vigesimal counting system

stephanus

Leaving through my Old Irish Primer I found that there was no trace of a vigesimal counting system there! I always thought this was a very old feature of Celtic languages. Is that not so?
Or did Mr Stifter, author of that book, leave that out for teaching purposes. But then, he gives a full list of numerals between 20 and 100 in the decimal system. So they must have existed.
Have I only been prejudiced?

Enkidu

Believe it or not, the vigesimal number system seems to be more of a feature of the Insular Celtic languages than the Celtic languages in general.
Gaulish appears not to have had a vigesimal number system, it counted in tens. You usually hear about the vigesimal system because people used to think Gaulish had it based on French. However that was thrown out when the Gaulish word for thirty was found "tricontis".

Irish traditionally had a decimal system just like the older Celtic languages, such as Gaulish. By the time of the Old Irish covered in Stifter's textbook, the decimal system was still correct.

The current idea is that Celtic had a decimal system inherited from Indo-European, but developed a vigesimal system from the original (non-Indo-European) languages of the British Isles.

By the way, Stifter is one of the most well written textbooks I have ever read, a real joy to read. I hope you enjoy it.

stephanus

Fascinating, really!
I love that book. It is on my night desk and almost every day before falling asleep I browse in it, look at the drawings, mumble the words, read conjugation patterns and dream of the day when I make a boarding announcement in classic Irish.

Krusader

Céard é an vegesimal counting system?
What's the vegesimal counting system?

ballsymchugh

think it's counting in twenties. in irish, 84 would be ceithre scór is a ceathar, instead of ochtó ceathar.

open to correction though!!