# Bulgarian: Numbers 11, 12



## Perseas

Hello,
I've read that 11 in Bulgarian is "edin-no-deset" and 12 "dva-na-deset". What is the function of no/na? I'm trying to understand the logic behind the formation of those numbers. Thanks in advance.


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## Panceltic

It’s actually _edinadeset_, _dvanadeset_, _trinadeset_ etc. an the logic is very simple. _Na_ means ‘on’, so we have ‘one on ten’, ‘two on ten’, ‘three on ten’ etc.


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## Perseas

Thanks a lot.


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## AndrasBP

Panceltic said:


> an the logic is very simple. _Na_ means ‘*on*’, so we have ‘one on ten’, ‘two on ten’, ‘three on ten’ etc.


It's the same logic as in Romanian (12=doi*spre*zece) and Hungarian (13=tiz*en*három).


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## Perseas

I see that the same logic applies also to Russian, according to @Awwal12 :


Awwal12 said:


> Nothing fancy in Russian either. Восемнадцать (vosemnádtsat'), an archaic reduced form of восемь на десять (vósem' na désyat'), lit. "eight onto ten". All the numerals from 11 to 19 are built by the same model.


I thought this model applied to some Balkan countries, as in a book of mine it was used as an example of characteristics of the Balkan Sprachbund.


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## jasio

Perseas said:


> I see that the same logic applies also to Russian, according to @Awwal12 :
> 
> I thought this model applied to some Balkan countries, as in a book of mine it was used as an example of characteristics of the Balkan Sprachbund.


I'm sorry to spoil your expectation, but I believe that this model applies to all Slavic languages - at least all I was able to check. The only difference was a level of distortion from the original structure - which in case of Bulgarian is very close, while in the North they were more severely changed, albeit not beyond recognition. Let's take twelve as an example:

Old Church Slavonic: дъва на десѧте (dŭva na desęte)
Bulgarian: дванадесет ([dvɐˈnadɛsɛt] - which is almost identical, because OCS was basically a Slavic dialect of or nearby Thessalonica adapted for religious purposes)
Macedonian: дванаесет ([dvaˈnaɛsɛt])
Serbian: дванаест
Bosnian: dvanaest
Croatian: dvanaest (which is no surprise because only 30 years ago the latter three were considered to be one language)
Slovenian: dvanajst
Slovak: dvanásť
Czech: dvanáct
Sorbian: dwanaće
Polish: dwanaście
Ukrainian: дванадцять ([dʋɐˈnɑd͡zʲt͡sʲɐtʲ])
Belorussian: дванаццаць ([dvaˈnat͡sːat͡sʲ])
Russian: двенадцать ([dvʲɪˈnat͡s(ː)ɨtʲ])

The Slavic languages also have a common model for tens (дъва дєсѧти = two tens, двадесет, dwadzieścia) and hundreds (dъvě sъtě = two hundred(s), двеста, dwieście). Only with thousands differences begin, because in the Southmost Slavic languages the numeral apparently comes from Greek (хиляда or similar depending on the language), while in Croatian and further to the north "tisuću" or similar words are used instead.


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## Perseas

Actually, I didn't have any expectation, because I know nothing on this subject.
Reading about the Balkan Sprachbund I saw that three Balkan languages (Bulgarian, Romanian, Albanian), that don't belong to the same family, form some numbers (e.g. 11, 12) in the same way. This motivated my desire to open this thread. Thank you for your thorough reply!

Also, the fact that this model applies to all Slavic languages probably shows that the case of Romanian and Albanian has been influenced by the Slavic languages.


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## jasio

Perseas said:


> Actually, I didn't have any expectation, because I know nothing on this subject.
> Reading about the Balkan Sprachbung I saw that three Balkan languages (Bulgarian, Romanian, Albanian), that don't belong to the same family, form some numbers (e.g. 11, 12) in the same way. This motivated my desire to open this thread. Thank you for you thorough reply!


Indeed, the Balkan languages (some linguists seem to include also Greek, Slavic Macedonian, as well as a bunch of minority languages or dialects) share a whole lot of structural similarities. But apparently the structure of the numerals is shared on a much wider area.


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## Panceltic

jasio said:


> The Slavic languages also have a common model for tens (дъва дєсѧти = two tens, двадесет, dwadzieścia) and hundreds (dъvě sъtě = two hundred(s), двеста, dwieście).



Interestingly, Slovenian did away with this. We simply have dvajset (a bit irregular), trideset, štirideset, petdeset ... and dvesto, tristo, štiristo, petsto. Same in Croatian/Serbian afaik.



jasio said:


> Only with thousands differences begin, because in the Southmost Slavic languages the numeral apparently comes from Greek (хиляда or similar depending on the language), while in Croatian and further to the north "tisuću" or similar words are used instead.



Tisoč for us, but in spoken language it’s usually tavžent  (from German Tausend of course)


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## ahvalj

jasio said:


> I'm sorry to spoil your expectation, but I believe that this model applies to all Slavic languages - at least all I was able to check. The only difference was a level of distortion from the original structure - which in case of Bulgarian is very close, while in the North they were more severely changed, albeit not beyond recognition. Let's take twelve as an example:
> 
> Old Church Slavonic: дъва на десѧте (dŭva na desęte)
> Bulgarian: дванадесет ([dvɐˈnadɛsɛt] - which is almost identical, because OCS was basically a Slavic dialect of or nearby Thessalonica adapted for religious purposes)
> Macedonian: дванаесет ([dvaˈnaɛsɛt])
> Serbian: дванаест
> Bosnian: dvanaest
> Croatian: dvanaest (which is no surprise because only 30 years ago the latter three were considered to be one language)
> Slovenian: dvanajst
> Slovak: dvanásť
> Czech: dvanáct
> Sorbian: dwanaće
> Polish: dwanaście
> Ukrainian: дванадцять ([dʋɐˈnɑd͡zʲt͡sʲɐtʲ])
> Belorussian: дванаццаць ([dvaˈnat͡sːat͡sʲ])
> Russian: двенадцать ([dvʲɪˈnat͡s(ː)ɨtʲ])



Old Church Slavonic (OCS) and Old East Slavic (OES) actually had two forms for ‘twelve’: a masculine _dъva na desęte_ (OCS) / _desäte_ (OES) and a feminine/neuter _dъvě na desęte/desäte:_ among modern standard languages all, except Russian, seem to have generalized the masculine form.

For ‘eleven’, there were probably three gender forms (as the neuter _jedino na desęte_ is attested in Old Church Slavonic), but in later languages the syllable before _na_ was dropped together with the contrastive ending (or, alternatively, only the masculine _jedinъ/jedьnъ na desęte > jedin/jedьn na desęte _has survived everywhere).


A similar system "digit on ten" is found in Latvian:

11 = _vien.pa.dsmit _(1 on 10)​12 = _div.pa.dsmit _(2 on 10)​13 = _trīs.pa.dsmit_ (3 on 10).​
_Pa_ is actually not exactly ‘on’, but the counterpart of the Slavic _po_ (cognate of _ἀπό_) with no good English translation: it means movement on the surface, that is a kind of ‘on’, but not stative.




jasio said:


> The Slavic languages also have a common model for tens (дъва дєсѧти = two tens, двадесет, dwadzieścia)



Some languages also possess a special word for ‘ninety’: later Old East Slavic (attested in the 13–14th centuries) _devänosto~devästo_ and modern Belarusian _dzʲevʲanosta,_ Russian _dʲevʲanosto,_ Ukrainian_ devjanosto,_ as well as Old Polish (15th century) _dziewiętnosto,_ which likely continue the inherited Proto-Indo-European form cognate to _ἐνενήκοντα_.


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## Awwal12

Perseas said:


> I thought this model applied to some Balkan countries, as in a book of mine it was used as an example of characteristics of the Balkan Sprachbund.


Probably so, but who said that certain features of the Balkan Sprachbund cannot be induced by Slavic languages?


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## marco_2

Panceltic said:


> Panceltic said:
> 
> 
> 
> Interestingly, Slovenian did away with this. We simply have dvajset (a bit irregular)
Click to expand...

It is worth adding that the Bulgarians in everyday speech use the reduced form of these numerals, so instead of единадесет, дванадесет ... двадесет ... they say: единайсет, дванайсет ... двайсет ... respectively.


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## Awwal12

marco_2 said:


> It is worth adding that the Bulgarians in everyday speech use the reduced form of these numerals, so instead of единадесет, дванадесет ... двадесет ... they say: единайсет, дванайсет ... двайсет ... respectively.


Phonetically unmotivated shortenings of very frequent words and, in particular, numerals are entirely common. Cf. Rus тысяча ['tɨsʲəʨə] > ['tɨɕ:ə] ("тыща"); пятьдесят [pʲɪdʲ:ɪ'sʲat] > [pʲɪj'sʲat], шестьдесят [ʂɨ̞zʲdʲɪ'sʲat] > [ʂɨ̞j'sʲat] etc. Old Russian "один на десяте", "дъвѣ на десяте" etc. also wouldn't have produced Russian "одиннадцать", "двенадцать" etc. with regular shifts and morphological analogies only - that also required an irregular shift from е to ь, which then regularly led to -дьсять > -цять (the fall of the yers and resulting assimilation) > -цать (the hardening of ц).


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## ahvalj

Awwal12 said:


> Phonetically unmotivated shortenings of very frequent words and, in particular, numerals are entirely common. Cf. Rus тысяча ['tɨsʲəʨə] > ['tɨɕ:ə] ("тыща"); пятьдесят [pʲɪdʲ:ɪ'sʲat] > [pʲɪj'sʲat], шестьдесят [ʂɨ̞zdʲɪ'sʲat] > [ʂɨ̞j'sʲat] etc.


[As usual, I pronounce it in a less reduced way than you, namely [pʲɪɪ'sʲat] and [ʂɨ̞ɨ̞'sʲat], with three distinct syllables.]


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## Awwal12

Actually in fast relaxed speech it will be simply [pʲɪ'sʲat] and [ʂɨ̞'sʲat] - with the first vowel being nearly silent (for me and for a huge amount of other people). 

P.S.: And yes, in modern Russian [V.ɪC] seems generally unstable and prone to shifting to [VjC] (cf. the atrocious misspellings like "храбрые войны", "астеройд", "гуманойд", "Андройд" etc.), though in my case the possible lost of syllable in "пятьдесят" is lexical.


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## ahvalj

Awwal12 said:


> P.S.: And yes, in modern Russian [V.ɪC] seems generally unstable and prone to shifting to [VjC] (cf. the atrocious misspellings like "храбрые войны", "астеройд", "гуманойд", "Андройд" etc.), though in my case the possible lost of syllable in "пятьдесят" is lexical.


[I periodically encounter these _войны_ and _гуманойды_ in the net, but yet have to hear such a pronunciation in person to ask the speaker about it. So far I strongly suspect these _-oйд-_ are not phonetic changes but rather plain anglicisms, and _воин-_>_войн-_ are results of interference with _война_. Otherwise why don't we find _**читайт_ or _**думайт_?]

[P. S. By the way, nobody knows that in _-оид-_ it is _-и-_ that has to be stressed, as it is so in Latin: a long vowel in a penultimate syllable].


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## Awwal12

ahvalj said:


> So far I strongly suspect these _-oйд-_ are not phonetic changes but rather plain anglicisms


Er... how? Okay, it might work for Android OS, but I positively cannot imagine a situation when a person becomes acquainted with the word астероид from the English pronunciation of "asteroid" and not from spoken or written Russian. On the contrary, I'd normally expect the Russian -оид to influence the English pronunciation of -oid among Russians (compare how they still occasionally pronounse English "c" [s] as [ʦ]).


ahvalj said:


> and _воин-_>_войн-_ are results of interference with _война_


That "interference" actually results in a merger. Looks far too complex an explanation.


ahvalj said:


> Otherwise why don't we find _**читайт_ or _**думайт_?


Because of the absolutely transparent morphology here.


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## ahvalj

Awwal12 said:


> Er... how? Okay, it might work for Android OS, but I positively cannot imagine a situation when a person becomes acquainted with the word астероид from the English pronunciation of "asteroid" and not from spoken or written Russian. On the contrary, I'd normally expect the Russian -оид to influence the English pronunciation of -oid among Russians (compare how they still occasionally pronounse English "c" [s] as [ʦ]).
> 
> That "interference" actually results in a merger. Looks far too complex an explanation.
> 
> Because of the absolutely transparent morphology here.


[I need actual speakers to investigate: as I have written, I have never heard this in person. There is also _выйграть _etc. in the net, which looks to me a regional pronunciation: again, never heard by me in the real life.

The question to me is whether it (_андройд_ and _войн_) is phonetic or just a collection of particular superificially similar phenomena. I understand, you and some other people in the Russian forum are over-enthusiastic in promoting the speech habits of future millennia, but since I don't hear anything like this around, I remain confused as to which place this reduced pronunciation occupies in the real life. It may easily represent a particular way of speaking that will not necessarily survive (like the syncopated Muscovite theatrical pronunciation of the past that has luckily died off).]


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## Awwal12

ahvalj said:


> again, never heard by me in the real life


You just wouldn't recognize it as such, I suppose. The purely acoustic difference between [V.ɪC] and [VjC] is negligible, so the brain simply reconstructs the "correct" structure, whatever it may be.


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## Eirwyn

Awwal12 said:


> P.S.: And yes, in modern Russian [V.ɪC] seems generally unstable and prone to shifting to [VjC] (cf. the atrocious misspellings like "храбрые войны", "астеройд", "гуманойд", "Андройд" etc.)


I don't think it's fully correct. Stressed /ViC/ and /VjC/ do tend to merge, but the result of this merger is closer to the former than the latter. [aë] can pass as a relaxed version of [ai̯], but not the other way around.


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## Awwal12

Eirwyn said:


> I don't think it's fully correct. Stressed /ViC/ and /VjC/ do tend to merge, but the result of this merger is closer to the former than the latter.


As I said, the purely acoustic difference is negligible anyway. The numer of syllables, however, does count phonologically.


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## Eirwyn

Awwal12 said:


> The numer of syllables, however, does count phonologically.


What do you mean by this?


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## Awwal12

Eirwyn said:


> What do you mean by this?


That there is a pronounced phonological difference which, however, may have little or, potentially, even zero effect on the actual acoustic realization.


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## Eirwyn

I still don't quite understand what you're trying to convey. The only situations when syllable partition matters are spelling and chanting pronunciation which is mostly determined by the spelling anyway. In this virtual phonology, however, the merger did not happen and /VjC/ and /ViC/ are still perceived as separate entities, even though in some words one may replace another as a result of interference with the actual spoken phonology.


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