# French numbers: septante, huitante, octante, nonante / soixante-dix, quatre-vingts, quatre-vingt-dix



## semiller

I'm sure that this question has been asked many times, but I obvious don't know the answer.  What is soixante-dix, quatre-vingts, and quatre-vingt-dix used in France while septante, octante/huitante, and nonante used in Switzerland and Belgium.  No offense to those from France out there, but the Belgian and Swiss system is much more logical and much easier for foreigners to learn.  Is there a particular history and cultural context behind this?  Merci à tous à l'avance.   

*Moderator note:* This discussion was split and merged from various locations on the French language forums, and transferred to EHL.  This EHL thread is about the history of the usage of _septante/octante/huitante/nonante_ v.s. _soixante-dix/quatre-vingts/quatre-vingt-dix_: What did people say in the past?  Why did they count that way? How has usage evolved?  Are there parallels with (possibly archaic) counting systems in other languages?   etc.

If you are interested in regional variations in modern usage, or if you want to know how it comes across when you use e.g., _septante_ in a country where _soixante-dix_ is standard, then please see one of the following threads on the French forums.   

septante, huitante, octante, nonante / soixante-dix, quatre-vingts, quatre-vingt-dix - modern and regional usage - FR-EN Vocab
septante, huitante, octante, nonante / soixante-dix, quatre-vingts, quatre-vingt-dix - Français Seulement


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## Benjy

a ton of french people have told me that it has something to do with the war in 1870 (before which they had the same system as the swiss..*apparentley*) between the french and germans but i could never bring myself to believe it.


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## fleuriste-du-mal

It's a very strange thing. In Littré's dictionary (1876?) he notes that septante, etc, is still used in the Midi and will hopefully come back into general usage. In a Larousse I have from 1930, it still gives soixante-dix, etc, as popular but wrong. Why persist in a ridiculous contruction? English has plenty of its own of course. We do it because it's done. And if we did things because they made sense we would all be metric by now wouldn't we?


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## CrazyFroggy

Septante, octante, nonante


> Vous          vous interrogez sur une des bizarreries les plus célèbres          de la langue française. Pourquoi en effet dire _soixante-dix,          quatre-vingts, quatre-vingt-dix_, alors que les formes _septante,          octante, nonante_, en accord tout à la fois avec le latin et          le système décimal, sont plus ou moins largement usitées          dans divers pays francophones ?
> 
> Notre          vocabulaire porte ici la trace d’un usage très ancien et aujourd’hui          disparu : au Moyen Âge, on avait coutume en France de compter          de vingt en vingt. Aussi trouvait-on les formes _vint_ _et_ _dis_ (30), _deux vins _(40), _trois vins_ (60), etc. Saint          Louis fonda, par exemple, l’hospice des _Quinze-vingts_ (des          300 aveugles). Ce système, dit « vicésimal »,          était utilisé par les Celtes et par les Normands, et il          est possible que l’un ou l’autre de ces peuples l’ait introduit          en Gaule.
> Dès          la fin du Moyen Âge, les formes concurrentes _trente, quarante,          cinquante, soixante _se répandent victorieusement. Pourquoi          l’usage s’arrête-t-il en si bon chemin ? Aucune explication          n’est vraiment convaincante. Peut-être a-t-on éprouvé          le besoin de conserver la marque d’un « calcul mental »          mieux adapté aux grands nombres (70=60+10, 80=4x20, 90=80+10).          Reste la part du hasard et de l’arbitraire, avec laquelle tout historien          de la langue sait bien qu’il lui faut composer...
> C’est         au XVIIe siècle, sous l’influence de Vaugelas         et  de Ménage, que l’Académie et les autres auteurs         de  dictionnaires ont adopté définitivement les formes _soixante-dix,         quatre-vingts, quatre-vingt-dix_ au lieu de _septante, octante,         nonante_.          Il est à noter pourtant que les mots _septante, octante, nonante_ figurent dans toutes les éditions du _Dictionnaire de l’Académie         française_. Encore conseillés par les _Instructions          officielles _de 1945 pour faciliter l’apprentissage du calcul,          ils restent connus dans l’usage parlé de nombreuses régions         de l’Est et du Midi de la France, ainsi qu’en Acadie. Ils sont          officiels en Belgique et en Suisse (sauf, cependant, _octante_, qui          a été supplanté par _quatre-vingts_ et _huitante _–         en Suisse – tant dans l’usage courant que dans l’enseignement ou         les textes administratifs). Rien n’interdit de les employer, mais par         rapport          à l’usage courant en France, ils sont perçus comme          régionaux ou vieillis.



source: http://www.academie-francaise.fr/langue/questions.html#septante

Sorry, I'm too lazy to translate....


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## Bruce Trainor

Hello

I am using "Notes sur les Archives de Notre Dame de Beaufort" par M. Jean Langevin, Pretre First edition, printed in Quebec in 1860, for some genealogical research. Father Charles Amador Martin conducted two batisms in 1673 and dated them as follows:

...de L'an six cent septante et trois..... and the second

..."de l'an mil six cent soixante et treize...

So it seems that at least in 1673 either use was acceptable.

Just thought I would pass this on.

Bruce


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## wildan1

[...]

One of Abraham Lincoln's most famous speeches, the Gettysburg Address, begins, "Four score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty..." I wonder if Lincoln knew French? 

I now realize it would be a great way to introduce the French approach to counting to American kids, who do generally find it rough after they pass _soixante-neuf_... But probably they would have studied Lincoln's speech in History or English class.


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## J.F. de TROYES

In the middle-age numbers from "deux-vingts", "trois-vingt"... up to "dix-huit -vingts" were used in France; so a famous hospital in Paris is always called "Hôpital des Quinze-Vingts", because the king St Louis built it to accommodate 300 knights who came back blind from the Crusades. Molière still uses "six-vingts" (=120) in his play "L'Avare" in the 17th century, but I think it was already old-fashioned; "septante", huitante", "nonante" were replaced in France by "soixante-dix"... between the 12nd and th 14th century. So both systems probably coexisted for a long time.


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## ChiMike

wildan1 said:


> One of Abraham Lincoln's most famous speeches, the Gettysburg Address, begins, "Four score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty..." I wonder if Lincoln knew French?


 
No. Lincoln knew the Bible in the King James Version:

Psalms 90

10.  The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labour and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away.

(The sense of Lincoln's statement being, of course, that the fathers had all passed away and work was left undone.)

What work?

Exodus 7  
5.  And the Egyptians shall know that I am the LORD, when I stretch forth mine hand upon Egypt, and bring out the children of Israel from among them. 
6.  And Moses and Aaron did as the LORD commanded them, so did they.
7.  And Moses was fourscore years old, and Aaron fourscore and three years old, when they spake unto Pharaoh.


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## georgert

Does anyone know the etymology of the French numbers, soixante-dix, quatre-vingt and quatre-vingt-dix? Compared to English, where each group of 10 numbers from one to one-hundred has their own prefix: seventy..., eighty... and ninety...., French is so different with an additive formation of 60+10 for soixante-dix, multiplicative formation of 4x20 for quatre-vingt, and a combination of multiplication and addition for numbers in the nineties, 4x20+10 making quatre-vingt-dix.


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## Punky Zoé

I do recognize that's weird, but I don't know why it is... I just can add that in Belgium and in Switzerland they say septante for soixante-dix, huitante for quatre-vingt and nonante for quatre-vingt-dix. They far more logical than we do !  (see here)


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## hosec

Hola:

Creo que tiene algo que ver con la forma de contar de los pueblos celtas prerromanos, que no lo hacían sobre la base del 10, sino sobre la del 20.

Salud.


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## Lugubert

Some thoughts without research: A few languages use(d) the score (20) as the basic unit. Danish numerals are not too different from the French, but use "only halfway towards this score" instead of "additionally ten". Etymologically full forms to include bracketed parts: 50 halvtreds(inds*tyve*): (-0.5+3)x*20*, 60 treds(indstyve) (3x20), 70 halvfjerds(indstyve) (-0.5+4)x20 - instead of Fr. 60+10, 80 firs(indstyve) (4x20), 90 halvfems(indstyve) (-0,5+5)x20 instead of Fr. 4x20+10.


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## Whodunit

Lugubert said:


> Some thoughts without research: A few languages use(d) the score (20) as the basic unit.


 
That's a very good starting point. Unfortunately, I can't copy it all, but here you can read something about the etymology of the French numbers at §575, article III. Let me summarize the most important points:

Ancient French still had _se(p)tante, oitante_, later_ octante, _and_ nonate_ from Latin _septuaginta_, _octoginta_, and _nonaginta_, respectively.
However, along with these, French also used _soixante et dix_, _quatre-vingt_, and _quatre-vingt et dix_, where the last two are based on the vigesimal system as opposed to the Latin decimal one. The first one (soixante et dix) is called "analytic expression of _setante_" on that page.
These two systems were kept through the Middle Age, where they even used to say _trente et deux_, _vingt et douze_, _quarante et trois_, _deux vingts et trois_, _cinq cinquante et huit_, _sept vingts et dix-huit _(examples from the page given).
Old manuscripts were usually written in the vigesimal system, so the page 138 was written as VI.XX.XVIII (_six vingts et dix-huit_).
In the 17th century, they still used both _six-vingts_ and _cent vingt, quinze-vingts_ and _trois cents_. Here's an example of the ancient use.
The numerals _septante, octante,_ and _nonate_ survived all the time; they are not a newer analogy to other Romance languages. See also here.
Hope it helps.


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## SwissPete

A little historical background, which of course must be taken with a grain of salt  . It appears that some king of France was facing his 70th birthday, but it was just too much for him. So he decreed that he would be _soixante-dix_. See what you can do when you are a king  ? Now I know that the Swiss never had kings, so it would not have become popular in Switzerland; as for the Belgians, I don't know...
the Belgians stuck with quatre-vingts...

[...]


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## LMorland

Dear SwissPete,

Sorry to douse your grain of salt, but the reason behind the French numbers being so difficult (for Anglophones, at least) after 69 is due to the fact that the French are Celts!

And the significance of that statement lies in the fact that Celts counted in 20s, not in 10s (that is, they used their toes as well as their fingers).

Before Napoleon, the practice of counting in 20s was much more widespread, and a vestige can be found in the name of the  famous *Hôpital d'Ophtalmologie des XV-**XX *in Paris.  It owes its name to Louis IX (Saint Louis), who set up a residence for *300 (15 x 20)* blind persons near the Louvre during his reign (in the 13th century, that is).  This Residence Saint-Louis still exists today (now located in the 12th arrondissement, behind the Opéra Bastille), and the clinic that came to be attached to it during the Renaissance grew into the eye hospital that cares for patients from throughout the hexagon and beyond.


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## tilt

LMorland said:


> Dear SwissPete,
> 
> Sorry to douse your grain of salt, but the reason behind the French numbers being so difficult (for Anglophones, at least) after 69 is due to the fact that the French are Celts!
> 
> And the significance of that statement lies in the fact that Celts counted in 20s, not in 10s (that is, they used their toes as well as their fingers).
> 
> Before Napoleon, the practice of counting in 20s was much more widespread, and a vestige can be found in the name of the  famous *Hôpital d'Ophtalmologie des XV-**XX *in Paris.  It owes its name to Louis IX (Saint Louis), who set up a residence for *300 (15 x 20)* blind persons near the Louvre during his reign (in the 13th century, that is).  This Residence Saint-Louis still exists today (now located in the 12th arrondissement, behind the Opéra Bastille), and the clinic that came to be attached to it during the Renaissance grew into the eye hospital that cares for patients from throughout the hexagon and beyond.


This captivating explanation makes so much sense that even English language was influenced in such a way  by the Celts.
"_Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation..._" said Lincoln. What a strange way to measure time for a French mind! And yet, when you think about it, four score and seven is nothing but... _quatre-vingt-sept_.


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## broglet

... and for even more completeness, a 20-based number system is not entirely dead in the UK.  We still refer to the biblical lifespan as being 'three-score years and ten' (which would be the equivalent of trois-vingts-dix!)


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## avok

hosec said:


> Hola:
> 
> Creo que tiene algo que ver con la forma de contar de los pueblos celtas prerromanos, que no lo hacían sobre la base del 10, sino sobre la del 20.
> 
> Salud.


 
I also think that might be due to the influence of the Celtic tongues in the area.  But I cannot give a link or something.


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## Joannes

Punky Zoé said:


> I do recognize that's weird, but I don't know why it is... I just can add that in Belgium and in Switzerland they say septante for soixante-dix, huitante for quatre-vingt and nonante for quatre-vingt-dix. They far more logical than we do !  (see here)


 
*Huitante* isn't used in Belgium. *Septante* and *nonante* are.


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## Lugubert

Joannes said:


> *Huitante* isn't used in Belgium ...


But *octante* is.


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## Aoyama

More then the _etymology _of numeration, it is rather a matter of _usage._ This has already been discussed here, somewhere, I forgot where ...
In simple terms, there are THREE basic numeration systems, all linked with the FINGERS (*digitus* in Latin which gives digit = number). All humans use fingers to count.
The decimal base, because of the 10 fingers.
The duodecimal base , because of the 12 spaces between the phalanges of the four fingers, the thumb being used to count each hand, one hand will then be equal to 12. This way of counting (very old) is still used in the Indian peninsula.
The vicesimal base , (20, cf vingt, vice-), because of both fingers and toes. This way of counting is _older_ than the decimal numeration. It was used in Gaul and in the Celtic world in ancient times.
Traces of this can be found in old units : 20 _sous _to a franc, 20 shillings to a pound, 20 ounces to a pound (weight) ... But 12 inches to a foot ...
The French school system has long used 20 as a way to mark examinations : 10/20 being a passing grade, 12/20, 14/20 etc.

*Huitante* is used in some parts of the Jura and Switzerland, *octante*, even *otante*, are also used locally (dialects).


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## Lugubert

Aoyama said:


> The duodecimal base , because of the 12 spaces between the phalanxes of the fingers, the thumb being used to count each hand, one hand will then be equal to 12. This way of counting (very old) is still used in the Indian peninsula.


Haven't time right now to dig into that one, but it sure looks interesting! Do you have any references? It reminds me, though, of a friend who claimed that sheep herders in Wales counted one, two, three, four, many, because they had to keep their hands in their pockets because of the cold, and pointed with their thumbs at one finger at a time, and were lost if there were more items than the four fingers...


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## Aoyama

One source is the two volumes of "Histoire des Nombres". I'll be back.
Here I am : the book is in fact *: Histoire universelle des chiffres *by Georges IFRAH .
English version available (maybe in Swedish too), with other books on the same subject by the author, who (a doctor) spent is life researching the matter.


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## Maroseika

Aoyama said:


> The vicesimal base , (20, cf vingt, vice-), because of both fingers and toes.


I can hardly imagine how one can use toes for counting. It's not too easy to bend them. especially bend separately from each other.
I remember another version: vicesimal system is based also on the fingers, but each fingers is used twice - as straight and as half bent.
Straight finger means digit from 1 to 10, half bent one - from 11 to 20 or v.v.


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## Aoyama

> I can hardly imagine how one can use toes for counting. It's not too easy to bend them. especially bend separately from each other.


Right, unless you're in the circus business ...
But what is true is that numbers are all related to body parts, especially fingers and toes, but also hands etc.
2,5,10,12,20 are all figures related to body parts. From there you also get multiples, depending on combinations (12,24,60).
7 is an exception, it comes from shabbat/lashevet in Hebrew, meaning *to rest* .
Samedi in French is derived from sabedi (m=b) -cf sabato, sabado-, one could question the link between shabbat, sheva (7 in Hebrew), sept, hepta etc.


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## Joannes

Lugubert said:


> But *octante* is.


I've only heard *quatre-vingts* tbh.


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## raptor

> The duodecimal base , because of the 12 spaces between the phalanxes of the fingers, the thumb being used to count each hand, one hand will then be equal to 12. This way of counting (very old) is still used in the Indian peninsula.


 
From what I heard, 12 (months in a year; inches in a foot; constellations in the equitorial band) is from the old deities, Greek I think, but stemming from older Mesopotamian.
The Mesopotamian culture predominantly used a system of 6, 6*10 (60 [seconds; minutes]), 6*10*6 (360), 6*10*6*10 (3600), etc, which was based in astronomy. 6*12 = 72 years for the sun to rise one degree off the first measurement. 6*360 = 2160 years for one 'great year' (for the sun to complete one cycle of rising in each constellation). 6 is also familiar as the number of days in creation 'myths.'
360 was especially important it seems, for 360 years was one 'sha' (unit for measuring times 'before the flood' and lives of deities etc), as well as how many degrees there are in a circle.

But I digress...

Does anyone know of other cultures who use base 6?

My 2¢


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## Outsider

We do, when we measure time in minutes and seconds, or when we measure angles in degrees. We inherited this system from the Babylonians. 

The _vigesimal_ (base 20) system of French, however, has no relation to the sexagesimal system of the Babylonians.


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## Adolfo De Coene

Just to put my little grain of salt.  In Euskera, the basque language, supposedly one of the oldest or pre-celtic languages surviving, the numbers 40, 60, 80 are all derived from 20.


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## Aoyama

> In Euskera, the basque language, [...] the numbers 40, 60, 80 are all derived from 20.


Very interesting. Could you give the numbers ?


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## DOM78

Yes, please do, Adolfo, I am highly interested too  ! Thank you !


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## Outsider

I found the Basque names for the numbers here:



> ten = hamar dix
> twenty = hogei vingt
> thirty = hogeita hamar treinte
> forty = berrogei quarante
> fifty = berrogeita hamar cinquante
> sixty = hirurogei soixante
> seventy = hirurogeita hamar soixante-dix
> eighty = laurogei quatrevingt
> ninety = laurogeita hamar quatrevingt-dix
> one hundred = ehun cent


It does have a structural similarity with the French system, which I've added alongside it.


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## DOM78

Outsider, thank you so much for this utmost interesting link !
Bonne journée.


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## Aoyama

What would we do without you Outsider ! And that's NOT irony.
This being said, (but that may set us a bit off-topic), I think this way of counting has some similarities with _Welsh_ or _Irish _and _Scottish_ , which it seems, dear Outsider, you MUST have some smatterings (or more).
Does it ?


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## Outsider

There are indeed similarities with the traditional counting system of Welsh (I'm not sure about Irish). I think that it would be very difficult to tell whether the Celts borrowed the vigesimal counting system from the ancestors of the Basques, or vice-versa. French seems to have inherited it from the Celts.


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## Adolfo De Coene

The numbers 1, 2, 3, 4 are bat, bi, hiru, lau
and is eta
20 is hogei
10 is hamar
70 is three twenty and ten, hiru hogei eta hamar
Note that the basque language has several dialects and forms of writing.


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## Nizo

Note the number 87 in the first line of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln's famous Gettysburg Address (1863):

_*Four score and seven* years ago..._

The word _score_ was used in the past to mean 20.  I don't know how common this was or what the origin is.  Just thought I'd mention it!


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## Aoyama

> There are indeed similarities with the traditional counting system of Welsh


Obrigado Outsider. We're progressing .
For *Score* , it is also true. That shows that you don't need to be an acrobat to use the vigesimal counting system (numeration)...


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## Lugubert

Nizo said:


> Note the number 87 in the first line of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln's famous Gettysburg Address (1863):
> 
> _*Four score and seven* years ago..._
> 
> The word _score_ was used in the past to mean 20. I don't know how common this was or what the origin is. Just thought I'd mention it!


I love confusing (do I really, though?) people by counting in scores and dozens.

Traditionally, eggs were counted in scores in Sweden. Nowadays, its standardized cartons of, say, 6 or 18. Dull.

When I was young (yes, there was such a time), the diary shop sold cream in "measures". We (well, some of us) had to be taught in school that a "measure" really meant a decilitre, aka 100 ml.

We had a saying equivalent to the English "Baker's dozen". Not necessarily getting exactly 13 and paying for 12, the "påbröd" ('on-bread') referred to getting the amount of baker's products you paid for, and yet another bonus one.


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## J.F. de TROYES

Whodunit rightly says the vigesimal system was widespread in Old French ; “septante”, “oitante” ( “rebuilt” “octante” by scholars ), “nonante” were rather literary forms, more common in Gaelic non- (or: less ) speaking areas, namely in Eastern France. “Octante” was generally replaced by the popular form “Huitante" .





Lugubert said:


> I love confusing (do I really, though?) people by counting in scores and dozens.





Lugubert said:


> Traditionally, eggs were counted in scores in Sweden. Nowadays, its standardized cartons of, say, 6 or 18. Dull.
> 
> When I was young (yes, there was such a time), the diary shop sold cream in "measures". We (well, some of us) had to be taught in school that a "measure" really meant a decilitre, aka 100 ml.
> 
> We had a saying equivalent to the English "Baker's dozen". Not necessarily getting exactly 13 and paying for 12, the "påbröd" ('on-bread') referred to getting the amount of baker's products you paid for, and yet another bonus one.


 
Interesting indeed. In France we also know the equivalent of the "baker's dozen" when saying "treize à la douzaine" ( 13 only paid for 12) and it refers to eggs usually counted in scores and generally sold nowadays in 6 or 12 unit cartons.





Outsider said:


> There are indeed similarities with the traditional counting system of Welsh (I'm not sure about Irish). I think that it would be very difficult to tell whether the Celts borrowed the vigesimal counting system from the ancestors of the Basques, or vice-versa. French seems to have inherited it from the Celts.


 
I looked up numbers in Breton , being unaware of Celtic languages, and unsurprisingly they are very similar to Welsh ones ; you can find them here. Some examples : 

20 ugent
40 daou-ugent ( deux-vingt)
60 tri-ugent (trois-vingt)
70 dek ha tri-ugent ( dix et trois-vingt)
80 pevar-ugent (quatre-vingt )
90 dek ha pevar-ugent (dix et quatre-vingt

As for Basque being influenced by Gaelic (or later French ) or vice versa I have big doubts, as I don’t think both languages borrowed anything important from each other ( but different opinions would be welcome  ) and I suppose the vigesimal system can be found in non-I.E languages. Maybe a matter of chance !


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## berndf

georgert said:


> ... Compared to English, where each group of 10 numbers from one to one-hundred has their own prefix: seventy..., eighty... and ninety...., French is so different with an additive formation of 60+10 for soixante-dix...


 
20 based counting (score=20) was "normal" in English, too. I don't know exactly when it ceased to be common but probably not so long ago.

In the king James Bible you find 70 as "three scrore and ten" and the OED (edited in the late 19th/early 20th c.) still *defines* the word hundred as "five score".


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## Lugubert

berndf said:


> 20 based counting (score=20) was "normal" in English, too. I don't know exactly when it ceased to be common but probably not so long ago.
> 
> In the king James Bible you find 70 as "three scrore and ten" and the OED (edited in the late 19th/early 20th c.) still *defines* the word hundred as "five score".


And more!

King James Bible
And Moses was fourscore years old, and Aaron fourscore and three years old, when they spake unto Pharaoh.
American Standard Version
And Moses was fourscore years old, and Aaron fourscore and three years old, when they spake unto Pharaoh.

Almost 50 000 hits for "fourscore years". And that's only a beginning of "...score years", like in FDR, in his Address at the Dedication of the Mark Twain Memorial Bridge, Hannibal, Mo.
_September 4th, 1936_

[quote]It is with earnest American pride and with a glory in American tradition that I enjoy this happy privilege today—joining in this tribute to one who impressed himself upon the lives of youth everywhere all through the last fourscore years and ten.[/quote]


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## Frank06

*Hi*

*The topic is "French numbers". *
*In this thread we can allow comparisons with languages as Breton, Welsh, Basque and English for quite obvious reasons. Nevertheless, the focus in this thread should be on French.*

*However, people who wish to discuss the vigesimal (or any other) system in other languages are kindly asked to open a new thread.*


*Groetjes,*


*Frank*
*Moderator EHL*


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## francois_auffret

A fact has not been mentioned in all the threads. Thanks to Aoyama for partially mentioning it. I am hinting at the Gaulish / Celtic substratum of in French. Gaul, a Celtic language (Brythonic branch), was the language which was replaced by vulgar latin in the wake of the incorporation of Gaul into the Roman Empire. Although no linguist would ever deny that fact, very few of them can really measure the impact of the Gaulish language on French, because this language is almost entirely unknown. 
A celtic brythonic language although survived in France today: the Breton language. This language has preserved a number of archaic celtic features, such as *The vicesimal base* in counting:

1      _     Unan
2      _     Daou
3      _     Tri
4      _     Pevar
5      _     Pemp
6      _     C'hwec'h
...
10    _      Dek
20    _      Ugent
30    _      Tregont
40    _      Daou-ugent  (or: Two-twenty)
60    _      Tri-ugent (or Three-twenty)
80    _      Pevar-ugent (or Four-twenty)

An this is standard Breton, which means that this is common to all dialects and the Breton language doesn't have any other form for Forty, Sixty, Eighty.... In some dialects this system goes further

120   _  c'hwec'h ugent (or: Six-Twenty)
140   _  seizh-ugent (or: Seven-Twenty)

Knowing this, I have always thought myself that this 'weird' system in French was coming from the celtic roots of the language and especially of its speakers (the substratum).

Hope this has been of any use


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## Aoyama

> this 'weird' system in French was coming from the celtic roots of the language and especially of its speakers (the substratum).


What is "weird" is not so much the system itself (once again, using fingers is the basis of counting for all humans all over the world, cf digit ~ digital /doigt [digitus], here it's fingers and toes, foot fingers ), the weird thing is that each number of the vigesimal suite defy the rules :
soixante et onze (like ving et un etc)
but quatre-vingt-un (no ET)
quatre-vingt-deux (no liaison as in vingt-deux and following, where the t sounds and is linked to the next number "vingt-t-trois" etc)
quatre-vingt-onze (no ET)
not speaking about the rule with the s (quatre-vingt*s*) ...


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## Meadows4

I notice that the French form quatre-vingt etc, looks very similar to the old English form where 80 would be expressed as fourscore, seventy as threescore and ten etc.

Quatre-vingt-dix = fourscore and ten?
Perhaps the French and English were counting in multiples of twenty, and the Swiss and Belgians just simplified it.


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## tilt

Meadows4 said:


> Perhaps the French and English were counting in multiples of twenty, and the Swiss and Belgians just simplified it.


They simplified it, or kept this habit from some other antique language since, as far as I know, counting in base twenty in French (and probably in old English) comes from the Celts.

(I'm fairly sure this sentence is totally odd. Any suggestion or correction in my PM would be welcome!)


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## Lacuzon

Bonjour,

En tant que francophone de France, j'ai toujours trouvé étrange que nous utilisions encore soixante-dix, quatre-vingts et quatre-vingt-dix à la place se septante, huitante et nonante ; surtout depuis l'instauration du système métrique. L'usage n'est certes pas aisé à changer mais je n'ai aucun problème à comprendre ni à compter avec septante, huitante et nonante.

Quelqu'un saurait-il à partir de quand cet usage est entré en fonction en Suisse et en Belgique ?

 Je me rappelle qu'à l'école les deux formes m'ont été évoquées mais ce n'est pas le cas pour mes enfants.


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## Calina18

Il semble que ce soit prendre le problème à l'envers et que la forme décimale, plus ancienne, ait cédé progressivement sa place à la forme en vingt en France à partir des XVe   et XVIe  siècle (sous toute réserve : possiblement à cause de l'usage commercial de pièces de vingt sous). C'est une hypothèse raisonnable puisqu'une bonne part du vocabulaire wallon est en fait de l'ancien français ou en est issu.

http://www.langue-fr.net/spip.php?article202  J'admets cependant que les sources semblent contradictoires puisque la forme quatre-vingt remonterait aux Celtes selon certains.  

Je préférerai toujours octante à huitante, ne dit-on pas déjà octave, octet, octogone, octobre, octogénaire, octopode. Or, je ne connais pas de mots en huit à part huitain, huitaine et huitième.


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## LMorland

Calina18 said:


> J'admets cependant que les sources semblent contradictoires puisque la forme quatre-vingt remonterait aux Celtes selon certains.


That's certainly my understanding, although I'd never heard a good hypothesis until yours, just now, about why they resisted the onslaught of the decimal system.  

Nice post!


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## SunnyS

LMorland said:


> Hmmm... not sure how relevant that is, as it's  highly unlikely that French picked up counting in 20s from any Germanic  sources.



The issue of how different Europeans used the 20-base  system is very relevant to understanding how our modern usage developed.  It doesn't matter to me if this particular French usage was influenced  by the Celts or the Germans (by both? or had additional influences), but  it doesn't seem to me that anyone here knows much about the subject.  Different texts speak of the 10-base and the 20-base system coexisting  at different points, so the 20-base usage might me a lot older than you  suspect.

This is another reference anyways:

Il faut  mentionner également le système de numération qui a  profondément été modifié en ancien français. Les nombres hérités du  latin correspondent aux nombres de un à seize. Le nombre dix-sept, par  exemple, est le premier nombre formé...

http://varaderomania.be/forum/index.php?topic=2398.10;wap2

http://www.tlfq.ulaval.ca/axl/francophonie/HIST_FR_s3_Ancien-francais.htm


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## Calina18

Thank you. 

Further readings that seem to confirm my hypothesis : http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Livre_tournois
and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_livre . Une livre valait 20 sols ou 240 deniers et au début (Charlemagne) c'était un montant assez considérable, pas question d'acheter ses navets au marché avec cette monnnaie, elle ne servait que de monnaie de compte. 

Plus tard une pièce de 5 francs (dévalué) ou "écu" fait son apparition. Elle vaut évidemment 5 pièces d'un franc et le franc lui, vaut toujours 20 sous (un sou vaudra plus tard encore une pièce de 5 centimes). On peut imaginer qu'il était alors sans doute plus simple en  rendant la monnaie en francs de calculer en multiple de vingt puisque chaque francs valait 20 sous et que les gens ne savaient pas lire et ne comptaient pas très bien non plus (plus loin que cent, ça devenait difficile). Les choses se compliquent encore quand on sait que de nombreuses monnaies avaient cours en même temps, ainsi la livre parisis valait 25 sols et le doublon espagnol était d'usage courant même en Nouvelle France. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pistole  Comment rendre la monnaie en francs et en sous quand on est payé en pistoles ? 

On est toujours sur le sujet de quatre-vingts, mais il ne faudrait pas faire dérailler ce fil vers une discussion numismatique.

Bien que les références fournies par SunnyS soient sérieuses et qu'elles semblent accréditer la thèse de l'origine germanique du système vigésimal, je ne peux m'empêcher de remarquer que les Gaulois et les Celtes (qui utlisaient aussi le système de calcul vigésimal) ont occupé la Normandie bien avant les Wisigoths et que l'influence sur le normand des Scandinaves et des Anglais à été bien plus importante que celle des Germains .


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## broglet

It's also relevant to recall that remnants of the base 20 system exist in England even to this day in the equidiametric curve heptagon form of the 20p piece.  In the £sd that preceded today's UK decimalised currency there were 20 shillings to the pound, so it seems as though base 20 has an ancient and perpetual allure that crosses national boundaries.  If this all goes back to the Celts one can only surmise that in the days before socks were invented they counted on both fingers and toes.


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## CapnPrep

broglet said:


> It's also relevant to recall that remnants of the base 20 system exist in England even to this day in the equidiametric curve heptagon form of the 20p piece.


The 50p coin also has seven sides. How is this form a remnant of the base 20 system?


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## franc 91

You might be interested to know that in Occitan (that other form of French, n'est-ce pas?) soixante-dix is setanta, quatre-vingts is ochanta and quatre-vingt-dix is nonanta (NB the ending is usually pronounced 'o') and in the Gapençais (the area around Gap - 05) they say quite logically - uechanta as in la Haute Provence eight is uech.


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## XiaoRoel

Je pense que nous étions en presence de un celtisme idéologique.


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## berndf

XiaoRoel said:


> Je pense que nous étions en presence de un celtisme idéologique.


I don't think it has anything to do with that. The 10 based and 20 based systems were used side by side in the northern parts of France since the middle ages but. I guess this must be mutually reinforcing Celtic and Germanic influence as both cultures used 20-based counting. The question is why since the 16th century the 20-based variants of 70, 80 and 90 have been the "preferred" ones and why others (like _trois-vingt(s)_) became obsolete. This seems to be relation to the notion of 60 as a "round" number, why an hours has 60 minutes and why in tennis you count _love, 15, 30, 40, 60_ rather than _0, 1, 2, 4_. I.e. you count 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60 but then you don't continue as if 60 were any multiple of 10. It is something special. I read all this somewhere ages ago but don't remember where.


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## KenfromGA

Regarding 80 (4 20's):  If you think about it we do the same thing in English (US at least), but with hundreds.  Twelve Hundred instead of One Thousand Two Hundred, Fifteen Hundred, etc... But it is correct in either form. One great thing about the internet, I can participate in a conversation that started years ago and could continue for years.


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## Hemza

KenfromGA said:


> Regarding 80 (4 20's):  If you think about it we do the same thing in English (US at least), but with hundreds.  Twelve Hundred instead of One Thousand Two Hundred, Fifteen Hundred, etc... But it is correct in either form. One great thing about the internet, I can participate in a conversation that started years ago and could continue for years.



As a native French speaker, when I knew about the existence of 'septante/nonante' (during teenage on a trip in Belgium), first thing which came to my mind was: 'it seems more logical than saying soixante dix, quatre vingt dix etc'.

About your message, it is also the case in French, many people count as 'douze cent vingt' or 'dix neuf cent cinquante' instead of saying 'mille deux cent vingt' or 'mille neuf cent cinquante'.


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