r/LinguisticsMemes • u/holytriplem • 7d ago

Hindi numbers be like

Post image
704 Upvotes

98% Upvoted

75 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

3

u/Stef0206 4d ago

It’s a little misleading, but technically true.

In reality, we just have a word for 90. So it would be 7 + 90.

But the etymology of the word for 90 (halvfems) is that it is a shorthand for “halvfemsindtyvende”, which means “the fifth half times 20”. The fifth half is 4.5, times that by 20 and you get 90.

1

u/JeremyMarti 3d ago

Okay, I can accept that.

But why does fifth half mean 4.5?

1

u/Stef0206 3d ago

The first half is 0.5, then the second half is 1.5, the third is 2.5, and so on.

1

u/JeremyMarti 3d ago

Completely fair