I’ve always wondered why the numbers “one” through “ten” in the English language are all 1 syllable, but “seven” is the only one with 2 syllables. Not sure if this is just random and I notice things like that, or if there is actually a reason behind it.
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Just a coincidence. All lower numbers in English go back to a Proto-Germanic root, which itself goes back to Proto-Indo-European.
This ‘Proto-Indo-European’ is an ancient language which is the ‘ancestor’ of most European and some Asian languages. It existed long before we had writing, so we only ‘know’ this language through reconstruction based on its descendants. So there’s no further explanation for the origin of these words, they just mean what they mean.
Here are the numbers in English -> Proto-Germanic -> Proto-Indo-European:
One -> **aina-* -> **oi-nos*
Two -> **twai* -> **duoh*
Three -> **þri-* -> **trei-es*
Four -> **fedwōr* -> **kwétuor-es*
Five -> **fimf* -> **pénkwe*
Six -> **sehs-* -> **s(u)eks*
Seven -> **sebun* -> **septm*
Eight -> **ahtau* -> **h3ekteh3(u)-*
Nine -> **newun* -> **h1n(é)un-*
Ten -> **tehun -> *dékmt*
.
So most numbers did in fact have 2 syllables a long time ago; they just happened to be shortened in English. For instance, the vowel ‘u’ in PIE ‘duoh’ changed to the consonant ‘w’ in Germanic ‘twai’, because they just sound similar.
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(Edit: note that the PIE notation is not quite what it should be. I had to edit the strange symbols out because Reddit is garbage and gets worse with every update.)
Old English seofon, of Germanic origin; related to Dutch zeven and German sieben, from an Indo-European root shared by Latin septem
Thank you all for the answers! Learning something new is cool. Somehow, knowing that, at the end of the day, it just “is what it is” actually brings me peace for some reason haha.
In proto-Germanic six of the first ten numbers had two syllables, but all except 7 gradually changed into one syllable as English developed from it:
**1 – ainaz**
2 – twō
3 – thrīz
**4 – fedwōr**
5 – fimf
6 – sehs
**7 – sebun**
**8 – ahtōu**
**9 – newun**
**10 – tehun**
In Dutch a similar thing happened, but they kept two double-syllable numbers: zeven (7) and negen (9).
Almost all European languages descend from Proto-Indo-European (PIE), including English.
The number words across PIE languages are related, but with sound changes: for example, compare English *two*, Latin *duo*, French *deux*, Sanskrit *dve*, Persian *dó* — or English *eight*, Latin *octō*, French *huit*, Sanskrit *ashta*, Persian *hasht*.
In some languages, the number words got shortened into one syllable, while in others they are mostly two or more syllables. For example, the French and Russian words for *seven* are related to those in other PIE languages, but are only one syllable long — *sept* and *sem’* respectively.
*Seven* is not nearly as strange an sound-change as *four*, though! Most of the other PIE-descended languages have a word for *four* that starts with a “k”, “q”, or “ch” sound — like Latin *quattuor*, French *quatre*, Sanskrit *chatvaari*, Russian *chetyre*, Persian *cahār*. But the Germanic family, which includes English, has “v” or “f” sounds in the word for *four*: Dutch and German *vier*, Swedish *fyra*, Icelandic *fjögur*.
Basically, language just does this sort of thing. There’s not a single hard rule for “how long should number words be?”
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