Even in elementary school, we are taught to count by tens. We are all familiar with these numerals from childhood, we use them daily without hesitation. But how many have noticed that one of the numbers stands out from the general series? Has anyone ever wondered the origin of the word "forty"?
Why is the figure so consonant with the feathered cheat? How are they related?
Counting, we seem to highlight the number of tens - twenty, thirty, fifty. For each of these words, it is easy to understand exactly how many tens it contains. But what about forty? How many are there? And why not fourty? Where does this word come from?
The most interesting thing is that the bird has absolutely nothing to do with it! It has nothing to do with the origin of the word "forty" in Russian. Moreover, the name of the bird did not come from the number! The word for feathered beauty comes from "welding" and "sorka", which came to us from Albanian and Bulgarian. That is how this bird was called in other dialects.
Often explained by the influence of the church-glory. svrchati "make a sound" and related forms (see cricket, cricket), butthe protoform svorka suggests sorrë "crow". The variant sorka is compared with lat. cornīх "crow", corvus "raven", Greek. κόραξ "raven", κορώνη "crow".
It turns out there is fur involved
When trading, valuable fur was sold not by one skin, but by bundles wrapped for safety in a large piece of cloth. Interestingly, each bundle included about forty skins, since this amount was quite sufficient for sewing one fur coat. But in one such set there could be both 39 and 41 skins, that is, it still did not differ much from the desired one. Beaver, sable fur was sold in "magpies", which is confirmed by references in chronicles and letters.
"…Yes, five magpies of sable…", "Yes, and twenty-seven magpies of beaver…"
The very origin of the word "forty" in most sources is tied to the name of that very piece of cloth, "forty". Close in sound and meaning to it will be "shirt", the old Russian "shirt".
That is, the word, created as an abbreviation for the calculation of precisely small skins, gradually replaced the originally existing "four", moving into the category of an ordinary numeral and assuming all its functions.
Other versions also exist
So, for example, one of the versions of the origin of this numeral is related to the Greek word "sarakont",which means church service. One of the arguments in favor of this version is often pointed to the presence in the Slavic lexicon of the word "sorokoust", which is also the name of the service in the church.
However, an absolute minority of linguists lean towards this origin of the word "forty".
Words that we use every day always have a history - their roots, going back to other languages or to the essence of the subject itself. Sometimes understanding the history of a word helps to change the attitude towards what it names.
