Why do we say "first" instead of "oneth". Or, maybe I should be asking . . . why do we say "sixth" and "tenth" and so on instead of "sixst" and "tenst"? Why the difference?

Darn good question.

Similarly at two: the words for our cardinal and ordinal numbers (two and second) don't sound at all alike. So I'll ask the same question at the two-level.

I'll twoth - I mean second - that, and add 'third'. Why are the first three numbers so special? And is it the same in other languages? French, I know, has 'premier(e)', but 'deuxieme' and 'troisieme' just follow the same rules as all the other numbers - although the word 'second(e)' is also used interchangeably with 'deuxieme'.

We're not really sure why. The first two or so ordinals are different in Latin also: unus ~ primus, duo ~ secundus. Interesting that the Old English oþer (or æfterra) was replaced by Romance second (via French). Besides OE fyrst, there were also forma and fyrmest, which may be related to foremost.

The suffixes are varied, too. -st, -nd (borrowed from Latin), -d, -th. -st also shows up in the superlative (e.g., biggest) and the second person singular familiar (e.g., thou lovest). -th is also a suffix for deriving abstract nouns from adjectives (e.g., warmth, dearth, length). In Latin, the normal suffix from tertius 'third' on is the same as the -ius for the neuter comparative (e.g., major, majus).

quote:

Originally posted by Caterwauller:
Why do we say "first" instead of "oneth".

What you mean, "WE?" I thay it! "Oneth upon a time there wath a ___________ ________ _________(fill in the blankths)"

I don't know the answer to your question. It seems like I read something about it once, but I don't remember. But I did find some interesting information.

Zeroth is used in mathematics and science. So, apparently, are 1th and 2th, presumably pronounced oneth and twoth. Can any of you mathematicians out there verify that?

Zeroth is found in several dictionaries, but oneth and twoth aren't. But mathematics has a lot of weird words, such as quattuorquinquagintillion, that aren't in any dictionary I know of.

I've heard of the First, Second, and Third Laws of Thermodynamics, but the Zeroth Law of Thermodynamics is new to me.

Then there's the fairy tale that begins, "Oneth upon a time ..."

Tinman

This message has been edited. Last edited by: tinman,

I have absolutely no idea at all I'm afraid. At least there is some kind of structural link between 'three' and 'third' but 'one' and 'two' completely baffle me! At first I thought that it was simply that 'oneth' and 'twoeth' didn't roll of the tongue very easily but if we had always used those words I suppose 'first' and 'second' would seem equally daft. Could 'first' be different because the word implies something special that cannot be associated with any subsequent number. As a society we place great emphasis on being first and in that respect is the word constructed with an eye to the word and concept of 'foremost'.

Oh, folks, please. Why do we say better and best instead of gooder and goodest? Because that's how language developed. For the record, the process is called suppletion. Another example, in English, would be the various forms for the verb to be: (am, are, art, is), (was, were), (be, being, and been). The cardinals eleven and twelve don't follow the pattern for forming the integers between 10 and 20. And while we're on about unanswerable questions, why do the French say quatre-vingts (literally four-twenties) for 'eighty' and the Belgians octante (which at least looks like it's related to Latin octoginta)?

When learning a language, most learners unwittingly replace these weird and illogical forms with nonce words that make sense according to rules of the language they are learning, but are soon corrected by the keepers of the sacred grammar into using the illogical forms

Oh come on! You mean to say it just happened that way? And that's a good enough answer? Just because? After all this?

Sigh.

If you say so.

I don't buy that. To say that something is the way it is because it developed that way doesn't say anything. There's a reason for everything. We may not know what it is, but there's still a reason.

Tinman

I read somewhere that the verb "to be" is irregular in most, if not all, languages. Even Turkish, which is a very regular language (I'm told - I don't speak it) has an irregular form.

I don't buy that.

The truth is we don't know why language changes. At least there is no accepted majority opinion. What I meant to say is that: "Sure, there's a reason, but it's unknown and very possibly unknowable." Sorry about that.

As for to be being irregular in most languages, there's one, off the top of my head, that has over a billion speakers: Mandarin Chinese in which to be is perfectly regular, like all its other verbs. Mind you Chinese does distinguish, as do many languages, between two kinds of to be: the copula and the existential verb.

This website http://viking.coe.uh.edu/grnl1/less7/ee7.1a.htm (a Greek course)suggests that the iregularity of verbs depends on the verb's antiquity. It says: "As languages evolve, they tend to become more regular and therefore simpler and more predictable. It stands to reason, then, that basic notions which must go back to the most archaic stages of human communication tend to be irregular. The verb to be is a prime example. Consider its forms in foreign languages that you may know and even in English."

Having googled this I have found many languages in which the verb "to be" is irregular, including Greek, Gaelic, Turkish, Welsh, Italian, Spanish and, of course, English.

Plus I have found several statements to the effect that "To be" is universally irregular. However, none on these cite any research or even figures so I don't place too much credibility on them.

There is one hypothesis out there that languages become simpler (whatever that means) as they age. The problem with all languages getting simpler as they age, is that by now all languages should be simple. And how do "complex" languages develop? All the examples of irregular verbs in IE languages have to do with languages getting more "complex" (morphologically) as they develop. Another problem with this kind of linguistic speculation is that languages have been around a lot longer than the 6K or so years that writing has around. We don't really know what was going on for the period before writing was developed and after which language developed. Many speculate ...

In Chinese, verbs are not conjugated, so they cannot be regular or irregular [in their inflection]. Many of the lay pronouncements about language don't make much sense if looked at from a linguistic POV.