[AUDIENCE BOOS] Okay, thank you. An old English nursery rhyme, but did you notice something about the number of blackbirds? It was backwards, the way they say numbers in German. Which makes it a great subject for this channel: Why do Germans say numbers in that order? Does it confuse them? Could it be changed? Three excellent questions. But first, for those unfamiliar with German numbers, here’s a quick explanation. From 1 to 12, just as in English, each number has its own name. Then we get the teens, from thirteen to nineteen, or dreizehn to neunzehn, and so far German and English are in complete agreement. And then we get twenty, or zwanzig: no problem. But at this point, German does something weird. While English continues with twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-three, and so on, naming the digits in the order they are written, German goes: einundzwanzig, zweiundzwanzig, dreiundzwanzig, and so on — naming the digits backwards. Which means that for six-digit numbers like this one, Germans have to say: Einhundertdreiundzwanzigtausend- vierhundertsechsundfünfzig. I mean...! For the history, we need to remind ourselves of Roman numerals. I expect you already know this, but basically numbers are denoted by letters, and these numbers are simply added together. In this system, an X always means 10, whether it’s the last digit or the first digit. In Latin, this number could be spoken as “twenty-one“ or “one and twenty”: it didn’t matter, so long as everything added up. Okay, yes, I know that when writing down the numerals it does sometimes matter which order you write them in, but the basic system was still just adding them together and I don’t have time to go into all the confusing details. But during the Middle Ages a new system was introduced. We usually call these Arabic numerals because the idea came to us from Arabia; but it actually originated in India, so we should probably call them Indo-Arabic numerals. Now, the revolutionary part of this system was that each symbol could have different values. So this symbol represents two, if it is the right-most digit; but twenty, if it’s the next digit to the left, two hundred if it’s one more digit to the left of that, and so on. And because this basically goes on forever, there is no limit to the number of numbers that you can write. It is a much more efficient system, and it made mathematics a lot easier. But the interesting thing is that we got it backwards. Did you notice that when I explained the system, I talked about the right-most digit and not the last digit? In Arabic, numbers are written with the smallest-value digit on the right, but Arabic is written from right to left. So when Arabic-speakers read a number that’s been written, they read the lowest-value digit first. In Europe, we kept the order of the digits, but our writing systems go from left to right. So when we read the numbers, we begin with the largest-value digit. But that happened to be the case for Roman numerals as well, so it didn’t take a lot of getting used to. We continued pronouncing the numbers as we always had done, and we were still free to choose between “twenty-one” and “one and twenty”. And that was true in many European languages, including both German and English. But over time, people gradually settled on one version — and that was normally the order we read the digits. But not German. In German, we got stuck with the one-and-twenty system, and this is despite the fact that many prominent mathematicians had been using the twenty-one system. We can’t be sure, but it’s possible we may have Martin Luther to thank for this: his translation of the Bible was a huge influence on the development of standard German, and he used the one-and-twenty system. Does this cause problems? Maybe. There are studies showing that German-speakers are more likely to have problems with mental arithmetic and get their PIN numbers wrong. So it’s possible; even plausible. But it doesn’t seem to be a very big problem. Part of the inspiration for this video is some comments I got on a recent Short, in which I mentioned that I find it easier to do calculations if I switch to my native English. Some of the comments speculated that this might be because of the weird way that numbers are spoken in German. But then, I also had comments from native Germans confirming that, yes, they find it easier to process numbers if they switch to German. Generally speaking, people find it easier to do maths in their native language than in a foreign language. Also, let’s not forget that even modern English isn’t completely consistent here. For the teens, we actually say the smaller-value digit first: it’s not teen-four, it’s fourteen. Has that ever caused problems for native English-speakers? I know it’s never been an issue for me. But there is evidence that the German system causes unnecessary and avoidable problems, and there is a small movement campaining for German to switch to the twenty-one system. Is that even possible, though? Those who argue that it is not possible say that the current system is so ingrained on the language that trying to change it would just cause more confusion than it solves. The government can ask people to use the new system, but nobody ever actually will: people will just continue to use the system they know and are comfortable with. But those who argue that it is possible point out that other languages have made the switch. Norwegian, for example, officially switched as recently as 1951. And there are languages where people manage just fine using two counting systems: an official one in formal texts, and a traditional one for everyday speech. An extreme example of this is the Welsh language. Traditionally, Welsh counts in 20s — like French, but worse. For the last 80 years, though, the traditional counting system has existed alongside a modern decimal system, in which the numbers are simply read out in the order they are written. Welsh speakers quite happily use both systems, with the traditional system usually used for dates and the modern system more convenient for very large numbers. Basically, it’s been done before; and arguably there is no reason it can’t be done in German. Older people will still be free to continue using the older system, younger people will probably use both, and in another two or three generations’ time the older system will probably just have been forgotten. Whether it’s worth it, I don’t know. But it is definitely possible. By the way, if you’re still worried about the four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie, it’s okay: they get out alive.