Fifty-eight

Numerals, especially non-round ones beyond the first decade, are often neglected in descriptions of languages.Yet their formation is an area in which languages vary significantly and in interesting ways.Focussing on the number 58, we analyse its names in a genealogically balanced sample of 720 languages, classifying them by several features, and consider the geographical distribution of the various values of those features and their associations with one another and with other grammatical parameters.Finally, we address the relation between the number system and the colexification of 'finger/toe'.