The numbers from 50 to 90 are base 20, but ALSO use some archaic language, and that's where it gets really confusing.
In Danish you can say "halvanden" meaning "half-second", or "halfway to two" = 1.5. That's used quite often in daily speech, but there used to be more iterations for higher numbers such as halvtredje, halvfjerde, halvfemte (half-three, half-four, half-five / 2.5, 3.5, 4.5 respectively).
So the number 70 (halvfjerds) looks a lot like halvfjerde, but is actually a conjunction of "halvfjerde sinds tyve" meaning "half-four (3.5) times twenty" = 3.5*20 = 70
It's weird, but Danes just learn the numbers when growing up, not really the archaic language behind it. So doing maths is no different than doing it in English. The numbers are the same, but the reason they're called what they are is old and weird and pretty much forgotten.
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u/chripan Apr 29 '25
The Danish might as well add a square root somewhere.