Op 14/11/2023 om 18:47 schreef Christian Weisgerber:

On 2023-11-14, Ruud Harmsen <rh@rudhar.com> wrote:

Fourteen? Hwedwortehun! https://rudhar.com/musica/hwedwortehun/

Germanic has alliterated "four" to "five", but Latin and thus the
Romance languages have alliterated "quinque" (five) to "quattuor"
(four)! Or maybe it is a rare but regular soundchange in Latin,
opinions differ. Anyway, the roots for 4 and 5 have different
onsets in PIE, compare for instance Greek or Slavic. But wait,
Slavic has alliterated the d- from the "ten" word to the "nine"
word...

Perhaps a frequent activity like counting could have triggered rhyme and alliteration, at all places and times?

--
guido wugi

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)