MSA Numbers: Tens and 21 - 30

If you thought the Arabs didn't have any more number rules, well..you're wrong and they do. So let's look at the numbers and the rules for their use.

٢١	واحد و عِشرون	21
٢٢	إثنان و عِشرون	22
٢٣	ثَلاثة و عِشرون	23
٢٤	أرْبَعة و عِشرون	24
٢٥	خَمْسة و عِشرون	25
٢٦	سِتّة و عِشرون	26
٢٧	سَبْعة و عِشرون	27
٢٨	ثَمانية و عِشرون	28
٢٩	تِسْعة و عِشرون	29

As we have seen with numbers ending with 1 or 2, there has to be agreement with number and gender, and there is no reversal of gender here as we have seen before. Numbers 23 - 29 will follow the same rule we have seen before, there will be a gender-number incongruence. My teacher used to joke, "there is an expectation of halal (permissible) behaviour in our cultures, but the numbers act in a haram (forbidden) way: mixing masculine and feminine, and doing so as a rule, which is why so many guys from my village became engineers." By the way, it's a known fact that I love terrible jokes. ❤️
21 male workers أحدٌ or ًواحدٌ وعشرون عاملا
22 female workers اثنانِ وعشرونَ عاملةً
23 female workers ثلاثٌ وعشرونَ عاملاً
23 male workers ثلاثةٌ وعشرونَ عاملاً
24 female workers أربعٌ وعشرونَ عاملةً
24 male workers أربعةٌ وعشرونَ عاملاً

٣٠	ثَلاثون	30
٤٠	أرْبَعون	40
٥٠	خَمْسون	50
٦٠	سِتّون	60
٧٠	سَبْعون	70
٨٠	ثَمانون	80
٩٠	تِسْعون	90

The tenths have the suffix of a regular masculine plural ونَ and are the same for both genders. However, the noun being counted next to them will be in the singular indefinite accusative. OK, no more rules for now. Next time, I will deal with numbers over 100 because they also have special rules. Two more blog posts will deal with ordinal numbers and fractions and I will end the number series there. Much love.