• 1rre
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    12 hours ago

    No, 1-12 are influenced by the old base 12 Germanic/Norse system, which is why -teen starts at thirteen, same as in German (11: elf, 12: zwölf, 13: dreizehn, 14: vierzehn & so on)… The -teen for 1x in english is also a carryover from this, being threeten, fourten, fiveten etc. with only numbers over 20 having their orders reversed - German has something similar with “und” only appearing in numbers over 20. English did historically too, eg. “four and twenty blackbirds”.

    Base 20 was historically used for large numbers though, eg “four score and seven years” by Abraham Lincoln, which was a poetic way of saying 87 inspired from Psalms 90:10, which says “The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labour and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away.” in the King James Version, which reflects that using base 20 for large numbers (and not just 80) was not uncommon in the 17th century.