quatre-vingts

Creazle@lemmy.world to Lemmy Shitpost@lemmy.world – 777 points –
88

You are viewing a single comment

Being lazy and not going to look it up. I can't help it to wonder if it's also based in Sumerian's base 60

It's base 20.

80 in French is 4 x 20. A long time ago, 60 was "trois-vingt", 3 x 20. We still have a hospital in Paris called "Hopital des Quinze-Vingts", 15 x 20 because it used to have 300 beds.

Oh, neat! Thanks for clearing this up.