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by simiones 1156 days ago
Yes, French has some remnants of a base-20 system that was there in one of the languages that went before. Interestingly, this only manifests for numbers greater than 60; so while numbering from 0 to 60 looks mostly like in English, the numbers 60-79 are essentially "sixty - sixty-ten (70) - sixty-eleven(71) - sixty-nineteen(79)" (soixante un - soixante dix - soixante onze - soixante dix neuf), and then for 80-99 you have "four twenties - four-twenties-and-10 - four-twenties-and-99" (quatre vingt - quatre vingt dix - quatre vingt dix neuf).

Other European languages also have interesting numbering, such as Danish, with constructions such as 50 being "three less a half [twenties]" (halvtreds).

1 comments

There are dialects of French that don't use that numeral system, Swiss French uses septante, huitante, nonante for 70, 80, 90.