why is it that in French the number 80 is said as 4 times 20 and another wierd combinations for the numbers?

Answer 1

it's adopted from the viking numerical system, for they had originally come up with the counting by 20s. in some other countries, such as germany, they use 10s, so 80 would be "ten-by-eight"

Answer 2

when I was earning my french degree I posited the same question to my French linguistics professor. She said that she didn't know. The issue that it might be based on a viking numeral system sounds plausible.....english does the same thing in a way: thirteen==three ten, fourteen == four ten, fifteen==five ten

it just so happens that the y added to the word indicates a multiple of ten.

an interesting side note is that in english, we flip the number order::we say thirteen (three ten) but twenty one....they don't do that in other languages.

As a side bar, I've heard some canadians go by septante, quatre-vingt, quatre-vingt-dix.

Answer 3

Just to be weird.

In Switzerland they say soixante, septante, huitante and nonante though. (For 60, 70 , 80 , 90)

Strange true story: A French-speaker and I used to work in a store. At one point (I think I was giving him change for his cash) he was counting out twenty-dollar bills. "un, deux, trois, quatre, quatre fois vingt, ca fait soixante" (1, 2, 3, 4, 4 x 20 makes 60). Sounds dumb enough in English but in French the WORD for 80 is 4x20!


Hi Nellierslmm (?), apparently octante is used in some villages in the canton of Fribourg, which sounds right, because I think it was my husband's cousin's wife who used it. According to this article http://www.20min.ch/ro/lausanne/story/12327079 huitante is used everywhere else in (the French part of) Switzerland, except Geneva. However, my father-in-law's relatives, from cantons Neuchatel and Jura, say quatre-vingt. My mother-in-law is from Valais, near Vaud.

Answer 4

I don't have the exact origin of that. I'm a native French speaker, and always thought it was weird too.

In Switzerland, they don't. They say "septante, octante, nonante" instead of "soixante-dix, quatre-vingts, quatre-vingt-dix". I feel like this should be accepted by French speakers everywhere, it makes more sense.

AlpineAlli, I never heard anyone say "huitante", interesting!

Answer 5

we call that lenguistic ...
same as french people would ask "why english is written backwards?"

there is not why to explain that in a term; it's just like that and that's the way it is.

80= quatre-vingts =four twenty
70= soixante-dix= sixty-ten.

Answer 6

Well, English has four score. that's also 80, since a score is 20.

Answer 7

That`s how the French are , they don't know how to count , so that's one way to make it easy on them and difficult for us .
They don`t care about others .
They always have been that way .
They are so " chauvinist "

Answer 8

they lack creativity