Counting to 40

Vocabulary

In this lesson we learn to count to 40.

When counting beyond 20 we add the usual counting number to "feed" ("twenty") with the joining word "as", which means "and" (e.g., "nane as feed"). Manx counts in sets of twenties, so when we reach 30 we also actually say "ten and twenty" ("jeih as feed"). After that, we just have to remember how to count from 11 to 20, again adding each number to "feed" with the word "as."

Eventually, when we reach "forty", we say "daeed." If you remember when we talked about age we said "daa vlein" to mean "two years." With "daeed" we're actually saying "two twenties" or "daa feed," the words have just collapsed into one another to become "daeed."

Here's all the numbers from 21 to 40:

twenty one ------ nane as feed	twenty two ------ jees as feed	twenty three ------ tree as feed
twenty four ------ kiare as feed	twenty five ------ queig as feed	twenty six ------ shey as feed
twenty seven ------ shiaght as feed	twenty eight ------ hoght as feed	twenty nine ------ nuy as feed
thirty ------ jeih as feed	thirty one ------ nane-jeig as feed	thirty two ------ daa-yeig as feed
thirty three ------ tree-jeig as feed	thirty four ------ kiare-jeig as feed	thirty five ------ queig-jeig as feed
thirty six ------ shey-jeig as feed	thirty seven ------ shiaght-jeig as feed	thirty eight ------ hoght-jeig as feed
thirty nine ------ nuy-jeig as feed	forty ------ daeed

As we saw previously, when we're counting objects and other things the name of the object comes after the first number, so "twenty four eggs" would be "kiare oohyn as feed" and "thirty eight eggs" would be "hoght oohyn jeig as feed."

The same special versions of "nane" and "jees" also apply when counting over 20. If you remember, they're "un ..." ("one ...") and "daa ..." ("two ..."), so "un ooh" ("one egg") and "daa ooh" ("two eggs").

Notice that "daa" ("two") doesn't use a plural word (that is, a word to show there's more than one thing). You may have spotted by now that where English uses "-s" to show there's more than one thing (e.g., "eggs") Manx uses "-yn" (e.g., "oohyn"). When counting up to two eggs in Manx, for example, it's like saying "one egg" and "two egg" (or "an egg pair"), after which we get "three eggs" ("tree oohyn").