Language Variation and Change, 26 (2014), 21–43.

© Cambridge University Press, 2014 0954-3945/14 $16.00

doi:10.1017/S0954394513000203

From unit-and-ten to ten-before-unit order in the history of

English numerals
THOMAS BERG AND MARION NEUBAUER
University of Hamburg

ABSTRACT

In the course of its history, English underwent a significant structural change in its
numeral system. The number words from 21 to 99 switched from the unit-and-ten
to the ten-before-unit pattern. This change is traced on the basis of more than 800
number words. It is argued that this change, which took seven centuries to
complete and in which the Old English pattern was highly persistent, can be
broken down into two parts—the reordering of the units and tens and the loss of
the conjoining element. Although the two steps logically belong to the same
overall change, they display a remarkably disparate behavior. Whereas the
reordering process affected the least frequent number words first, the deletion
process affected the most frequent words first. This disparity lends support to the
hypothesis that the involvement or otherwise of low-level aspects of speech
determines the role of frequency in language change (Phillips, 2006). Finally, the
order change is likely to be a contact-induced phenomenon and may have been
facilitated by a reduction in mental cost.

Although numerals form the word class that is most resistant to diachronic change
(Pagel, Atkinson, & Meade, 2007), two important changes have taken place in the
history of Germanic number words from 21 to 99—the fixing of word or
morpheme order and the reversal of tens and units. Old High German and Old
Norse allowed variable order of the tens and units, as exemplified by Old Norse
tottogo ok einn versus einn ok tottogo ‘twenty-one’ (see Braune, 1967:235;
Noreen, 1903:270).1 This internal variability has been abolished in Modern
German and the Scandinavian languages of today.2
In light of this historical variation, it is perhaps to be expected that different
modern languages of Germanic origin have settled on different orders within

An oral version of this paper was delivered at the University of Augsburg in June 2013.
It is deeply gratifying to be surrounded by helping hands that make one’s life easier and a paper like
this one so much better. Kurt Braunmüller shared with us his expertise with North Germanic languages,
which was far beyond his call of duty. So did Felix Sprang with his knowledge of the social history of
England, Hagen Peukert with the computer programming, and Arne Lohmann with the statistical
analysis. Furthermore, mention has to be made of the excellent advice Arne gave us in conversations
at a time when we could not see the forest for the trees. The productive discussions with Florian
Dolberg also deserve to be honored. Tayo Takada allowed us to gain access to the content of Nohara
(1995) and prepared the frequency count for us. Our study has greatly benefitted from the helpful
comments of Ferdinand von Mengden and four anonymous reviewers. Thanks to you all.

21
22 THOMAS BERG AND MARION NEUBAUER

numerals. Whereas Icelandic and Swedish exhibit the ten-before-unit order, Danish
and Faroese show the inverse order.3 Less variation characterizes the modern West
Germanic languages. As far as the historical record goes, Old English,4 Old Frisian,
and Middle Dutch5 had a consistent unit-before-ten order (see Bremmer, 2009; van
Kerckvoorde, 1993; Wülfing, 1894).
English is unique among the West Germanic languages in having veered toward
the ten-before-unit order. Relatively little is known about this diachronic reversal
beyond the mere fact that it actually happened. There are the big unanswered
questions of why some languages stood firm and others gave way and whether
the constraints on a change from unit-before-ten to ten-before-unit order are
identical to those on a change in the opposite direction. Previous work has not
tried to quantify the change of the frequency of the alternative orders over time.
Therefore, we know hardly anything about the diffusion of the order change
through the numeral system. It is the major aim of the present paper to chart the
historical course of this change in English number words.
The best known and most pervasive principle of lexical diffusion is undoubtedly
frequency (e.g., Bybee, 2001, on phonology; Hooper, 1976, on morphology;
Tottie, 1991, on syntax). Phillips (1984) came to the notable conclusion that
there is a double relationship between word frequency and order of change in the
lexicon. High-frequency words may be the first or the last to change. Although
changes involving no more than surface phonetic representations affect the most
frequent words first, changes occurring at a more abstract level affect the least
frequent words first (see also Phillips, 2006). Applying this insight to the
numerals, we may predict that the change from unit-before-ten to ten-before-unit
order is sensitive to frequency. To be precise, given the fact that word or
morpheme order is largely unrelated to phonetic factors, it may be predicted that
low-frequency number words should undergo order change faster than their
high-frequency counterparts should.
Another prediction starts from the morphological structure of number words.
Old English (OE) numerals from 20 to 99 fell into two classes—one from 20 to
69 and the other from 70 to 99 (see Rosenfeld, 1956/57, for a wider
perspective). The multiples of 20 up to 60 were bimorphemic words consisting
of the respective units and the suffix -tig ‘-ty’. In contrast, the numerals from 70
to 99 (and beyond) were additionally prefaced by hund- ‘hundred’6 (e.g.,
Brunner, 1953; Campbell, 1959; Quirk & Wrenn, 1957). Thus, when a unit was
added, the morpheme hund- separated the unit from the ten, as illustrated in OE
twa & hundseofonti ‘seventy-two’ (from the Peterborough Chronicle). This
morphological structure allows us to advance the following argument. As the
middle morpheme, hund- increases the linear distance between the units and the
tens. As an increased linear distance generally discourages the interaction of
linguistic units (see MacKay, 1970), number words augmented by hund- may be
expected to resist the order change more strongly than those without hund-.
Specifically, the order change is predicted to begin with the numerals from 21 to
69 and end with the numerals from 71 to 99.7
ORDER CHANGE IN ENGLISH NUMERALS 23

In the remainder of this paper, these predictions will be put to the test. The next
section provides a sketch of what is known about the historical development of
English number words from 21 to 99.

BACKGROUND

The constituents of complex numerals may be simply juxtaposed or linked up with

a coordinating element, usually the conjunction and (or ampersand). Limiting
ourselves to tens and units, this gives us the following four logical possibilities.
According to standard sources, three of these are attested in the history of the
English language. We illustrate these options on the basis of the number 22.

(1) unit before ten, with and: for example, two and twenty (Early Modern English)
(2) ten before unit, with and: for example, twenty and two (Late Modern English)
(3) unit before ten, without and: for example, *two twenty (unattested)
(4) ten before unit, without and: for example, twenty-two (Modern English)

The data in (1) through to (4) suggest that there is an interaction between the
ordering options and the use of the connector. The conjunction is optional in
the ten-before-unit order but mandatory in the inverse order. This effect has
some cross-linguistic validity and is not even confined to the ordering of tens
and units (see Greenberg, 1978, universal 338; Seiler, 1990:197; Stampe,
1976:603). In an attempt to account for this asymmetry, we start from the
generalization that the higher-before-lower order occurs more frequently in the
languages of the world than the lower-before-higher order (e.g., Gil, 2001;
Greenberg, 1978). Hence, the former order may be regarded as less marked 9 or
more natural than the latter. From this perspective, the conjunction may be
argued to provide an additional clue for the listener to correctly interpret the
number value of the more marked structure. This account comes close
to Rohdenburg’s (1996) complexity principle whereby the more explicit variant
(i.e., the string augmented with and indicating addition) is chosen in the
cognitively more costly environment. Note that, strictly speaking, the
conjunction is redundant as the different values of, let us say, 45 and 54 are
signaled by the morphological structure (i.e., the tens [the higher number] have a
higher number of morphemes than the units [the lower number]) in addition to
occasional morphophonological adjustment (e.g., ModE /faɪv/ → /fɪfti/).
A diachronic implication of this interaction of morpheme order and the use of
and is that a change in the former may have repercussions on the latter. In
particular, a change from the unit-before-ten order to the inverse order may be
accompanied by the loss of the conjunction. Because language changes step by
step, it is to be expected that the use of and will persist beyond the order change
and only later be abandoned.
The basic facts may be summarized as follows. The change from unit-and-ten to
ten-before-unit order began in Early Middle English and did not reach completion
24 THOMAS BERG AND MARION NEUBAUER

until the 20th century. In Old English, the unit-and-ten order was apparently the
only permissible one (e.g., Wülfing, 1894; see also note 4). Early Middle
English saw the emergence of the ten-before-unit order with retention of the
conjunction (Öfverberg, 1924). The loss of the conjunction did not occur until
the end of the Middle English period (Mustanoja, 1960; Nohara, 1995; Tietjens,
1922). As literary examples of the remarkable persistence of the OE order,
mention may be made of Jane Austin’s Pride and Prejudice (1813), Elizabeth
Gaskell’s Mary Barton—A Tale of Manchester Life (1848), and H. G. Wells’s
The New Machiavelli (1910), to name but a few sources. Even though the
attestation of the OE order in relatively recent works does not say much about
how widespread it was, it is worth pointing out that the OE order did not appear
in the mouth of characters but was rather frequently used in narrative passages.
For example, a sample from narrative passages in Charles Dickens’s Hard Times
(1854) contains 14 cases of unit-before-ten order alongside 7 cases of ten-
before-unit order.
Middle English shows traces of a vigesimal system in using score for 20 and its
multiples for larger numbers, for example, four score and ten for 90. It is important
to note that score was not used as a lexical item designating “roughly twenty” but
fully integrated into the numeral system. As the just-mentioned example indicates,
it could be combined with other numbers and had a very precise meaning. It was
accordingly treated like the other number words.
The rendition of 90 as four score and ten reveals a structural pattern that is also
found with measure nouns. The tens could be separated from the units by measure
nouns such as degree and mile, for example, twenty degrees and oon ‘21 degrees’.
These structures always have the higher number precede the lower one. Examples
with the inverted order are not attested (e.g., *seuene days and fourty). They thus
seem to presuppose the availability of the higher-before-lower order at that point in
time.
Finally, we may note for completeness that hybrid forms combining algebraic
and linguistic symbols are also found. For instance, the number 30 is rendered as
XXXti (see Means, 1992, for pertinent cases).

METHOD

In the Middle Ages, numbers were normally written as numeric symbols, not as
numeral words. This is especially true of higher numbers. Obviously, the Hindu-
Arabic representation of numbers in written texts provides no clue as to the order
in which the tens and units were pronounced. We therefore have to content
ourselves with the less common cases of numbers being rendered as strings of
words and morphemes. It stands to reason that this written representation reflects
the spoken language faithfully.
The focus of this study is on cardinal numerals, which are certainly more
common than ordinal numerals (see Greenberg, 1966:42). Because the former
are basic and the latter derived, it makes sense to confine the analysis to the
ORDER CHANGE IN ENGLISH NUMERALS 25

cardinals. Besides, because the ordinal morpheme is realized as a suffix that

invariably attaches to the end of the cardinal numeral irrespective of the unit/ten
order, no major differences are expected in the diachronic development of
cardinal and ordinal numerals.
In an effort to document the order change as accurately as possible, recourse was
made to several electronic databases. For Middle English (ME), the Innsbruck
Corpus of Middle English Prose and the Middle English section of the Helsinki
Corpus were selected. The Innsbruck Corpus is by far the largest one. Its focus
on prose is particularly appropriate as prose may be expected to generate a larger
number of numerals than poetry. Note that there is a certain overlap between the
Innsbruck and the Helsinki corpora. Number words occurring in texts found in
both corpora were counted only once.
For Early Modern English, the Innsbruck Corpus of Letters, the Early Modern
English section of the Helsinki Corpus, and the Lampeter Corpus were drawn upon.
The Corpus of Early English Correspondence Sampler was inspected, but because
all of the few hits were dated between 1631 and 1651, these were not considered
representative of the entire Early Modern English period and consequently were
discarded.
The Penn Parsed Corpus of Modern British English served as the empirical basis
for the analysis of Late Modern English. This corpus was an obvious choice as it
largely takes up where the Helsinki Corpus leaves off. Pertinent details on the
corpora used for the present study are provided in Table 1.
The corpora listed in Table 1 are relatively similar in terms of text genre. Many
text types (e.g., law, sermon/religion, science) are represented in all corpora. The
comparability of the corpora may therefore be taken for granted.
Occasionally, the electronic corpora contain different copies of the same
original. This is true of “Hali Maidenhad” and “Ancrene Riwle” with a total of 3
types and 7 tokens. It might be held that these data points should be counted

TABLE 1. Survey of corpora used and initial results

Words, n Texts, Hits, Texts Containing Number

n n Words, n

Middle English
Innsbruck Corpus of Prose ∼6,000,000 159 287 52
(1100–1500)
Helsinki Corpus (1150–1500) 608,000 91 47 9
Early Modern English
Innsbruck Corpus of Letters 110,307 254 0 0
(1386–1688)
Helsinki Corpus (1500–1710) 551,000 81 89 16
Lampeter Corpus (1640–1740) ∼1,100,000 120 115 36
Late Modern English
Penn Parsed Corpus (1700– 948,895 101 271 48
1914)
26 THOMAS BERG AND MARION NEUBAUER

only once because they are nonindependent. However, it is notable that some
scribes took the liberty of modifying the original text as they deemed
appropriate, and, in some cases, we even encounter different number values in
the different copies of the same original. We thus assume a certain independence
between the various copies and consequently included the 3 types and 7 tokens
in our analysis. In any event, the elimination of these few instances would not
have altered our results.
As regards the ME corpora, the distribution of data points across the different
dialect areas is uneven. The East Midland dialect contributes almost twice as
many data points as all other dialects taken together. It cannot be ruled out that
this imbalance distorted the database. We therefore opted to make no major
theoretical point of the regional factor.
ME words are notorious for their variable spelling. This variability poses a
particular challenge for defining the search terms used for extracting the relevant
data from the electronic corpora. A list was compiled of all spelling forms for
the tens from 20 to 90 found in standard ME reference works, in particular
Brunner (1967). To make sure that no data from Early Middle English escaped
our notice, the OE spellings noted in Brunner (1953) were also taken into
account. Thus, number words beginning with hund- (see introductory section)
were included. This list contains 40 spelling variants for the 8 tens. The record
holder is 40 with nine variants, closely followed by 30 with eight variants. There
is no guarantee that this list is exhaustive, but it certainly includes all common
spelling variants.
The compilation of spelling variants formed the basis for defining the terms for
the electronic search, which was carried out by means of the concordancing
program MonoConc (Athelstan, Houston, Texas). All search terms began and
ended with wild cards. The use of wild cards in the final position enabled us to
find additional items that were not on the list of spelling variants. It also solved
the problem of dealing with variation brought about by inflectional suffixes.
Wild cards in the morpheme-initial position helped us to locate sequences of
tens and units as well as units and tens that were written in one word.
MonoConc returned 809 hits, which makes for a respectable corpus size.

DATA ANALYSIS

Classification
In slight contrast to the previous literature (see (1) to (4) above), we found relevant
instances in all four logically possible categories. Consider (5) to (8) in which we
number the first three categories chronologically: category 1 represents the OE
pattern, category 2 the ME innovation, and category 3 the Early Modern English
(EModE) innovation. Category 4 has apparently not been recognized as an
option in the standard handbooks of the history of the English language. The
question of whether it should be regarded as a category in its own right will be
addressed in the results.
ORDER CHANGE IN ENGLISH NUMERALS 27

(5) Category 1 (unit-and-ten): for example, two & twenty ‘twenty-two’

(6) Category 2 (ten-and-unit): for example, sixti and fyue ‘sixty-five’
(7) Category 3 (ten before unit): for example, fifty-three
(8) Category 4 (unit before ten): for example, þrie twenti ‘twenty-three’

Not all number words exhibit the simple structure unit-(and)-ten in either order.
We also find nouns inserted right after the tens. These cases come in two subgroups
illustrated in (9) and (10), respectively.

(9) fourty days and seuene ‘forty-seven days’

(10) foure score and nyne ‘eighty-nine’

In cases like (9), for example, the noun day separates the tens from the units.
Because the tens precede the units, these cases were assigned to category 2.
Although superficially dissimilar, there is reason to treat cases such as (10)
likewise. Unlike the first subgroup, these number words begin with a unit that
serves as a multiplier for the following noun score. Thus, foure score is 4 × 20 =
80. The outcome of the implicit multiplication justifies regarding these cases as
belonging to category 2 because the tens appear before the units.
Sometimes, there occur hybrid number words beginning with a written-out
number and ending in a Roman numeral (n = 5, both type and token). Because
the order of tens and units is always clear in these cases, the assignment to the
different types presented no difficulty. These instances were therefore included
in the empirical analysis.
Finally, it needs mentioning that not all numbers can be neatly divided into tens
and units, as the preceding discussion may have implied. Specifically, the
constituents following the tens are not always units but may also be teens,
occupying the range from 10 to 19, as shown in (11) and (12).

(11) sixty mile & fourteen ‘seventy-four miles’

(12) þre score & twelue ‘seventy-two’

Examples (11) and (12) are typical in the sense that the majority of these cases
occur in structures with an intervening noun. Even though, strictly speaking, these
are not tens preceding units, we decided to classify them as category 2 because they
follow the higher-before-lower principle. This loosening does not affect the
ordering problem at issue because “higher before lower” competes with “lower
before higher” in much the same way as “ten before unit” competes with “unit
before ten.” Noun phrases such as (11) and (12) suggest that the major cut in the
historical development of English number words might not be between the tens
and the units but rather between 1 through 19 and the larger numbers. Note that
the numbers between 10 and 19 may also be written with Roman numerals.
28 THOMAS BERG AND MARION NEUBAUER

Results
Frequencies of numeral categories over time. Table 2 reports the type and
token frequencies of the categories 1 to 4 in ME, EModE, and Late Modern
English (LModE). This table provides a second survey of the database. The
diachronic dimension will be discussed shortly. Category 2 numerals are
subdivided according to whether they include a noun, and if so, whether it is
score or any other noun.
The first observation to be made about Table 2 is the extreme infrequency of
category 4. In view of the fact that this pattern has not been reported before, this
rarity is unsurprising. There is the singleton type þrie twenti, ‘twenty-three’,
which occurs once in three different Early ME texts. As these texts represent
three different copies of the manuscript “Hali Maidenhad,” it is quite possible
that this type occurred in the original and was faithfully reproduced by different
scribes. In such a scenario, this form may be regarded as an idiosyncratic usage
of a single author. Thus, it was decided to exclude this type from the subsequent
analysis.
The number of types in the corpus is relatively large (see Table 2: n = 131 in ME;
n = 131 in EModE; n = 142 in LModE). In fact, virtually all number words with the
lone exception of the value ninety-three are attested in at least one category. This
wide distribution puts the analysis on a solid empirical footing. It ensures that
the conclusions to be drawn are based not on a fraction of numbers but hold
good for number words in general.
The overall token/type ratio in the corpus is 2:1. This means that each type is
documented twice on average. This ratio is lower for the ME data but somewhat
higher for the EModE and LModE data. It may be inferred from this ratio that
the danger of basing one’s conclusions on idiosyncratic hapax legomena is fairly
small.
The next observation opens up the diachronic perspective. The modern order
(category 3) is a relatively recent innovation. Only 7 relevant occurrences found
their way into the ME samples. The frequency patterns of categories 2 and 3
reverse from ME to EModE. Whereas category 2 is more frequent than category
3 in ME, category 3 outnumbers category 2 in EModE and more strongly so in
LModE. At the same time, the old order (category 1) is remarkably persistent. It
is reasonably well represented even in LModE.
To obtain a more precise idea of the historical development, the data in Table 2
were broken down into time slices of 50 years and transformed into percentages to
make up for the unequal number of items per time slice. Although the assignment
of the ModE texts to 50-year periods caused no problems, the dating of the ME
texts was less precise. Some datings in the ME corpora spanned a full century, a
few others even two entire centuries. In an attempt to deal with these
imprecisions, a conservative strategy was adopted according to which all the
imprecise cases were assigned to the latest possible time slice. For instance, a
text that was dated between 1250 and 1350 in the Helsinki Corpus was classified
as belonging in the period from 1300 to 1349. This strategy guaranteed that no
 ORDER CHANGE IN ENGLISH NUMERALS
TABLE 2. Type and token frequency of the different numeral categories in ME, EModE, and LModE

Category/Structure ME EModE LModE Totals

Types, n Tokens, n Types, n Tokens, n Types, n Tokens, n Types, n Tokens, n

1. unit-and-ten 65 107 80 187 21 35 166 329

2. ten-(noun)-and-unita 58 90 17 33 5 5 80 128
a. ten-and-unit 33 55 13 27 5 5 51 87
b. ten-noun-and-unit 10 12 1 1 0 0 11 13
c. [unit-score]-and-unit 15 23 3 5 0 0 18 28
3. ten-before-unit 7 7 34 79 116 263 157 349
4. unit-before-ten 1 3 0 0 0 0 1 3
Totals 131 207 131 299 142 303 404 809
Token/type ratio 1.6 2.3 2.1 2.0

a
Note: The term “unit” also includes (a small number of) values below 21.

29
30 THOMAS BERG AND MARION NEUBAUER

data point was claimed to have occurred earlier than is warranted by the historical
record. Figure 1 presents the highest temporal resolution of the data that seems
justifiable.
Figure 1 discloses some clear trends. The OE order remains the preferred pattern
up to the 15th century. Its only competitor is category 2, which comes into
existence in the 13th century and represents the dominant choice in the 15th
century. At the onset of the EModE period, the curve drops sharply and stays at
a rather low level. The final decline of category 2 begins in the 18th century.
Though still attested, this order reaches insignificance in LModE.
It is a notable fact that the ME innovation had a shorter life span than the OE
order. Even in LModE, the period of its eventual demise, the old order played a
quantitatively larger role than the category 2 order. This finding seems to
suggest that category 1 enjoys a certain independence from category 2.
Figure 1 further reveals that the category 2 order antedates the modern order by
more than two centuries. Simultaneously with the decline of category 2, the modern
order arises apparently out of nowhere in the 17th century. Immediately upon its
emergence, it comes to be the majority pattern, or so the data suggest. However,
as Figure 1 shows, there is a prelude to the spike of category 3 in EModE.
Individual forerunners are found in the 15th century. These early attestations of
category 3 cast some doubt on the zeroes in the two subsequent time slices.
These zeroes should not be interpreted as evidence for the complete
disappearance of category 3. A more realistic view seems to be that the new

FIGURE 1. Rate of categories 1, 2, and 3 as a function of time.

ORDER CHANGE IN ENGLISH NUMERALS 31

order originated in the 15th century, remained a minor option for one century and
could therefore not be reliably picked up, and swiftly made it to the top in the 17th
century.
The length of time it took to replace the old with the new order deserves special
emphasis. Whereas the OE order saw its first rivals in the 13th century, it did not
diminish into a minor pattern until the 18th century and did not completely
disappear until the 20th century. Altogether, the order change may be presumed
to have taken 700 years to complete. This protracted period of vacillation
suggests that the old order was deeply entrenched and hence hard to overcome
with a new order.

A multifactorial approach. We now turn to the multifactorial analysis. In view

of the three different categories of numerals, there were two dependent binary
variables—the preservation or otherwise of the OE order (± category 1) and the
preservation or otherwise of the ME innovation (± category 2). Each data point
was coded as ± category 1, ± category 2, and ± category 3. This allowed us to test
the different steps separately. The independent variables included period (50-
year intervals), region, and frequency. The latter two factors will be explained
immediately below.
The inclusion of region was motivated by the possibility of areal diffusion. For
example, the change may have started in the north and from there spread southward.
According to the dialectal map of ME and the information provided on the
provenance of the texts, a regional distinction was made among Northern, East
Midland, Midland (South Central Midland), West Midland, London, Kentish,
and Southern. Thus, region has eight values in the multifactorial analysis.
Region 0 covers items from texts of unknown origin, regions 1 to 7 cover the
seven dialect areas just noted.
The relatively low number of tokens per type prevented us from determining the
frequency for individual number values. It was therefore decided to pool frequency
into blocks of tens (the twenties, the thirties, the forties, etc.). Each block received
its frequency value on the basis of the summed frequency of all number tokens
belonging to it. This is a rather crude measure but apparently the only way of
taking frequency into account. This factor will henceforth be called “block
frequency.”
The multifactorial analysis was run on both raw frequency and log frequency.
Because this had no effect on the significance of any of the predictor variables
and their interactions, we report only the results for log frequency.
The data were also coded for numerical magnitude, to address the question of
whether the numerals above 70 behaved differently from those below 70.
However, this factor was not entered into the statistical analysis because
numerical magnitude is not a linguistically meaningful variable. Number value
is a purely logical concept that does not link up naturally with linguistic factors.
Numerical magnitude is fraught with an additional problem, being strongly
correlated with block frequency (Pearson’s r = .74). To avoid collinearity, it is
advisable to remove one of the two factors. Because frequency is certainly the
32 THOMAS BERG AND MARION NEUBAUER

more relevant of the two, it was retained, but numerical magnitude was ignored in
the multifactorial design.
We begin with the change from category 1 to categories 2 and 3. The entire data
set was fed into a regression analysis. We found 332 þ category 1 items (the OE
order) and 477 – category 1 items (all others). Table 3 reports the minimal
adequate model for this change.
Table 3 reveals a significant main effect of period, block frequency, and region,
as well as a significant interaction between period and region. The estimated
coefficient provides a measure of the effect a predictor variable has on the
outcome of the model. The baseline of the statistical model is a no-response, that
is, a noncategory 1, form. A positive coefficient means that the probability of a
yes-response (category 1 form) increases, and a negative coefficient means that
the probability of a category 1 item decreases. The fact that period has a negative
coefficient indicates that the more recent the period of time, the lower the
incidence of the OE order. This outcome might seem like a foregone conclusion,
for the gradual disappearance of the old pattern was known beforehand.
However, what we provide here is statistical support for this observation, which
strengthens our confidence in our database. Note that there was no guarantee that
we would obtain this result because the database could have been too small to
yield significant effects.
The positive coefficient for block frequency shows that the higher the frequency
of a numeral, the higher the number of occurrences of the OE order. Differently put,
the innovative forms (categories 2 and 3) are more likely to be found in the low-
frequency range. From a more temporal perspective, it may be argued that the
order change began earlier in the low-frequency items. It is worth adding that
period and block frequency do not interact in the regression analysis. This means
that the effect of frequency (i.e., low frequency promotes change) is constant
across the period of time under study.
We now turn to region. The maximum model tested all seven ME dialects
separately. As it turned out, all regions but one failed to reach standard levels of
significance, which is perhaps not surprising in the light of the limitations
mentioned before. The only region to show an effect was the East Midland

TABLE 3. Regression analysis for the change away from category 1 (from unit-before-ten to
ten-before-unit) (n = 809)

Coefficient Standard Error z Value p Value

(Intercept) –7.12 1.17 –6.08 ,.001

Period (see Fig. 1) –.39 .05 –7.38 ,.001
Block frequency 5.02 0.50 10.00 ,.001
Region 1 (other) 3.59 1.35 2.66 ,.008
Region 2 (East Midland) –3.21 .97 –3.32 ,.001
Period:region 1 –.59 .19 –3.09 ,.002
Period:region 2 .64 .11 5.91 ,.001
ORDER CHANGE IN ENGLISH NUMERALS 33

dialect. Therefore, the statistical model was reduced to two values for region—
defined as region 2 for the East Midland and region 1 for all other dialect areas.
As can be gleaned from Table 3, the East Midland dialect turned out to be
innovative, whereas the other areas turned out to be conservative.
The interactions of period and region 1 as well as period and region 2 proved
significant. This outcome implies that with time the East Midland dialect
gradually reduced its change rate while the other dialects increased it, that is,
while the other dialects were catching up.
The predictive success of the minimal adequate model is moderately high. It
accounts for 54% of the variance in the data (Nagelkerke R2 = .542). From the
perspective of historical linguistics, this is a satisfactory result.
We proceed to an examination of the change from category 2 to category 3, that
is, the loss of the conjunction. Unlike the previous change, this development cannot
be investigated on the basis of the entire data set because it is nonsensical to allow
for the possibility of a reverse change, that is, from category 2 to category 1.
Although reverse changes have occasionally been reported in the diachronic
literature (e.g., Fischer, 2000), there is not a shred of evidence to suggest that
this has happened in the case of the English numerals. However, it should be
borne in mind that the OE pattern lingered on while the change from the ME
pattern to the ModE pattern was underway.
The ensuing analysis starts from category 2 (with category 1 excluded). It is
based on 477 tokens, of which 128 belong to category 2 and 349 to category 3.
The results of the regression analysis of the change from category 2 to category
3 are supplied in Table 4, which discloses a significant main effect of period,
block frequency, and region 1. No interaction of factors attained significance.
The interpretation of period (with a negative coefficient) is as before. As our
analysis moves closer to the present time, the frequency of category 2 dwindles.
The comparison between Tables 3 and 4 reveals a striking disparity in the
behavior of block frequency. In contrast to the change away from the OE order,
the coefficient for frequency is negative in the change from category 2 to
category 3. The implication is that the higher the frequency of the numeral, the
greater its receptiveness to the ModE order. Put another way, the change tends to
affect the high-frequency numerals before the low-frequency ones.

TABLE 4. Regression analysis for the change from category 2 to category 3 (loss of the
conjunction and) (n = 477)

Coefficient Standard Error z Value p Value

(Intercept) 17.0 2.71 6.27 ,.001

Period (see Fig. 1) –1.04 .14 –7.50 ,.001
Block frequency –2.83 .86 –3.28 ,.001
Region 1 (other) –2.08 .80 –2.59 ,.01
Region 2 (East Midland) 5.88 20.14 .29 ..7
34 THOMAS BERG AND MARION NEUBAUER

A further difference between Tables 3 and 4 pertains to region. Whereas all

regions except the East Midland dialect were conservative in the earlier change,
they were innovative in the later change. The East Midland dialect also shows
variation, albeit less clearly so. Whereas it was innovative in the prior
development, no such effect emerged in the later development. To a certain
extent, then, the two changes statistically analyzed in Tables 3 and 4 are mirror
images of each other. The absence of an interaction of period and region might
be partly attributable to the nonsignificance of region 2 (East Midland). It
suggests that the neutral behavior of the East Midland and the progressive
behavior of the other dialect areas did not change appreciably over time.
Finally, it is worth drawing attention to the success of the statistical model. With
R2 = .757, the model fit is quite good. In fact, the model outperforms the modeling
attempt for the change from category 1 to categories 2 and 3. Note also that this
success is achieved with fewer factors and interactions than in the previous
minimal adequate model.
To summarize, we have traced the change from the OE to the ModE forms of the
numerals from 21 to 99 in as much detail as the historical corpora permit. The
protracted nature of this change allowed us to study the temporal variable
thoroughly. Block frequency exhibits a seemingly paradoxical behavior in
generating two diametrically opposite effects. Low-frequency numerals are more
receptive to the order change than are high-frequency numerals, whereas high-
frequency items are more subject to the loss of the conjunction than are low-
frequency items.

Numerical magnitude. In the final part of the empirical analysis, we briefly

bring numerical magnitude into the picture. Like frequency, we coded numerical
magnitude in blocks of ten and pooled all numerals from 21 to 29, from 31 to
39, and so on, mainly because the test of interest pertains to the decades rather
than the units. In particular, our focus is on whether the decades from 70 to 90
can be distinguished from those from 20 to 60. Table 5 deals with the change in
morpheme/word order, Table 6 with the loss of the conjunction (2 = twenties,
3 = thirties, etc.).

TABLE 5. Rate of category 1 versus categories 2 and 3 as a function of numerical magnitude

(n = 809)

Block of Tens Category 1, n Categories 2 and 3, n Percentage of Innovative Orders

2 140 105 43
3 51 67 57
4 59 59 50
5 34 33 49
6 25 40 62
7 18 46 72
8 2 22 92
9 0 105 100
ORDER CHANGE IN ENGLISH NUMERALS 35

TABLE 6. Rate of category 2 versus category 3 as a function of numerical magnitude

(n = 477)

Block of Tens Category 2, n Category 3, n Percentage of Category 3

2 6 99 94
3 8 59 88
4 19 40 68
5 4 29 88
6 26 14 35
7 21 25 54
8 11 11 50
9 33 72 69

If the presence of the prefix (or partial circumfix) hund- played a role in the
numeral change, we would expect a major break point between the sixties and
the seventies. However, no such break point emerges in Tables 5 and 6.10,11
What we observe instead is a relatively steady increase in the percentage of new
orders as we climb up the blocks of tens in Table 5 and a (less orderly)
downward trend in the percentage of the ModE pattern in Table 6. We may
therefore conclude that the numeral change was not affected, however indirectly,
by the morphological structure of the OE number words.

THEORETICAL DISCUSSION

The role of frequency in the numeral change

In diachronic studies, we repeatedly encounter the seemingly contradictory effects
of some changes starting in high-frequency items and others in low-frequency
items (see Phillips, 2006, for a survey). Precisely the same result emerged from
our own analysis with the additional twist that both effects were observed in the
change of English numerals. Our methodological decision in the empirical
analysis was to split the change into two parts—the switch of the constituent
morphemes and the loss of the linking element. One similarity between the two
parts is that both are abstract in the sense that they involve a change in mental
programming—a reordering of constituents and the nonproduction of a unit that
used to be produced. However, there is also a crucial difference to be noted. The
reordering operation is largely confined to the high-level stages of language
generation. Whether a given string is produced in one or the other order has few
repercussions on the low-level aspects of speech. To be more specific,
articulatory complexity is largely unaffected by alternative orders of the same
planning units. Different orders may generate differences in the transitional
probability of phonemes straddling the word or morpheme boundary, but these
effects may be considered minor as probabilistic phonotactic constraints may be
strong within words but are weak across word boundaries.
36 THOMAS BERG AND MARION NEUBAUER

Unlike the reordering operation, the deletion of a word affects not only mental
programming but also articulation. That the phonetic representation is involved in
the loss of the conjunction can be seen in a series of weakening processes such as
vowel reduction and consonant deletion that this change typically involves. These
processes create a succession of increasingly reduced output patterns that might
have taken the following form: [ænd] → [ənd] → [ən] → [n] → ø. Thus, the
disappearance of the connector involves phonetic aspects to a much greater
extent than does the reordering of the tens and units.
We suggest that this disparity is at the heart of the puzzling role of frequency in
the numeral change. As was noted in the introductory section, Phillips (2006)
argued that the major basis for predicting which of the routes of lexical diffusion
will be chosen is the requisite level of analysis. If the change targets the
phonetic representation, the most frequent words are the first to innovate; if,
however, the change targets more abstract representations, the least frequent
words are the first to innovate. This distinction predicts the results of the present
study quite well. The order change of tens and units clearly implicates high-level
(e.g., morphological) representations. Therefore, this change manifests itself
earlier in the less common than in the more common number words. By
contrast, the loss of the connector clearly implicates articulatory processes. This
phonetic orientation is responsible for the faster involvement of high-frequency
words in this change.
There is one remaining concern that needs to be addressed although it cannot be
entirely put to rest. Due to the scantiness of the diachronic evidence, frequency had
to be operationalized in a less than optimal manner in this study: The data were
pooled into blocks of tens. This methodological decision may have introduced
an inaccuracy in assessing the impact of frequency in the multifactorial analysis.
In particular, it may have underestimated the role of frequency because the
pooling of data necessarily involves a loss of information. It is therefore
desirable to supplement the block frequency analysis with a frequency analysis
of individual numbers.
Although nothing can be done to substantially increase the size of the historical
database, there is an indirect way of obtaining more detailed information on
frequency profiles at earlier stages of a language. We can achieve this by
determining the frequency of number words in the current language. Given the
vast data resources that are nowadays available, this can be reliably done for
each number value. The next step involves extrapolating from the modern to the
historical data and conjecturing that the frequency profile of numerals has not
dramatically changed over time.
The following frequency analysis is based on the huge Corpus of Contemporary
American English (1990–2012). It is restricted to the numerals from 20 to 100. The
results of this search are graphically represented in Figure 2.
The empirical picture displayed in Figure 2 is amazingly orderly. There is a
general downward drift in frequency with numerical magnitude (Kendall’s tau
= –.68). Although there are local peaks at the full tens and the fives, the
downward trend can be observed in all three domains—the tens, the fives, and
ORDER CHANGE IN ENGLISH NUMERALS 37

FIGURE 2. Frequency of Modern English numbers from 20 to 100.

the other numbers. Hence, this downward trend applies not just to the decades (as
tested in the empirical analysis) but also to the units.
These results dovetail with the study of Dehaene and Mehler (1992) who found
a similar effect in a number of languages other than English, although their analysis
was limited to testing the tens (among the domains of interest here). Dehaene and
Mehler’s (1992) work is important in the present context because it testifies to the
cross-linguistic validity of the decrease in frequency with increasing number value
(see also Greenberg, 1966:44). If we reject a principled difference between
different languages and different historical stages of the same language, the
cross-linguistic validity of the downward drift justifies generalizing from
Modern English to its earlier stages. We may therefore hypothesize that the
downward drift shown in Figure 2 is a historical constant.12 If this is true, it may
be assumed that the multifactorial analysis reported herein underestimated the
real strength of frequency.

Toward an account of the numeral change

For the statistical analyses of the historical evolution of English numerals we
reported, we broke down this evolution into the change from category 1 to
categories 2 and 3 and the change from category 2 to category 3. In so doing,
we remained as neutral as possible with respect to the relationship among the
three categories of numerals.
38 THOMAS BERG AND MARION NEUBAUER

On the basis of the data analysis, we may now begin to inquire into the nature of
the change in the numeral system. Are we dealing with a unitary change or two
independent changes? What is the relationship between the order change and the
decline of the linking element? To be more specific, is category 2 a necessary
stage during the transition from the OE to the ModE order? Moreover, is
category 3 a necessary completion of the change or could it have stopped with
category 2? While the investigation of a single language does not allow us to
provide general answers, it is possible to draw some preliminary conclusions.
The empirical analysis revealed significant differences in the characteristic
features of the order change and the loss of and. Category 2 occurred much
earlier than category 3. Frequency and region behave in almost opposite ways.
These disparities suggest that, at the observational level, the two changes have a
largely independent status.
However, from a more theoretical perspective, the two changes may be argued
to be related. As noted in the introduction, the typological literature argues for a
strong link between the lower-before-higher order and the connecting element
but a weak link between the higher-before-lower order and the connector.
Category 2 may therefore be regarded as a disfavored structure. It is probably the
outcome of a general desire to keep change to a minimum. Change tends to be
local; that is, it affects only one aspect of a linguistic structure at a time. This is
for the obvious reason that even during ongoing change, the linguistic system
must fulfill its communicative function. A radical change would put this
function at risk. It is therefore to be expected that the numeral change was
initially restricted to reversing the order of morphemes while leaving the
connector intact. Hence, the locality of change entailed a marked pattern
(category 2). On the commonplace assumption that language change is more
likely to reduce than to increase markedness (e.g., Mayerthaler, 1981), it is
understandable that category 2 evolved into category 3. A marked structure is
replaced by a less marked one. However, this change is not a logical necessity
because marked structures are not necessarily eradicated.13 It seems appropriate
to regard this change as a natural one. We therefore conclude that category 2
results from the locality constraint on language change and that category 3 is an
expected, though not a necessary sequel to category 2. A direct change from
category 1 to category 3 would consequently be rather unlikely.
This leads us straight to a discussion of the causes of the change in the numeral
system. Language contact with Norman French, which wields such a powerful
influence on the ME lexicon (e.g., Burnley, 1992), also seems to have played a
major role in bringing about the order change. Old French placed the tens before
the units and made use of a connecting element (e.g., vint et trois ‘twenty-three’;
Kibler, 1984:193). Category 2 in ME may accordingly be seen as a direct copy
of the French pattern. Notably, the order change appeared just at the time (13th
century) when the French influence made itself felt most strongly. A further
argument in support of the contact hypothesis is the emergence of the vigesimal
strategy in ME, which was completely unknown to the Anglo-Saxons. The
multiplication by score was in all likelihood modeled on French vingt as in
ORDER CHANGE IN ENGLISH NUMERALS 39

quatre-vingt (four × twenty) ‘eighty’ and quatre-vingt-dix (four × twenty þ ten)

‘ninety’ (see Menninger, 1958:79).14 There is an interesting interaction between
the use of score and numerical magnitude. The larger the number, the more
common the use of score. Although score is not used at all in the forties and
fifties, it has a share of 9% in the sixties, 19% in the seventies, 90% in the
eighties, and 50% in the nineties in our data. So it is precisely in the numerical
region where French makes use of the vigesimal system where we find the
strongest use of score in ME. It may therefore be concluded that language
contact is a decisive influence even though we view it as one influence among
others.15
We suggest that the Norman French impact was aided by internal linguistic
constraints, especially the weakness of the unit-before-ten order. In the
following, we will discuss several (potential and real) problems besetting this
order.
The unit-before-ten order engenders a palpable mismatch between the Roman
(as well as the Hindu-Arabic) and the linguistic representation of numbers (and
consequently between speaking and writing). This order, which is assumed to
reflect spoken OE, conflicts with the order in which units and tens are written as
numbers. In both Roman and Hindu-Arabic notation, the tens precede the
units.16 The relative position of the digits is the only piece of information to
convey ten or unit status (compare 45 to 54). This conflict creates a problem
only for literate people. Illiterate people are not bothered. Herein lies the germ of
a potential explanation. An increase in literacy would cause a difficulty that did
not exist before and therefore encourage the elimination of this mismatch.
This hypothesis does not accord well with the historical facts, however. The
order change began in the 13th century, long before we witness a general
increase in literacy (roughly the 17th and 19th centuries). This disparity
precludes us from giving credence to this idea.
A more convincing proposal was put forward by Greenberg (1978:274) who
invokes the listener’s perspective. In multidigit numbers, a consistent lower-
before-higher order delays comprehension until the very end of the number
word, whereas a consistent higher-before-lower order allows the listener to
derive a reasonable approximation to the actual number value on the basis of the
beginning of the number word. In a nutshell, the higher-before-lower order is
more efficient.17
The unit-before-ten order is fraught with a further problem. It creates a local
inconsistency because it is typically embedded in a higher-before-lower frame.
Take the spoken representation of the number 4263 as an illustration. Although
the thousands and hundreds are ordered according to the higher-before-lower
principle, this principle is violated by the unit-before-ten order. A change from
the unit-before-ten to the inverse order would thus eliminate this inconsistency.
We take it that inconsistency is generally more difficult to process than
consistency (e.g., Christiansen & Devlin, 1997, on word order patterns).
Stampe (1976:603) added another explanation that also revolves around
consistency. He contended that in the number range from 21 to 99, the tens
40 THOMAS BERG AND MARION NEUBAUER

provide old and the units new information. Because languages such as English
ordinarily place old before new information, the ten-before-unit order is
consistent with this pragmatic principle, but the unit-before-ten order is not.
Even though Stampe developed this point in an attempt to account for the
typological asymmetry between the two orders, his argument can be easily
extended to diachronic change. In this view, the change from the unit-before-ten
to the ten-before-unit order contributed to making the linguistic system more
consistent.
Another line of evidence derives from a look at languages that have the unit-
before-ten order. German is a case in point. If this is really a dispreferred pattern,
its cracks should be discernible. As a matter of fact, the difficulty surrounding
this order can be noticed in the number errors committed by an aphasic speaker
of German. Blanken, Dorn, and Sinn (1997) reported that most of the errors
made by this patient are inversions involving the units and the tens.18
All these arguments lead to the conclusion that the unit-before-ten order is more
difficult to process than the inverse order is.19 The change from the unit-before-ten
to the ten-before-unit order in the history of English may therefore be argued to
have incurred a reduction in processing cost. This claim should not be
misconstrued as stating that the decrease in processing effort provides a full
explanation of the order change. We rather prefer to say that the decrease in
mental cost has facilitated the order change (to an unspecified degree). Thus, it
may be the combination of language contact, the processing advantage, and
doubtlessly other factors that brought about the numeral change in the history of
English.
It remains for us to explain why languages such as German and Dutch did not
follow in the footsteps of English and why Old English had a disfavored unit-
before-ten order in the first place. Clearly, there must be a factor (or set of
factors) that strengthens the unit-before-ten order and thus contributes to its
diachronic stability. The main factor we see at work is the time-honored short-
before-long principle (e.g., Behaghel, 1909; Cooper & Ross, 1975; Hawkins,
1994) to which the unit-before-ten order conforms. Because the tens are
morphologically more complex than the units (compare, e.g., sixty to six), the
former are phonologically longer than the latter. Hence, the unit-before-ten order
receives support from the short-before-long principle. It might be objected that
this advantage is nullified by the fact that the unit-before-ten order requires a
connector. However, this objection is invalid because we are not concerned with
the overall length of the numeral but rather with the relative ordering of the tens
and the units.

CONCLUSION

Perhaps the most significant aspect of the numeral change is its seemingly
paradoxical sensitivity to frequency. We may assume that even though this
change has only recently reached its current outcome, it is highly likely that it is
ORDER CHANGE IN ENGLISH NUMERALS 41

in its final stage. From this viewpoint, the number change may be considered a
unitary phenomenon that proceeded in two steps. Although these two steps are
part of a larger process and may therefore be expected to exhibit a similar
behavior, they follow their own rules. Because they differ in their function
(nonreductive vs. reductive), they can also differ in their sensitivity to frequency
(and possibly in their areal diffusion): The first step—the nonreductive change—
diffuses from lower to higher frequency items, and the second—involving
phonetic reduction—diffuses from higher to lower frequency items. This shows
that a logical link between two diachronic steps does not imply that they must
behave in like fashion.

NOTES
1. In his grammar of Old Norse, Haugen (2013) mentioned only the ten-before-unit order. In the light
of evidence to the contrary, this is probably an oversight or a simplification.
2. Note that numerals could occur before or after the noun in Old and Middle English (Tietjens,
1922:36). In fact, this is no longer an option in Modern English.
3. The case of Norwegian is more complex. The two Norwegian languages feature opposite orders,
with Nynorsk following the Icelandic pattern and Bokmål aligning itself with Danish.
4. Campbell (1959:285) noted that the units usually preceded the tens in OE (emphasis ours). This
word choice would seem to imply that OE permitted variable order of the tens and the units much
like Old Norse and Old High German did. However, neither Campbell’s nor any other standard
handbook of OE provides examples of the ten-before-unit order. Brunner (1962:93) remarked, “as
far as can be determined, the units precede the tens” (our translation, our emphasis). We interpret
this statement to mean that he did not come across any instances of the ten-before-unit order and that
he added the clause as far as can be determined as a hedge to express his conviction that, in view of
the paucity of the diachronic data, we can never be completely sure that a particular pattern was
nonexistent. Campbell’s use of the adverb usually may be interpreted in a similar way. Be that as it
may, we searched the York-Toronto-Helsinki Parsed Corpus of Old English Prose, which consists of
1.8 million words and 100 texts. The search string was “&NUM%%&CONJ&NUM%%,” that is,
number þ conjunction þ number. Data cleansing pared down the 504 hits to 341. Of these 341
cases, 340 followed the conventional unit-and-ten order, and only a singleton case exhibited the ten-
and-unit order. Remarkably, this is the numeral tyne & twegen ‘ten and two’ (=12), which does not
even fall within the range of interest here (from 21 to 99). We thus feel entitled to conclude that if
there was order variation in OE numerals, it must have been fairly minor and hence negligible.
5. Unfortunately, number words occur but rarely in Old Dutch corpora (Quak & van der Horst,
2002:45), so we cannot be sure of the order. However, it would seem likely that it was the same as in
Middle Dutch.
6. In Bosworth and Toller’s (1898) dictionary, hund- is translated as Latin deca ‘ten’. This translation
stands in marked contrast to the other OE dictionaries. In any case, the argument to be proposed herein
does not hinge on the exact meaning of this morpheme.
7. The same prediction holds if we accept von Mengden’s (2010) claim that hund- forms a circumfix
with -tig. If we construe a circumfix as a brace, we may argue that the ten is integrated into a rather tightly
knit structure. This cohesiveness may be expected to reduce the likelihood of an order change.
8. Greenberg’s universal 33 reads: “When there is word order variation in addition between larger and
smaller, and one order has an overt link and the other has not, it is always the order smaller þ larger
which has the link” (p. 277).
9. Consonant with some of the typological literature (e.g., Culbertson, Smolensky, & Legendre,
2012), we use the terms marked and unmarked as convenient descriptive labels rather than
theoretically grounded notions.
10. Such a break point would be less expected in Table 6 than in Table 5 because hund- had
disappeared long before the loss of the connector set in.
11. The results reported in Tables 5 and 6 are also incompatible with Poutsma’s (1916:1227) claim that
the unit-before-ten order persisted into LModE in the case of numerals below 40 but seldom so in the
case of numerals above 40. As can be gathered from the two tables, there is no sharp boundary
separating the twenties and thirties from the higher number values. We may assume that Poutsma’s
remark was largely impressionistic rather than based on a close analysis of the data.
42 THOMAS BERG AND MARION NEUBAUER

12. This is not to say that the slope of the curve is also a constant. For example, it is highly likely that
larger numbers were much less common in the Middle Ages than they are in the technologically
advanced societies of today.
13. Take Modern Spanish and Portuguese, for example, which exhibit a historical stability of the ten-
connector-unit order (category 2).
14. It is true that score already existed in OE in the form of scoru as a borrowing from Old Norse.
However, it was hardly ever used as a numeral or part thereof. It is very clear therefore that the
Normans did not introduce score into ME. A likely scenario is that the existence of score in ME
greatly facilitated its use as a numeral on the French model.
15. It is not clear whether the French influence is only responsible for the order change or whether the
French structural pattern was borrowed wholesale. These theoretical alternatives are difficult to tease
apart because their outcomes are identical.
16. We put aside the exceptional ordering of the higher and lower values in “final” numbers such as IX
‘9’ and XC ‘90’ in Roman writing.
17. Incidentally, this argument would also explain why the writing system just mentioned put the
higher-order before the lower-order values.
18. As a piece of anecdotal evidence, it might be added that even linguistically competent speakers of
German occasionally get confused over the ten/unit order when they write down numbers they have been
orally given.
19. For an interesting attempt to locate this effect, see Brysbaert, Fias, and Noël (1998).

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