If, in the study of numeral
words, form is to constitute our chief guide, we must expect now and then
to be confronted with facts which are not easily reconciled with any pet
theory.
The scope of the present work will admit of no more than a hasty
examination of numeral forms, in which only actual and well ascertained
meanings will be considered. But here we are at the outset confronted with
a class of words whose original meanings appear to be entirely lost. They
are what may be termed the numerals proper--the native, uncompounded words
used to signify number. Such words are the one, two, three, etc., of
English; the eins, zwei, drei, etc., of German; words which must at some
time, in some prehistoric language, have had definite meanings entirely
apart from those which they now convey to our minds. In savage languages it
is sometimes possible to detect these meanings, and thus to obtain
possession of the clue that leads to the development, in the barbarian's
rude mind, of a count scale--a number system. But in languages like those
of modern Europe, the pedigree claimed by numerals is so long that, in the
successive changes through which they have passed, all trace of their
origin seems to have been lost.
The actual number of such words is, however, surprisingly small in any
language. In English we count by simple words only to 10. From this point
onward all our numerals except "hundred" and "thousand" are compounds and
combinations of the names of smaller numbers.
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