km, a widespread root for ten (Q1233861)

The word ``kumi'' is nearly universal as the word for ten in the Bantu languages. The same word with the same meaning occurs in some of the Polynesian languages. In Ingrisch, a Finno-Ugric language, one finds 10 = ``kümme''. The author then notes that the parent form for ten in the Indo-European languages, namely ``dekm'', contains the root ``km''; and considers the possibility that these phenomena are historically related. If so, a vast part of the Old World, from Finland through Europe down to India and over to Polynesia, and taking in Africa, had a common root for ten. The author then observes that ``kumi'' or ``kum'' means one in some languages of North and of Middle America; and that ``km'' appears rather clearly as a root for one in South America. In Australia one finds kuma = 1; and on the northwestern boundary of the Bantu one finds keme = 1. The word kumi, or kum, does not occur in the Americas with the meaning ten; and the occurrence of km as a root for 10 in the Americas is doubtful. Thus the equation km = 1 is peripheral to the equation km = 10. This suggests that the uses of km for 10 and for 1 are historically related; that the original meaning of the root km = 10 was one; and hence, too, that our word ten, which derives from dekm, etymologically contains the notion one. The speculative character of the considerations is emphasized.