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Celtic/Norman cultures/languages were vigesimal, but with the Romans came Latin which is decimal. French evolved from Latin in uneven ways due to economic, cult
by Uberphallus 6y ago
Celtic/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.]