The Universal Language: Numbers
Numbers are the hardest thing for a language to lose. Why? Because they're essential to survival—trading, counting livestock, measuring land, and organizing society all depend on numbers. Languages can borrow words for new technologies, foods, or concepts, but they almost never borrow their number system.
This makes numbers the most reliable evidence of linguistic ancestry.
The Comparison
Look at how Kurdish numbers compare to English, French, and German:
| Number | Kurdish | English | French | German |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Yek | One | Un | Eins |
| 2 | Du | Two | Deux | Zwei |
| 3 | Sê | Three | Trois | Drei |
| 6 | Şeş | Six | Six | Sechs |
| 9 | Neh | Nine | Neuf | Neun |
The "Teen" Pattern: A Grammatical Fingerprint
Here's where it gets really interesting. Kurdish doesn't just share the words for numbers—it shares the exact grammatical structure for building numbers from 11 to 19.
In most languages, you'd expect to say "ten-one," "ten-two," "ten-three" (like Chinese does: 十一, 十二, 十三). But Kurdish, English, French, and German all do something unique: they use a special suffix pattern.
| Number | Kurdish | English | French | German | Pattern |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 11 | Yanzdeh | Eleven | Onze | Elf | one-left-over |
| 12 | Danzdeh | Twelve | Douze | Zwölf | two-left-over |
| 13 | Sêzdeh | Thirteen | Treize | Dreizehn | three-teen |
| 14 | Çardeh | Fourteen | Quatorze | Vierzehn | four-teen |
| 15 | Panzdeh | Fifteen | Quinze | Fünfzehn | five-teen |
| 16 | Şanzdeh | Sixteen | Seize | Sechzehn | six-teen |
| 17 | Hevdeh | Seventeen | Dix-sept | Siebzehn | seven-teen |
| 18 | Hejdeh | Eighteen | Dix-huit | Achtzehn | eight-teen |
| 19 | Nozdeh | Nineteen | Dix-neuf | Neunzehn | nine-teen |
Why This Matters
Notice the pattern:
- Kurdish: -zdeh (from "deh" = ten)
- English: -teen (from "ten")
- German: -zehn (literally "ten")
- French: -ze or dix- (from "dix" = ten)
They all use a morphological pattern where you combine the unit digit with a suffix or prefix meaning "ten." This is not the obvious way to do it. Many language families say "ten-one," "ten-two," "ten-three" in that exact order.
But Indo-European languages evolved a special grammatical construction where the teen numbers get their own unique forms. And Kurdish has exactly the same pattern.
This isn't vocabulary—this is grammar. And grammar is even harder to borrow than words. When languages share grammatical structures for something as fundamental as counting, it's undeniable proof of a common origin.
What This Proves
When a Kurd counts, they count like a European. The numbers are identical or nearly identical. This is not a coincidence.
If two languages borrow numbers from each other, it's because one people conquered another or one culture dominated the other. But with Kurdish and English? There's been no such relationship. Yet our numbers are almost identical.
This can only mean one thing: we inherited these numbers—and the way we build them—from the same ancestral language 5,000 years ago.
The Calendar Mystery
Here's something fascinating: September, October, November, and December are named after numbers!
- September = The 7th Month (Kurdish: Heft = 7)
- October = The 8th Month (Kurdish: Heşt = 8)
- November = The 9th Month (Kurdish: Neh = 9)
- December = The 10th Month (Kurdish: Deh = 10)
The Romans originally had a 10-month calendar starting in March. When they added January and February, they didn't rename the other months—so we still have September (7th), October (8th), November (9th), and December (10th).
And guess what? The Kurdish words for these numbers match perfectly with the Latin roots!
This is mathematical proof of linguistic heritage. Not just in vocabulary, but in the very structure of how we think about and express numbers.