Old- and new-style counting

I note that there are two systems for Welsh numbers: the original and the new (decimal) systems.

I was wondering which method is used mainly in contemporary Welsh, and if Forum members care to give any guidelines.

Diolch.

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I strongly suspect all SSiW uses a sort of mix. I don’t know if @aran and @Iestyn would say deunaw for 18, but hugain - 20 is used. I learned “modern”, ie deg, dau ddeg, tri ddeg pump, pedwar deg chwech, pum deg saith etc.

Having been taught the decimal system at school. i am surprised by how much vigesimal numbers I hear. In conversation I do tend to use ugain and deunaw these days, they just flow more naturally somehow.
Generally vigesimal is used for the time. On Radio Cymru’s post cyntaf, they even say ‘un a bymtheg wedi wyth’.
Nonetheless i think the decimal system is mainly used.

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I learned vigesimal at school (second language) and all my relatives who spoke Welsh when i was really young used vigesimal. I didn’t hear any Welsh again for over thirty five years and was blown away by it all being decimal. I can only guess that the change was forced by education and schools in the eighties might have thought it would be better to teach for maths and science which I think is a bit of a shame really.

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To be honest, a lot of people use English for numbers.

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Yup. Particularly money and dates and especially years. Doesn’t mean we have to, though! Use whatever feels most comfortable to you, and you’ll be given plenty of leeway while you find your comfort zone. :slight_smile:

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I watched the bit on Mansell Jones on S4C tonight and it is interesting to see the switching from ddwy punt to twenty pounds and talking about time using five and a half hours, rather than five a hanner awr When an English number is used the speaker tends to code switch to English briefly and then revert back to Welsh.

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It’s normally twenty pound though, in the Welsh fashion, isn’t it?

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Schools are now mainly decimal, but you’ll hear the old system for particular numbers - 11 o’clock, 12 o’clock, for example, would never be decimal (that I’ve ever heard, anyway).

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When I was speaking to Mererid the other week and telling her that I was dwy oed a deugain, she had to think about that for a minute and I could all but see gears turning in her head while she converted that into “real numbers”.

I had heard that ages are often given in vigesimal, which is why I had phrased mine like that, but she said that that’s only true until about thirty… because that’s the number of days in the month!

Dates are apparently still moderately common in vigesimal, so people are used to vigesimal numbers up to 31, but nothing beyond that.

(One oddity I read about somewhere is that some older people might use chwegain to refer to £0.50 – it literally means “six-twenties”, i.e. 120, and 120d was 10s or half a pound!)

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I tend to hear decimal for everything but ugain, pumtheg and deunaw - occasionally I’ll hear un ar bumtheg (or hugain), or deugain creeping in. A lot of the younger people I know just use English (because so many schools still hold to the old superstition that English is the language necessary for mathematical tuition … which is bonkers).

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Thanks to all for the varied answers - diddorol iawn!

Hwyl fawr.

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