Quick maths question: what is quatre-vingts in French?
Literally, it means "four twenties." The answer is 80. And once you notice it, you start seeing this kind of counting logic everywhere.
The Languages That Count in 20s, Not 10s
Most people assume everyone counts in tens. Ten fingers, ten toes, base-10 maths. It feels obvious.
But quite a few languages are built on a base-20 system, also called vigesimal counting. Instead of grouping numbers in tens, they group them in twenties. And the results look very strange to anyone raised on base-10.
French is the most famous example.
French numbers work normally up to 69. Then things get unusual:
70 = soixante-dix ("sixty-ten")
80 = quatre-vingts ("four-twenties")
90 = quatre-vingt-dix ("four-twenties-ten")
99 = quatre-vingt-dix-neuf ("four-twenties-ten-nine")
French-speaking Belgium and Switzerland actually simplified this. They use septante (70), huitante (80), and nonante (90). Cleaner, logical, and somehow less French.
Why is this fascinating?
French inherited this from old Celtic languages spoken in the region before Latin arrived. Welsh still uses full base-20 counting today. Fifty is hanner cant, which means "half a hundred." Fifteen is pymtheg, "five-ten."
The Yoruba language of West Africa goes further still. Numbers there are calculated using a combination of addition and subtraction from multiples of 20. 35 in Yoruba is literally "five from two-twenties." 45 is "five from ten-from-three-twenties."
And the ancient Mayan civilisation built one of the most sophisticated astronomical calendars in history using base-20 maths entirely. Their number system had a symbol for zero centuries before Europe adopted the concept.
The system you count in isn't neutral. It's a fossil of the culture, geography, and history that shaped your language. Most of us just never thought to ask why ten feels so natural.
The @ symbol has no agreed name. Every language just made one up, and the results are very entertaining.
German: Klammeraffe ("spider monkey")
Italian: chiocciola ("snail")
Russian: sobachka ("little dog")
Czech: zavinac ("rolled herring")
Danish: snabel-a ("elephant trunk A")
Greek: papaki ("little duck")
Hungarian: kukac ("worm")
Every culture looked at the same symbol and saw something completely different. That's linguistics in one small example.
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Which @ name is your favourite? (Rolled herring is my personal pick.)
Hit reply and let me know. I read every single one.
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