Comment on Something's wrong with denmark
HorreC@lemmy.world 1 year agoHow did you guys even get to this thought process for saying this sort of thing? Why would you work in fractions for whole numbers in language to start? Is this a monarch thing like they fancied themselves a math wizard so they said it like it was a solution on countdown and others mimicked to keep them happy/sound smart themselves?
Little fun-fact: We still have a trace of this left in Norwegian, where the most common way to say “1.5” is not “en og en halv” (“one and a half”) but “halvannen” which roughly translates to “half second”.
We abandoned the “half third”, “half fourth” etc. very long ago (if we ever used them), but “halvannen” just rolls nicely off the tongue.
We actually still say “halvanden” in Danish too. Everything else is not used (except for halvfems which means 90…)
You also use halv tres (50) and halv firs (70) don’t you?
Halvfjerds for 70 but yes. Firs is 80 though, so that doesn’t make in much easier.
Fjerde = fourth, fire = four. That makes “half to the fourth” become “halv til fjerde” or “halvfjerds” while “four times twenty” becomes “firsindstyve” and shortened to new Danish “firs”
The reason is that the Danish numbering system is based on a vigesimal (base-20) system instead of the decimal system. Why is a good question but it might have been influenced by French during a time where numbers from 50-100 is less frequently used, making them prone to complexity. The fractions simply occur since you need at least one half of twenty (10) to make the change from e.g 50 to 60 in a 20-based system.
why would you avoid the fraction and use it up to 100 then minus 8. I dont have a lot of an issue with it being base 20 but the idea that talking in numbers you have to know fractions for a child is WILD to me. You have to do like a month of understanding math fractions to get how to speak whole numbers.
We don’t really learn the reason, we just memorise the word for the number. Kinda like you know the word “dog” means a four legged cute creature, but not why the name is “dog”. The old rules are not something we are teached, I just got curious after a confused foreigner made me think about the system for a second :p
Viking_Hippie@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 year ago
Dane here. My guess is utter madness resulting from a history of overdosing on fly agaric filtered through the urine of slaves, followed by a distressingly long period of Catholicism.
Frankly, it’s a wonder that our ancestors didn’t come up with an even MORE bizarre way of saying numbers and other things!