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For numbers between 10 and 40 Russians use дцать. What is дцать? A very Russian way to say десять? A word made of multiple parts, each of which do have a meaning, like дца and ть, as in еха-ть? (I would hope not!). I just cannot understand, where it comes from, as I cannot think of any words which have дцать, except for numbers in range from 10 to 40!

Thank you in advance!

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1 Answer 1

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"Дцать" is just a reduction, originally "двенадцать" was "дъванадесѩте", sort of "two on top of ten". English word of Latin origin "decimal" can give you a hint.

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  • Спасибо за ответ!
    – L_Pav
    May 30, 2016 at 3:30

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