones of similar origin but I can't wrap my head around "elleve" and "tolv". Do you remember the origin of those?

[-] Bumblefumble@lemm.ee 9 points 1 year ago

It's literally the same in English as well, eleven and twelve are clearly related.

[-] SmoothOperator@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago

Not really, but they're essentially the same as the German "elf" and "zwölf", so we probably got them from the same place as them ;)

[-] vidarh@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

Wiktionary suggests the common proto-Germanic root of eleven/twelve, elf/zwölf are likely to have been "ainalif" and "twalif" - "one left over" and "two left over".

[-] samus12345@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

You can thank Proto-Germanic for that.

this post was submitted on 26 Sep 2023
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