Old English tēn, tīen | Indo-european dekm(T) | Sanskrit dasa | Greek, Attic ΔEKA deka | Latin decem | Italian dieci | French dix | Spanish diez | Portugese dez | Catalan déu | Provençal dètz | Romanian zese | Rumanish diesch | Sardinian dèche | Old Germanic tehun | Dutch tien | German zehn | Danish and Norwegian ti | Swedish tio | Icelandic tíu | Old Slavic Deseti | Russian десять desyat’ | Czech and Slovenian deset | Polish dziesięć | Old Chinese (pron.) zhyep | Chinese 十 shí | Ancient Egyptian [mḏ-] met | Akkadian esher | Arabic عَشَرة ‘ashra | Hebrew עשר éser | Maltese għaxra | Amharic asir (pron. asər)
Ten is the base of the decimal numeral system, by far the most common system of denoting numbers in both spoken and written language. The reason for the choice of ten is assumed to be that humans have ten fingers (digits). The Roman numeral for ten is X (which looks like two V’s [the Roman numeral for 5] put together); it is thought that the V for five is derived from an open hand (five digits displayed). The Chinese word numeral for ten is 十, which resembles a cross. In China, the number ten has a special place as it symbolises ‘perfection’ in almost everything.*
