# When did French start counting that way? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 8, 2013, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-french-start-counting-that-way/665742 "2013-08-08T20:01:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Malacandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2013, 11:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-french-start-counting-that-way/665742/21 "2013-08-09T11:44:50Z")
> [@Keeve](#): > > I’m glad you pinned this on the English translators, because that’s not how it is in the original. Hebrew is fully decimal. In fact, it is even more fully decimal than Modern English, which has standalone words for “eleven” and “twelve”, while Hebrew calls them (the equivalent of) "one&ten"and “two&ten” in the same pattern as 13-19. AIUI Chinese is just the same. ---
**Author:** ![vontsira](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/51bf81/32.png) [@vontsira](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vontsira)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2013, 12:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-french-start-counting-that-way/665742/22 "2013-08-09T12:30:11Z")
I once heard from a supposedly knowledgeable person – likely, I think, a teacher during my schooldays – that France’s “soixante-dix, quatre-vingts, and the rest” originated from the time of the French Revolution: one of the various ideologically-motivated attempts (for whatever exact supposed reason) at making a radically fresh start with various things among the basics of life. Previously, the “septante, huitante, nonante” of France’s Francophone neighbours, had been used; but in France, the new numbers stuck – unlike some Revolutionary innovations. In the light of posts on this thread – it does seem that the above, is codswallop; and that France’s “way with numbers” is a great deal older than 1790-something. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2013, 1:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-french-start-counting-that-way/665742/23 "2013-08-09T13:12:59Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > I’ve never learned to count in Basque beyond ten and went to check - the root of 40 is 2x20, for 60 3x20, for 4 4x20, so it’s doing the same thing that French does with 60 and 80, but also with 40 (100 gets a non-scored name). One hypothesis (mentioned in the other thread) is that the vigesimal system predates the Indo-European presence in Europe (the argument being that Indo-Europeans apparently used a purely decimal system). So, the Celts would have borrowed it from previous populations (logically including Basques). ---
**Author:** ![naita](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/naita/32/5862_2.png) [@naita](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/naita)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2013, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-french-start-counting-that-way/665742/24 "2013-08-09T13:56:40Z")
> [@vontsira](#): > > I once heard from a supposedly knowledgeable person – likely, I think, a teacher during my schooldays – that France’s “soixante-dix, quatre-vingts, and the rest” originated from the time of the French Revolution: one of the various ideologically-motivated attempts (for whatever exact supposed reason) at making a radically fresh start with various things among the basics of life. Previously, the “septante, huitante, nonante” of France’s Francophone neighbours, had been used; but in France, the new numbers stuck – unlike some Revolutionary innovations. > > In the light of posts on this thread – it does seem that the above, is codswallop; and that France’s “way with numbers” is a great deal older than 1790-something. Given that a lot of the “radically fresh starts” were forcing decimal systems in everywhere that’s an odd idea for someone knowledgeable to come up with. Ten month years (although they stuck with 12), ten day weeks, ten hour days, a new decimal measuring system, oh, and by the way, we’re going to start counting in twenties. ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2013, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-french-start-counting-that-way/665742/25 "2013-08-09T14:18:45Z")
> [@NinjaChick](#): > > … > And at that point we go back to normal, but Latin is sort of sighing and staring at us over the dinner table, wondering if French is really its child… 😃 Excellent. Wodehousian. > [@Keeve](#): > > I’m glad you pinned this on the English translators, because that’s not how it is in the original. Hebrew is fully decimal. In fact, it is even more fully decimal than Modern English, which has standalone words for “eleven” and “twelve”, while Hebrew calls them (the equivalent of) "one&ten"and “two&ten” in the same pattern as 13-19. This reminded me of something I sort of remember. When Religious Jews count people, either for counting a minyan–the quorum of ten people required for certain prayers–or for all occasions when counting people during ritual, they count backwards or in some other marked way. Anyone know? The explanation was something nice. I also seem to remember it in the opening of the Yom Kippur service. “_Achat_ (one), _achat v’achat_ [one plus one], _achat v’shtayim_ [one plus two],” etc. It was scary and pronounced, at least in my shul–suitable opening-kickoff Yom Kippur style. ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2013, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-french-start-counting-that-way/665742/26 "2013-08-09T14:25:40Z")
> [@vontsira](#): > > I once heard …[it] … is codswallop … Had to look that up. Mentally pronounced it as _cod’s wallup_ [like trollope]. Is that a common enough phrase in Brit? [Wiki](http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/codswallop) gives first cite at 1959. ---
**Author:** ![leahcim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/b4bc9f/32.png) [@leahcim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/leahcim)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2013, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-french-start-counting-that-way/665742/27 "2013-08-09T14:43:48Z")
> [@vontsira](#): > > I once heard from a supposedly knowledgeable person – likely, I think, a teacher during my schooldays – that France’s “soixante-dix, quatre-vingts, and the rest” originated from the time of the French Revolution: one of the various ideologically-motivated attempts (for whatever exact supposed reason) at making a radically fresh start with various things among the basics of life. From the cite I [cited](http://etc.usf.edu/lit2go/219/the-number-concept/5613/chapter-7/)earlier (just after the part I cited): > [@](#): > > From 61 to 99 the French method of counting is wholly vigesimal, except for the presence of the one word soixante. In old French this element was still more pronounced. Soixante had not yet appeared; and 60 and 70 were treis vinz, 3-20, and treis vinz et dis, 3-20 and 10 respectively. Also, 120 was six vinz, 6-20, 140 was sept-vinz, etc. How far this method ever extended in the French language proper, it is, perhaps, impossible to say; but from the name of an almshouse, les quinze-vingts, which formerly existed in Paris, and was designed as a home for 300 blind persons, and from the pembzek-ueguent, 15-20, of the Breton, which still survives, we may infer that it was far enough to make it the current system of common life. So it sounds like French was even \*more \*vigesimal in the olden days, long before the revolution. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2013, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-french-start-counting-that-way/665742/28 "2013-08-09T15:23:39Z")
FTR, the “Quinze Vingt” (now an hospital specialized in ophtalmology) still exists in Paris. Weird I hadn’t thought of it. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2013, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-french-start-counting-that-way/665742/29 "2013-08-09T15:58:17Z")
> [@naita](#): > > As leachim pointed out, there’s no “clearly” about it, although I think it’s equally wrong to write that the reverse hypothesis is “likely” without some evidence. My point though wasn’t that the French way of counting isn’t an import with a historically discoverable transition time, it’s that the question is biased by the increasing dominance of decimal thinking in our time. I think we’re confusing the terms. When I say “French descends from Latin,” I am talking about the French languge, not the ethnic group that switched from Gaulish to Latin. Classical Latin speakers in Rome did not count in base 20. Therefore, in the Romance languges, it’s an innovation. The people who innovated this in Romance probably did not think of it as an innovation, because they had been doing it all along in their prior languge. In other words, the people didn’t necessarily change, but from the perspective of the language Latin \> French, change certainly happened. I’m sorry if my phrasing was confusing. Is that clearer? ---
**Author:** ![leahcim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/b4bc9f/32.png) [@leahcim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/leahcim)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2013, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-french-start-counting-that-way/665742/30 "2013-08-09T16:23:05Z")
> [@Dr.Drake](#): > > I think we’re confusing the terms. When I say “French descends from Latin,” I am talking about the French languge, not the ethnic group that switched from Gaulish to Latin. But the point here is that allegedly, French does not descend solely from Latin – Gaulish makes a definite contribution to the new language. Imagine the scenario: [ol] [li]Gauls, hanging out, speaking Gaulish, counting by 20s.[/li][li]Romans conquer the Gauls, speaking Latin, counting in 10s.[/li][li]Romans do some serious administration of Gaul, so Latin becomes the language of the powerful and important.[/li][li]Any Gaulish speaker who has aspirations of power and importance (i.e. everyone) tries their damnedest to speak Latin, and succeeds mostly, except for some small “bad habits” from the mother tongue, like counting in 20s.[/li][li]Romans bugger off, and Gauls are left speaking mostly the language of their former conquerors, save for the “bad habits” from the old language.[/li][li]The leftover Gauls realize that they’re not really speaking Latin any more, and decide to call their language “French”.[/li][/ol] Whether you think of French as descending from Latin (imperfectly transferred to the Gauls) or Gaulish (with most, but not all of its vocabulary and grammar replaced by Latin) is semantics. Really it has influences from all sides. ---
**Author:** ![Darth\_Panda](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ee7513/32.png) [@Darth\_Panda](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darth_Panda)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2013, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-french-start-counting-that-way/665742/31 "2013-08-09T16:28:21Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Wait, translators? Do you mean to tell me that Jesus didn’t originally write those words in English? What a ridiculous question, Jesus obviously spoke American. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2013, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-french-start-counting-that-way/665742/32 "2013-08-09T16:44:42Z")
> [@leahcim](#): > > Whether you think of French as descending from Latin (imperfectly transferred to the Gauls) or Gaulish (with most, but not all of its vocabulary and grammar replaced by Latin) is semantics. Really it has influences from all sides. Of course French has influences from Gaulish, but honestly, they are very slight comparted to the influence from Latin. If you’re trying to argue that French is in any way a Celtic language (“Gaulish with most but not all of its vocabulary and grammar replaced by Latin”), I’m afraid I’ll have to ask to see your evidence. So far we have: - a tiny amount of French words come from Gaulish, e.g. _javelle_. Some are shared with other Romance languges (and thus borrowed into Latin elsewhere and / or earlier). This is compared to about 80% from Latin and about 10% from Frankish (which is the origin of the name Français / French—they don’t call themselves _gaulois!_) - a few possible grammatical features such as vigesimal counting. - a few possible accentual features such as the vowel /y/ and nasalized vowels. That’s like saying I made pizza, but I replaced the dough with rice and the toppings with tofu and stir-fried vegetables, but it’s still “pizza.” I made it in the same kitchen, just with most of the ingredients and cooking methods replaced. By the way, I would never say Latin was “imperfectly transferred to the Gauls”. It sounds patronizing and shows an ignorance of how language aquisition works. To take a similar example, would you say the speech of Swedish-American farmers in Minnesota is still Swedish, just with the vocabulary and grammar replaced by English? It’s no disrespect to the Gauls or the French to point out that Gaulish is dead, replaced by Latin. I wish it weren’t, but it is. ---
**Author:** ![Svejk\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ea666f/32.png) [@Svejk\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Svejk_1)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2013, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-french-start-counting-that-way/665742/33 "2013-08-09T17:05:34Z")
> [@NinjaChick](#): > > So Belgians go from _septante-neuf_ to _quatre-vingts_ and then _quatre-vingt-neuf_ to _nonente_. If I ever wanted proof that languages are anything but exact sciences… The Walloons do - most Belgians, however, go ‘negenenzeventig’ to ‘tachtig’, and ‘negenentachtig’ to ‘negentig’ 😃 ---
**Author:** ![vontsira](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/51bf81/32.png) [@vontsira](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vontsira)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2013, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-french-start-counting-that-way/665742/34 "2013-08-09T17:20:16Z")
> [@Leo\_Bloom](#): > > Had to look that up. Mentally pronounced it as _cod’s wallup_ [like trollope]. > > Is that a common enough phrase in Brit? [Wiki](http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/codswallop) gives first cite at 1959. Frequently used, much-liked slang word in England – synonymous with rubbish, tripe, twaddle, nonsense, bunkum, spouting-of-foolish-and-erroneous-stuff. You’re spot-on with the pronunciation. ---
**Author:** ![vontsira](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/51bf81/32.png) [@vontsira](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vontsira)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2013, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-french-start-counting-that-way/665742/35 "2013-08-09T17:33:10Z")
> [@naita](#): > > Given that a lot of the “radically fresh starts” were forcing decimal systems in everywhere that’s an odd idea for someone knowledgeable to come up with. Ten month years (although they stuck with 12), ten day weeks, ten hour days, a new decimal measuring system, oh, and by the way, we’re going to start counting in twenties. As a naive kid, I thought that the guy was knowledgeable; but – as mentioned in my post – seems from everything in this thread, that he was misinformed on this point. Probably far-fetched speculation, about the above fallacy of the revolutionaries’ introducing the vigesimal stuff for the higher numbers: perhaps a bit of dreamt-up propaganda, resulting from left / right political animosities? … rightists attributing to the makers of the Revolution – aside from their real, and deplorable, ugly deeds – a bit of relatively minor, but ridiculous, loony-leftiness in the shape of messing around with an already perfectly good numbering-and-counting system?? (Maybe concurrently with – as you cite – going crazy with making everything else decimal; it’s well-known that things don’t have to be consistent or make sense.) ---
**Author:** ![naita](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/naita/32/5862_2.png) [@naita](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/naita)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2013, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-french-start-counting-that-way/665742/36 "2013-08-09T20:00:02Z")
> [@Dr.Drake](#): > > I think we’re confusing the terms. When I say “French descends from Latin,” I am talking about the French languge, not the ethnic group that switched from Gaulish to Latin. > > Classical Latin speakers in Rome did not count in base 20. Therefore, in the Romance languges, it’s an innovation. The people who innovated this in Romance probably did not think of it as an innovation, because they had been doing it all along in their prior languge. In other words, the people didn’t necessarily change, but from the perspective of the language Latin \> French, change certainly happened. Of course French descends from Latin, but the question was “when did this change in **French** ”. If the people learning Latin as a second language were vingesimal in their original language and kept that as the language developed into “proto-French”, then it’s not an innovation. It’s inherent from the start in anything you could reasonably call French. I’m not saying it is, but “Latin is decimal” isn’t evidence against it. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2013, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-french-start-counting-that-way/665742/37 "2013-08-09T20:16:39Z")
> [@naita](#): > > Of course French descends from Latin, but the question was “when did this change in **French** ”. If the people learning Latin as a second language were vingesimal in their original language and kept that as the language developed into “proto-French”, then it’s not an innovation. It’s inherent from the start in anything you could reasonably call French. > > I’m not saying it is, but “Latin is decimal” isn’t evidence against it. I think you are splitting strange hairs here. Linguistically, French is the name of a phase of Latin, defined both chronologically and geographically by the presence and absence of characteristically French features. “Latin” is typically shorthand for Classical Latin, also a phase of the larger Latin language, and one which is an antecedent of French. Pretending they are two different languages is silly when we’re talking about the historical development of the language, though it’s quite reasonable in other contexts. By your definition, the answer to the OP is “they’ve always counted that way. It’s an inherent part of the French language.” Fine. If that’s the case, why mention Gaulish at all? Gaulish was dead long centuries before Old French began, so it cannot have influenced French directly. Gaulish can only have influenced the Vulgar Latin spoken in Gaul, which is not French. Edit: if you **do** want to talk about the origin of vigesimal counting in the romance languages spoken in what is now France, you do have to talk about Latin, at which point you can talk about how this feature arose in the Vulgar Latin of Gaul but not elsewhere in the Roman Empire. ---
**Author:** ![MonkeyMensch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/82dd89/32.png) [@MonkeyMensch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MonkeyMensch)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2013, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-french-start-counting-that-way/665742/38 "2013-08-09T20:49:41Z")
> [@MikeS](#): > > It’s worth pointing out here that Swiss French uses _septante_, _huitante_, and _nonante_ instead of _soixante-dix_, _quatre-vingts_, and _quatre-vingts-dix_, and that Belgian French uses _septante_ and _nonante_ too ([cite.](http://oxfordlanguagedictionaries.com/Public/PublicResources.html?direction=b-fr-en&sp=S/oldo/resources/fr/Varieties-of-French-fr.html)) However, I don’t have any idea when these dialects diverged from “French” French. An off-hand question: If I speak in, say, Paris using those numerical terms what would be the reaction? That’s assuming that my American accent is mild enough to not be laughed at outright. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2013, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-french-start-counting-that-way/665742/39 "2013-08-09T21:07:05Z")
> [@MonkeyMensch](#): > > An off-hand question: If I speak in, say, Paris using those numerical terms what would be the reaction? People would assume you’re Belgian/Swiss? It’s always hard to say what the “average” person knows, but I would guess that most Frenchmen, but not all of them, would know what those words mean. ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2013, 12:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-french-start-counting-that-way/665742/40 "2013-08-10T00:32:33Z")
Someone who actually knows can correct me, but my recollection of my brief stays in Denmark and that in 1970, people over 40 counted to 49 in a more or less normal way (neun og viersg, or 9 and 40) but suddenly 50 was halv tres (meaning halfway through the third, understood to the the third 20) then en og halv tres, do og halv trest, etc., all the way up to tres. Then up to neun og tres and then halv fiers (halfway through the fourth) up to hunderd. People under 40 had learned a new system in which, for example, 55 was femti fem (literally fifty five). I assume that that reform is now complete. Sorry, this is all a dim memory and I may have most of the names off, but the essential idea is correct. I don’t know about the other Scandinavian countries. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-french-start-counting-that-way/665742.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-french-start-counting-that-way/665742.md?page=3)