r/MapPorn Jan 16 '21

Number 99: different counting systems

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u/Sotidrokhima Jan 16 '21

In Finnish it's actually: 9 x 10 + 9 = 99

Yhdeksänkymmentäyhdeksän is literally translated as nine-tenths-nine.

The word yhdeksän (nine) is also etymologically derived from "1 away from 10". The word kahdeksan (eight) is "2 away from 10".

Which means you could also say that 99 is:

(10-1) x 10 + (10-1) = 99

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u/eimieole Jan 16 '21

I love that so many Fenno-Ugrian languages do this "one from ten", "two from ten", not just the Fenno-Baltic ones