Distributive Numerals
Nouns and pronouns · one world map for each value
WALS codes 251 languages for this feature. The most frequent value, “Marked by reduplication”, covers 85 of them (34%); the least frequent, “Marked by following word”, covers 5.
That value is most frequent in Africa (87% of the 30 languages coded there) and least frequent in Papunesia (19% of 59).
Among families with at least eight coded languages, Niger-Congo is the most uniform: 9 of 10 have “Marked by reduplication”.
Uralic is the most divided, its largest group reaching only 3 of 9.
No distributive numerals62 languages · 25%
Marked by reduplication85 languages · 34%
Marked by prefix23 languages · 9%
Marked by suffix32 languages · 13%
Marked by preceding word21 languages · 8%
Marked by following word5 languages · 2%
Marked by mixed or other strategies23 languages · 9%
One map per value; each dot is a language WALS codes with that value.
By macro-area
| Value | Africa | Eurasia | Papunesia | Australia | North America | South America |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| No distributive numerals | 3 | 33 | 16 | 2 | 2 | 6 |
| Marked by reduplication | 26 | 39 | 11 | 0 | 9 | 0 |
| Marked by prefix | 0 | 1 | 20 | 0 | 2 | 0 |
| Marked by suffix | 0 | 24 | 2 | 1 | 3 | 2 |
| Marked by preceding word | 0 | 20 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Marked by following word | 1 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 |
| Marked by mixed or other strategies | 0 | 13 | 9 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| All values | 30 | 132 | 59 | 4 | 16 | 10 |
Inside the largest families
| Family | Coded | Most frequent value | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| Austronesian | 53 | Marked by prefix | 38% |
| Indo-European | 51 | Marked by preceding word | 39% |
| Altaic | 17 | Marked by suffix | 76% |
| Afro-Asiatic | 15 | Marked by reduplication | 73% |
| Sino-Tibetan | 11 | Marked by reduplication | 64% |
| Austro-Asiatic | 10 | No distributive numerals | 50% |
| Nakh-Daghestanian | 10 | Marked by reduplication | 80% |
| Niger-Congo | 10 | Marked by reduplication | 90% |
| Uralic | 9 | Marked by suffix | 33% |
Languages to explore
The most fully coded languages with each value.
- No distributive numerals: English, French, Finnish, Spanish, Indonesian, Mandarin
- Marked by reduplication: Hungarian, Georgian, Lezgian, Hausa, Kannada, Supyire
- Marked by prefix: Maori, Fijian, Tsimshian (Coast), Kiribati, Hawaiian, Samoan
- Marked by suffix: Turkish, Japanese, Basque, Korean, Evenki, Khalkha
- Marked by preceding word: Russian, German, Greek (Modern), Latvian, Albanian, Polish
- Marked by following word: Malagasy, Ainu, Selkup
- Marked by mixed or other strategies: Abkhaz, Tagalog, Chamorro, Chukchi, Kayardild, Nivkh