numerals of their ancestors, it is likewise usual to find other terms existing which are practically numerals already, and might drop at once into the recognized places of such, if by any chance a gap were made for them in the traditional series. Had we room, for instance, for a new word instead of two, then either pair (Latin par, 'equal') or couple (Latin copula, 'bond or tie,') is ready to fill its place. Instead of twenty, the good English word score, 'notch,' will serve our turn, while, for the same purpose, German can use stiege, possibly with the original sense of 'a stall full of cattle, a sty;' Old Norse drôtt, 'a company,' Danish, snees. A list of such words used, but not grammatically classed as numerals in European languages, shows great variety: examples are, Old Norse, flockr (flock), 5; sveit, 6; drôtt (party), 20; thiodh (people), 30; fölk (people), 40; öld (people), 80; her (army), 100; Sleswig, schilk, 12 (as though we were to make a numeral out of 'shilling'); Middle High-German, rotte, 4; New High-German, mandel, 15; schock (sheaf), 60. The Letts give a curious parallel to Polynesian cases just cited. They throw crabs and little fish three at a time in counting them, and therefore the word mettens, 'a throw,' has come to mean 3; while flounders being fastened in lots of thirty, the word kahlis, 'a cord,' becomes a term to express this number.[1]
In two other ways, the production of numerals from merely descriptive words may be observed both among lower and higher races. The Gallas have no numerical fractional terms, but they make an equivalent set of terms from the division of the cakes of salt which they use as money. Thus tchabnana, 'a broken piece' (from tchaba, 'to break,' as we say 'a fraction'), receives the meaning of one-half; a term which we may compare with Latin dimidium, French demi. Ordinal numbers are generally derived from cardinal numbers, as third, fourth, fifth, from
- ↑ See Pott, 'Zählmethode,' pp. 78, 99, 124, 161; Grimm, 'Deutsche Rechtsalterthümer,' ch. v.
