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The Welsh one seems closest to Scots Gaelic, interestingly, because the two languages aren't all that similar. Aon, Dhà, Trì, Ceithir, and when you get to 9 Na

The Welsh one seems closest to Scots Gaelic, interestingly, because the two languages aren't all that similar. Aon, Dhà, Trì, Ceithir, and when you get to 9 Naoi, and then Deich. And then you start aon deug, dhà deug and so on. Fichead for 20 is much more like "jiggit" of Scots, Lakes, and Dales than ugain from Welsh, though.

DonaldFisk 4y ago
The Welsh column are just the regular Welsh numbers, put there from comparison with the sheep-counting numbers used in areas where a language similar to Welsh was once spoken. Welsh and Gaelic evolved independently and though they now sound very different, they're still closely related - with common vocabulary not shared by other languages, and similar grammars.
talideon 4y ago
Welsh and Scottish Gaelic are more similar than they may seem at first, but took very different routes. The closest languages to Scottish Gaelic are Irish and Manx, however, as all are descendents of Middle Irish, and shared a common literary language up until the 18th century in the form of Classical Irish/Gaelic. You likely know this already, but the rest of HN might not be aware of this. "Jiggit" is most likely from a similar origin to "dau ddeg" in Modern Welsh", though with some influence from Old Irish "fichet", which has a common etymology with Welsh "ugain".
timeon 4y ago
> Aon, Dhà, Trì, Ceithir This resembles Slavic: jeden, dva, tri, stiri
- mannykannot 4y ago
  I thought that perhaps both Slavic and Celtic languages form branches of the Indo-European family, and it seems that the geographic range of speakers of precursors of these languages overlapped in iron-age Europe. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proto-Slavic_borrowings#Slavic_and_Celtic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proto-Slavic_borrowings#Slavic...
- fishnchips 4y ago
  As a native Slavic speaker who tried to learn Gaelic I can assure you that similarities in terms of vocabulary or grammar are few and superficial. That said, pronunciation is much easier for us than native English speakers.
  - talideon 4y ago
    There are plenty if you know how to look for them, though some, such as grammaticalised palatalisation, are incidental, and others, such as the preservation of the habitual are more obvious. That said, the various Celtic languages are thought to have more historically in common with the Italic branch of languages (the remaining instances of that being the various Romance languages) than they do with the Slavic ones.
thaumasiotes 4y ago
> The Welsh one seems closest to Scots Gaelic, interestingly, because the two languages aren't all that similar. This is explained in the text: >> The original Celtic numerals were frequently forgotten, and their places supplied by words that were more or less founded on rhyme. And sometimes the Celtic words were supplemented by English ones. Owing to the corrupt forms that thus resulted, many of the formulae are of slight philological interest or value. That the original counting was in Celtic, chiefly appears from some forms that still remain. Thus the Welsh pump, five, explains the Eskdale pimp, and the Knaresborough pip, and others. The Welsh deg, ten, explains the forms dix, dec, dick, dik. But yan (whence yain, yaena, yah) is only a dialectal form of the English one. And tain, taena, tean are merely altered forms of two The Welsh one is closest to Scots Gaelic because Welsh is still more or less alive, so people didn't forget the number words.
DFHippie 4y ago
For understanding the correspondence it's useful to know that Welsh "pump" sounds more or less (more in the south and less in the north) like "pimp". "Un" sounds like "een".

DonaldFisk 4y ago

The Welsh column are just the regular Welsh numbers, put there from comparison with the sheep-counting numbers used in areas where a language similar to Welsh was once spoken. Welsh and Gaelic evolved independently and though they now sound very different, they're still closely related - with common vocabulary not shared by other languages, and similar grammars.

talideon 4y ago

Welsh and Scottish Gaelic are more similar than they may seem at first, but took very different routes. The closest languages to Scottish Gaelic are Irish and Manx, however, as all are descendents of Middle Irish, and shared a common literary language up until the 18th century in the form of Classical Irish/Gaelic. You likely know this already, but the rest of HN might not be aware of this. "Jiggit" is most likely from a similar origin to "dau ddeg" in Modern Welsh", though with some influence from Old Irish "fichet", which has a common etymology with Welsh "ugain".

timeon 4y ago

> Aon, Dhà, Trì, Ceithir This resembles Slavic: jeden, dva, tri, stiri

mannykannot 4y ago
I thought that perhaps both Slavic and Celtic languages form branches of the Indo-European family, and it seems that the geographic range of speakers of precursors of these languages overlapped in iron-age Europe. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proto-Slavic_borrowings#Slavic_and_Celtic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proto-Slavic_borrowings#Slavic...
fishnchips 4y ago
As a native Slavic speaker who tried to learn Gaelic I can assure you that similarities in terms of vocabulary or grammar are few and superficial. That said, pronunciation is much easier for us than native English speakers.
- talideon 4y ago
  There are plenty if you know how to look for them, though some, such as grammaticalised palatalisation, are incidental, and others, such as the preservation of the habitual are more obvious. That said, the various Celtic languages are thought to have more historically in common with the Italic branch of languages (the remaining instances of that being the various Romance languages) than they do with the Slavic ones.

thaumasiotes 4y ago

> The Welsh one seems closest to Scots Gaelic, interestingly, because the two languages aren't all that similar. This is explained in the text: >> The original Celtic numerals were frequently forgotten, and their places supplied by words that were more or less founded on rhyme. And sometimes the Celtic words were supplemented by English ones. Owing to the corrupt forms that thus resulted, many of the formulae are of slight philological interest or value. That the original counting was in Celtic, chiefly appears from some forms that still remain. Thus the Welsh pump, five, explains the Eskdale pimp, and the Knaresborough pip, and others. The Welsh deg, ten, explains the forms dix, dec, dick, dik. But yan (whence yain, yaena, yah) is only a dialectal form of the English one. And tain, taena, tean are merely altered forms of two The Welsh one is closest to Scots Gaelic because Welsh is still more or less alive, so people didn't forget the number words.

DFHippie 4y ago

For understanding the correspondence it's useful to know that Welsh "pump" sounds more or less (more in the south and less in the north) like "pimp". "Un" sounds like "een".