On Mon, 10 Jan 2000, Sergey Panov wrote:
> I just want to make sure it is 100 and not 10 like in Croatian, Czech,
> Polish, Russian, and Serbian.(with special rule for N<20)
Yes. I am not a linguist, but I would guess it is due to the fact that
we have adopted the German way of counting. While most languages count
hundreds, tens and ones, Germans do hundreds, ones and tens. Compare the
expressions for the number 21, for example:
English: twentyone
French: vingt-et-un
Italian: ventuno
Croatian: dvadeset jedan
Polish: dwadzieśca jeden
Hungarian: huszonegy
But some have it the other way around:
German: einundzwanzig
Dutch: eenentwintig
Slovenian: enaindvajset
Gujarati: ekvees
So, singular "one" only comes around every hundred, not every ten.
Both German and Dutch are inflexional languages, so they are actually not
affected. I don't know about Gujarati, but Slovenian is flexional, like
most (all?) Slavic languages.
BTW, the formula below is also valid for zero: the remainder here is
neither one nor two, three or four, and indeed we use for zero the same
form as for 5-100:
0 nič programov nič datotek
(Like in "izbrali ste 0 datotek" -- you have selected 0 files).
Please don't hesitate to ask if you think we can be of further assistance
at clarifying things. :-)
With kind regards,
Primož
> ----- Forwarded message from Miha Tom?i? <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> -----
>
> I got this from a friend on Slovenian GNU/LI List <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>
> Slovenian
> Three plural forms (actually, one dual and two plural forms).
> ----------------------------------
> if (N % 100 == 1)
> <use singular form>
> else if (N % 100 == 2)
> <use plural form 1>
> else if ((N % 100 == 3) || (N % 100 == 4))
> <use plural form 2>
> else
> <use plural form 3>
> ----------------------------------
>
> As an illustration we count programmes and files:
>
> N (programme) (file)
> ---------------------------------------------------
> 1 en program ena datoteka
> 2 dva programa dve datoteki
> 3 trije programi tri datoteke
> 4 štirje programi štiri datoteke
> 5 pet programov pet datotek
> 6-100 šest...sto programov šest...sto datotek
> 101 stoen program stoena datoteka
> 102 stodva programa stodve datoteki
> 103 stotrije programi stotri datoteke
> 104 stoštirje programi stoštiri datoteke
> 105 stopet programov stopet datotek
> 106-200 stošest...dvesto stošest...dvesto
> programov datotek
> 201 dvestoen program dvestoena datoteka
> ... ...
> ---------------------------------------------------------------
> ----- End forwarded message -----
--
Primož Peterlin email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Inštitut za biofiziko MF, Lipičeva 2, SI-1000 Ljubljana, Slovenija
Fax: +386-61-1315127 WWW: http://sizif.mf.uni-lj.si/~peterlin/
