Friday, August 8, 2008

Cardinal numbers (part 2)

Let's continue the cardinal numbers (I don't consider the Klövsjö dialect anymore due to the fact that the reference doesn't have any cardinal numbers in it):

11 [ˈɛlːɵ(ʋ)] [ˈœlːɔʋ] ellufuelluv
12 [tʰaɽʋ][tʰɔɽʋ]tołftołv
13 [ˈtɾɛtːæn][ˈtɾetːɐn] þrettántrettan
14 [ˈfɪ̯ʊʈːæn][ˈfɪ̯ʊʈːɐn]fjórtánfjórtan
15 [ˈfɛmtæn][ˈfæmtɐn]femtánfemtan
16 [ˈsɛkstæn][ˈsekstɐn]sextánsekstan
17 [ˈsœtːæn][ˈʂœtːɐn] søytjánsøttan
18 [ˈat(ː)æn][ˈaʈːɐn]átjánattan
19 [ˈnɪtːæn][ˈnɪtːɐn] nítjánnittan
20 [ˈtʃɵˑɣə][ˈtʃɵˑɣɵ]tjogutjugu

Notes: (1) Old Norse had various words for 11. In Old Icelandic it was ellifu, in Old Swedish ellufa. I assume Old Jamtlandic (N) had ellufu, but I could be wrong. What's peculiar is that the unstressed vowel hasn't become a schwa ([ə]) but either [ɵ] or [ɔ]. Maybe one considered the word being a compound el-lufu where lufu became simplified to luv giving elluv rather than "ellev"?
(2) In Jamtlandic it's not too uncommon to double a consonant after a long vowel, e.g. ON sýta 'to lament' has become sytte [ˈsʏ.ʏtː] 'to nurse' in Jamtlandic. That seems to have happened for the numbers 1719. Note especially 17 where the dipthong has been lost in the process. (The Hammerdal dialect always preserves diphtongs otherwise, even the short ones, which suggests one should spell "søyttan".) Also note how an unstressed -ján has become -an. It's possible the j was dropped very early.
(3) The number 20 has a pretty diffuse etymology. Old Icelandic had tuttugu, Old Swedish tjugu. I use the etymology found here, which assumes a u-broken form of a root teg- (tegu-tjog-).

To be continued in Part 3.

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