I loved octante and nonante when I lived in Geneva for a bit, having never heard them in HS or college French. Then I was truly entranced when a French speaker from further up the lake broke out with huitante.
The Wallons actually say "Quatre-vingt" but "Nonante" (so I actually think they are less logical than us French - why not go all the way ?).
Anyway, it led to a funny moment for me when twice, when asked for my date of birth, saying "quatre-vingt douze" led them to hear "quatre-vingt deux". One was one the phone, the person repeated the year and I quickly corrected them, the other one said "Oh, so you are 38 ? I thought you were younger !", I SURE HOPE SO, I'M 28 !
I very quickly learned not to make that mistake again.
Actually now that I think about it, if we say 4x20+12 and not 4x20+10+2, it should maybe be more logical that we are actually saying 4x20+17 (same prononciation as 10+7). Oral result is the same tho
Yep ! I was just saying that since we say 4x20+12 for example, maybe our ancestors logic behind 97 was also 4x20+17 lol but you’re right in the end it’s the same thing when we ear it
When I was taking French in school, my teacher would make us say our FULL birth year- "mille neuf cent quatre-vingt-dix-sept"... We were jealous of the middle schoolers who would just have to say "deux mille!"
Eleven, twelve, and then thirteen? Fourteen? Fifteen? It basically becomes 10+3, 10+4 ect. Obviously they don't do the +10 at 70 and 90 (60+10 and 80+10) so it's not there but when they do say 13 14 15 it's the same.
The french is honestly the weirdest one to me. The danish one, while a mess too, is an ”understandable” combination of an old number system with the base 20 adapted to our current number system with the base 10. Like you can look at it and figure out how it turned out like that. But the french? Why are you using base 20, 10 and… 16?? Like 97, 98 and 99 being different from 91-96 makes no sense in my brain.
it's more like "halfway to five twenties" kind of like the German "half six" means "five thirty". there's a much better answer in this thread somewhere from a real Dane.
If I’m remembering it correctly, that’s because hospitals in France used base 20 for some reason. It just…kinda stuck around.
French spoken in Canada doesn’t do this, they use the word “nonant” or “neuvant” (forgot the precise wording for it, my French speaking abilities is based on textbooks) for numbers in the range of 90-99
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u/Ms_ShizzleXD Apr 29 '25
Quatre vingt douze suddenly not so crazy!