• Echrichor@feddit.uk
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    1 year ago

    Welsh has a Vigesimal and Decimal counting system and both are used for different purposes. The decimal one is very logical eg ten, one ten one, one ten two, one ten three … two ten, two ten one etc etc

    The Vigesimal system is different…

    • Ten
    • One on ten
    • Two on ten
    • Three on ten
    • Four on ten
    • Fifteen
    • One on fifteen
    • Two on fifteen
    • Two nines
    • Four on fifteen
    • Twenty

    Add to that that numbers can be gendered, mutate at the start or drop the end depending on a number of rules, or just randomly throw in an extra option eg 50 is “ten and two twenty” Vigesimal or “five ten” Decimal… but often you’d use “half hundred”…

    My understanding is that this is surprisingly common, but has died out in many languages.