this post was submitted on 26 Sep 2023
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I've always found the Danish numbers intriguing. I understand the whole "halvfem-sinds-tyve"- thing and the other ones of similar origin but I can't wrap my head around "elleve" and "tolv". Do you remember the origin of those?
It's literally the same in English as well, eleven and twelve are clearly related.
Not really, but they're essentially the same as the German "elf" and "zwölf", so we probably got them from the same place as them ;)
Wiktionary suggests the common proto-Germanic root of eleven/twelve, elf/zwölf are likely to have been "ainalif" and "twalif" - "one left over" and "two left over".
You can thank Proto-Germanic for that.