*aka ‘eleven’*
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*”eleven” derives from the old english ęndleofon which is first attested in bede’s late 800s Ecclesiastical History of the English People*
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(it has cognates in every germanic language, whose proto-germanic ancestor has been reconstructed as *ainlif, from the prefix *aino- (adjectival “one”) and suffix *-lif- of uncertain meaning)
(it is sometimes compared with the lithuanian vënólika, although -lika is used as the suffix for all numbers from 11 to 19 (analogous to “-teen”))
(the old english form has closer cognates in old frisian, saxon, and norse, whose ancestor has been reconstructed as *ainlifun)
(this has formerly been considered derived from proto-germanic *tehun (“ten”); it is now sometimes connected with *leiq or *leip (“left; remaining”), with the implicit meaning that “one is left” after having already counted to ‘ten’)
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