Hi ! i'm french and i teach basic english to children in primary school here in France.
Some of my pupils are learning numbers from 13 to 19...And one of them asked me that question.
I suppose it has something to do with the ordinal numbers "third" and "fifth" but i'm not sure and i wouldn't want to give my pupils a stupid answer...
thanks :-)
2006-11-26 06:12:45 · 5 answers · asked by princessaphir 4 in Education & Reference ➔ Primary & Secondary Education
Good question, but also worth asking why not one-teen rather than eleven, and two-teen rather than twelve, or sixth-teen rather than sixteen. The origins of these words go back to Old English, Swedish and Gothic, over a thousand years ago. During that time all of these languages were in a 'melting pot' and had strong influences on each other and on what eventually became 'english' as we know it today.
Eleven - Gothic 'ainlif' which might translate as one (ain) left (lif) Eg one left after counting ten.
Twelve - Old Frisian 'twilif' which might translate as two (twi) left (lif). Eg two left after counting ten.
Thirteen - Old Swedish 'thriu' (three) tien (ten). While thriutien keeps its general shape for the next thousand years, 'thriu' (in the sense of three) stretches slightly and settles into today's 'three'.
Fifteen - Old English 'fif' (five) tiene (ten). In the combination word fiftien the original 'fif' remains short and snappy and keeps its shape for a thousand years, while the word 'fif' (in the sense of five) lengthens into 'five' over time.
So the suggestion is that 'thriu' and 'fif' (old versions of three and five) are preserved fairly intact when embedded in the combination words thriutien and fiftien. On the other hand folk have played around more with the shorter (and more frequently used) words fif and thriu over time and they have moved further away from the original versions. Essentially shorter words are more easily distorted than long ones.
The argument that these words are derived from ordinals (third, fifth etc) doesn't explain why we don't have fourth-teen and sixth-teen. However the use of 'third' and 'fifth' elsewhere may have had some influence on the preservation of these old words (thriutien and fiftien) virtually intact over a thousand years. Folk would have seen 'thir(d)teen' and 'fift(h)teen' as 'making sense' and been less inclined to change them to 'threeteen' or 'fiveteen' over time.
Essentially - unfortunately - english being an amalgamation of lots of other languages didn't 'grow up straight' and includes the most bizarre (and interesting) twists.
2006-11-26 08:08:57 · answer #1 · answered by nandadevi9 3 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Lol that reminds me of my niece as she used to say fiveteen. it does have something to do with ordinal numbers and is borrowed from the time of Middle English, I'm assuming from the link below that it is a borrowing from an Indo-European language, so that is why it is how it is. Hope that helps clear it up a lil.
2006-11-26 06:23:59 · answer #2 · answered by laydeeheartless 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Fiveteen
2016-11-15 04:54:22 · answer #3 · answered by ? 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
it is mainly to do with olde english, the same goes with 'third', which has the same kinds of origins.
2006-11-26 06:31:39 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
You could be right, but it could also be to make the words less "clumsy" when spoken.
2006-11-26 06:17:40 · answer #5 · answered by Roy S 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋