Words like “twelve” and “twenty four” are English representations of the numbers 12 & 24, respectively. In another language they might be stateds as “ten two” (Chinese) or “four and twenty” (German), respectively.
Does anybody know how Roman Numerals were spoken, in terms of literal translations? Surely XV wouldn’t be “fifteen”. Would it be “ten five” or “eks vee” or what? If you know, please give some more examples (if possible).
I’m not sure if my logic or relatively rudimentary knowledge of history is betraying me here, but wouldn’t Roman numerals have been spoken in Latin originally? If I’m wrong, harshly reprimand me.
I think that how Roman Numerals were represented had less influence over how numbers were spoken in Latin than you think. The numbers 1 through 10 all had their own words, like in English. Numbers 11-17 were made by combining the ones digit with the word for 10. So 15 was quindecim. 18 was duodeviginti, “two from twenty”, and 19 was undeviginti, “one from twenty”. After that you combined words, so 24 was viginti quattuor.
There may have been a way in Latin of pronouncing Roman numerals besides just saying what number it is, but I’ve never heard of it.