Why count like ten, eleven, twelve and not oneteen, twoteen?Or even tenone, tentwo? Does any language do this?

Question

Is there any particulat reason why this happens in all the languages (at least those I know...)? Is there any language that counts numbers 11 and 12 like ten-one and ten-two...?

Answer 1

"Eleven" goes back to Middle English "en-leven", whose first syllable is a relative of "an/ane" meaning "one", and the "tw-" of "twelve" gives away its connection to "two". So we can sort of see that these two have something to do with the system of counting by ten. In fact, the original meaning of these two words was "one left" and "two left" (after counting to ten).

Here's how it happened:

"What about the anomalous eleven and twelve? Why do we not say oneteen, twoteen along the same pattern as thirteen, fourteen, fifteen? Eleven in Old English is endleofan, and related forms in the various Germanic languages point back to an original Germanic *ainlif, "eleven." *Ainlif is composed of *ain-, "one," the same as our one, and the suffix *-lif from the Germanic root *lib-, "to adhere, remain, remain left over." Thus, eleven is literally "one-left" (over, that is, past ten), and twelve is "two-left" (over past ten)."
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/dict.asp?Word=eleven

Finally, the reason "eleven" and "twelve" did not end up simply comforming to the "teen" pattern is that these were COMMON, well-established forms. And it is precisely the common, everyday words that are LEAST likely to submit to "rules". (That's why the "irregular" past tense verb forms -- had, were, went, etc-- and irregular plural forms --men, mice, geese-- are almost always found with simple, common words.)

Of course, there were some alternative forms out there. We still use an alternative word for twelve -- "do-zen" itself shows us that (compare German "zehn")-- though it has gained its own special use (for a GROUPING of twelve). In fact, the fact that many things were divided into units of twelve also helps explain why eleven and twelve were treated differently. (Note that the use of twelve has ancient roots. See for example the Mesopotamian mathematical system, which used both six [and its double twelve] and ten --and gave us our 12 hours, 60 seconds, etc) That is NOT to say that these number names originated in counting by twelve, simply that the later USE of twelve contributed to the names' not being changed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duodecimal#Origin

Answer 2

All the languages you know must be related to each other. :) "Tenone, tentwo, ..." is actually more common than having specialized words for the first few teens.

For example, Hungarian goes:
0 nulla 10 tíz 20 húsz
1 egy 11 tizenegy 21 huszonegy
2 kettő 12 tizenkettő 22 huszonkettő
3 három 13 tizenhárom 23 huszonhárom
etc.

There's actually a regular pattern for the multiples of ten, too, although 10, 20, and 30 don't follow it:
1 = egy, 10 = tíz
2 = kettő, 20 = húsz
3 = három, 30 = harminc
4 = négy, 40 = negyven
5 = öt, 50 = ötven
6 = hat, 60 = hatvan
7 = hét, 70 = hetven
8 = nyolc, 80 = nyolcvan
9 = kilenc, 90 = kilencven


I think the more interesting question is why some languages have special words for 11 and 12. Did those languages start off with a 12-based numbering system? Where does the word "dozen" fit into this? (A lot more languages have words for "dozen" than have specialized words for 11 and 12.) For that matter, the origin of the word "dozen" is just "two-ten"; does this mean that English once used "one-ten" and "two-ten"?

Answer 3

The vast majority of the world's languages count like you suggest. It is just within the Indo-European family of languages that you find "eleven" and "twelve" as different. Unfortunately, most people never see beyond that small language family to the 6000 or so other languages of the world.

Answer 4

In Polish it goes 'jedenascie, dwanascie, trzynascie' etc, which would translate as 'oneteen, twoteen, threeteen'... It's more or less the same in most Slavic languages.

Answer 5

Japanese counts like that.

One- Ichi
Two- Ni
Three- San
Four- Shi...
...Ten- Ju
Eleven- Ju Ichi
Twelve- Ju Ni
Thirteen- Ju San

Answer 6

this is done in The Hindu Urdu language. This is their easy way of counting. It also makes telling the time easier. there is a good website on quirky counting. www.countonme.biz
You will find it very interesting and informative.

Answer 7

Yes there is a language Irish 11 is a haon deag (hein deg) (=one ten) and twelve is a do deag (do deg) (=2 10).

Answer 8

In Turkish you can count that way up to 19, On (10) bir (one) is eleven but then 20 is yirmi, it goes on yirmi bir. Maybe it's because in warmer climates people didn't wear socks!

Answer 9

Russian uses the following formula:

1 (odin)
2 (dva)
3 (tri)
4 (chetire)
5 (pyat')
6 (shest')
7 (s'em)
8 (vosem)
9 (devyat')
10 (desyat')
11 (ODIN NAD DSAT') one over ten
12 (DVE NAD DSAT') two over ten
13 (TRI NAD DSAT') three over ten
... and so on

Answer 10

spanish is for 16 dias y sies ,which means ten & six.& that goes on til 20. then its 21 22 23,,,,,,,& so on. does that help?