Talk:Finnish numerals

This article was nominated for deletion on 14 February 2010 (UTC). The result of the discussion was keep.

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Numbers

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Etymology[edit]

Hauskalainen asked: ‘kahdeksan 2 from 10 yhdeksän 1 from 10 .... Does any editor have solid knowledge of the true [e]tymology?’ I have found this site The Tower of Babel: An International Etymological Database Project useful. In particular, the etymologies for ‘yhdeksän’ and ‘kahdeksan’. – Kaihsu 09:38, 23 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Vuo. I agree that a natual Finnish word would not begin with T, but it is is easier for D to appear in a place other than the front of the word. You imply a similarity but not a possible derivation. Surely indo-european DEC (decum, decimus etc) is the most ikely origin is it not? An elision from kaks-dek-sta and yks-dek-sta would be the obvious interpretation without interpretation in the absence of written records. --Tom 21:33, 23 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Reverted[edit]

se kesti vain yksi päivä it lasted just one day

se oli suljettu kahtena päivänä it was closed for two days

sitä juhlittiin vain yhdessa maassa it was celebrated in just one country

illallinen kolmellekymmenelleviidelle nälkäiselle hengelle dinner for thirty-five hungry people

These sentences are not built in this way in Finnish. The correct case government:

Se kesti vain yhden päivän.

Se oli suljettu kahdeksi päiväksi / kahtena päivänä viikossa.

sitä juhlittiin vain yhdessä maassa

"henki" is always abstract, except if you actually mean "(evil) spirit". kolmellekymmenelleviidelle hengelle / kolmellekymmenelleviidelle nälkäiselle vieraalle / syöjälle / jne.

--Vuo (talk) 13:53, 8 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Finnish numerals in two books[edit]

Someone more familiar with this topic than I am should consider whether or where this and this should be mentioned in this article. Michael Hardy (talk) 20:13, 15 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

maissa[edit]

Shouldn't it be the plural form in the article's example of a case form of maa: maaissa, i.e. kahdessatoista maaissa, instead of kahdessatoista maassa? And is partitive really not used more often by numbers? I'm just curious --Danog-76 (talk) 14:20, 17 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

"kahdessatoista maassa" is correct. Numbers are practically always followed by the noun in singular, whatever the case. Exceptions are expressions like "kahdet kengät" = two pairs of shoes ("kaksi kenkää" = two shoes) or "sadoissa maissa" = in hundreds of countries, where the numeral itself has the plural form. -- The plural of "maassa" is "maissa", with one "a". --Surfo (talk) 16:23, 17 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

OK, thank you! --Danog-76 (talk) 19:39, 19 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

But it's still a bit confusing that the number - "kahdessatoista" - in :"kahdessatoista maassa" - isn't inflected in the same congruent way as "kahtena päivänä" and "kolmissa jalanjäljissä". Can you explain that to me also? --Danog-76 (talk) 19:50, 19 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I understand that now, it is because "toista" is in the partitive case.--Danog-76 (talk) 16:14, 22 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

A small comment re: AfD discussion[edit]

After reading the AfD discussion, although I agree that it should be kept, I realize it would be helpful if there is a userbox that says "Wikibook has a section on Finnish numerals", which would then aim to explain how to write and use Finnish numerals (that's the HOWTO goal for Wikibook). This way, one can then improve this "Finnish numerals" article to be more properly written for Wikipedia. I realize there may be some overlaps, such as dialectal varieties (should they appear in Wiktionary as well as in Wikipedia? I suspect yes), so a good discernment is needed. HTH! TheBlueWizard (talk) 03:31, 3 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Dates as numerals[edit]

There's an exemption how to pronounce second when stating dates as numbers in February. Normally ordinal numbers are used when speaking month as number but it breaks down when talking about the second month. It would be very confusing to say "toinen toista" as 2nd of Februry as it means "one another" so it's said as "toinen kahdetta". Same way 1st of February is not "yhdes toista" as that is eleven. So when there's probabilty of misunderstanding the date in question one uses "kahdetta" as the number of February or they just use the month name "Helmikuu". Linkato1 (talk) 12:09, 22 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]