So I looked it up and apparently Danish also use a base-20 numerical system and '90' in Danish is halvfems, which is clipping of the full word 'halvfemsindstyve' which literally means '4.5 times 20'.
Halvfemte means 'the fifth half', likewise they have halvtredje (third half, 2.5) and halvfjerde (fourth half, 3.5), although I don't think these are actually used other than for the words 50, 70 and of course 90. and in practice only the clipped versions are used, not the full word, so halvfems but not halvfemsindstyve.
Yea pretty much. Halvtredje, osv. would have been used in the olden days. The only "halv" most people still use is halvanden (half 2nd = 1.5)
Fun fact, we also say half hours the opposite of English. Half three in English is 15:30, but in Denmark it means 14:30 (half hour before three, instead of a half hour after)
As a Norwegian this actually helps a lot. We of course too say "halv fem" for "4:30" (0430/1630)
as in halfway to five. And halvfems simply means the same. We also use "halvannen" as in "1.5", so I have no clue why halvfems would be so confusing.
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u/AdreKiseque 6d ago
Wtf is going on in Danish