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Well, Ok, seven score and six. I started out approximating as "a gross of years", to bring in another base, then noticed that a gross is the vigesimal mirror image of Lincoln's 87, and couldn't pass up the coincidence. And now I'm using another one of my zero score and five posts to play the pedant. (I know, I know; who's playing?) On Thursday, October 8, 2009, Mark J. Reed <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > You don't have to go back to King James. A mere seven score and four > years ago, Lincoln's "four score and seven" was idiomatic. > > On Thursday, October 8, 2009, R A Brown <[log in to unmask]> wrote: >> Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets wrote: >> >> 2009/10/8 R A Brown <[log in to unmask]> >> >> [snip] >> >> >> >> It has to be admitted, however, that whereas the Russian & Romanian show >> the same formation for numbers 11 through 19, traditional Welsh showed much >> more ingenuity, thus: >> un ar ddeg = one on ten = 11 >> deuddeg = two + ten = 12 >> tri ar ddeg = three on ten = 13 >> pedwar ar ddeg = four on ten = 14 >> pymtheg = five + ten = 15 >> un ar bymtheg = one on fifteen = 16 >> dau ar bymtheg = two on fifteen = 17 >> deunaw = 2 x 9 = 18 >> pedwar ar bymtheg = four on fifteen = 19 >> ugain = 20 >> un ar hugain = one on twenty = 21 >> >> >> >> Wow! a bit of base-5 stuff, a weird outlier (deunaw means 2*9 while deuddeg >> means 2+10?!) and various ways to form purely additive forms (with or >> without ar). And I thought the Maggel numeral system was weird! This just >> motivates me to make it even weirder ;) . >> >> >> Good! >> >> 18 is interesting in Brittonic langs.; traditional Welsh has _deunaw_ (two nines), Breton has _triwec'h_ (three sixes) (Cornish just compounds the words for 'eight' and 'ten'). >> >> [snip] >> >> >> >> [^1] As I've noted before, the traditional Insular Celtic forms show >> vestiges of a vigesimal system between 20 to 99, as does modern French from >> 70 to 99. Traces of it were also found at one time in English, cf. the KJV >> "three score years and ten" = '70 years' (the KJV version is quite >> unwarranted by the original Hebrew - but has a poetic ring to it :) >> >> >> >> With Maggel, I decided to make the system completely vigesimal, at least >> until 1 million ;) . This was definitely influenced by the traditional >> Celtic system. >> >> >> Isn't it a wee bit boring (and un-Maggelish) to make the system _completely_ anything? Come on - learn from traditional Welsh: "Wow! a bit of base-5 stuff, a weird outlier (deunaw means 2*9 while deuddeg means 2+10?!) and various ways to form purely additive forms (with or >> without ar)..." >> >> I know the modern Welsh have given up on it, but that's not in the spirit of Maggel. Have a real mishmash ;) >> >> Ray >> ================================== >> http://www.carolandray.plus.com >> ================================== >> Nid rhy hen neb i ddysgu. >> There's none too old to learn. >> [WELSH PROVERB] >> > > -- > Mark J. Reed <[log in to unmask]> > -- Mark J. Reed <[log in to unmask]>