Why does the number 40 in Russian stand alone among the numerals? Detailed answer

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Why does the number 40 in Russian stand alone among the numerals? Detailed answer

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Why does the number 40 in Russian stand alone among the numerals?

In the counting of objects in the series of numerals in Russian, the number 40 stands apart. Ten, twenty (from the more ancient "two ten"), thirty - here the logical sequence is violated, instead of fourty or fourty, forty suddenly appears - and again: fifty, sixty, etc.

Historians explain the reason for this paradox by the fact that in Russia the number forty was once a counting unit. Magpies were considered mainly expensive animal skins. One of the important incomes of the royal treasury was furs, which came in the form of "taxes from Siberian and other foreigners." The first evaluation of the skins was made in Siberia, in Moscow they were re-evaluated and completed in new magpies. Furs from the best magpies were taken as gifts to foreign sovereigns, as well as when sending embassies to other powers.

"Forty Magpies" is a traditional expression for the numerous churches in old Moscow.

Author: Kondrashov A.P.

Random interesting fact from the Great Encyclopedia:

How did the golden fleece end up in Colchis?

The Boeotian king Afamant had two children from his marriage with the cloud goddess Nephele - Phrix and Hella. His second wife Ino hated the children and set out to destroy them. She persuaded the women of Boeotia to roast the seeds prepared for sowing, which caused a crop failure.

When Athamas sent envoys to the oracle to find out the cause of the disaster, the treacherous Ino bribed them, and they told the king a false answer: the land would only become fertile when Phrixus was sacrificed to Zeus on Mount Laphistius. The people of Boeotia demanded the death of the prince - and Athamas, lamenting loudly, led his son to the top of the mountain. When the king was about to cut his son's throat, a winged golden-fleece ram suddenly appeared, sent by Nephele (according to another version, by Zeus himself). By order of the ram, Frix climbed on his back, put his sister in front of him, and all three rushed to the east. As they flew over the strait separating Europe and Asia, Gella became dizzy and fell into the water.

The strait was named after her - the Hellespont (now the Dardanelles). Frix safely reached the possessions of King Eet in Colchis, on the eastern coast of the Black Sea. There he met with a warm welcome and married Princess Halkiope, who bore him four sons. Fulfilling the instructions of the divine ram (according to another version, his mother Nephele), Frix sacrificed it to Zeus, and hung the golden fleece in the sacred grove of Ares under the protection of the never-sleeping fire-breathing dragon.

Subsequently, the oracle warned King Eet that he was destined to die at the hands of a stranger, and the king killed his son-in-law.

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