Why 'T' at 'Tachtig'?

Mar 22 / Koen Kleinstra
In dit blog beantwoord ik een vraag voor échte (real) nerds!
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“T” bij “Tachtig”? ✅

Waarom schrijven we een “t” voor tachtig?
Waarom zeggen we niet: “achtig”?
Net als (just like) “vijftig”, “zestig”, “zeventig”.

It’s actually a lot more interesting than you would think.
Rembrandttoren in 2021

Terug in de tijd (Back in time) 🕰️

To find the answer we need to go back to approximately the year 1850, when Dutch people were still using klompen (wooden shoes). Not exactly 1850, but somewhere around that time.

As you know languages keep evolving very slowly, much slower than programming languages for example. (thank god 🙏🏼)
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Maybe you know that:
  • Vijf = 5
  • Zes = 6
  • Zeven = 7


And

  • Vijftig = 50
  • Zestig = 60
  • Zeventig = 70


We use -tig at the end of the word to indicate it’s a ten.

Well, back in time, we did not only use tig to indicate a ten, but we also added a “t” in front of every ten. So we had:

  • Tsestig
  • Tseventig
  • Tachtig
  • Tnegentig
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Another interesting fact

Dutch people don’t know this about themselves, but they pronounce the “z” in “zestig” or “zeventig” much more like an “s” than the “z” in “zes” or “zeven”.

Also this is because in old Dutch, we used to say “tsestig” and “tseventig”.

More fun on YouTube

Did you know I made a YouTube video about this? There's so much more interesting and useful lessons to watch over there. Watch it down here and don't forget to subscribe!
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Tot de volgende keer en blijf nieuwsgierig (stay curious)!

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