[Sweetpea]

Originally Posted by Ea

I guess you mean the 'tens'? I don't blame you - it's not the logical two-ten, three-ten etc. as in Swedish (and English and French, and other languages). BTW; Anyone know any other European languages with German roots that has odd number names?

But eleven and twelve and thirteen are also oddly numbered in English. In Dutch, 14 is also not 4-10. From 15 onwards though, it's 5-10, 6-10, etc.

Originally Posted by Ea

You have to learn the names and not think about the meaning of the words - or rather, not think about the meaning of the modern words. I got curious and looked them up in my etymology. There's good reason and logic behind the names - but they're abbreviated and slightly corrupted/changed in the last thousand years. '50' which today sounds like 'half-sixty' originally meant 'half-three-times-twenty' which translates to 'three-minus-a-half-times twenty' = 2.5*20 (= 50), 60 is 'three-times-twenty'. 40 is interesting as the word is in full (not used anymore) 'fyrretyve' - and 'tyve' is the word used today for 20 - but the Old Norse root is actually 'fjórir tigir' = four tens. I could go on, but I won't The principle is the same for the other 'ten number' names. This is a good example of how language can be really tricky (and interesting).

So, you have to be able to calculate in order to know the Danish counting words????

Originally Posted by Ea

But I was thinking... Is it possible that the Swedish number names have been changed deliberately in the more recent past, say 200-300 years? I'm guessing, since both our languages have coommon roots and were fairly alike 800-1000 years ago. It would be curious indeed if they'd manage to deviate so far without help.

Probably they were smarter and made the counting words easier

Originally Posted by Ea

And "pandekage"...

Being Danish, and knowing (some) German, I can understand the general meaning of a Dutch text or find my way around a web site. With some diligence, perserverance and patience, I could probably learn to read it quite well with practise. Dutch seems to be fairly closely related to the Scandinavian languages as well as German.

Yes. There are some interresting differences though which makes the learning one of the other languages a bit funny... (like the German word "bellen" and the Dutch word "bellen" They sound exactly the same, they are both verbs, they are written exactly the same, but they have two completely different meanings...)

Originally Posted by queentess

Oh, that's hardly a Dutch-only aversion There are MANY people here in the U.S. who state the same reasons. I figure they'll come around eventually. Like all the people I heard whining when music when digital because it meant the end of the record store, and digital music doesn't have the sound quality and blah blah blah...

But you've the advantage that there are waaaaaay more English speakers and readers and thus even a smal percentage would most likely be more than the entire Dutch speaking community...