On 2023-11-14, Paul S Person <psperson@old.netcom.invalid> wrote:

>>> For those who are unaware of the weirdness in French names for numbers,
>>> this Numberphile video explains:
>>
>>English isn't exempt. Justify the names of the numbers11-19.
>
> At least we don't decline /both parts/, as Russian does in some cases.

Okay, when you're whining about other languages' number words, let's
get this one out of the way: Hindi numbers 1 to 100 are irregular.
All of them. I mean, you can tell there's an underlying system,
but the exact form of each number is unpredictable and needs to be
memorized. Presumably it started out regular and then some sound
changes happened.

> This is a story I heard at DLI:
> During a slack time, some of the instructors of the lesser Slavic
> languages (anything but Russian was, of course, "lesser" fromt the
> Russian position) were kept on staff allegedly being trained to teach
> Russian.
>
> When the class they were observing started declining /both parts/ of
> the relevant numerals, they ran out of the classroom. They couldn't
> stand the insanity.

I'm not sure I understand. Various other Slavic languages are
similar to Russian in this respect. If anything, Russian inflectional
morphology overall seems a tad simpler than that of, say, Polish
or Czech.

--
Christian "naddy" Weisgerber naddy@mips.inka.de

On Sat, 18 Nov 2023 16:28:49 -0000 (UTC), Christian Weisgerber
<naddy@mips.inka.de> wrote:

>On 2023-11-14, Paul S Person <psperson@old.netcom.invalid> wrote:
>
>>>> For those who are unaware of the weirdness in French names for numbers,
>>>> this Numberphile video explains:
>>>
>>>English isn't exempt. Justify the names of the numbers11-19.
>>
>> At least we don't decline /both parts/, as Russian does in some cases.
>
>Okay, when you're whining about other languages' number words, let's
>get this one out of the way: Hindi numbers 1 to 100 are irregular.
>All of them. I mean, you can tell there's an underlying system,
>but the exact form of each number is unpredictable and needs to be
>memorized. Presumably it started out regular and then some sound
>changes happened.
>
>> This is a story I heard at DLI:
>> During a slack time, some of the instructors of the lesser Slavic
>> languages (anything but Russian was, of course, "lesser" fromt the
>> Russian position) were kept on staff allegedly being trained to teach
>> Russian.
>>
>> When the class they were observing started declining /both parts/ of
>> the relevant numerals, they ran out of the classroom. They couldn't
>> stand the insanity.
>
>I'm not sure I understand. Various other Slavic languages are
>similar to Russian in this respect. If anything, Russian inflectional
>morphology overall seems a tad simpler than that of, say, Polish
>or Czech.

Their's didn't decline /both parts/. Just the second part, and so the
whole word.
--
"Here lies the Tuscan poet Aretino,
Who evil spoke of everyone but God,
Giving as his excuse, 'I never knew him.'"