Word of the Week: dvanáct – ‘twelve’

Dvanáct is the number ‘twelve’ in Czech. The dva- bit of the word is the number ‘two’ on its own, while -náct is the part that it shares with the other ‘teen’ numbers: jedenáct (11), třináct (13), čtrnáct (14) and so on. But where does this -náct bit come from? English -teen looks like ten, yet -náct does not much like the Czech for ‘ten’: deset.

Things become clearer when we head back in time. In Old Czech, spoken and written in the Middle Ages, -náct is -nádsěte. This looks more look like the ancient Slavic source, which was specifically a two-word phrase: *na desęte. This meant ‘on ten’, so jedenáct was ‘one on ten’, dvanáct was ‘two on ten’, and so on. This phrase fused together over time, until we get left with just -náct.

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