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6 Numbers and Numerals
It is a curious fact that in many languages the words meaning
"first" and "second" do not come from the words meaning "one"
and "two." Thus we have:
English one first
German ein der erste
Latin
u n u:s
pperirvmius
Russian od-in
Hebrew akh-d rishon
French un premier
Italian uno primo
Also, it is easy to see that the word "second" is not related to the
word `two." All this goes to show that early people did not connect
"tfie second boy" with "two boys." It was not until the
human race had developed considerably that people began to
see this relationship and to relate "third" to "three," and "fourth"
to "four."
If you look at the lists of number names on page 4 you will
see that many other words have grown out of these names The
last four words in the Latin column will remind you of the names
of the last four months in our year. You may wonder why the
name of our ninth month (September) begins with septem (seven)
our tenth month (October) with octo (eight), and so on with
November and December. The reason is that the calendar year
could, of course, begin with any month that people might choose.
In the Latin world, which included about all of Western Europe
at the time the present months were named, the year was often
taken as beginning in March. When this was done, the seventh
month was September, and so on to the shortest month of the
year, which was tht. tenth, Decembqr.