Re: Albanian seems odd
- From: Joe Fineman <joe_f@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 27 Jun 2005 13:44:47 GMT
"Juuitchan" <juuitchan@xxxxxxxxxxx> writes:
> The numbers 1 through 5 are: një, dy, tre, katër, pesë. Sounds like
> normal Indo-European numbers, right? Number 6 is
> "gjashtë"... "Gjashtë"??!! Where did that come from?!
In Russian, 8 & 9 are vosem' & d'ev'at' -- nothing like the IE roots.
My suspicion is that the number words, being often chanted in counting
(where context is unusually powerful in fixing the meaning) are
particularly susceptible to playfulness. Another curiosity: the
alliteration of four & five (and of Latin quattuor & quinque) is not
in IE. Might it have been suggested by the subsequent alliteration of
six & seven, which is? And how did we happen on the rhyme between 7 &
11? Did German once have it, and abandon it? Or was it invented in
Old English? I have not cheated by looking it up.
--
--- Joe Fineman joe_f@xxxxxxxxxxx
||: Vulgarity is the garlic in the salad of taste. :||
.
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