Two and Forty: How German numerals screw with my head
The German language has a very odd way of expressing numerals higher than 20. Probably not as odd as French, but definitely odd enough to screw up my brain for the rest of my life. In German, we call the number 42 “zweiundvierzig”, which literally means “two and forty”, whereas English uses the much more logical combination “forty-two”. However, if you look at the numerals between 11 and 19, you might notice that English and German use the same system: “thirteen” and “dreizehn” are identical – a result of tradition.
But why exactly do Germans not use “vierzig-zwei”? This is a question I often ask myself. The answer probably lies somewhere between tradition and habit. Not too long ago, language in Germany (and in many other countries) had little written tradition. Though scholars and poets produced plenty of masterpieces, the majority of people where illiterate. Perhaps they might not even have been able to read numbers, so for them the backwards representation of a number like 42 would not have caused them any trouble since they could not imagine it.
English actually has a similar history. In Old English, the number 42 would have been expressed as “twēgen and fēowertig” and the English numerals between 11 and 19 have not changed this form. However, under the influence of Norman French, the direction of English numerals above 20 was gradually reversed. Numbers according to the old, Germanic tradition can still occasionally be found in 18th & 19th century English literature. German however, has not undergone the same drastic changes due to intense language contact situations as English. The German language has remained relatively stable compared to English, and therefore we also still suffer from unlogical numbers.
For me this has been an ever increasing problem throughout my life. I have always been abysmal at math, a problem which might even be attributed to the fact that German numerals in itself are expressed as a math problem. 42 plus 57 equals… two-and-forty plus seven-and-fifty. However, this problem has become worse since I started learning English. English uses that lovely logical system of forty-two. First number first, second number second. Awesome!
But then it started… me in the supermarket, the cashier just told me to pay two euros and seven-and-fifty cents. I rummage in my purse and give him 2.75 EUR. Oh noes, that can’t be right! This happens ALL THE TIME. Now that I’m in Australia, I notice how this problem just keeps getting worse. Now that people are actually talking perfectly logical English to me, my native German system interferes with that. If someone asks me for two dollars and fifty-seven cents I might give them 2.75 as well! Oh dear. (Though technically nobody in Australia would ask for 57 cents, since apparently there are no coins smaller than 5 cents). But even when I’m asked for something as simple as my phone number, I completely screw up the order. “It’s one four… no wait, it’s actually oh four one…” this doesn’t even make sense according to the German system. I think this constant back and forth thinking has completely ruined my ability to deal with numbers at all. That would definitely be a good explanation for my horrible math skills.
After a bit of googling, I’m happy so say that I’m not alone with this problem. There’s a club in Germany that wants to reverse German numerals and appeals to school teachers and politicians to make this change official. I would welcome this change very much, however, knowing what Germans are like, it might be tough to kick them out of their comfort zone of tradition and habit and all that crap.
I have the same problem with dates. Date formats are different everywhere around the world, and especially the Americans’ is extremely retarded. And because I handle lots of dates in my day job, I have taken to always using the ISO 8601 notation, because it is sortable and makes the most sense to me. My coworkers, however: Not so much. And then there’s software which, insists on telling me that today’s “30JUL13”, or “7/30/13”, or, even more confusingly, “7.30.13”. Some software will accept only a specific format, some accepts only the one that has been set in the system preferences, and my favourite, Excel, localizes everything internally so you can’t write a program that runs on two differently set up machines without developing a serious headache.
It has gotten so bad that I can’t glance at my desk phone or into Outlook’s calendar and easily tell the date, even though both have been configured to display the notation that I usually write.
This seems to me to be related to the numbers weirdness. I read somewhere that it is a function of the time they came into common use, and the most significant bit of information would come first. And that seems to make some sense to me, because the same is often said to explain the imperial units system.
How do they do it in Australia, btw?
As for numbers and numerals, I used to think that I was completely unable to learn them in a new language. For years even though my English was way better than I had any real use for, numbers would always be german in my head. And I’m not the only one, I would think: Playing boardgames, you can often hear people counting things in the language they grew up with.
And now I am doing it again: When I read norwegian, every number comes up German or English. I think that maybe the parts of the brain that deal with language do not have very much at all to do with those that can add and subtract numbers.
Glad to hear it’s not just me. It used to throw me off all the time, especially when I first immigrated to Germany. As a bilingual, I assume I’ve been able to make that distinction over time and it doesn’t bother me as much any more. Practice, as always, makes perfect – or at least less imperfect.
Simon: Australians use DD/MM/YYYY along with the 12-hour-clock.