Despite Mongolic being a relatively young language family, there are a surprising amount of archaisms and innovations one can spot even in basic vocabulary such as numerals. With recent findings in the field, supported by data from neighboring languages, these numerals’ history are beginning to be understood. The biggest aid has been the deciphering of Khitan, a language of a sister branch to Mongolic, which helps reconstruct a deeper layer of Mongolic-Khitan languages (referred to also as Serbi-Mongolic). But the study of the Tungusic languages, which have had extensive contact with Para-Mongolic languages, also provides some clues as to what these innovations may have replaced. Jurchen (among others) borrowings of Mongolic teen numerals from 11-19 are especially useful into reconstructing archaic numerals lost to modern Mongolic. Here I discuss Mongolic numbers which studies seem to suggest could have looked very different in the past.

*ǰir - ’two'

The numeral for ’two’ in Mongolic languages in reconstructed as ‘*koyar’, whence modern Mongolian “хоёр”. This numeral was already suspected of being an innovation because of its ‘aberrant’ shape, as it is the only Mongolic numeral to not have the ‘unstable’ or ‘fleeting’ */n. Its root *ko- is present as a paradigm meaning “two” in many words such as in

*kos ‘pair’, *koli- ’to mix’, *kolbo- ’to connect’, *koč ’nickname’ (second name)

*kos is present in Turkic as well, so if it is indeed a loanword, it seems to have been indigenized into the present paradigm.

On the other hand, the reconstruction of the numeral ’two’ in Khitan is glossed as *čur ~ *ǰur. The argument for this being the original numeral for the ’two’ is supported by the fact that the word ‘ǰirin’ is actually present in the Secret History of the Mongols, used for female beings. Internally, the root *ǰi- can still be found in terms such as

*ǰitüxer ‘second (wife)’, *ǰirmüsün ‘pregnant’, and possibly *ǰisü- ’to cut’

This is supported by Tungusic sources as well such as in the Jurchen borrowing *ǰir.xon ’twelve’ < **ǰir ’two’ + *-xon ‘-teen’. If *ǰir is truly the earlier numeral for ’two’ then it may suggest an even earlier borrowing into Proto-Tungusic where the ordinal ’two’ is reconstructed as *ʒȫr. But this could easily be chalked up to coincidence.

Additional data from Alchuka, a Tungusic language which did not go through palatalization ti- > či-, suggests that an even earlier form may have been *tir, as its ’twelve’ numeral is *tirkon. This lines up well with the theory that Mongolic underwent a similar palatalization of its own, as suggested by *či (*ti?) ‘you (singular)’ and *ta ‘you (plural)’, compared with the *bi ‘I’ and *ba ‘we’ paradigm.

*nil - ‘six’

The current reconstructed Proto-Mongolic numeral for ‘six’ is *ǰirguxan. This numeral is considered to be a compound of the aforementioned archaic *ǰir- and *gu(r)- ’three’, leaving the original numeral unknown. While unfortunately the Khitan numeral for ‘six’ is yet to be deciphered, in Jurchen, the number ‘sixteen’ is reconstructed as *nilhun. This suggests that the numeral that **ǰirguxan replaced may have been *nil ‘six’. Other evidence from Tungusic supports this theory, for example in Manchu, the term for ‘sixteenth of the first month’ is ’niolhun’.

Because the reading of the Khitan numeral for ‘six’ is unknown, *nil or *nir is considered as a possible reading. The presence of -o- in Manchu suggests the possibility of an earlier diphthong in the numeral as well.

While this seems an elegant theory, it is made difficult by the Mongolic numeral *ǰiran ‘sixty’, which seems to suggest *ǰir- as the root for ‘six’ instead. Otherwise, *ǰiran should mean ’twenty’ with *ǰir- ’two’ + *-An, a decade suffix. If this too is an innovation modeled after *ǰirguxan then it suggests an unknown ‘sixty’ numeral.

(?) ‘one’

The reconstruction of ‘one’ in Proto-Mongolic is *niken. But this numeral does not seem to have a cognate in any Para-Mongolic words or Tungusic borrowings. While the Khitan cardinal ‘one’ is unknown, the ordinal ‘one’ is read as m.as.qu leading to some suggestions of *mas as ‘one’. This is furthermore connected to the first element of the Jurchen loan *omšo ’eleven’, leading to conclusions that either *mas or *Vmš is the metathesized form of the other. The single instance of Alchuka kɔnsï ’eleven’ complicated this analysis further if it is not a spelling a mistake and a genuine preservation of an archaic pronunciation. If genuine, it could allow for the analysis of the first element as indicating a -teen numeral, and |-so* instead would be the element meaning ‘one’.

Every analysis from *mas to *Vmš to *-so all rely on some sort of assumption and a clear conclusion cannot be drawn from the available evidence on the potential original ‘one’ numeral.

(?) ’nine’

The reconstructed Proto-Mongolic numeral for ’nine’ is *yersün which may or may not be related to the Khitan numeral *is(i). The biggest obstacle in connecting the two etymologically is the *-r suffix present in the Mongolic numeral, confirmed by the Nantoq subdialect of Tongren Baoan as well as the numeral for ’ninety’ *yeren. Dropping of the -r would not makes sense considering the fact that Khitan typically preserves them in other numerals with the same suffix such as in

*dur ‘four’ compared to Mongolic *dörben

*gur ’three’ compared to Mongolic *gurban

Even more intriguing is the fact that the Jurchen loan for ’nineteen’ is *onyo.xon, which has no parallels in any known Mongolic or Para-Mongolic language. The first element of *o- is tentatively seen as a prefix meaning ‘one’ to the Para-Mongolic dialect numeral *nyo ’eight’ which is probably related to the Mongolic *nayman. The *o- prefix can also be connected to the first element in the previously discussed *omšo, in which case it is possible that *o- is the contraction of *omš ‘one’.

However this is further complicated by other Tungusic data which shows kuniku ’nineteen’ and kuniu ‘id.’ in Alchuka and Jing Manchu respectively. If it is the case that these languages preserved an archaic *k- then it suggests a completely unknown numeral for ’nine’ which may have had the shape of *kUniU.

As it stands, if *yersün is truly an innovation then reconstructing the original numeral is currently impossible.

Sources

Hölzl, Andreas. “New evidence on Para-Mongolic numerals.” Suomalais-Ugrilaisen Seuran Aikakauskirja 2017, no. 96 (2017): 97-113.
Janhunen, Juha. “Para-Mongolic.” The Mongolic Languages 391 (2003): 402.
Janhunen, Juha A. “Khitan: Understanding the language behind the scripts.” Scripta 4 (2012): 107-132.
Kane, Daniel. “The Kitan language and script.” In The Kitan Language and Script. Brill, 2008.
Nugteren, Hans. Mongolic phonology and the Qinghai-Gansu languages. Leiden University, 2011.
Róna-Tas, András. “Khitan Studies I. The Graphs of the Khitan Small Script: 1. General Remarks, Dotted Graphs, Numerals.” Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 69, no. 2 (2016): 117-138.
Shimunek, Andrew. “Early Serbi-Mongolic–Tungusic Lexical Contact: Jurchen Numerals from the 室韋 Shirwi (Shih-wei) in North China.” In Philology of the Grasslands, pp. 331-346. Brill, 2018.
Shimunek, Andrew. Languages of ancient Southern Mongolia and North China: A historical-comparative study of the Serbi or Xianbei branch of the Serbi-Mongolic language family, with an analysis of Northeastern Frontier Chinese and Old Tibetan phonology. BoD–Books on Demand, 2015.

Last modified on 2024-04-08