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From: alderson@netcom16.netcom.com (Richard M. Alderson III)
Subject: Re: Number word etymology (was: Why is a circle 360 degrees?)
In-Reply-To: David Kastrup's message of 17 Oct 1996 11:24:37 +0200
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In article <m2vicat02y.fsf@mailhost.neuroinformatik.ruhr-uni-bochum.de>
David Kastrup <dak@mailhost.neuroinformatik.ruhr-uni-bochum.de> writes:

>The Romas had a special word for twenty, I believe, the Greek had one (eikosi)
>which, BTW, strangely resembles the multiples of hundred (tetrakosioi, for
>example).  This same root for twenty is known in English as well ("Four score
>and seven years ago our forefathers...").  Even in German the root is known as
>a military unit (eine Schar), although the knowledge for the exact amount has
>been lost by now, I believe.  Doubtless people better in the know will correct
>me, but "eine Schar" are two "Haeuflein" (or something like that), which are
>two "Haende" themselves, all used as troup strength counts.

I'm not sure what you are referring to here.  The Latin, Greek, English, and
German words are all cognate:  viginti, eikosi (dialectal wikati), twenty,
zwanzig < *dwi-dkomti "two tens" = "20".

The word "score" as a count of twenty is strictly Germanic.
-- 
Rich Alderson   You know the sort of thing that you can find in any dictionary
                of a strange language, and which so excites the amateur philo-
                logists, itching to derive one tongue from another that they
                know better: a word that is nearly the same in form and meaning
                as the corresponding word in English, or Latin, or Hebrew, or
                what not.
                                                --J. R. R. Tolkien,
alderson@netcom.com                               _The Notion Club Papers_
