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James Campbell wrote: >OK, so not Romance-related, but I thought it might be of interest anyway. It really seems that in these languages, 8 is "10 minus 2" and 9 is "10 minus 1". >I wonder if languages of another group count 8 and 9 like that... At least one other-- Malay/Indonesian and its relatives: (alap and ambil both mean 'take [away] ')-- eight: Ml. delapan < dua-alap+an 'two taking(s)' nine: Ml. sembilan < se-ambil+an 'one taking' Sundanese: salapan (In Ml., pre-tonic vowels tend to coalesce and reduce to schwa, written "e")