Numeral (linguistics) - Larger Numerals

Larger Numerals

English has derived numerals for multiples of its base (fifty, sixty, etc), and some languages have simplex numerals for these, or even for numbers between the multiples of its base. Balinese, for example, currently has a decimal system, with words for 10, 100, and 1000, but has additional simplex numerals for 25 (with a second word for 25 only found in a compound for 75), 35, 45, 50, 150, 175, 200 (with a second found in a compound for 1200), 400, 900, and 1600. In Hindustani, the numerals between 10 and 100 have become conflated to the extent that they need to be learned independently.

In many languages, numerals up to the base are a distinct part of speech, while the words for powers of the base belong to one of the other word classes. In English, these higher words are hundred 10², thousand 10³, million 10⁶, and hiɡher powers of a thousand (short scale) or of a million (long scale—see names of large numbers). These words cannot modify a noun without being preceded by an article or numeral (*hundred dogs played in the park), and so are nouns.

In East Asia, the higher units are hundred, thousand, myriad 10⁴, and powers of myriad. In India, they are hundred, thousand, lakh 10⁵, crore 10⁷, and so on. The Mesoamerican system, still used to some extent in Mayan languages, was based on powers of 20: bak’ 400 (20²), pik 8000 (20³), kalab 160,000 (20⁴), etc.