- federalreverse-old ( @federalreverse@feddit.de ) English90•1 year ago
What’s going on in Denmark?
- ChaoticNeutralCzech ( @ChaoticNeutralCzech@feddit.de ) English28•1 year ago
# 🇩🇰 1 en 2 to 3 tre 4 fire 5 fem 6 seks 7 syv 8 otte 9 ni 10 ti 11 elleve 12 tolv 13 tretten 14 fjorten 15 femten 16 seksten 17 sytten 18 atten 19 nitten 20 tyve 21 enogtyve 22 toogtyve 30 tredive 40 fyrre 50 halvtreds 60 tres (threes) 70 halvfjerds (½fourths) 80 firs (fours) 90 halvfems (½fifths) 92 tooghalvfems (twoand½fifths) 100 hundred In Czech, we say „čtvrt na osm“ (quarter to eight), „půl osmé“ (half of eighth) and „tři čtvrtě na osm“ (¾ to eight) to mean
19:15
,19:30
and19:45
, respectively, so I kinda get it.
Similarly, in German, 🕢=„halb acht“.- Bruno ( @Bruno@feddit.de ) English7•1 year ago
TIL that it not French with the weirdest way to count. I still don’t really get the Danish way. Even with your explanation.
- ChaoticNeutralCzech ( @ChaoticNeutralCzech@feddit.de ) English4•1 year ago
It’s not really an explanation, just a table where I leave the linguistically inclined to figure it out. The point is, the “s” at the end is short for “×20” and “half fifth” is short for ●●●●◖ = 4½ (four and half of the fifth).
- Bruno ( @Bruno@feddit.de ) English1•1 year ago
Thanks. Do you know the history of that?
- abecede ( @abecede@feddit.de ) English2•1 year ago
Maybe the Danish don’t just count with their fingers to 10, but include their toes… So 10 fingers + 10 toes = 20?
- SourSweetChaos ( @SourSweetChaos@feddit.de ) English4•1 year ago
We also do this in germany
- ChaoticNeutralCzech ( @ChaoticNeutralCzech@feddit.de ) English7•1 year ago
Ja, ich spreche auch ziemlich gut Deutsch. Ich würde aber lieber die Angelsächser mit meiner Fähigkeit „čtvrt“ (tschtwrt) zu aussprechen beeindrucken.
- SourSweetChaos ( @SourSweetChaos@feddit.de ) English1•1 year ago
Haha sehr gut ;)
- thelastknowngod ( @thelastknowngod@lemm.ee ) English4•1 year ago
Funny enough, I grew up saying “quarter of eight” to mean 19:45. It took until my mid-20s to realize its probably a regional thing because, after I left Philadelphia (my home city) and moved to Chicago, everyone thought I meant 20:15.
- ChaoticNeutralCzech ( @ChaoticNeutralCzech@feddit.de ) English4•1 year ago
Mmm, American using 24h time. I know nothing else about you but this gets you +0.5 on an attractiveness scale.
- Uncle_Bagel ( @Uncle_Bagel@midwest.social ) English3•1 year ago
Thats pretty common in terms of time. I’m not going to say something is “half five” to say it coststwo and a half dollars though. I understand that with French and Danish you arent actually doing the math and just think of that string the same way i think of “ninety two” but it’s still difficult to wrap my head around.
- Bumblefumble ( @Bumblefumble@lemm.ee ) English4•1 year ago
Just to make something clear, in this system, which isn’t really used, half five would be 4.5, not 2.5.
- Meldrik ( @meldrik@lemmy.wtf ) English12•1 year ago
We play on Hardcore mode.
- Jordan Lund ( @jordanlund@lemmy.one ) English3•1 year ago
You better have your operations in order!
- Tarte ( @Tarte@kbin.social ) 34•1 year ago
I love this topic, keep the comments going! It gets even wilder/weirder when reading historical German monastary documents from the early modern period that sometimes mixed German numerical grammar with latin letters and abbreviations. For example this was a common way to write prices in the early 17th century in my region of study:
xiv C Lviұ f xxv bb iy d
All of this was in early modern German Kurrent (old cursive), of course, and with not always obvious whitespaces inbetween. The letters v and x looked somewhat similar, too, and you better don’t miss the small strikethroughs anywhere in the lower or upper end of a letter which indicated “minus half” (except for the letter capital C which always has it). This is the kind of fun that brings me joy during my day while simultaneously providing the content for nightmares at night.
For some closure:
The short example would read as: (10+(5-1))*100 + 50+((5+3)-0.5) florin, 10+10+5 batzen, and 1+1+1 denari.
And that would translate to a price of 1457 ½ florin (guilders), 25 batzen (silver coin) and 3 denari (pennies).- weker01 ( @weker01@feddit.de ) English10•1 year ago
Am I correct in thinking that this would be a relatively enormous amount of money for a normal person in that time?
- Tarte ( @Tarte@kbin.social ) 10•1 year ago
Yes, absolutely! My work is related to monasteries. Some of these institutions were large economical organisations with hundreds or thousands of affiliated workers (in addition to the few dozens of actual clergy) stretching hundreds of villages/cities. Monastaries basically were the major corporations of the time. They did handle these amounts of money regularly.
Historical purchasing power for anything before the industrial revolution is hard to approximate. On the one hand because wages were not only payed in money, on the other hand because labor was very cheap and material cost was high - the inverse of today. To illustrate: They did lots of recycling work that would seem fanatical to us today, e.g. straightening old nails, reusing stones and wood from deconstructions, or even excavating and resharpening rotten fenceposts. To add some general and very rough perspective: An unskilled worker/day-worker could expect a yearly wage in the order of magnitude of about 5 fl (guilders) per year for very hard work and long working hours for 6 or 7 days a week (payed daily in non-face-value coins like pennies). However, it was common for wages to include living accomodation and/or food staples (that included wine or beer) - or pay out the worth of these things, separately. A pair of shoes was a valued gift one could give to an unskilled worker on special occasions.
It was a different time with different societal and economical systems in place. Estimated simplifications you might read online (e.g. 1 fl = 50€) are therefor to be taken with a buttload of salt - to the point one might call it a misrepresentation. Then there were the multiple events with increased silver and gold imports from the new world (combined with some greedy/desperate lords reducing the silver share of their coins). This led to multiple changes in the exchange rates between various regional gold, silver and non-face-value coins of the same names, complicating thing even more.
To solve these issues, the prices I named above would be in fictional coins of account, not actual physical coins that were payed. People had to do quite some math when doing accounting - and yes, minor errors happened all the time.
- weker01 ( @weker01@feddit.de ) English5•1 year ago
This sounds fascinating. I was always fascinated how complicated life could be in days past. Like how we take decimalization for granted today or the cheap conversion of money and the enormous availability of modern currency (i.e. Paper money and coins).
I once read about coin shortages and how that could impact an entire region. Fascinating stuff.
Do you happen to have book recommendations on the topic of coins or economic history of Europe (or even more specifically the German speaking area)?
- Tarte ( @Tarte@kbin.social ) 4•1 year ago
If you happen to speak German I’d recommend “Das Geld der Deutschen” by Bernd Sprenger for an overview as he touches a lot of eras and different subtopics, starting from antiquity and ending with the Euro. Alternatively, “Kleine Geschichte des Geldes” by Michael North is another popular (and a little newer) survey book that I enjoyed. The most insightful parts for me were the in-depth explanations of the concept of bill of exchanges and cashless payments in general during the early modern period.
Since my focus is on monastaries and money is only one aspect, I did not research this sub topic comprehensively, even if it interests me personally - hence I conveniently didn’t search much further than mostly German literature. I just checked: The only “English book” on the topic from my bibliography is the conference proceedings “Münzprägung, Geldumlauf und Wechselkurse” / “Minting, Monetary Circulation and Exchange Rates” (Trier Historische Forschungen, volume 7) from 1984. It is a little older but was still worthwhile to me, quite recently. Despite the name it only includes a few German but mostly English essays. They are not limited geographically to the German lands. As a small word of caution: Some of the essays are rather theoretical by nature, so this might not be the very best entry point if you want an overview, or you could simply skip these essays.
I do not love to recommend it here, but asking the English collegues on reddit via /r/AskHistorians might give you a much better answer if you’re looking for good entry-level English literature on the topic. They also provide a list of recommended books that features a small “Political and Economic History” section. They included a book by Joseph Gies and Frances Gies that looks quite promising (but focuses on the time 1000-1500). Other than that I cannot find anything particularly relevant in that list. Asking over there might be worthwhile, though.
- weker01 ( @weker01@feddit.de ) English1•1 year ago
I am actually German so thank you for all the recommendations! I will check out some of the books (even though I know it will take me some time to get to them. I have a rather long reading list, but I will check them out!)
It’s a pretty enormous amount of money now. I was thinking that a gold coin was 1oz which would have been an insane amount of money but some research has told me that guilder can refer to several different coins that are between .08oz and .11oz of gold mixed with other precious metals. Ignoring the other precious metals and assuming the lowest gold content 1457.5 guilders is a bit over 116 oz of gold. Gold is approx. $1900/oz so in gold alone that is over $220,000.
- Fleeing_snail ( @Fleeing_snail@sopuli.xyz ) English13•1 year ago
There’s also they way it’s said in Basque which is 4 x 20 + 12.
- Aiyub ( @Aiyub@feddit.de ) English24•1 year ago
So exactly like French on the map ?
- itsralC ( @itsralC@lemm.ee ) English4•1 year ago
Which is why it doesn’t make sense that it’s colored green
- dangblingus ( @dangblingus@lemmy.dbzer0.com ) English1•1 year ago
Basque isn’t a country is why.
- AlexS ( @AlexS@feddit.de ) English5•1 year ago
It’s people that speak, not nations.
I say this, while being very conservative.
- nilloc ( @nilloc@discuss.tchncs.de ) English11•1 year ago
I’m not sure what’s more asinine, the colors chosen for this map, or the
DutchDanish.Edit: worth it for the joke
- Colour_me_triggered ( @Colour_me_triggered@lemm.ee ) English8•1 year ago
Danish
- nilloc ( @nilloc@discuss.tchncs.de ) English4•1 year ago
Oh yeah, thanks for the correction, the joke was still worth it ;)
- MartinXYZ ( @MartinXYZ@kbin.social ) 1•1 year ago
Perhaps I should preface this by mentioning I’m Danish. Before clicking the link I just read “Dutch Danish” and thought “those poor, poor people”. Imagine our two languages combined.
- Colour_me_triggered ( @Colour_me_triggered@lemm.ee ) English10•1 year ago
Kamelåså
- Kornblumenratte ( @Kornblumenratte@feddit.de ) English10•1 year ago
You missed the traditional Celtic systems.
Welsh should be both 9 x 10 + 2 and 2 + 10 + 4 * 20.
And Irish – I didn’t get it, they seem to have a modern 9 x 10 + 2 system, an old vigesimal and one for age?
- Vashti ( @vashti@feddit.uk ) English1•1 year ago
Nobody ever remembers Welsh on these charts.
- apis ( @apis@beehaw.org ) English9•1 year ago
Something rotten…
Seriously, have trouble enough with numbers anyhow. The French system is far more than my little brain can compute, so I pretend to have learned the language from Belgians.
But who knows, maybe the Danish system would have tipped my infant brain into having a better grasp of some concepts?
- phoenixz ( @phoenixz@lemmy.ca ) English1•1 year ago
I don’t want to be that guy, but In Belgium they speak Flemish (a variant of Dutch) in the North, or French in the South. Which one is it?
- apis ( @apis@beehaw.org ) English4•1 year ago
Francophone Belgium is mostly in the south east - it is shaded green on the map & the Flemish area is the yellow bit above.
- dangblingus ( @dangblingus@lemmy.dbzer0.com ) English2•1 year ago
What are you even talking about? You aren’t responding to the OP in any meaningful capacity.
- snooggums ( @snooggums@kbin.social ) 5•1 year ago
Impressive that Norway has bands of different ways to say 92!
- Successful_Try543 ( @Successful_Try543@feddit.de ) English7•1 year ago
Afaik, they’ve changed the official system from the “German” to the “Swedish” order after WW2, but it is still used by many in spoken language.
- StThicket ( @StThicket@reddthat.com ) English3•1 year ago
Old people tend to say 2+90 while young people say 90+2. I heard that this new way of saying it was due to the introduction of the telephone, where people needed a more linear way of saying the numbers to reduce confusion. But I don’t have a source.
- Gamey ( @Gamey@feddit.de ) English4•1 year ago
I guess the telephone just didn’t arrive properly in German speaking countries, at least we will soon get rid of most fax machines, hopefully that is…
- BarqsHasBite ( @someguy3@lemmy.ca ) English5•1 year ago
Are all German numbers like that?
- Zyratoxx ( @zyratoxx@lemm.ee ) English6•1 year ago
Yes, Germans say numbers like that. (It only applies to the tens tho)
Roughly translated you’d say two-and-ninety (without the minus, I just made those so it doesn’t look that cursed)
It’s mainly because at least in German it flows better than ninety two would. There have been pushes to accept ninety two as well but acceptance has been and continues to be scarce.
- Jummit ( @Jummit@lemmy.one ) English10•1 year ago
Man I’d love for that to catch on, mostly so it’s easier to learn. Kids get confused by the order all the time. It’s even shorter in some cases.
Also, the reverse order makes dictating phone numbers such a pain.
- aard ( @aard@kyu.de ) English3•1 year ago
My kids grow up with multiple languages. I told my daughter early on not to bother with German numbers larger than 20, and to select a different language to do math in her head.
For a few years she was just saying larger German numbers like 9-2, or was writing them down, though now at 7 she seems to get better at converting them correctly.
- Zyratoxx ( @zyratoxx@lemm.ee ) English3•1 year ago
Definitely. Up until now I always dictate phone numbers with digits as pairs: like “neun, zwei” instead of “zweiundneunzig”
- federalreverse-old ( @federalreverse@feddit.de ) English3•1 year ago
(It only applies to the tens tho)
Tens, but also ten-thousands, ten-millions, ten-billions … you get the gist.
- smik ( @smik@discuss.tchncs.de ) English4•1 year ago
Yes, and it’s so annoying. I’m Austrian, a bit dyslexic, and sometime I just can’t sevenandeighty sixandseventy.
- callyral [he/they] ( @callyral@pawb.social ) English4•1 year ago
some (very few, i think it’s only the “teens”) english numbers are like that, like seventeen (7+10) for example
- BarqsHasBite ( @someguy3@lemmy.ca ) English1•1 year ago
Kind of. Those are distinct names rather than seven+ten. It took a long time until I even made that connection that teen probably came from ten.
- Io Sapsai 🌱 ( @IoSapsai@lemm.ee ) English2•1 year ago
Only 21-99, after that you say the hundred (thousand, million, etc.) first.
- ChaoticNeutralCzech ( @ChaoticNeutralCzech@feddit.de ) English2•1 year ago
Of course, why would 92 be an exception? (Only numbers with a thousand-group ending in 21-99 do that, though)
- BarqsHasBite ( @someguy3@lemmy.ca ) English2•1 year ago
See French going nuts for 92.
- ChaoticNeutralCzech ( @ChaoticNeutralCzech@feddit.de ) English2•1 year ago
What I mean is they also follow their own weird rules, 92 uses the same system as 91 or 93.
- illi ( @illi@lemm.ee ) English5•1 year ago
Czechia should also be a combination of both 90+2 and 2+90
- ChaoticNeutralCzech ( @ChaoticNeutralCzech@feddit.de ) English2•1 year ago
Ahoj! We’re like ⅞ „devadesát dva“ and ⅛ „dvaadevadesát“. Some numbers have it higher (25 is closest to ½/½) but we use inverse reading quite rarely overall.
Join [czech-lemmy.eu](https://czech-lemmy.eu)
- illi ( @illi@lemm.ee ) English1•1 year ago
Point is it is used and understood :)
- Queen HawlSera ( @HawlSera@lemm.ee ) English4•1 year ago
Who out here is calling ninety two as two ninety?
- ChaoticNeutralCzech ( @ChaoticNeutralCzech@feddit.de ) English15•1 year ago
Look at the map, dude. German, Dutch, Slovenian, sometimes Norwegian (and Czech). Usually adding “and” between the two numbers.
- Mananasi ( @Mananasi@feddit.nl ) English9•1 year ago
In Dutch it’s tweeënnegentig. Which is three words connected: twee en negentig. Or literally translated: two and ninety.
- Anders ( @Anders@lemdro.id ) English5•1 year ago
In Norwegian, the correct way to say it is ninety two, but in daily speech, it’s interchangeable with two-and-ninety.
- stepanzak ( @stepanzak@iusearchlinux.fyi ) English2•1 year ago
Same in Czech, but the two-and-ninety is not much used.
- FluffyPotato ( @FluffyPotato@lemm.ee ) English2•1 year ago
Actually in Estonian it’s üheksakümmend kaks. The first being a compound word of nine(üheksa) and ten(kümme) while kaks is just two. So it would be 9+10+2.
- FarceMultiplier ( @FarceMultiplier@lemmy.ca ) English5•1 year ago
Wouldn’t that be more like “nine 10s plus two”?
- Colour_me_triggered ( @Colour_me_triggered@lemm.ee ) English1•1 year ago
Also in parts of Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Russia it’s 9,10, 2. Ie the 10 is seperate from the 9 (ovcci logi guokta).
- UndercoverUlrikHD ( @UndercoverUlrikHD@programming.dev ) English2•1 year ago
As in Sámi?
- Colour_me_triggered ( @Colour_me_triggered@lemm.ee ) English1•1 year ago
Yes