I had to look this up. What the fuck? They came up with numbers up to 60 and then just said “eh, fuck it” and made 70 “sixty-ten”, 80 “four-twenties” and 90 “four twenties ten”.
In francophone Switzerland, they use septante, huitante, and nonante for 70, 80, and 90, respectively. Much more sensical, imo.
Should a language be something else that the product of what those speaking make of it? :)
The other way around. We started with base 20 everywhere then simplified some of it.
During medieval times it used to be :
10 Dix (10)
20 Vingt (20)
30 Vingt et dix (20+10)
40 Deux-vingt (2x20)
50 Deux-vingt et dix (2x20+10)
60 Trois-vingt (3x20)
70 Trois-vingt et dix (3x20+10)
80 Quatre-vingt (4x20)
90 Quatre-vingt et dix (4x20+10)
Then they switched to base 10… But only up to 70 for some reasons in France. Belgium and Switzerland (and some parts of France) have gone all the way to 100 by using Septante (70), Octante or Huitante (80) and Nonante (90).
Belgians and Swiss being the premium version of France, once again. Seems like all the sensible French people packed up and left nonsense behind.
We’re not that different with the teens. We effectively say “seven ten”, “eight ten”, “nine ten”. You don’t think of nineteen as “nine+ten”, it’s just its own number. Well, the French take that one step farther.
Maybe it’s the anglophone in me, but going 1 - 10 then 11,12 (3+10) - (9+10) then adopting a repeating pattern to infinity is more explainable than going 1-10 then 11-15 then a regular pattern for fifty numbers then getting freaky with that pattern up to 100, then keep that pattern until one thousand, then just repeat that pattern til infinity.
