Dragon Language 101 - Numbers & Counting
← Return to Lesson HubNumbers are a challenging and integral part of learning any language. Over the course of this sixth lesson in Dragon Language 101, we will have covered:
Base Dragon Numbers
The table below shows the Dragon translations for the numbers zero through ten, and then each multiple of ten thereafter:
| English Number | Dragon Number | Ordinal |
| Zero | NUL Nul | |
| One | G2N Gein | D3ST Diist |
| Two | Z2N Zein | Z3ST Ziist |
| Three | SED Sed | S3D Siid |
| Four | H7 Hir | H7T Hirt |
| Five | HEN Hen | HENT Hent |
| Six | SOK Sok | SOKT Sokt |
| Seven | ZOS Zos | ZOST Zost |
| Eight | ELN Eln | ELNT Elnt |
| Nine | NEN Nen | NENT Nent |
| Ten | MEN Men | MENT Ment |
| Hundred | BEN Ben | BENT Bent |
| Thousand | TON Ton | TONT Tont |
| Million | UNON Unon | UNONT Unont |
| Billion | UNEN Unen | UNENT Unent |
Forming Long Numbers
Numbers are formed using addition and multiplication. You begin with the smallest component of the number and work left-to-right towards the largest, the opposite of English. For numbers 11-19, you would say "gein ahrk men", "zein ahrk men", "set ahrk men", etc. This literally translates to "one and ten", "two and ten", "three and ten", etc. The word "ahrk" acts as the operator for addition. The omission of "ahrk" implies multiplication. For example, "seven hundred" would translate to "zos ben", or 7 x 100. "Eighty" would translate to "eln men", or 8 x 10.
Expressing complex numbers involves stringing together addition and multiplication. Let's take the number 384. Spelled out in English, this would look like "three hundred and eighty-four". In the Dragon Language, this is spelled out as "hir ahrk eln men ahrk set ben." Notice how we begin with the smallest component, "hir", and work our way up to the largest component, "ben". Mathematically this would look like 4 + 8 x 10 + 3 x 100.
Ordinal Numbers
An ordinal number is a grammatical form of a number used to represent place in a sequence. English examples include "first", "second", "third", "fourth", etc. The table above shows the ordinal form of each number. The suffix "-t" forms the ordinal, except for "diist", "ziist", and "siid", which are unique.
When dealing with long numbers, the ordinal is placed on the first (smallest) number expressed. Therefore, expressing "13th in the line of Ysgramor" would look like "siid ahrk men ko tiidnavir do Ysgramor". "Eight hundred and fourty-seventh" would look like "Zost ahrk hir men ahrk eln ben".
Exercises
Here are some exercises for numbers and counting in the Dragon Language.
1. Practice counting in the Dragon Language from zero to ten:
2. Express the number "twenty-two" in the Dragon Language, and write it in the Dragon alphabet:
3. Translate the following Dragon number into English: H7 4RK BEN
show answer
4. Translate "The king has told me that an army of ten thousand elves marches on Saarthal", and transcribe it in the Dragon alphabet.
This concludes the lesson about numbers and counting.
