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Historically, quite a few languages were (or are) vigesimal. Perhaps decimal is also unnatural.


It's been at least eight score since vigesimal usage was common in English.

It's still used for numbers between 70-99 in French, which is maddening when trying to copy down a phone number as a non-native speaker.


Yeah, I think Swiss French had more? (It's been about four decades since I took French, and high school classes are not very effective.)


French speaker here. (My native language is English but I learned French in France years ago, and can still speak it with near-native fluency). You're correct. French French (that is, French spoken in France, it's slightly confusing that the language's name and the country's adjective are the same) goes "cinquante, soixante, soixante-dix, quatre-vingts, quatre-vingt-dix, cent". In English, that would be "fifty, sixty, sixty-ten, fourscore, fourscore-ten, a hundred". But Swiss French goes "cinquante, soixante, septante, octante, nonante, cent", which would translate to English as "fifty, sixty, seventy, eighty, ninety, a hundred".




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