Reconstruction of the Ancient Numeral System in Basque Language

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4 Fernando Gomez-Acedo & Eneko Gomez-Acedo Bilbao 00

157 Abstract In this work a new insight into the reconstruction of the original forms of the first Basque cardinal numbers is presented and the identified original meaning of the names given to the numbers is shown. The method used is the internal reconstruction, using for 172 the etymologies words that existed and still exist in Basque and other words reconstructed from the proto-Basque. As a result of this work it has been discovered that initially the 2018/2019 numbers received their name according to a specific and logic procedure. According to this ancient method of designation, each cardinal number received its name based on the hand sign used to represent it, thus describing the position adopted by the fingers of the hand to represent each number. Finally, the different stages of numerical formation are shown, which demonstrate a long and diachronic development of the whole counting system.

Contents Keywords basque language, numeral system, internal reconstruction, etymology Reconstruction of the Ancient Numeral System in Basque Language 157

Fernando Gomez-Acedo & Eneko Gomez-Acedo 157 Introduction

The Basque language is recognised having no known relatives, so the internal reconstruction of the proto-Basque has been the object of a number of studies in the recent past; this method requires no data from external languages so it allows to reconstruct important characteristics of earlier stages of the language (Trask, 1996). Within the work carried out in the 20th century to study the Basque language, Mitxelena’s work stands out (Mitxelena, 1961-1985); his study established the foundations that made possible the reconstruction of the proto-Basque. As far as numerals are concerned, Mitxelena proposed (1977, pp. 93, 336) as the old form of the number one ‘1’ *bade > bat, based on the comparison of bat with bedera ‘one apiece’, and bederatzi ‘nine’. He also took as the more ancients the forms found in the northern dialects of Basque:

number two ‘2’ biga; number three ‘3’ hirur; number four ‘4’ laur; number five ‘5’ bortz; and for the number seven ‘7’ *bortz-az-bi ‘two with five’ > zazpi; for the number eleven ‘11’ he proposed *hama-*bed-ka > hamaika, but without giving any further explanation about it. Afterwards, Agud & Tovar (1992) gathered in their etymological dictionary the early work done by previous scholars up to the 1960s (Giese, Bouda, Ribáry, Campion, Gavel, Lafon, Harris, Coromines, Löpelmann, etc.). In this dictionary several etymological proposals for some of the the basque numbers were collected, being these a mixed bag regarding rigour. Later on, Trask mentioned (1997) the variant *bada for the ancient bat. Already in the 21st century, Lakarra proposed [2002, 2010] the etymologies of the numbers: one ‘1’ *bada ‘there is’ > bat; two ‘2’ *goni > *goi(n) ‘on top’ > *gwi > bi; three ‘3’ *her ‘three’ >*her-ahur ‘handful of three’ > hirur; for the four ‘4’ he proposed two proto-forms, *larr-ahur ‘big palm of hand’ > laur; and later retracting from the first etymology, labur ‘short’ > laur; for five ‘5’ *bor-tz ‘(round (hand) + suffix’ bortz> ; six ‘6’ seni ‘child’ > sehi > sei ; seven ‘7’ *bor-zaz-bi ‘two with five’ >zazpi ; eight ‘8’ zorrotzi ‘sharpen’ > zortzi; nine ‘9’ *bada-*eradontsi ‘substract one’ > *bederadontsi > bederatzi; ten ‘10’ *han-*bor ‘big round (hand) [= two hands]’ > hamar; eleven ‘11’ *hama(b)i-*(b)e(d)eka ‘twelve minus one’ > *hamaeka > hamaika; twenty ‘20’ *bor +*gen-i ‘round (hand) - added’ > ogeni > ogei; for one hundred ‘100’ he proposed *hen-*hun ‘trunk-ivy’ > ehun; and later and retracting from the first,ehun ‘fabric (weaving)’ > ehun; finally for a half ‘1/2’ he proposed the Latin word tertium ‘third’ > erdi. However, as stated in Orduña (2011) it can be seen that this previous work has not provided coherent results from a semantic point of view. This lack of coherence in the names of the cardinal numbers can be seen in the fact that the etymologies proposed necessarily require very different and hypothetical explanations for terms such as ‘short’, ‘child’, ‘sharp’, etc. being used in the past. As a result, these results seem semantically inco- herent and unconvincing. To overcome this reservations, in this work a new insight is presented into the internal reconstruction of the original forms of the Basque cardinal numbers from ‘1’ to ‘20’ with the addition of ‘1/2’. For this reconstruction, key words that were ignored by previous etymological studies have been taken into consideration; these words prove to be

crucial for the understanding of the original names given to the Basque cardinal numbers.

Development

In order to carry out the etymological study for each Basque cardinal number by internal reconstruction, it is necessary to be aware of some key words that existed and still exist in Basque language, and of other reconstructed words from proto-Basque. These words will be explained as they appear in the text, but there is a particular one that proves to be essential as it appears repeatedly in almost all numbers, which is the word for ‘finger’ eri. In Basque there are in fact two words for ‘finger’: i) the first one as mentioned is eri, which can be found still today as eri in most of the dialects and as erhi in the northern dialects [Orotariko Euskal Hiztegia, henceforth OEH]. The word eri, of great antiquity, has left a number of derived words as for example erpuru ‘thumb’ from eri+buru ‘main finger’; erkhain ‘fingertip’ from eri+gain ‘finger top’; or eraztun ‘ring’ (using an unidentified *-aztun), which has another variant eleztun where a change r>l occurred [OEH]; and ii) for ‘finger’ there is also the probably newer word (h)atz that is the most used in Basque today. With this in mind, in the following points the particular etymological analysis for the first cardinal numbers of the Basque numeral system, from ‘1’ to ‘20’ with the addition of ‘1/2’, will be given.

Analysis of the number ‘1’ bat bat is of general use in all dialects, and used indistinctly as a numeral and indeterminate article, being no formal mark to distinguish these functions [OEH]. The form bet is also found in Biscaye. Agreeing with Mitxelena about the similarity between bedera ‘one apiece’, and bederatzi ‘nine’ (1977, pp. 70, 134, 235), it will be taken as a starting point the root *beder, but also *bader, because it is not possible to exclude the possibility of a transformation from a>e as it happened with the form bat > bet heard in Biscaye. In this way, the proposed etimology is:

*bada-eri > *badei > *bade > bat.

Here it is used bada ‘there is’ (from bai ‘yes’ + da ‘is’) and eri ‘finger’. The meaning of *bada-eri then would be ‘there is a finger’, where the hand sign of a extended finger is used to signify a unit; aditionally as it is used the singular form bada (the plural form is badira), it means that there is only one finger and not more. In this way, starting from *bada-eri ‘there is a finger’, the transformation would occurr firstly to *badei (ending in -ei like sei), then to reach the form *bade proposed by Mitxelena and finally to the modern bat.

Analysis of the number ‘2’ bi bi is of general use in all dialects, documented already in medieval texts [Letts 1946]. In the northern dialects, where bi is used, also exist the forms biga, bida, bia, used to designate ‘2’ when unaccompanied by a sustantive [OEH]. In this case, for the reconstruction of bi we start from the root *berr- found in the construction of the composed words berrogei ‘forty’ (< berrogei ‘two times twenty’) and berrehun ‘two hundred’ (< berr-ehun ‘two times a hundred’). The root *berr- implies the meaning of ‘other’ as in berriro ‘again, another time’; and bertze ‘another’. For this reason the proposed etimology of bi is *berr-eri, where it is used the root *berr- ‘another’ and eri ‘finger’. Its literal meaning then would be ‘another finger’, this is, another finger added to the first finger, thus making two. In this way, by using eri along *berr-, it was acquired the letter -i that holds the modern word bi. The exact transformation that took place is difficult to assess because there can be a time-lapse of some four or five centuries between two distinct linguistic states; between them even transi- tory different forms including many abandoned offbranchings can coexist until the most used one is established [Joseph and Janda 2003]. However, to assess the intermediate forms between *berr-eri and bi, we can take into account the existing words berriro ‘again, a second time’, birritan ‘two times’, and biribil ‘circle’, all of which have a relationship with the protoword *berr-eri ‘two’ as it is shown here:

*berr-eri-hor ‘two (fingers) there’ > berri-ro > berriro ‘again, a second time’.

*berr-eri-tan ‘two (fingers) times’ > birri-tan > birritan ‘two times’. *berr-eri-bil ‘put together two fingers’ > biri-bil > biribil ‘circle’ (note that we can represent a circle using a hand sign by putting together the thumb and the index in a round shape).

As seen in these words derived from *berr-eri, we find the respective evolved forms berri-, birri- and biri-; using these we can propose the following evolution for *berr-eri:

*berr-eri > *berrei > *berri > *birri > *biri > bi

Regarding this evolution, in addition to the intermediate forms demon- strated above, in the first step the eri>ei transformation (Mitxelena, 1977, p. 208) would occur, leading to the form *berrei (ending in -ei like sei); then a transformation of ei>i happened like in the recorded form of hogei > hogi found in the Willughby Glossary (Trask & Coates, 2006); and finally in the last step the transformation -iri>-ii>i (Mitxelena, 1961, 1977) happened. With regards to biga, and taking into account that the same speakers of the dialects where biga is used to name the number ‘2’ in isolation, also use bi before a sustantive, biga seems to be a later form that could be a derivation of *bi-a ‘the two’ > biga, where the consonant -g- possibly was added later to prevent the two consecutive vocals as it happens with burua > buruba in the north Gipuzkoan dialect.

Analysis of the number ‘3’ hirur / hiru hirur / hiru is general in all dialects, the form iru being part of the tradition from Gipuzkoa and Biscay and hirur from the northern dialects until the XXth century [OEH]. Taking hirur as the old form as Mitxelena did (1977), and using eri ‘finger’ as previously, the proposed etymology is:

*berr-eri-ahur > *birihur > *irihur > hirur > hiru

Where it is used bi ‘two’; eri ‘finger’ and ahur, ‘palm of the hand’. Its literal meaning is ‘two fingers (in the) palm of the hand´. Therefore it

Philology, vol. 4/2018/2019 This work is licensed under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 license. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ 162 Fernando Gomez-Acedo & Eneko Gomez-Acedo means that in order to represent the number ‘3’ with a hand sign, we have to leave two fingers in the palm, which is a true representation of the reality. Regarding its evolution, a falling b- happened from the second to the third form shown (as in birao > irao: Mitxelena, 1977, p. 74) and also a change h3>h1 happened from the third to the fourth form.

Analysis of the number ‘4’ laur / lau laur / lau is general in all dialects. The form lau is part of the tradition from Gipuzkoa and Biscay and in the northern dialects we find lau (more frequently) and also laur (laur being the only form found in the texts from Pirenaic Navarre) [OEH]. Taking laur as the old form as Mitxelena did (1977), and also using eri ‘finger’ as previously, the proposed etimology is:

*eri-ahur > *elahur > laur > lau

Where it is used eri, ‘finger’and ahur, ‘palm of the hand’. Its literal meaning is ‘(one) finger in the palm of the hand’. Therefore it means that in order to represent the number ‘4’ with a hand sign, we have to leave one finger in the palm, which is a true representation of the reality. Regarding the evolution of the word, we can point that the transformation r>l is usual in the final -r of the first member of composed words (Mitxelena, 1977, p. 317) as in abere ‘cattle’ + zain ‘keeper’ > abeltzain, or more notably for the present case eraztun ‘ring’ (from eri+*aztun) > eleztun. Therefore the evolution eri > el happened also here for *eri-ahur > *elahur > laur. Also, because of the similar construction method used for laur and irur, we can conclude that both were created in the same time period.

Analysis of the number ‘5’ bortz / bost bost is general in all the southern dialects and Lower Navarre; the form found in dialects from Lapurdi and Soule is bortz, and in some places borz [OHE].

Taking bortz as the old form (Mitxelena, 1977), the proposed etymology for bortz is:

*be-oro-atz > *borotz > bortz > bost

Where it is used *be, ‘to see, to watch’ (this root can be found in behatu, ‘observe’, and begiratu ‘look at’); oro, ‘whole’; and *atz understood as ‘hand’. The literal meaning of *be-oro-atz then would be ‘to watch the whole hand’, this is, having the hand open to watch all the five fingers on it. Because hatz means today ‘finger’ it could be thought that *be-oro-atz could mean ‘to watch all the fingers’; however below in the analysis of the number ‘6’ reasons will appear to question this meaning, as both *atz and eri are used simultaneously with distinct meanings. Regarding this, we find strong reasons to think that in proto-basque *atz could have designate the complete hand and not each of the fingers (today the modern word for ‘hand’ is esku). The fingers, that initially were called eri / erhi (forms that still exist today) would in a later time period be called atz-hamarrak, which would mean literally ‘the ten of the hands’ (see about this Mitxelena, 1977, p. 276), and finally by abbreviation and including a change of h2>h1, atzhamarrak > hatzamarrak > hatzak ‘fingers’. Also both atzamarra and atzaparra mean ‘claw, paw’ and can refer as well to the human hand [OEH]. The idea of the protoword *atz originally meaning ‘hand’, or a ‘limb extremity’ in general, is supported by the fact that for animals atz still today refers to ‘animal claw’, being this the ‘hand’ of the animal, and also atz means ‘trace/print’, being oinhatz, using oin ‘foot’, the specific designation for ‘footprint’; finally it is also worth mentioning that there is the verb atzeman: ‘apprehend, capture, catch’, and all these meanings associated with ‘catching’ are related to the hand, which is the one that catches. In this manner, and as a conclusion of the above mentioned, taking *atz as the proto-basque term for the ‘hand’, the meaning of *be-oro-atz would be ‘to watch the whole hand’, this is, having the hand open to watch all the five fingers on it.

Analysis of the number ‘6’ sei sei is general in all dialects, appearing occasional variants such as xei [OEH]. In relation to sei it is worth mentioning that the diphthong -ei- appears in a

Philology, vol. 4/2018/2019 This work is licensed under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 license. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ 164 Fernando Gomez-Acedo & Eneko Gomez-Acedo number of Basque words such as: zein ‘which’; erein ‘to sow’; orein ‘deer’; leize ‘cave’; bereiztu ‘to differentiate’;eio ‘to grind’; dei ‘to call’; jeitzi ‘to milk’; hodei ‘cloud’, etc. This diphthong can be created through different transformation mechanisms, as explained in Mitxelena (1977, pp. 66, 98, 108, 115, 126, 208, 896):

ei jeiki ‘to rise’; igitai > igitei ‘sickle’; eztai > eztei ‘wedding’; izai > izei ‘fir tree, spruce’. ei usatei ‘dovecote’; begiratu > beiratu ‘to see’; egin > ein ‘to make’. ei beia ‘lower part’; le(h)en > lein ‘first’. ei lein ‘smooth’; eun > ein ‘hundred’. ei athei ‘to stop raining’; eri > ei ‘sick’; axéri > exéi ‘fox’; eri > ei ‘finger’ and also erhi > ehi ‘finger’. In this regard it should be noted that the fall of the -r- between vowels is not rare in Basque as in ahari > ahai ‘ram’; aihari > aihai ‘dinner’.

In addition, ei- becomes i- in the vicinity of a sibilant, as in areitz : aretx ‘oak tree’; or leizar : lexar ‘ash tree’. This allows to think that an original existence of a sibilant after sei is unlikely. With this in mind, it is the last transformation above mentioned eri>ei that is proposed for the etymology of sei, as follows:

*atz-az-eri > *tzazei > *tzei > sei

Where it is used *atz, understood as ‘hand’ (see explanation above); -az, associative sufix meaning ‘with’, and eri, ‘finger’. The literal meaning would ‘with one hand a finger’. This is, that for representing the number ‘6’, an open hand (with the five fingers stretched) and one additional finger from the other hand have to be shown.

Analysis of the number ‘7’ zazpi zazpi is general in all dialects, appearing occasional variants such as zaspi, sazpi, saspi [OEH]. Proposed etymology for zazpi is:

*atz-az-berr-eri > *atzaz-biri > *atzaz-bi > tzazpi > zazpi

Where it is used *atz-az, understood as ‘with one hand’ (see explanation above), and *berr-eri > bi ‘two (fingers)’. Its literal meaning would be ‘with one hand two fingers’. Therefore it means that for representing the number ‘7’, an open hand (with the five fingers stretched) and two additional fingers from the other hand have to be shown.

Analysis of the number ‘8’ zortzi zortzi is general in all dialects, appearing occasional variants such as zorzi, sorsi [OHE]. Proposed etymoloy for zortzi is:

*atz-az-berr-eri-ahur-itzi > *tzaz-biri-or-tzi > *tzaz-bi-or-tzi > *tzaziortzi > *ziortzi > zortzi

Where it is used *atz-az, understood as ‘with one hand’ (see explanation above); *berr-eri > bi, ‘two (fingers)’; ahur, ‘palm of the hand’; and itzi, ‘to leave’ (which also can take the forms utzi, eitzi, itxi [OEH]). The literal meaning is ‘with one hand, two fingers left (in the other) palm’. Therefore it means that in order to represent the number ‘8’, an open hand and in the other hand two fingers left in the palm have to be shown, which as in previous cases corresponds to reality.

Analysis of the number ‘9’ bederatzi bederatzi is common for all dialects although a large number of derived variants exist [see OEH], probably because of its length (four syllable words are rare in basque). As stated by Mitxelena (1977) and Gavel (1929) bederatzi, owning the root bedera- is probably related to the number one. Additionally, Uhlenbeck (1908) saw an ancient common sufix -tzi at the end of zortzi and bederatzi. Taking all this into account, the proposed etymology for bederatzi is:

*bada-eri-ahur-itzi > *baderaurtzi > *baderatzi > bederatzi

Where it is used *bada-eri, ‘one (finger)’;ahur , ‘palm of the hand’; and itzi, ‘to leave’.

Its literal meaning would be ‘to leave one finger in the palm of the hand’. Wheter at first it existed a form that included at the beginning of the word *atz-az ‘with one hand’ like in the previous numbers ‘6’, ‘7’, ‘8’, this is, *atz-az-bada-eri-ahur-itzi, is something we will not be able to know because if there was, today there is not any trace of that part. Therefore it would mean that in order to represent the number ‘9’, an open hand and in the other hand a single finger left in the palm have to be shown.

Analysis of the number ‘10’ hamar hamar is common in all dialects [OEH]. In Agud & Tovar (1992) it is proposed that hamar comes from amai ‘run out, finish’, supported by the fact that hamaika ‘11’, clearly related to hamar, has got the root hamai-, but without explaining in hamar the initial h- nor the final -r. The modern form amai(tu) ‘to run out, finish’ has a clear relation with ahi(tu) ‘to run out’; also it is unlikely the existence of the diphthong -ai- in a proto- Basque word; therefore we can suspect that a previous form of amai had been *amahi. Starting from this and continuing with the extensive use of the word eri ‘finger’ seen in the preceding numbers, the proposed etymology for hamar is:

*amahi-eri > *hamai-eri > *hamaeri > hamar

Where it is used *amahi: ‘run out’ and eri, ‘finger’. The literal meaning of *amahi-eri would be ‘fingers run out’. Therefore it means that for representing the number ‘10’, all the fingers from both hands have to be shown and therefore we have run out of them, not being able to represent a number higher than ten with the available fingers from both hands. Regarding the evolution of the word, a change h3>h1 happened that explains the origin of the initial h- in hamar.

Analysis of the number ‘11’ hamaika hamaika is the most used variant in all dialects, although also exist derived forms such as amaeka, hameka, hameika [OEH]. The proposed etymology for hamaika is:

*amahi-eri-ka > *hamai-eri-ka > hamaika

Where it is used: *amahi-eri > *hamai-eri ‘ten’ and -ka, a suffix that is used to create the gerund form like the english -ing (Villasante, 1974; Euskal Gramatika, 2011). Its literal meaning is ‘by the tens’. In this case it should be mentioned that even today in Basque hamaika is used as an expression to designate a large quantity of indeterminate value [OHE]. It can be sought that initially, beyond the ten it was not possible to count, being a number greater than ten something too large and therefore countless, indeterminate. Therefore, the meaning of hamaika with a literal meaning of ‘by the tens’ would mean ‘a large, undetermined quantity larger than ten’. Later, in a posterior time period, the creation of the number ‘12’ led to the use of hamaika to mean the specific cardinal number ‘11’. As for the evolution of the word, the first transition is the same as explained previously in the number ‘10’, with a change h3>h1. This etymology also explains the existence of variant forms such as amaeka [OHE] in which the -e- was preserved (*amahi-eri-ka > *hamaeri-ka > (h)amaeka).

Analysis of the numbers ‘12’ to ‘19’

At this point we can say that from ‘12’ to ‘19’, the designation of the numbers was carried out in a simple way, being composed all of them of hama(r)- (being this an explicit base as explained in [Luján 2006]), and postponing the number that it is required to add to ten. In this construction, we already find the evolved forms of the first numbers, therefore it is clear that this phase happened in a much later time, when the previous numbers ‘1’ to ‘11’ had been conceptualized and were already opaque with regards to their original gestural meaning.

‘12’ hamar-bi > hamabi ‘13’ hamar-hiru(r) > hamairu(r) ‘14’ hamar-lau(r) > hamalau(r) ‘15’ hamar-bortz > hamabortz (hamabost) ‘16’ hamar-sei > hamasei ‘17’ hamar-zazpi > hamazazpi

‘18’ hamar-zortzi > hamazortzi > hemezortzi. In this case, a transformation a>e happened because the proximity of hemeretzi, being this is an example of an ana- logical change based on an immediate model. This tendency for words counted in a sequence to influence each other is explained well in [Campbell 1998] and in [Luján 2006]. ‘19’ hamar-bederatzi > hemeretzi. Here the transformation a>e in hamar happened because of the proximity of bederatzi. Additionally, being this word too long, it was shortened until its final form.

Analysis of the number ‘20’ hogei hogei is general in all dialects, existing the derivative variant hogoi in the northern dialects [OEH]. It is worth mentioning here that both sei and hogei share the final -ei, therefore a similar etymology for the end of the word, based on eri ‘finger’, shall apply. For this reason the etymology proposed for hogei is:

*hor-ge-eri > *horgeri > hogei

Where it is used hor, ‘there’; ge, suffix meaning ‘absence of’ and eri, ‘finger’. The transformation eri>ei has been explained above for the word sei. Its literal meaning is ‘there in the absence of fingers’. It means that once arrived to the number ‘20’, all the fingers from both hands and feet have already been used, and hence we are in the absence of more fingers to represent higher numbers.

Superior numbers

In Basque the number ‘20’ hogei is an important numerical group, appar- ently related to the number of fingers of both hands and both feet, as it appears as a complementary base (as defined in Luján, 2007) in the construction of the superior numbers. Comparing with other languages, the construction of the superior numbers in the base ‘20’ is less common than in the base ‘10’, however it is not entirely unheard of, since it appears also in other numeral systems (Kintana, 2002). For the Basque superior numbers we have: ‘40’ berr-hogei (2x20, note here the unevolved form

*berr- to denote ‘2’, as previously explained); ‘60’ hirur-hogei (3x20); and ‘80’ laur-hogei (4x20). As for the numbers ‘100’ and ‘1000’, in this work that tackles with the internal reconstruction of the first basque numerals ‘1’ to ‘20’, the etymological study for ehun ‘hundred’ will not be included in the results, as the authors think it came possibly from the celtic cantom ‘hundred’ or more probably from the latin centum ‘hundred’ (pronounced kentum > *gentun > *enun > ehun), and the same for mila ‘thousand’ which is a certain loan from the latin milia ‘thousand’.

Analysis of the fraction ‘1/2’ erdi

To finish this work the etymology of the term used for the fraction ‘1/2’ erdi is presented. In erdi the root er- appears; because of this and consid- ering the systematic use of the word eri for the construction of the other cardinal numbers, it might be thought that in erdi the root er- comes also from the word eri ‘finger’. Therefore the proposed etymology is:

*eri-din > *erdin > erdi

Where it is used eri ‘finger’ and din(a) which is a term related to quantity; one of its meanings is ‘almost’ [OEH], therefore *eri-din could be translated literally as ‘almost (one) finger’. In this way erdi originally would mean a quantity inferior to one, and later it would be used for ‘1/2’.

Conclusions

The etymology of the first Basque cardinal numbers has been studied by means of internal reconstruction, using words that still exist in Basque and others reconstructed from the proto-Basque. In the reconstructed original forms of the first numbers, we can find an extensive use of the key words eri ‘finger’ and ahur `palm of the hand’. It has been discovered that there was a logical procedure for the designation of the first numbers, in which

Philology, vol. 4/2018/2019 This work is licensed under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 license. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ 170 Fernando Gomez-Acedo & Eneko Gomez-Acedo the names of the cardinal numbers were created by means of a coherent procedure based on the description of the hand sign used to signify each number, this is, the position in which the fingers of the hand have to be placed to represent each number. As concluded, the ancient method used for naming the cardinal numbers follows this order: initially, the hand is closed, with each finger (eri) closed; then some fingers are stretched out and some other are left (itzi) in the palm of the hand (ahur). This way, the etymology of the cardinal numbers according to the internal reconstruction carried out in this work is summarized in the table below.

Table 1: Summary of the results Num. Reconstructed Literal translation Evolution Modern proto-basque Basque 1 *bada-eri ‘There is a finger’ > *bader > *bade > bat 2 *berr-eri ‘Another finger (with > *berrei > *berri > bi the first one)’ *birri > *biri > 3 *berr-eri-ahur ‘Two fingers (in the) > *birihur > irihur > hirur / hiru palm of the hand’ 4 *eri-ahur ‘(One) finger (in the) > *elahur > laur / lau palm of the hand’ 5 *be-oro-*atz ‘See the whole hand’ > *borotz > bortz / bost 6 *atz-az-eri ‘With one hand a > *tzazei > *tzei > sei finger’ 7 *atz-az-berr-eri ‘With one hand two > *atzaz-biri > zazpi fingers’ *atzaz-bi > tzazpi > 8 *atz-az-berr-eri- ‘With one hand (and in > *tzaz-biri-ortzi > zortzi ahur-itzi the other) two fingers *tzaziortzi > *ziortzi > left in the palm’ 9 *bada-eri-ahur- ‘One finger left in the > *baderaurtzi > bederatzi itzi palm (and the other *baderatzi > hand)’ 10 *amahi-eri ‘Fingers finished’ > *hamai-eri > hamar *hamaeri 11 *amahi-eri-ka ‘By the tens’ > *hamai-erika > hamaika 12 *hamar-bi ‘Ten (and) two’ > hamabi 13 *hamar-hiru(r) ‘Ten (and) three’ > hamairu 14 *hamar-lau(r) ‘Ten (and) four’ > hamalau 15 *hamar-bost/ ‘Ten (and) five’ > hamabortz / bortz hamabost Continued

Table 1: Continued Num. Reconstructed Literal translation Evolution Modern proto-basque Basque 16 *hamar-sei ‘Ten (and) and six’ > hamasei 17 *hamar-zazpi ‘Ten (and) seven’ > hamazazpi 18 *hamar-zortzi ‘Ten (and) eight’ > hamazortzi 19 *hamar-beder- ‘Ten (and) nine’ > hemeretzi atzi 20 *hor-ge-eri ‘There absence of > *horgeri > hogei fingers’ 1/2 *eri-din ‘Almost (one) finger’ > *erdin > erdi

It can also be seen that there were different phases for the creation of the suc- esive numbers. In the first phases the conceptualization of the numbers had not happened yet, so the number and the hand sign used to represent it were undistinguished. Each phase spanned a sufficient time frame to allow the word evolution historically attested, so in later phases the evolved forms of the first numerals appear, which indicates a conceptualization or abstraction of the lower numbers used. From all this it can be inferred that the different stages of numerical development were separated by long time intervals; this demon- strates a long and diachronic development of the whole counting system. In short, the evolution of the words has been verified throughout the diachronic process of the designation of the Basque counting system, which turns out to have followed a logical method of designation based on the hand signs used to represent the first cardinal numbers.

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