11 4 3 3 4 100 2 2
Rudra, ocean, Rama, quality, Veda, hundred, two, couple,
32
Teeth: by the wise have been set forth in order the mighty lords.’[[318]]
It occurred to Wilhelm von Humboldt, in studying this curious system of numeration, that he had before his eyes the evidence of a process very like that which actually produced the regular numeral words denoting one, two, three, &c., in the various languages of the world. The following passage in which, more than sixty years ago, he set forth this view, seems to me to contain a nearly perfect key to the theory of numeral words. ‘If we take into consideration the origin of actual numerals, the process of their formation appears evidently to have been the same as that here described. The latter is nothing else than a wider extension of the former. For when 5 is expressed, as in several languages of the Malay family, by “hand” (lima), this is precisely the same thing as when in the description of numbers by words, 2 is denoted by “wing.” Indisputably there lie at the root of all numerals such metaphors as these, though they cannot always be now traced. But people seem early to have felt that the multiplicity of such signs for the same number was superfluous, too clumsy, and leading to misunderstandings.’ Therefore, he goes on to argue, synonyms of numerals are very rare. And to nations with a deep sense of language, the feeling must soon have been present, though perhaps without rising to distinct consciousness, that recollections of the original etymology and descriptive meaning of numerals had best be allowed to disappear, so as to leave the numerals themselves to become mere conventional terms.
The most instructive evidence I have found bearing on the formation of numerals, other than digit-numerals, among the lower races, appears in the use on both sides of the globe of what may be called numeral-names for children. In Australia a well-marked case occurs. With all the poverty of the aboriginal languages in numerals, 3 being commonly used as meaning ‘several or many,’ the natives in the Adelaide district have for a particular purpose gone far beyond this narrow limit, and possess what is to all intents a special numeral system, extending perhaps to 9. They give fixed names to their children in order of age, which are set down as follows by Mr. Eyre: 1. Kertameru; 2. Warritya; 3. Kudnutya; 4. Monaitya; 5. Milaitya; 6. Marrutya; 7. Wangutya; 8. Ngarlaitya; 9. Pouarna. These are the male names, from which the female differ in termination. They are given at birth, more distinctive appellations being soon afterwards chosen.[[319]] A similar habit makes its appearance among the Malays, who in some districts are reported to use a series of seven names in order of age, beginning with 1. Sulung (‘eldest’); 2. Awang (‘friend, companion’), and ending with Kechil (‘little one’), or Bongsu (‘youngest’). These are for sons; daughters have Meh prefixed, and nicknames have to be used for practical distinction.[[320]] In Madagascar, the Malay connexion manifests itself in the appearance of a similar set of appellations given to children in lieu of proper names, which are, however, often substituted in after years. Males; Lahimatoa (‘first male’), Lah-ivo (‘intermediate male’); Ra-fara-lahy (‘last born male’). Females; Ramatoa (‘eldest female’), Ra-ivo (‘intermediate’), Ra-fara-vavy (‘last born female’).[[321]] The system exists in North America. There have been found in use among the Dacotas the following two series of names for sons and daughters in order of birth. Eldest son, Chaské; second, Haparm; third, Ha-pe-dah; fourth, Chatun; fifth Harka. Eldest daughter, Wenonah; second, Harpen; third, Harpstenah; fourth, Waska; fifth, We-harka. These mere numeral appellations they retain through childhood, till their relations or friends find occasion to replace them by bestowing some more distinctive personal name.[[322]] Africa affords further examples.[[323]]
As to numerals in the ordinary sense, Polynesia shows remarkable cases of new formation. Besides the well-known system of numeral words prevalent in Polynesia, exceptional terms have from time to time grown up. Thus the habit of altering words which sounded too nearly like a king’s name, has led the Tahitians on the accession of new chiefs to make several new words for numbers. Thus, wanting a new term for 2 instead of the ordinary rua, they for obvious reasons took up the word piti, ‘together,’ and made it a numeral, while to get a new word for 5 instead of rima, ‘hand,’ which had to be discontinued, they substituted pae, ‘part, division,’ meaning probably division of the two hands. Such words as these, introduced in Polynesia for ceremonial reasons, are expected to be dropped again and the old ones replaced, when the reason for their temporary exclusion ceases, yet the new 2 and 5, piti and pae, became so positively the proper numerals of the language, that they stand instead of rua and rima in the Tahitian translation of the Gospel of St. John made at the time. Again, various special habits of counting in the South Sea Islands have had their effect on language. The Marquesans, counting fish or fruit by one in each hand, have come to use a system of counting by pairs instead of by units. They start with tauna, ‘a pair,’ which thus becomes a numeral equivalent to 2; then they count onward by pairs, so that when they talk of takau or 10, they really mean 10 pair or 20. For bread-fruit, as they are accustomed to tie them up in knots of four, they begin with the word pona, ‘knot,’ which thus becomes a real numeral for 4, and here again they go on counting by knots, so that when they say takau or 10, they mean 10 knots or 40. The philological mystification thus caused in Polynesian vocabularies is extraordinary; in Tahitian, &c., rau and mano, properly meaning 100 and 1,000, have come to signify 200 and 2,000, while in Hawaii a second doubling in their sense makes them equivalent to 400 and 4,000. Moreover, it seems possible to trace the transfer of suitable names of objects still farther in Polynesia in the Tongan and Maori word tekau, 10, which seems to have been a word for ‘parcel’ or ‘bunch,’ used in counting yams and fish, as also in tefuhi, 100, derived from fuhi, ‘sheaf or bundle.’[[324]]
In Africa, also, special numeral formations are to be noticed. In the Yoruba language, 40 is called ogodzi, ‘a string,’ because cowries are strung by forties, and 200 is igba, ‘a heap,’ meaning again a heap of cowries. Among the Dahomans in like manner, 40 cowries make a kade or ‘string,’ 50 strings make one afo or ‘head;’ these words becoming numerals for 40 and 2,000. When the king of Dahome attacked Abeokuta, it is on record that he was repulsed with the heavy loss of ‘two heads, twenty strings, and twenty cowries’ of men, that is to say, 4,820.[[325]]
Among cultured nations, whose languages are most tightly bound to the conventional and unintelligible numerals of their ancestors, it is likewise usual to find other terms existing which are practically numerals already, and might drop at once into the recognized places of such, if by any chance a gap were made for them in the traditional series. Had we room, for instance, for a new word instead of two, then either pair (Latin par, ‘equal’) or couple (Latin copula, ‘bond or tie,’) is ready to fill its place. Instead of twenty, the good English word score, ‘notch,’ will serve our turn, while, for the same purpose, German can use stiege, possibly with the original sense of ‘a stall full of cattle, a sty;’ Old Norse drôtt, ‘a company,’ Danish, snees. A list of such words used, but not grammatically classed as numerals in European languages, shows great variety: examples are, Old Norse, flockr (flock), 5; sveit, 6; drôtt (party), 20; thiodh (people), 30; fölk (people), 40; öld (people), 80; her (army), 100; Sleswig, schilk, 12 (as though we were to make a numeral out of ‘shilling’); Middle High-German, rotte, 4; New High-German, mandel, 15; schock (sheaf), 60. The Letts give a curious parallel to Polynesian cases just cited. They throw crabs and little fish three at a time in counting them, and therefore the word mettens, ‘a throw,’ has come to mean 3; while flounders being fastened in lots of thirty, the word kahlis, ‘a cord,’ becomes a term to express this number.[[326]]
In two other ways, the production of numerals from merely descriptive words may be observed both among lower and higher races. The Gallas have no numerical fractional terms, but they make an equivalent set of terms from the division of the cakes of salt which they use as money. Thus tchabnana, ‘a broken piece’ (from tchaba, ‘to break,’ as we say ‘a fraction’), receives the meaning of one-half; a term which we may compare with Latin dimidium, French demi. Ordinal numbers are generally derived from cardinal numbers, as third, fourth, fifth, from three, four, five. But among the very low ones there is to be seen evidence of independent formation quite unconnected with a conventional system of numerals already existing. Thus the Greenlander did not use his ‘one’ to make ‘first,’ but calls it sujugdlek, ‘foremost,’ nor ‘two’ to make ‘second,’ which he calls aipâ, ‘his companion;’ it is only at ‘third’ that he takes to his cardinals, and forms pingajuat in connexion with pingasut, 3. So, in Indo-European languages, the ordinal prathamas, πρῶτος, primus, first, has nothing to do with a numerical ‘one,’ but with the preposition pra, ‘before,’ as meaning simply ‘foremost;’ and although Greeks and Germans call the next ordinal δεύτερος, zweite, from δυό, zwei, we call it second, Latin secundus, ‘the following’ (sequi), which is again a descriptive sense-word.