What I Learned Today

Some things come along so early in our language learning that we never think to wonder about them.

Our English numbers “eleven” and “twelve” fall into this category for me. They don’t follow the later “teens” pattern – why not “oneteen” and “twoteen” or some variant?

Recently I learned why! According to etymoline.com, eleven leaves the reference to ten totally implicit and just refers to having one more than [ten], or “one left” (after counting ten):

eleven (num.): “1 more than ten; the number which is one more than ten; a symbol representing this number;” c. 1200, elleovene, from Old English enleofan, endleofan, literally “one left” (over ten)

and the same thing happened for twelve (“two left”):

twelve (num.): Old English twelf “twelve,” literally “two left” (over ten), from Proto-Germanic *twa-lif-, a compound of *twa– (from PIE root *dwo– “two”) + *lif– (from PIE root *leikw– “to leave”)

Note: “PIE root” means for a Proto-Indo-European root that has been reconstructed due to common occurrences across multiple languages.

However, the pattern changes when we get to thrilve thirteen, at least in English. And etymonline notes that

Outside Germanic the only instance of this formation is in Lithuanian, which uses –lika “left over” and continues the series to 19 (vienuo-lika “eleven,” dvy-lika “twelve,” try-lika “thirteen,” keturio-lika “fourteen,” etc.).”

Words are never just words; they impact how we live and think, too. We have separate terms for kids in their “tweens” (before 13) and “teens” (13+). Those terms carry different expectations in terms of maturity, hormonal activity, appetite, need for sleep, etc. Would we have this conceptual division if our numbers, as in Lithuanian, were more regular for the full range 11-19? Maybe, maybe not.