Richard W wrote: ↑Sun May 24, 2026 4:12 pm
Entire systems of numerals can be replaced. The Chinese numbers have been spectacularly successful, and it is by no means clear that they go back to Sino-Tibetan. European number systems have also spread to non-Indo-European languages. It also seems that they were once less stable than they now seem to be. Few of the language
phyla have reconstructible numerals.
This isn't wrong, but it has to be taken with a good deal of salt. E.g. here's a few number sets which show clear borrowings.
Yameo: pwitĕ́r narámue9 kiŋsắ tšiúskō piški sókta kantšis pú’sa ískō tšuŋga
Cocama: huepe mucuica mutsapɨƚrɨca iruaca pichca socta cansi pusa iscun chunga
Shipibo: huestiora rabé quimisha chosco píchica socota canchis posaca íscon chonca
Thaayorre: thon kuth pin por yuur chich chep eet naan ten
Pitjantjatjara: kutju kutjara maṉkurpa [2]-[2] / puupala paipa tjikitji tjapanpa aiti nainpa tiinpa
Nandi: akenge aeŋg somok aŋgwan mut i•llo tisap sisiit sokol taman
Kuvi: rōṇì riṇḍi tīni sāri pāsa sō sāta āṭa nō dos
In each of these cases the borrowings only begin partway down the list. '1' and '2' are highly resistant to borrowing.
(The first three sets show borrowings from Quechua. The next two have 6-10 from English. Nandi is Nilo-Saharan but seems to have borrowed the higher numbers from Cushitic. Kuvi is Dravidian and borrowed 3-10 from Indic.)
(There are weirder cases— e.g. Pacahuara borrowed only the number 3.)
Japanese and Korean borrowed the Chinese numbers but also kept their own.
I'd contest the idea that numbers are hard to reconstruct. Bantu, Austonesian, Afro-Asiatic, Dravidian, Algonquian, Mayan all seem pretty solid.
Sino-Tibetanists happily reconstruct the numbers. I suppose Classical Tibetan *drug , Sunwar ruku, and Written Burmese k’rok
could be from Middle Chinese *ljuwk, but they're explained better by proto-Sino-Tibetan *t-r’uk.
From my numbers list, I'd suggest that the notable fact is not how often numbers are borrowed, but how little. The above sets are the exception, not the rule. Historically, people
don't throw out their number sets when they're conquered.
Almost every family can generate words for the small numbers, and it doesn't take a lot of technological sophistication to get a full set to 10 or 20. This is sometimes hidden in old grammars or wordlists because European grammarians didn't realize that numbers might be derived forms. (It's like thinking that because "twenty-one" is derived, English doesn't have numbers past 20.)
