Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2024 May 19

= May 19 =

Numbers
What languages stay monosyllabic to high numbers? What if 0 has to be monosyllabic too? Circa what fraction of humans use over and under 11 syllables to say 1 to 10 in their native language? What fraction of Europe residents or Indo-European languages use over/under 11 syllables? Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 22:30, 19 May 2024 (UTC)


 * The names of the numbers from zero to ten, as well as the names of a number of powers of ten, are monosyllabic in Chinese, as you can see at https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Chinese_(Mandarin)/Numbers . It would not be very natural for names of higher numbers which are not multiples of the number system's base (such as "43" or "67" or whatever) to be systematically monosyllabic in a human language. AnonMoos (talk) 23:34, 19 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Though if 12 is monosyllabic in English the record might be at least 11. Maybe some large base language could reach 20 or more? Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 00:14, 20 May 2024 (UTC)
 * French is monosyllabic up to 16 except for 14. All of them are distinct words which is another way of thinking of it. For 17, 18 and 19, then 21 upwards, French uses compound multisyllabic names for numbers.
 * For Chinese powers of ten work like English and similar languages, except using 10,000 instead of 1,000 to build large numbers, so everything above 10,000 is compound except for named powers of 10,000. Everything that isn't a unit or power of ten is compound, although some dialects have single character/syllables for 20 (廿) and others - see Chinese numerals. --92.40.47.76 (talk) 00:39, 20 May 2024 (UTC)
 * I guess it's arguable whether the /wa/ in 'trois' s a true monophthong, though. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 08:24, 20 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Perhaps, but I think most people would consider 'trois' a monosyllable, which is what SMW is investigating. I challenge you to write a spoken line in which 'trois' can plausibly function as a disyllable. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.2.67.173 (talk) 11:53, 20 May 2024 (UTC)
 * I mean, it's a glide... 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 13:40, 20 May 2024 (UTC)