Why is it eleven and twelve and not oneteen twoteen?

Question

It's even the same in Foreign languages . . . EG German above twelve is Dreizehn, vierzehn etc, but 11 is elf and 12 is zwolf.

Answer 1

This is actually quite reasonable. The Germanic languages (English, German, etc.) are "younger" than the Romance languages. Whereas the Romance languages, such as French and Spanish, count in a base 10 form, known as decimal, the Germanic languages are still based on the earlier, ie younger, form of duodecimal, or base 12. Therefore, there are 12 inches in a foot, rather than 10, etc., and they count to 12 before repeating the cycle. A reasonable question is if they use a duodecimal system and count to 12 before repeating the cycle, then why do larger numbers see to use a decimal system, 20, 30, and so on. The reason is that these higher numbers were developed much more recently than the first 12 numbers, and by the time the Germanic peoples came to count to higher numbers, they came to shift to a more decimal type system. However, the base numbers, 1 through 12, used to count the most important things at the time that these high numbers were developed, such as the 12 months of the year and such, remained based on a base 12 system.

Answer 2

Fred's guess is understandable, but mistaken. "Eleven" and "twelve" originated in the DECIMAL system.

"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 3

This is from dictionary.com

But 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).

In Japanese it's ju ichi, ju ni, which means ten one, ten two.

Answer 4

German and English are closely related, the English names actually derived from the German way back when. Notice the similarity between "zwolf" and "twelve"? There you go.
And I guess the Germans decided "einzehn" and "zweizehn" sound retarded.

Answer 5

Who ever made up numbers thought eleven and twelve sounded better

Answer 6

because the English language is originally made from different languages, so it contains what those languages contain. i know italian, french and spanish, and persian.
you can find many word similarities between English and all of these.

Answer 7

Because 11 year olds would be teenagers.

Answer 8

The simple answer is that our language is based off of other languages that do it that way.

Answer 9

In Spanish it's once, doce, trece, catorce, quince. Como se dice "weird"?

Answer 10

When I was a kid, I asked the same question. According to my big brother:
"To make nosy little girls ask questions!"

And no, he wasn't being mean, he was teasing, my big brother was the Best.