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    How people in Asia say the number 57?
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    How people in Asia say the number 57?


    How people in Asia say the number 57?

    Posted by vladgrinch

    View 38 Comments

    38 Comments

    4. GuardHistorical910 on

      Arabs say 7+50~~+100+3000 because they read from right to left~~. [edit: this part seams not to be fully correct, had a false memory] europeans learned “arabic” numerals from arabs, initially adopted that system but changed quite quickly. most languages changed order of the tens and ones over time and had times where both was acepted. even in english.

      In medeival german it also used to be regionally eather 50+7 or 7+50. Martin Luther wrote 7+50 and that stuck.

      In Check Republic and i *think* allso in some scandinavian countys still both is correct. while 7+50 tends to be more casual and 50+7 for more acurate context.

      There is a german association, that advocates for 50+7 in school context and i think they have a point. [https://zwanzigeins.jetzt/](https://zwanzigeins.jetzt/)

    6. HippoPottyMouth-1 on

      “Four Score and 7 years ago..” This is a famous example of the vigesimal system that has roots in many languages including older English. It literally means 4 x 20 + 7.

    11. CantoSacro on

      I’m curious how they differentiate between 5×10+7 and 50+7. In English, 50 has it’s own word, so you could say it is 50+7. But the root of the word fifty is literally “five tens”, so 5*10+7 works also.

    12. limeralism on

      This is not accurate. In Georgian its ორმოცდაჩვიდმეტი which literally means forty and seventeen.

    13. M0rph0ne on

      Korean and Japanese are both natively 50+7 like Turkish and Mongolian, and their new 5×10+7 systems are adopted from Chinese characters.

      As for two digit numbers like 57, the native Japanese number system is obsolete and they now only use the Chinese system 5×10+7. However, in Korean, both systems are used.

    15. mizinamo on

      For Hindi, every number from 1 to 99 has to be memorised separately; 57 is *not* made up out of the words for 7 and 50.

      * सत्तावन = sattaavan = 57
      * सात = saat = 7
      * पचास = pacaas = 50

      The number words make sense in Sanskrit, but the sound changes to Hindi made a huge mess out of it. You can still recognise *patterns*, but it’s not regular by any means.

      You can see the similarity between *saat* and *sattaa-*, but they’re not the same vowel length nor the same consonant length, nor even the same number of syllables. And *-van* and *pacaas* bear no visible relationship at all.

      If you go back to Sanskrit *saptapañcāśat* and take the individual portions *sapta* and *pañcāśat*, you can kind of see how *sapta* turned into *saat*, *pañcāśat* turned into *pacaas*, and *saptapañcāśat* turned into *sattaavan*.

      But synchronically?

      Different bits got eroded in each component.

      It’s like trying to figure out how “could**a**” and “I’**ve**” are related.

      —————-

      “But wait!” you say. “Perhaps the combining forms *satta-* and *-van* are regular!”

      Well, let’s have a look:

      * 17 = **sat**rah
      * 27 = **sattaa**iis
      * 37 = **sãĩ**tiis
      * 47 = **sãĩ**taliis
      * 57 = **sattaa**van
      * 67 = **saR**sath
      * 77 = **sat**hattar
      * 87 = **sattaa**sii
      * 97 = **sattaa**nve

      So, sometimes sattaa- but sometimes sãĩ- or sat- or or even saR-.

      * 49 = un**caas**
      * 50 = **pacaas**
      * 51 = ikyaa**van**
      * 52 = baa**van**
      * 53 = tir**pan**
      * 54 = cau**van**, cav**van**
      * 55 = pac**pan**
      * 56 = chap**pan**
      * 57 = sattaa**van**
      * 58 = attaa**van**

      So — usually -van but sometimes -pan, and -caas in the subtractive 49 (“one less than fifty”, which is how Hindi expresses its numbers ending in -9).

      And of course 77 is sat-hat-ar instead of sat-sat-*something*.

    21. sweetmangolover on

      In Southern Indian languages, 50+7 and 5*10+7 are pronounced similarly. At least in Tamil, Ainbathu is both 50 and 5 x 10.

    24. Strange-Ad147 on

      Umm what? It’s 50 and 7 in Burmese. 50 kinda sounds like 5 and 10 but it’s different.

    25. littypika on

      This explains why East Asia and Southeast Asia on average is so good at mental math, they don’t have a unique term for a lot of numbers, so you have to use math which is baked in the language itself.

      Also, Cambodia has a very silly method.

    26. TheDomy on

      Are I missing something or why have I seen like 4 maps recently in which India and only India is subdivided like that, I know the language differences but it’s surprising anyone cared to think about that only for India

    34. ComputerAbuser on

      I guess it would take a while to count to 100 when you have to say 4 words per compound number.