# Veinte, treinta



## Dymn

As far as I know, these are the only words including the -ei- diphthong in Spanish in the middle of the word, which is even more suprising because they occur in a closed syllable.

Why is there _veinte _and _treinta _instead of something like _viente _and _trienta, _for example, coming from _vīgintī _and _trīgintā_? Is there any connection with the -e- in _cuarenta, cincuenta, sesenta, _etc. like Portuguese, and unlike Catalan, French and Italian _quaranta, cinquanta, seixanta?
_
Gracias


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## bearded

Dymn said:


> Italian ..._ seixanta?_


Sessanta.


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## Dymn

I said "Catalan, French, Italian" and I used Catalan as an example. Anyway you get the point.


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## bearded

Sorry for being pedantic. I am also awaiting with interest what experts will reply to your interesting question.


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## Sardokan1.0

Dymn said:


> As far as I know, these are the only words including the -ei- diphthong in Spanish in the middle of the word, which is even more suprising because they occur in a closed syllable.
> 
> Why is there _veinte _and _treinta _instead of something like _viente _and _trienta, _for example, coming from _vīgintī _and _trīgintā_? Is there any connection with the -e- in _cuarenta, cincuenta, sesenta, _etc. like Portuguese, and unlike Catalan, French and Italian _quaranta, cinquanta, seixanta?
> _
> Gracias




Just my hypothesis : viginti -> viginte -> veginte -> veinte

It seems that every Romance language has lost the G or of the whole syllable GI. (Sardinian : vinti, trinta)

Don't know about "cuarenta", it sounds quite peculiar, in the same way is peculiar in *Sardinian*, in southern Sardinian is "_cuoranta_", while in northern is "_baranta_", from Vulgar Latin "qaranta" (documented in vulgar Latin inscriptions of VIth in Germany). _Quadraginta -> Quaranta -> Qaranta -> Paranta -> Baranta_. An evolution similar to the *Romanian *"Patru" (four): _Quattuor -> Quatru -> Qatru -> *Patru*._ While in Sardinian : _Quattuor -> Qattor -> Pattor -> Bàttor_


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## ahvalj

Corominas y Pascual (1983) write that the ancient attested forms were veínte and vinte, which had probably come from *viginti<*vīgīntī (where the middle i had been lengthened after the surrounding ī's) and the first i later either became e before the stressed i in veínte, or merged with it in vinte.


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## Cenzontle

Menéndez Pidal's _Manual de gramática histórica española_, (Sec. 11-2-d):


> La ī final inflexiona [i.e. raises the preceding vowel] en los Perfectos vēnī _vine_, fēcī _hice_, en los pronombres tĭbī _tí_, sĭbī _sí_, en el numeral vīgĭntī ant. _veínte_, mod. _véinte_...


and Sec. 66-1:


> El latín vīgĭntī daría *_viínti _y se disimiló en el ant. _veínte_, mod. _véinte_


This seems to be the same dissimilation as in _vīcīnu _> _vecino_.


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## merquiades

Dymn said:


> As far as I know, these are the only words including the -ei- diphthong in Spanish in the middle of the word, which is even more suprising because they occur in a closed syllable.


 There is also _peine,reina_ at least



> Why is there _veinte _and _treinta _instead of something like _viente _and _trienta, _for example, coming from _vīgintī _and _trīgintā_? Is there any connection with the -e- in _cuarenta, cincuenta, sesenta, _etc. like Portuguese, and unlike Catalan, French and Italian _quaranta, cinquanta, seixanta?
> _
> Gracias


I learned that the /g/ was dropped, the weird combination íi  came about, and the first vowel fell to e to create some distance between the two.


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## Hulalessar

merquiades said:


> There is also _peine,reina_ at least



I got those and was hoping to think of a few more before posting, but have only come up with _deista _and related words.


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## Cenzontle

> There is also _peine,reina_ at least


What makes "veinte" and "treinta" special is that the diphthong is in a closed syllable, as Dymn pointed out.


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## Dymn

Thanks @YYYYY and @Cenzontle , it makes sense.



merquiades said:


> There is also _peine,reina_ at least


You're right, I didn't give it much thought


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## Penyafort

YYYYY said:


> Corominas y Pascual (1983) write that the ancient attested forms were veínte and vinte, which had probably come from *viginti<*vīgīntī (where the middle i had been lengthened after the surrounding ī's) and the first i later either became e before the stressed i in veínte, or merged with it in *vinte*.



Apparently most sources for _vinte _seem to be in Leonese and Aragonese rather than Castilian.


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## Circunflejo

Cenzontle said:


> What makes "veinte" and "treinta" special is that the diphthong is in a closed syllable



There are some others with the /ei/ diphtong in a closed syllable. Letting aside verb conjugations (veis, sabéis, oléis...), the main example may be _seis_ (funnily enough, another number). There are also some foreign words adapted to Spanish writting like béisbol, gneis and reis. In Old Castilian, it existed the Word peindra that later became prenda; just in case it could be any useful.



merquiades said:


> There is also _peine,reina_ at least



...and _aceite_, _afeitado_, _alféizar_...



Hulalessar said:


> I got those and was hoping to think of a few more before posting, but have only come up with _deista _and related words.



Deísta (note spelling) doesn't have a diphthong but an hiatus. The same applies to other words like ateísta or feísmo. However, it doesn't apply to _deidad_ or _deiforme_.


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## Dymn

Circunflejo said:


> ...and _aceite_, _afeitado_, _alféizar_...


Gosh, there are a lot, I should have thought a bit more about it. I thought, well _-ei- _as in _primeiro _is exclusively Galician-Portuguese, of course this is totally alien to Spanish, so no _-ei-_ at all, just like no _-ou-_.


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## Circunflejo

Dymn said:


> I thought, well _-ei- _as in _primeiro _is exclusively Galician-Portuguese



...and Leonese (primeiru).



Dymn said:


> just like no _-ou-_.



Estad*ou*nidense... (yes, I know that's cheating).


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## merquiades

Circunflejo said:


> Estad*ou*nidense... (yes, I know that's cheating).


Or last year of high school:  COU


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## Circunflejo

merquiades said:


> Or last year of high school: COU



That's history (it ended in 2001) and, being an acronym (as well as LOU), it's even more cheating. My suggestion is cheating too because, although it's a proper word, the diphthong is the result of joining a Word ending in o with a word starting by u to make a single compound word.

Talking about compound words but going back to the subject of this thread, the DPD (http://lema.rae.es/dpd/srv/search?id=jwYYBvz06D6auJ91H6) advices that veintiuno, veintidós... must not be neither written nor pronounced ventiuno, ventidós… By the way, note that the literal compounds (veinteiuno, veinteidós...) became veintiuno, veintidós...


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## Hulalessar

Circunflejo said:


> Deísta (note spelling) doesn't have a diphthong but an hiatus. The same applies to other words like ateísta or feísmo. However, it doesn't apply to _deidad_ or _deiforme_.



Oops! Mental aberration on my part.

Can't think why _aceite _and _afeitar _did not come to mind.


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## Dymn

Circunflejo said:


> Estad*ou*nidense... (yes, I know that's cheating).


Never say never


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## Agró

Or bou, a borrowing from Catalan.


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## ahvalj

Cenzontle said:


> Menéndez Pidal's _Manual de gramática histórica española_, (Sec. 11-2-d)


Bourciez in "Éléments de linguistique romane" (pp. 146–147) writes that traces of the old shift ẹ́>i before the final ī are found across Western Romance, e. g. in the French il (<illī, nominative plural), vingt, fis (<fēcī), pris (<prēⁿsī), vendis (<vendistī, compare also the Spanish vendiste) or in the Milanese vints, fise, prise. So we get a broader picture here.


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