# French number system - Why so odd? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 11, 2002, 12:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-number-system-why-so-odd/118406 "2002-07-11T12:49:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2002, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-number-system-why-so-odd/118406/21 "2002-07-14T13:48:35Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Anahita \* > \*\*I know that in French, one can count up to 69 quite easily… \*\* I must say, I too was captivated by this thread from your very first sentence. My theory (from an American perspective) is that France and the whole world in general have an intuitive understanding of 69. After that, French culture and behaviors spiral off into the unrecognizeable. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![meta-x](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f04885/32.png) [@meta-x](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/meta-x)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2002, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-number-system-why-so-odd/118406/22 "2002-07-14T14:38:45Z")
Both french and english has vigesimal numbering system ( that’s base 20 ). Now that we’re using arabic number we’re all back to decimal system but some of the name have stuck. Their are name for number in decimal system in french but they are not in use very much … 70 :septante 80 : octante 90 : nonante … Here’s a very good book which goes through a good deal of numbering system : Mathematics, from the birth of number by Jan Gullberg This book is also a very good math revision for those of us who have left the field for a while and want to get back in the game 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Juggler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/juggler/32/3194_2.png) [@Juggler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Juggler)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2002, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-number-system-why-so-odd/118406/23 "2002-07-14T18:09:45Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Hari Seldon \* > \*\*Lots of numbering systems are odd. In Denmark (and probably Sweden and Norway too), not only do you say (the equivalent of) 4 and 20 (as in German), but things start to get weird at 50. To say 54 you say 4 and half third. And 64 is 4 and third. and 74 is 4 and half fourth. What these apparently mean is 4 and halfway to the third twenty and so on. > \*\* This is **not** true for Sweden and Norway. Danish can be quite hard to understand for me (swedish) when they speak fast. To add to this their numbering system makes it impossible to know how much to pay in shops if you can’t see it in digits. I usally just hand them a lump of money and hope they are honest people. (Stupid me…) In Sweden the numbering system changes at 12 11 - elva 12 - tolv 13 - tretton 14 - fjorton -ton corresponds to the english -teen ---
**Author:** ![essohbee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/71c47a/32.png) [@essohbee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/essohbee)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2002, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-number-system-why-so-odd/118406/24 "2002-07-15T00:54:45Z")
Actually, the norwegians sometimes switch around units and tens between 21 and 99 so that, as an example, 24 becomes four and twenty. ---
**Author:** ![mandielise](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/58956e/32.png) [@mandielise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mandielise)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2002, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-number-system-why-so-odd/118406/25 "2002-07-15T01:43:29Z")
Yeah, that was one thing that bugged me about German! When they wanted to go to page 124, it would be “one hundred four and twenty.” It’s SOOO annoying. I’m pretty sure that the decimal numbers already mentioned numerous times “setante…” in French are used almost everywhere in the spoken language. I’m a French major at University, and one of the classes I had last semester was an advanced oral class, and we were discouraged from saying “soixante-dix, etc…” Spanish has also messed me up - sometimes it’s “vientiseis” where you can contract the “twenty and six”… and sometimes it’s “trenta y seis” where you have to spell out the “thirty and six” (I’ll apologize now for my aweful Spanish spelling, but it was my fourth foreign language and I was only interested in learning to speak it) ---
**Author:** ![mnemosyne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c4cdca/32.png) [@mnemosyne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mnemosyne)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2002, 12:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-number-system-why-so-odd/118406/26 "2002-07-16T00:26:21Z")
Your French teacher DISCOURAGED the use of “soixante-dix” etc?!?! Then he wasn’t teaching _French_, he was teaching a dialect. I grew up in Quebec, and my family still lives there, and I only first heard the other terms about 2 years ago from a Swiss chef where I worked. And the French chef continually corrected him. I begin to see the frustration of the “dying French language” POV of some sovereignists when I hear things like this. Sure, SOME people might use it, but it isn’t the language, no matter how common it is is some regions. And French actually has an Institution determining what is and isn’t the language. Unlless your class focused on regionalisms and slang (which is totally acceptable, and in which case I appoligise for this rant), then your prof was not teaching you what you were there to learn. Of course, thats just my humble opinion, and sorry for slamming you, but still…discouraged!!! ---
**Author:** ![Daveke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4da419/32.png) [@Daveke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Daveke)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2014, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-number-system-why-so-odd/118406/27 "2014-10-24T22:13:20Z")
Well, nice discussion … held by english speaking people. 😕 Time for a BELGIAN to fix some things. 😃 I know, waaaaay to late (twelve years, :eek: :smack:) but life sucks at this time and I can really think of nothing better to waste it on. So here goes: First of all, why do I think I’m in title to bud in? I’m a bi-(quadrupal actualy)-lingual Belgian 😃 😃 Belgium is bi-lingual (situation kinda like in Canada), with people speaking dutch in the north (Flanders) and french (Wallonia) in the south. The flemish is the same language as the dutch in the netherlands, but with a distinct difference in pronounciation and use of words, dialects, figures of speatch, same difference as British english and American English. No, the difference is even greater. You REALLY can distinct a Flemish from a Dutchman as you would a Brit and an American. Btw, in dutch we use the same numbering as the Germans do. From twenty-one and so on the Tens come after the Ones, five-and-twenty (25), Flemish hundred-AND-one as to dutch hundred-one (101) - octante: this is NEVER used at all in Belgian Wallonia. They use 70 = septante (not setante, the “p” is not silent) 80 = huitante 90 = nonante (not neufante) - “…DISCOURAGED …”: indeed wrong! If you use these three numbers in France, you will puzzle people 😕 They might even be insulted as they do not really like the wallonians, nor theyr dialect. 70 = soixante-dix 80 = quatre-vingt 90 = quatre-vingt-dix As a purist I find it very disturbing that they (the government) changed the teaching of French as a second language to Wallonian over the years. Not only did they change the numbering (now septante instead of soixante-dix) they also got wrid (or rid or whatever) of the term _vous, votre_, meaning _you, your_ plural OR first contact/polite. They just use _tu,toi_, which you only use among friends or family. Use tu or toi on a holiday and you will get no service or even worse, some extra service :eek: That’s it for now. Curous if ANYONE will repond to or even READ this after so long :rolleyes: 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Unpronounceable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/9de0a6/32.png) [@Unpronounceable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Unpronounceable)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2014, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-number-system-why-so-odd/118406/28 "2014-10-25T02:17:50Z")
> [@friedo](#): > > I’m still trying to figure out why we English speakers have eleven and twelve instead of one-teen and two-teen. 🙂 Because it was base-12. Which is why there’s also a special term for 12x12. ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2014, 3:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-number-system-why-so-odd/118406/29 "2014-10-25T03:29:41Z")
> [@Unpronounceable](#): > > Because it was base-12. Which is why there’s also a special term for 12x12. Which is…? Or is it unpronounceable? 😉 ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2014, 3:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-number-system-why-so-odd/118406/30 "2014-10-25T03:33:24Z")
Never mind – I remembered. Eww, yucky. ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2014, 4:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-number-system-why-so-odd/118406/31 "2014-10-25T04:46:08Z")
> [@Anahita](#): > > I know that in French, one can count up to 69 quite easily. > > When we hit seventy, we suddenly start counting strangely. > > … > > Does anyone know anything about how the history of this system resulted in this complicated system? Once they got to 69, the French lost all interest in having a rational system of counting. ---
**Author:** ![Malacandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2014, 7:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-number-system-why-so-odd/118406/32 "2014-10-25T07:07:16Z")
> [@Unpronounceable](#): > > Because it was base-12. Which is why there’s also a special term for 12x12. Yeah, but that’s just gross. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2014, 7:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-number-system-why-so-odd/118406/33 "2014-10-25T07:29:04Z")
I’m surprised that in the 12 years of this thread no one has mentioned that Basque uses vigesimal (base-20) numbers. It seems likely that Celtic picked up their system from proto-Basque. Among other vigesimal languages is Burushaski, an isolated language of Pakistan with which Basque is sometimes linked. (This connection seems far-fetched given the huge distance from Spain to Pakistan, but is supported by cognates, regular sound changes, and the idea that both are vestiges of the language of the earliest farmers of the Near East.) ---
**Author:** ![JustinC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/justinc/32/8083_2.png) [@JustinC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JustinC)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2014, 8:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-number-system-why-so-odd/118406/34 "2014-10-25T08:28:49Z")
Did it depend on how many blackbirds they could bake in a pie? ---
**Author:** ![Steken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e274bd/32.png) [@Steken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steken)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2014, 8:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-number-system-why-so-odd/118406/35 "2014-10-25T08:47:02Z")
> [@Hari\_Seldon](#): > > Lots of numbering systems are odd. In Denmark (and probably Sweden and Norway too), not only do you say (the equivalent of) 4 and 20 (as in German), but things start to get weird at 50. To say 54 you say 4 and half third. And 64 is 4 and third. and 74 is 4 and half fourth. What these apparently mean is 4 and halfway to the third twenty and so on. > [@Juggler](#): > > This is **not** true for Sweden and Norway. Danish can be quite hard to understand for me (swedish) when they speak fast. To add to this their numbering system makes it impossible to know how much to pay in shops if you can’t see it in digits. I usally just hand them a lump of money and hope they are honest people. Of the Scandinavian languages, only Danish does that bugfuck crazy thing where 50 = “half third” 60 = “third” 70 = “half fourth” 80 = “fourth” 90 = “half fifth” The two (unspoken!) ideas behind this being that a) “half” doesn’t mean “50%,” but rather “minus 0.5”; and b) everything is to be multiplied by twenty. 50 = “half third” (2.5 x 20) 60 = “third” (3 x 20) 70 = “half fourth” (3.5 x 20) 80 = “fourth” (4 x 20) 90 = “half fifth” (4.5 x 20) As you can imagine, this tentacled pit of Lovecraftian horror that is Danish numbering has led many an nerve-frayed Swede to flee back across the strait in horror and revulsion, and spend the rest of their cursed existence mumbling in a rocking chair about “the halves,” “the twenties” and the cosmic goat of a thousand young. “Why they ever built that bridge, I’ll never know! Fools, I say! Fools! They know not what they’ve wrought…!” ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2014, 9:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-number-system-why-so-odd/118406/36 "2014-10-25T09:03:55Z")
> [@Steken](#): > > "Why they ever built that bridge, I’ll never know! My Danish friend told me it was because Swedes were returning to their country so drunk that sea-sickness was a major problem on the ferries. ---
**Author:** ![bob\_2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bob_2/32/3341_2.png) [@bob\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bob_2)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2014, 11:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-number-system-why-so-odd/118406/37 "2014-10-25T11:15:43Z")
There are all kinds of oddities: 2…a couple 2…a pair 2…a brace 6… half a dozen 12…a dozen 13…a baker’s dozen 20…a score 144…a gross (12 dozen) At school I had to learn my tables up to 16 because there are 16 ounces in a pound weight. 12 was even more important because there are 12 inches in a foot and were 12 pennies in a shilling. Then there is the betting man’s jargon - £20 is a Score, £25 a Pony, £100 a Ton, £500 a Monkey, and £1000 a Grand. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2014, 11:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-number-system-why-so-odd/118406/38 "2014-10-25T11:34:00Z")
> [@friedo](#): > > I’m still trying to figure out why we English speakers have eleven and twelve instead of one-teen and two-teen. 🙂 Because up until the tenth/eleventh century or so, when the Abbassid califate introduced base 10 counting, “arab” numbers and the zero ; people counted in base 12. Don’t ask me why OR how, I already have a hard time wrapping my mind around doing \*any \*kind of math without 0 :). I guess they counted on their fingers, using the closed fist as one additional number ? ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2014, 11:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-number-system-why-so-odd/118406/39 "2014-10-25T11:41:17Z")
The thing about the French system is that you can’t do what you would normally do with strange words. You can’t just treat _soixante-dix_ as a funny way of saying “seventy.” Because, when you go above that, you don’t say _soixante-dix(et)un_, but _soixant-onze_. You say sixty-eleven, followed by sixty-twelve, sixty-thirteen, etc. You either have to treat all those numbers as oddballs (at least up until _soixante-dix-sept_, “sixty-seventeen”), or you treat 60 as different, having an extra 10 numbers that are for some reason written with a “7” in front of them. While you can see _quatre-vingt_ as just being a funny way to say “80,” without a _huit_ (8) in it anywhere, but you run into the same problem with ninety. It’s eighty-eleven, eighty-twelve, eighty-thirteen, etc. So for two multiples of ten, you have to switch to base-20. That’s what seems so weird. ---
**Author:** ![MichaelEmouse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/michaelemouse/32/101_2.png) [@MichaelEmouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MichaelEmouse)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2014, 11:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-number-system-why-so-odd/118406/40 "2014-10-25T11:43:38Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > Because up until the tenth/eleventh century or so, when the Abbassid califate introduced base 10 counting, “arab” numbers and the zero ; people counted in base 12. > > Don’t ask me why OR how, I already have a hard time wrapping my mind around doing \*any \*kind of math without 0 :). I guess they counted on their fingers, using the closed fist as one additional number ? The knuckles in the fingers of a hand, with the thumb in contact with the current knuckle: [Duodecimal - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duodecimal#Origin) One hand counts the base using the knuckles of the non-thumb\* fingers while the other hand uses all fingers to count to 60. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-number-system-why-so-odd/118406.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-number-system-why-so-odd/118406.md?page=3)