Le mot basque amaika: questions sans fin

Abstract

Most scholars who have tried to explain the origin of basque amaika “eleven” pretended that, besides bat, there had been a second word for “one”, *ika (or *eka), and that this word, which had presumably been borrowed from a foreign civilisation, had been used to form *ama + ika. It is, however, more probable that amaika is based on genuine basque morphemes, i.e. on *ama + egi + -a (=”this one-more than-ten”).