Learning French Numbers Means Fingers And Toes
Posted on January 28, 2008 - Filed Under Arts and Entertainment
French numbers are the unsuspected guardians of whole swathes of french history. Let me explain. Long, long ago, when no-one had even invented the word “Renaissance”, France was not a nation, but more of a hotch-potch of warring tribes. These french tribes lived in their separate villages and domains, spoke their own languages, had their own numbers and from time to time engaged in strong-arm tactics with their neighbours.
While these undisciplined factions were fighting among themselves, various forces were being organised from across the border.
There were the ancient romans. Undisciplined fighting was tantamount to a deadly sin in their eyes. They had many things down to fine art, including military organisation, central government, hot and cold running water…and numbers. As they overran the various french tribes and imposed the roman way of life, the numbers also took root.
So the numbers “un, deux, trois, quatre…” (one, two, three, four…) and so on in french today still bear a strong resemblance to the latin “unus, duo, tres, quattuor…” used by the ancient romans.
Unfortunately the ancient french only had time to learn the first few numbers before they were overrun again, this time by the vikings who came rushing in from northern Europe. The vikings were not as technologically advanced as the romans. On the other hand they were not as decadent either. They also had an interesting sense of creativity.
Instead of counting in tens like everybody else,the vikings had decided to count in twenties. And half-twenties. Because half of twenty is ten, right ? Where the notion to count in twenties comes from is something of a mystery. Can we surmise that because they were all fitted out with ten fingers and ten toes, this is what led them to push the counting envelope ?
In any case, even in french today, eighty is not eighty as in latin. It is “four times twenty” (”quatre-vingt”). Blame the vikings. Or at least blame four of them standing together with all fingers and toes fully deployed, and glowering at their defeated french counterparts.
After that it stuck. And it spread. Today in France, if you want to say ninety, you have to say “four twenties and ten” (”quatre-vingt-dix”). Even seventy suffered (”sixty plus ten”, that is “soixante-dix”). A strange state of affaires given the dominance of the latin roots in the french language, as opposed to the nordic influences in other languages such as english.
It just remains to say that in the french-speaking parts of Belgium and Switzerland, the “counting-by-twenties” method was deemed unconstitutional (meaning silly).
In a fine demonstration of the “cartesian spirit” that french people claim for their own, the belgians and the swiss between them opted for “septante”, “octante” (”huitante” nowadays) and “nonante” for seventy, eighty and ninety. Much more in line with “septuaginta”, “octoginta” and “nonaginta” in latin. Which in a sense makes those belgian and swiss neighbours more french than the french.
About the author. Marc Dubois is an active instructor working in both English and French. He knows what makes learning French successful for you, the mistakes you need to avoid, and how you can have fun and make progress. Find out more on how this approach to speaking French can help you and try out a mini-course for free by visiting http://www.speak-french-now.com
Tags: french, french language, learn french
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