[Multilingual Monday] One And Only One

[aadroma]

Today we take a look at the number "one", which doesn't sound like much of an article, admittedly. :: laugh :: However, in different language the number "one" is distinct from other the other numerals. To clarify what I mean, we'll take a look at "one" in Hebrew. Like the other numerals, in Hebrew there are both masculine and feminine forms of

Comments

[gorkabear]

Spanish considers number one also as an article (un), and it changes its form when becoming one (uno)... Using the way we learn grammar, the "determinante numeral cardinal" is exactly the same as "determinante indefinido".

Un coche
Un oso

However, you say "¿Cuántos osos había en al fiesta? -Uno sólo"

This doesn't happen with the feminine: Una casa, Vi a una solamente.

Then, what I always need in other romanic languages is the use of "unos/unas" (uns/unes in Catalan), which is very difficult for me to translate. In this case, they're no longer "Determinantes numerales cardinales" but "determinantes indefinidos".

[dodgingwndshlds]

This sounds a lot to me like the English use of the articles a and an. They are also indefinite articles and have the concept of one in the meaning... Which is now, thanks to you, a total "Oh! I get it!" moment, as I have always struggled with the use of un and uno in Spanish.... Or, if not struggle, exactly, it does often give me pause and makes me think.

Not so much anymore, I'll bet! Woo hoo!

[gorkabear]

Just use UN before a noun and UNO when it's alone... This is not unlike using GRAN instead of GRANDE (un gran coche, un coche grande), or un BUEN coche, un coche BUENO.

[strongaxe]

I'm just taking a wild guess here, but perhaps the case in Hebrew is because the numbers (other than one) are not treated as adjectives, but rather nouns in the construct state, hence "three [of] bears"?

[gullinbursti]

Oh Hebrew! You and your crazy transgendered numbers.

[donncha22]

In Old Irish (ca. 800), the number one, óen- / oín-, was always prefixed to the noun to form a compound, unlike the rest of the numbers. (The spelling difference depends on whether the beginning of the noun is broad or slender, but that's another story.) In Modern Irish the number one, aon, has also taken on the meaning "any". To disambiguate, one adds the word "amháin" (= only) after the noun. In almost all cases, however, the "aon" is dropped entirely, leaving the following "amháin" by itself to mean "one":

aon duine = any person
aon duine amháin = one person
duine amháin = one person

[muckefuck]

Looking at the Indo-European languages, it seems that "one" wasn't always the only number that declined, but that it has preserved declinations better than the others.

In Polish, for instance, jeden is declined like an ordinary adjective, with distinct forms for all three genders in all six cases. Dwa, on the other hand, only has a total of six forms (plus optional feminine instrumental dwiema). Trzy and czetery each have five forms, pięc has four, and most of the rest are invariable.

In German, ein of course doubles as an indefinite article and declines as an adjective. Some dialects preserve gendered forms for zwei (e.g. Züritüütsch zwee [masc.], zwoo [fem.], zwäi [neut.]), but in the modern standard language zwo is simply an alternative form of zwei used for clarity (e.g. over the phone).

Catalan still has dos (masc.) and dues (fem.), but it's the only Romance language I know of which makes such a distinction. All the others have one form for every number except "one".