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Actually quatre-vingt (four twenties) in French is a relatively recent development, almost limited to French from France. Other francophone countries just say
by Uberphallus 6y ago
Actually quatre-vingt (four twenties) in French is a relatively recent development, almost limited to French from France.
Other francophone countries just say octante (Belgium, Canada, some areas of France) or huitante (mainly Switzerland).
- gus_massa 6y agoThat's very interesting! Is there an easy explanation of the reason? A link to an explanation?
- Uberphallus 6y agoCeltic/Norman cultures/languages were vigesimal, but with the Romans came Latin which is decimal. French evolved from Latin in uneven ways due to economic, cultural, geographic and political factors. The best in depth explanation is here [0] but it's in French. Actually reading it my original statement is wrong; it's way more complicated. More likely decimal and vigesimal forms originated at the same time, depending on the factors I mentioned above. [0] https://french.stackexchange.com/questions/187/quelles-parties-du-monde-francophone-continuent-%C3%A0-utiliser-les-nombres-r%C3%A9form%C3%A9s https://french.stackexchange.com/questions/187/quelles-parti...
- gus_massa 6y agoThanks for the link. It is difficult to read, because the autotranlation is too smart and translate all the versions of "eighty" in French to the same word in English. But I read the autotranlation and then read the original version. [Hi from Argentina! I can guess what the text in French says, but with the autotranslation is much easier.]