"ten" in seven languages
Meaningten
Spanish
diez
/djeθ/
inherited
French
dix
/dis/
inherited
Italian
dieci
/ˈdjɛtʃi/
inherited
Portuguese
dez
/dɛs/
inherited
Romanian
zece
/ˈzetʃe/
inherited
Latin D before e or i became z in Romanian: DECEM → zece, DEUM → zeu.
Catalan
deu
/dɛw/
inherited
English
ten
/tɛn/
Indo-European kin · PIE *déḱm̥
English → ItaliantendieciDistant cognateRelated only through Indo-European, thousands of years back (night ~ noche). But English has relatives: decimal, December, decade, dime.What English and Italian share
The Latin ancestor
DECEM‘ten’
All six sisters descend from it, unless marked otherwise below.
The story
The C of DECEM shows the soft-c triplet θ / s / tʃ; Spanish and Italian also diphthong the open e.
English relatives: decimal, December, decade, dime
Sound laws at work
Learn it
In a sentence
- esSon las diez.
- frIl est dix heures.
- itSono le dieci.
- ptSão dez horas.
- roEste ora zece.
- caSón les deu.
- enIt's ten o'clock.