lac

Filed under: New-to-me Words
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This one isn't actually new to me now, but it was a few months ago, and I think it's a neat example of unexpected cultural differences, so I'll include it.

"Lac" is an alternate spelling of "lakh," which in India is a unit consisting 100,000 of something, often 100,000 Indian rupees, an amount currently equal to about $2200 US. So house prices or salaries are sometimes specified as, for example, "Rs. 30 lakhs"--which is to say, 3 million rupees, currently about $70,000 US.

What I find most interesting about this is that in the US, we don't generally measure things in tens of hundred-thousand-units per se; we measure in millions instead. But I don't see any particularly good reason to have one of those units as a standard instead of the other; just a cultural difference (presumably rooted in history).

Oh, yes, and a "crore" is 100 lakhs; ten million of something.

One Response to “lac”

  1. Shmuel

    What follows is one of the many good bits in A Suitable Boy, by Vikram Seth, at the start of section 4.1. Bhaskar, who starts this quote, is a nine-year-old math prodigy:

    ‘Well, you see, Haresh Chacha, it’s like this. First you have ten, that’s just ten, that is, ten to the first power. Then you have a hundred, which is ten times ten, which makes it ten to the second power. Then you have a thousand, which is ten to the third power. Then you have ten thousand, which is ten to the fourth power — but this is where the problem begins, don’t you see? We don’t have a special word for that — and we really should. Ten times that is ten to the fifth power, which is a lakh. Then we have ten to the sixth power, which is a million, ten to the seventh power which is a crore, and then we come to another power for which we don’t have a word — which is ten to the eighth. We should have a word for that as well. Then ten to the ninth power is a billion, and then comes ten to the tenth. Now it’s amazing that we don’t have a word in either English or Hindi for a number that is as important as ten to the tenth. Don’t you agree with me, Haresh Chacha?’ he continued, his bright eyes fixed on Haresh’s face.

    ‘But you know,’ said Haresh, pulling something out of his recent memory for the enthusiastic Bhaskar, ‘I think there is a special word for ten thousand. The Chinese tanners of Calcutta, with whom we have some dealings, once told me that they used the number ten-thousand as a standard unit of counting. What they call it I can’t remember, but just as we use a lakh as a natural measuring point, they use ten-thousand.’

    Bhaskar was electrified. ‘But Haresh Chacha, you must find that number for me,’ he said. ‘You must find out what they call it. I have to know,’ he said, his eyes burning with mystical fire, and his small frog-like features taking on an astonishing radiance.

    ‘All right,’ said Haresh. ‘I’ll tell you what. When I go back to Kanpur, I’ll make enquiries, and as soon as I find out what that number is, I’ll send you a letter. Who knows, perhaps they even have a number for ten to the eighth.’

    ‘Do you really think so?’ breathed Bhaskar wonderingly. His pleasure was akin to that of a stamp-collector who finds the two missing values in an incomplete series suddenly supplied to him by a total stranger. ‘When are you going back to Kanpur?’

    Veena, who had just come in bearing cups of tea, rebuked Bhaskar for his inhospitable comment, and asked Haresh how many spoonfuls of sugar he took.

    (Haresh is as good as his word, and gets the answers in section 9.11: ten thousand in proper Peking Chinese is “wan,” and a wan of wans is an “ee.”)

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