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.
In: Other
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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