Saturday, August 9, 2008

Cardinal numbers (part 3)

In this post we'll conclude the discussion about the cardinal numbers. We have:

     H      Å      N     J
  30  [ˈtɾɛtːɪ]   ?      þríatigi   trettig
  40  [ˈfœʈːɪ]   ?      fjóratigi   fyrtig
  50  [ˈfɛmtɪ]   [ˈfæmtɪ]   femmtigi   femtig
  60  [ˈsɛkstɪ]   ?       sextigi   sekstig
  70  [ˈʂɵtːɪ]   ?      sjautigi   sjúttig
  80  [ˈɔtːɪ]    ?          áttatigi   áttig
  90  [ˈnɪtːɪ]    ?      níutigi    nittig
  100 [ˈhɵnɾə]   [ˈhɵnːəɾ]   hundrað   húnnreð
 1000  [ˈtʉːsn̩]   ?       þúsund   túsn

 Unfortunately, my references don't say much more than this. Note the apocopated form [ˈhɵnːəɾ] for 100 in the Åre dialect (Å) suggesting a spelling "húnnr" without -eð. I think this is a secondary form borrowed from Swedish hundra, though. (Swedish words ending in -a typically correspond to apocopated forms in Å.) Alternatively it's the acute accent which has forced an apocopation.
 Cardinal numbers of mixed form such as e.g. 21, 657 etc. are form in the following way: tjugueitt, sekshúnnreðfemtigsjú, respectively, which is very straightforward.
 The system above works for the cardinal numbers 1—999,999. Cardinal numbers greater than 999,999 don't traditionally exist in Jamtlandic, though one could say 1,000,000 is milljón [ˈmɪlːɪ̯uˑn] and 1,000,000,000 is milljarð [ˈmɪlːɪ̯ɑˑɽ].
 Note: The cardinal numbers húnnreð '100' and túsn '1000' can be considered as neuter nouns while milljón '1,000,000' and milljarð '1,000,000,000' are masculine.

 I think next time we'll take a look at the ordinal numbers ('first', 'second',...).

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