1828.—"In a two-poled tent of a great size, and lined with yellow woollen stuff of Europe, sat Nader Koolee Khan, upon a coarse numud...."—The Kuzzilbash, i. 254.
[1850.—"The natives use (for their tents) a sort of woollen stuff, about half an inch thick, called 'numbda.'... By the bye, this word 'numbda' is said to be the origin of the word nomade, because the nomade tribes used the same material for their tents" (!)—Letter in Notes and Queries, 1st ser. i. 342.]
NUMERICAL AFFIXES, CO-EFFICIENTS, or DETERMINATIVES.[[190]] What is meant by these expressions can perhaps be best elucidated by an extract from the Malay Grammar of the late venerable John Crawfurd:
"In the enumeration of certain objects, the Malay has a peculiar idiom which, as far as I know, does not exist in any other language of the Archipelago. It is of the same nature as the word 'head,' as we use it in the tale of cattle, or 'sail' in the enumeration of ships; but in Malay it extends to many familiar objects. Alai, of which the original meaning has not been ascertained, is applied to such tenuous objects as leaves, grasses, &c.; Batang, meaning 'stem,' or 'trunk,' to trees, logs, spears, and javelins; Bantak, of which the meaning has not been ascertained, to such objects as rings; Bidang, which means 'spreading' or 'spacious,' to mats, carpets, thatch, sails, skins, and hides; Biji, 'seeds,' to corn, seeds, stones, pebbles, gems, eggs, the eyes of animals, lamps, and candlesticks," and so on. Crawfurd names 8 or 9 other terms, one or other of which is always used in company with the numeral, in ennumerating different classes of objects, as if, in English, idiom should compel us to say 'two stems of spears,' 'four spreads of carpets,' 'six corns of diamonds.' As a matter of fact we do speak of 20 head of cattle, 10 file of soldiers, 100 sail of ships, 20 pieces of cannon, a dozen stand of rifles. But still the practice is in none of these cases obligatory, it is technical and exceptional; insomuch that I remember, when a boy, in old Reform-Bill days, and when disturbances were expected in a provincial town, hearing it stated by a well-informed lady that a great proprietress in the neighbourhood was so alarmed that she had ordered from town a whole stand of muskets!
To some small extent the idiom occurs also in other European languages, including French and German. Of French I don't remember any example now except tête (de betail), nor of German except Stück, which is, however, almost as universal as the Chinese piecey. A quaint example dwells in my memory of a German courier, who, when asked whether he had any employer at the moment, replied: 'Ja freilich! dreizehn Stück Amerikaner!'
The same peculiar idiom that has been described in the extract from Crawfurd as existing in Malay, is found also in Burmese. The Burmese affixes seem to be more numerous, and their classification to be somewhat more arbitrary and sophisticated. Thus oos, a root implying 'chief' or 'first,' is applied to kings, divinities, priests, &c.; Yauk, 'a male,' to rational beings not divine; Gaung, 'a brute beast,' to irrational beings; Pya implying superficial extent, to dollars, countries, dishes, blankets, &c.; Lun, implying rotundity, to eggs, loaves, bottles, cups, toes, fingers, candles, bamboos, hands, feet, &c.; Tseng and Gyaung, 'extension in a straight line,' to rods, lines, spears, roads, &c.
The same idiom exists in Siamese, and traces of it appear in some of the vocabularies that have been collected of tribes on the frontier of China and Tibet, indicated by the fact that the numerals in such vocabularies in various instances show identity of origin in the essential part of the numeral, whilst a different aspect is given to the whole word by a variation in what appears to be the numeral-affix[[191]] (or what Mr. Brian Hodgson calls the 'servile affix'). The idiom exists in the principal vernaculars of China itself, and it is a transfer of this idiom from Chinese dialects to Pigeon-English which has produced the piecey, which in that quaint jargon seems to be used as the universal numerical affix ("Two piecey cooly," "three piecey dollar," &c.).
This one [pigeon] phrase represents scores that are used in the vernaculars. For in some languages the system has taken what seems an extravagant development, which must form a great difficulty in the acquisition of colloquial use by foreigners. Some approximate statistics on this subject will be given below.
The idiom is found in Japanese and Corean, but it is in these cases possibly not indigenous, but an adoption from the Chinese.
It is found in several languages of C. America, i.e. the Quiché of Guatemala, the Nahault of Mexico Proper; and in at least two other languages (Tep and Pirinda) of the same region. The following are given as the co-efficients or determinatives chiefly used in the (Nahualt or) Mexican. Compare them with the examples of Malay and Burmese usage already given: