Old English/Numbers

In Old English, numbers (ġetalu) are almost all recognizably related to those of Modern English, so they shouldn't be too hard to learn for a Modern English speaker. Cardinal numbers Cardinal numbers (hēafodġetalu) are used to count and enumerate things, like "one", "two", and "three". The number one Ān (“one”) was declined exactly like an ordinary strong adjective: Ān - "one"CaseMasculineFeminineNeuterNominative ān ān ānAccusative ān-ne ān-e ānGenitive ān-es ān-re ān-esDative ān-um ānre ān-umInstrumental ān-e ān-re ān-e Note that ān could be declined weak and follow the noun, and when that happened, it had the meaning of "only", "alone", "no other than". Two The declension of “two” was quite irregular: Tƿēġen - "two"CaseMasculineFeminineNeuterNominative tƿēġen tƿā tƿā, tūAccusative tƿēġen tƿā tƿā, tūGenitive tƿēga tƿēga tƿēgaDat./Inst. tƿām tƿām tƿām As can be seen from the table above, the neuter nominative/accusative could be either tƿā or tū. In poetry, neuter nouns were usually used with tū. However, in prose, they often occurred with tƿā instead, especially in Late West Saxon prose, where tū was almost completely absent. Three Þrī - "three"|- ! style="background:#efafef;;" |Case! style="background:#efefef;;" |Masculine! style="background:#efefef;;" |Feminine! style="background:#efefef;;" |Neuter|- | style="background:#efefef;;" |Nominative || þrī || þrēo || þrēo |- | style="background:#efefef;;" |Accusative || þrī || þrēo || þrēo |- | style="background:#efefef;;" |Genitive || þrēora || þrēora || þrēora |- | style="background:#efefef;;" |Dat. and instr.'''|| þrīm || þrīm || þrīm |} Note that the form þrī was only used in the West Saxon dialect. In the other dialects, þrēo was the nominative/accusative form for all three genders. Four to Nineteen The numbers from four (fēoƿer) onwards usually weren't declined at all: Þā fēoƿer tīda sind ƿinter, lengten, sumer, and hærfest (“The four seasons are winter, spring, summer, and fall”), Ealle cattas sƿulton eahta sīðum (“All cats have died eight times”). When they were declined, they followed the inflection of plural i-stem nouns: nominative/accusative -e, genitive -a, dative -um. This had a tendency to happen only when they did not immediately precede the quantified noun: On þām mynstre ƿǣron fīf ġebrōðru oþþe sixe (“In the monastery were five [uninflected] monks or six [inflected]”). fēoƿer - four fīf - five siex - six seofon - seven eahta - eight nigon - nine tīen - ten endleofan - eleven tƿelf - twelve þrēotīne - thirteen fēoƿertīne - fourteen fīftīne - fifteen siextīne - sixteen seofontīne - seventeen eahtatīne - eighteen nigontīne - nineteen Multiples of Ten The tens from 20 onwards were formed by combining a smaller numeral with -tiġ: “twenty” is tƿēntiġ (think tƿēġen-tiġ), “thirty” is þrītiġ (*þrī-tiġ), “forty” is fēoƿertiġ (*fēoƿer-tiġ), and so on, as if modern English had twoty, threety, fourty, fivety, etc. However, that's where the morphology of these numbers stops being intuitive. The prefix hund- is attached to the tens seventy and above, so that “sixty, seventy, eighty” is sixtiġ, hundseofontiġ, hund'''eahtatiġ. No one knows why this prefix starts with seventy, or why it's even there. Oddly, the tens run past 100 and all the way up to 120, as if modern English had "tenty, eleventy, twelvety." Hence “100, 110, 120” in Old English was hundtēontiġ, hundendleftiġ, hundtƿelftiġ. {| class="wikitable" style="text-align:center" Multiples of Ten 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 110 120 tƿēntiġ þrītiġ fēoƿertiġ fīftiġ sixtiġ hundseofontiġ hundeahtatiġ hundnigontiġ hundtēontiġ hundendleftiġ hundtƿelftiġ From 21 to 129, non-round numbers were formed with the phrase "[smaller number] and [larger number]." So twenty-two was tƿā and tƿēntiġ, literally “two and twenty,” while sixty-nine was nigon and sixtiġ, literally “nine and sixty.” This structure is the same as in many modern, sister languages to English such as German. Numbers 20 and above usually have nouns in genitive case: "fifty feral hogs" is fīftiġ ƿildra sƿīna, literally "fifty of wild hogs." One hundred Old English had three words for “hundred”: hund, hundred, and hundtēontiġ. Hund and hundred were mainly used as multiplicands, as in tƿā hund / tƿā hundred (“two hundred”). There was apparently no discernible distinction between hund and hundred or when they were used, except that hund occurs seven times as often as hundred. Meanwhile, hundtēontiġ was mainly used as an augend, as in fēoƿer and hundtēontiġ (“a hundred and four”) or hundtēontiġ and seofon and þrītiġ (“a hundred and thirty-seven”). Hundtēontiġ was also the default expression for exactly one hundred and was used in the counting sequence: ...nigon and hundnigontiġ, hundtēontiġ, ān and hundtēontiġ... (“...ninety-nine, a hundred, a hundred and one...”). While the default order was "[smaller number] and [larger number]" for the tens from twenty onwards, numerical word order was otherwise very much like modern English, with hundreds coming before tens. Hence 153 was hundtēontiġ and þrēo and fīftiġ (“a hundred and three-and-fifty”) and 1,153 was þūsend and hundtēontiġ and þrēo and fīftiġ, literally “a thousand and one hundred and three-and-fifty.” Ordinal numbers Ordinal numbers (endebyrdlīcu ġetalu) are used to rank things in a particular order, like "first", "second", and "third". All ordinal number forms followed weak declension, except for "ōðer ("second"), which was always strong. In Modern English, for most numbers, we just add the suffix "-th" to the cardinal form of the number to form an ordinal, as in "nine" - "ninth". Similarly, in Old English, the normal basic suffix to form ordinal forms from cardinal numbers was "-þa", but sometimes it varied slightly. The ordinals for the numbers 1 to 3 were formed unpredictably. They were: forma - first ōðer - second (compare Modern English "other") þridda - third The ordinals for some of the rest of the "under-twenties" are not always fully predictable. They are: fēorða - fourth fīfta - fifth sixta - sixth seofoþa - seventh (note that "n" disappeared before the "-þa" suffix) eahtoþa - eighth nigoþa - ninth (same thing happens as with "seofoþa") tēoða - tenth (whence the Modern English word "tithe" - also, same thing as with "seofoþa") endlefta - eleventh tƿelfta - twelfth þrēotēoða - thirteenth (the word "þrēo" plus the word "tēoða") fēoƿertēoða - fourteenth fīftēoða - fifteenth sixtēoða - sixteenth seofontēoða - seventeenth eahtatēoða - eighteenth nigontēoða - nineteenth The ordinals for the decades are easily formed just by adding the suffix "-oþa" to the normal cardinal form, always. Like this: tƿēntigoþa - twentieth þrītigoþa - thirtieth fēoƿertigoþa - fortieth fiftigoþa - fiftieth sixtigoþa - sixtieth hundseofontigoþa - seventieth hundeahtatigoþa - eightieth hundnigontigoþa - ninetieth hundteontigoþa - hundred/teentieth hundendleftigoþa - hundred and ten/eleventieth hundtƿelftigoþa - hundred and twenty/twelftieth Flashcards on external sites Memrise Quizlet