# All Slavic languages: forty



## Athaulf

Kolan said:


> I just joined the thread, and must say from my personal experience that all of the above posting is genuinely true.
> 
> I had a Croatian friend 10 years ago in Montreal, and we were the only two Slavs at the university department, even our family names are similar. But I remember that the only way we could talk to each other was my poor English. In the same time, we could easily understand what was written in our respective e-mail correspondence (at that time I had to write in transliterated Russian only), but it was almost impossible to learn anything on the fly from each other. However, I managed to conclude that Russian vocabulary is close to Croatian than to that of Serbian. (Just an example, сорок - четырдесят) which surprised me a lot, because before that I learned that there is only one Serbo-Croatian language. This simple fact sparkled an immense interest to learn more about other Slavic languages in diaspora.



Actually, _četrdeset_ is the word for _forty_ in both Croatian and Serbian; I can't think of a cognate for _сорок_ in either. A good example, however, would be the Croatian word _tisuća_  (= Russian _тысяча_) and the Serbian equivalent _hiljada_. The standard Croatian language has always had a tradition of hostility towards foreign borrowings and a tendency to coin Slavic words whenever possible, often by following the examples of other Slavic languages. Thus it often has cognates with Russian where Serbian has adopted various non-Slavic loanwords.

However, this word is also a good example of the great difficulty of learning to use such familiar Russian words actively. When I see _тысяча_ in a Russian text, I instantly understand what it means. However, I am completely clueless as to whether it should be stressed _т*ы*сяча_, _тыс*я*__ча_, or _тысяч*а*_, since the Russian stress has no correspondence whatsoever with Croatian even for the most similar words. Furthermore, it's also very hard for me to remember that the word is _т*ы*с*я*ча_, not _тыс__а__ча_, _тисяча_,  or _тисaча_, since Croatian has nothing similar to the Russian concept of hard/soft consonants. Memorizing all this information is almost as hard as memorizing an entirely unfamiliar word.


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## Kolan

Athaulf said:


> Actually, _četrdeset_ is the word for _forty_ in both Croatian and Serbian; I can't think of a cognate for _сорок_ in either.


I may be confused with this example, because I clearly remember my discussion about "четрдесет" with my friend, native Hrvat. Somehow, he knew that *сорок* means 40. Actually, we discussed other Numerals, too, so that "тысяча" was among them also.


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## el_tigre

Athauf said:
			
		

> The standard Croatian language has always had a tradition of hostility towards foreign borrowings and a tendency to coin Slavic words whenever possible, often by following the examples of other Slavic languages. Thus it often has cognates with Russian where Serbian has adopted various non-Slavic loanwords.


 *Hiljada * is originally Greek word, tisuća is typically Slavic.


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## Tolovaj_Mataj

el_tigre said:


> *Hiljada *is originally Greek word, tisuća is typically Slavic.


Exactly. Our word for 1000 is _tisoč_. 
(What I noticed is that in Croatian they use far more _u_ sound, where we use _o_ sound.)


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## Tolovaj_Mataj

Kolan said:


> I may be confused with this example, because I clearly remember my discussion about "четрдесет" with my friend, native Hrvat. Somehow, he knew that *сорок* means 40. Actually, we discussed other Numerals, too, so that "тысяча" was among them also.


One person is not enough to make a generalisation. I must say I had never heard this word 'сорок'before. Even when I listened to Serbs and Croats speaking. But why am I writing this? Because I've just followed a link and have found this:


> East Slavic languages later borrowed a special word from Iranian fro 40, *sorok*, and it still substitutes original Slavic numeral in Russian.


source: http://indoeuro.bizland.com/project/grammar/grammar32.html#6


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## Athaulf

Kolan said:


> I may be confused with this example, because I clearly remember my discussion about "четрдесет" with my friend, native Hrvat. Somehow, he knew that *сорок* means 40. Actually, we discussed other Numerals, too, so that "тысяча" was among them also.



As per the post above, _сорок_ is definitely a borrowing specific to East Slavic languages. But on the other hand, I think that all other numbers in Croatian and Russian are easily recognizable except for, curiously, _один_/_jedan_ (which is also pretty easy to figure out from context).


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## iobyo

Using the word _сорок_ as a numeral in a Slavic language seems very strange to me.


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## Maroseika

iobyo said:


> Using the word _сорок_ as a numeral in a Slavic language seems very strange to me.


 Why?


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## winpoj

It is rather strange, isn't it? Why would the East Slavs choose a Persian word for forty and not for, say, fifty or thirteen? Was this number in any way special to them?


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## Duya

A cynic would say, they were able to count only by 39 until they met Persians...


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## Kolan

Duya said:


> A cynic would say, they were able to count only by 39 until they met Persians...


Probably, Russians met Byzantine Greeks before that time

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D1%81%D0%BE%D1%80%D0%BE%D0%BA

and borrowed from them 40, not 1000. For example, by that time in ancient Russian we already had *тьма* for 10000 (which still exists in *тьма-тьмущая* = enormous quantity, literally - 10000 times 10000) or for 1000000.

Eastern Christianity spread out of there, then Persians learned 40 from Russians.


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## Kolan

Athaulf said:


> except for, curiously, _один_/_jedan_ (which is also pretty easy to figure out from context).


_Един_ was used in modern Russian as Numeral until 19th century.

*"... един* на *един* будет *един"* (Фонвизин, "Недоросль").

But this is just another example of abundant Church Slavonic - ancient Russian paronyms in modern Russian.

*Един* (есть) Бог (God is the same in his appearances) - Бог *один* (God is only one, not many)
Мы *едины* (we are united) - Мы *одни* (we are alone).
*Eдин*ственный (single, singular, exclusive, unique) - *един*ичный (isolated, sporadic, unitary, single piece, one-of-a-kind, elementary, made out of ones "1") - *один*очный (solitary, sole, individual, alone)
*Един*ожды (one time, ... times one, on one occasion) - *одна*жды (once, one day)

A native speaker would never use them as synonyms or substitutes, they are paronyms with quite subtle difference.


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## Thomas1

winpoj said:


> It is rather strange, isn't it? Why would the East Slavs choose a Persian word for forty and not for, say, fifty or thirteen? Was this number in any way special to them?


That's a good question. I am wondering whether they had used a name more Slavic-like before they adopted _сорок_.

Tom


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## Jana337

Here's a discussion about the etymology. Scroll down to 11 and click on each reply. While the thread doesn't offer a definitive solution, it offers some interesting ideas.

What follows is an unfounded speculation. One of the situations which - in my opinion - could lead to the replacement of such a trivial word by a loanword (like winpoj, I find that extremely weird) could be something like this: A territory is invaded by an enemy tribe, which imposes its military rule and decides to tax the hell out of the locals. The yearly tax happens to be 40 units of something, and the unfortunate population borrows a word from the language of the invader. The loanword becomes so common that it gradually crowds out the native word. Speculation over.


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## Kolan

Thomas1 said:


> wondering whether they had used a name more Slavic-like before they adopted _сорок_.


 
We had *четырдесят* but it is, apparently, of Church Slavonic, not Russian origin.

И по сем поют "Святый Боже" и октенья, в нейже поминается усопший брат, и глаголют "Господи помилуй" *четырдесят*.

http://starbel.narod.ru/kirtur/kt54.htm


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## Maroseika

Ancient-Novgorod language also had четвертадесять.
However what I cannot understand is what has Persian to do with this word? Even Turkish hardly could be the source, though such version really exists.
But the word existed in Russian even before the Tartar invasion, meaning 40 skins as a tax unit since 13 cent. (Русская правда).
Modern etymologists (Chernykh in part.) suppose originally сорок or сорочок was a kind of a package for 40 sable or squirrel skins.
Comp. also сорочка (<сракы), of definately Slavic origin having Baltic parallels.
Evidently, the word has first appeared in the hunters speach and there are similar examples in other language: Danish *snes* first meant long rod for about 20 fishes (in the fishermen speach), and now "snes" means 20.


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## Kolan

Maroseika said:


> Comp. also сорочка (<сракы), of definately Slavic origin having Baltic parallels.


Good point! We can derive it then from Old Slavonic с*ра*к -> с*оро*к, like г*ра*д - г*оро*д, д*ра*г - д*оро*г, в*ра*г - в*оро*г, в*ра*та - в*оро*та, very naturally.


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## Kanes

Bulgarian: четирисе


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## iobyo

Maroseika said:


> Why?



Because it isn't formed with the expected _four + ten_ ("четырдесят").

It wouldn't be all that strange (at least not to another Slavic speaker) if a word like _сорок_ was used for a number like 100 or 1,000 which don't tend to be formed with smaller numbers (_сто_, _тысяч_, _миллион_, etc.).


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## dihydrogen monoxide

Russian sorok is from Ancient Greek meaning forty.


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## Kolan

dihydrogen monoxide said:


> Russian sorok is from Ancient Greek meaning forty.


This looks more or less reasonable, although the Greek word itself has no preference in ordinary life. Why only forty, what is the point of its special meaning? It should be a quite intensive trade, lots of goods delivered in lots by 40 pieces.

It is hard to imagine, however, how a very particular fur trade could influence such a basic and common numeral as 40. Not just influence, but entirely substitute it. The worst argument is that there is no further etimology. Looks like that the fur trade by *40s* already used, instead of *четыредесят*, the new word *сорок* picked up earlier. *Сорочица* (a bag, package for 40 skins), therefore, derives from *сорок 40*, which is a more logical and natural way.

The Bible, on the other hand, contains many references to the number 40. This numeral is quite outstanding there. When written in Greek (if taught this way by Byzantine missionaries lacking cyrillic texts in Church Slavonic), the Bible could have undisputable influence compared to a local fur trade.


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## Maroseika

Vasmer supposed Greek source impossible, because Greek σαράκοντα had lost -κο- and changed to σαράντα in the IX century, too long before сорок has appeared in Russian.
And Chernykh, 30 years after, even didn't mention Greek version at all.
I guess one of the reasons why Russian has refused from четыредесят/четвертадесят could be the length of this Numeral - the longest one in fact (5 syllables!). In other Slavic languages this was not such a trouble (comp. четырисе, четрдесет).
And, Kolan, if it's hard to imagine that such a special term could force out regular Numeral, just remember a/m example from Danish.


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## Maroseika

Kolan said:


> The Bible, on the other hand, contains many references to the number 40. This numeral is quite outstanding there. When written in Greek (if taught this way by Byzantine missionaries lacking cyrillic texts in Church Slavonic), the Bible could have undisputable influence compared to a local fur trade.


 Are you sure 40 is the most important numeral in the Bilble? Why exactly 40 and not 7? How many times 40 is mentioned there?
Besides, сорок has appeared in Russian in the 13-th century. By that time Russians used to read religious books in Church-Slavonic during more than 2 centuries! An the most important, exactly Church-Slavoinic, as you have mentioned before, keeps this ugly четырдесят.


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## Kolan

Maroseika said:


> And, Kolan, if it's hard to imagine that such a special term could force out regular Numeral, just remember a/m example from Danish.


That Danish was spoken by a relatively small nation on a compact land, fishing for living. Apparently, fish could be national measurement unit, that does not surprise me.

Not in Russia on a vast mainland, where hunting for animal fur could be only a secondary business (after agriculture - crops and cattle) for the population dispersed among and between several principalities, generally unfriendly to each other. There is no parallel.


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## Kolan

Maroseika said:


> Are you sure 40 is the most important numeral in the Bilble? Why exactly 40 and not 7? How many times 40 is mentioned there?
> Besides, сорок has appeared in Russian in the 13-th century. By that time Russians used to read religious books in Church-Slavonic during more than 2 centuries! An the most important, exactly Church-Slavoinic, as you have mentioned before, keeps this ugly четырдесят.


It is not important how many times, it is most prominent episodes that incorporate 40. 

By the way, the fact that *сорок* was found in XIII century sources does not contradict to its unrecorded appearance possibly earlier. The key date is 988 AD.


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