Numbers in Belgian French
Septante, Nonante (But Not Huitante)

The Belgian System: Septante / Quatre-Vingts / Nonante

The Belgian French numerical system is regular through the entire 1-99 range, with one exception. Numbers 1 to 69 follow the same forms as mainland France (un, deux, trois, ... soixante-neuf). At 70, Belgium uses septante from the Latin septuaginta, instead of France’s soixante-dix. From 70 to 79, the Belgian forms concatenate normally: septante et un (71), septante-deux (72), septante-trois (73), and so on through septante-neuf (79).

At 80, Belgium uses the same form as France: quatre-vingts. This is the exception: Belgium did not adopt a Latin-derived alternative for 80 (such as octante, which exists historically but is not standard anywhere today). The reason is partly that quatre-vingts in 80 is less arithmetically opaque than quatre-vingt-dix in 90 (a single multiplication 4 x 20 = 80 vs the trickier 4 x 20 + 10 = 90), so the pressure to abandon it was less acute. The 80-89 range follows France: quatre-vingt-un, quatre-vingt-deux, etc.

At 90, Belgium uses nonante from the Latin nonaginta, instead of France’s quatre-vingt-dix. The 90-99 range concatenates regularly: nonante et un (91), nonante-deux (92), nonante-trois (93), all the way to nonante-neuf (99). Compare with France: 91 = quatre-vingt-onze (four-twenties-eleven), 92 = quatre-vingt-douze, 99 = quatre-vingt-dix-neuf. The arithmetic in the French forms is doubly opaque (multiplication plus a teen-form), which is what makes them famously hard for non-native speakers.

Reference Table: France vs Belgium for 70-99

Why Did Belgian French Diverge from France?

The vigesimal forms (counting in twenties) appeared in spoken Old French and Middle French alongside the simpler decimal Latin-derived forms. Septante, nonante, and even octante for 80 (and huitante in some regions) were attested in medieval French. The decimal system was the older and simpler one. The vigesimal system, possibly inherited from Celtic Gaul (the Gauls counted in twenties), gradually came to dominate in the central French dialects.

By the time the Académie française started codifying French language norms in the 17th century, the vigesimal forms had become standard in Paris-region French but the decimal forms remained common elsewhere. The 18th-century Académie dictionary listed both, with no explicit preference. It was only with the 19th-century language standardisation reforms (driven by mass primary education and the post-Revolution centralising state) that France standardised exclusively on the vigesimal forms in school instruction and official usage.

Belgium did not participate in this standardisation. The Belgian state was independent from 1830, and its French-language education system, established later, drew on the older Belgian regional usage rather than the new mainland French standard. The result: Belgian schools taught (and still teach) septante and nonante; mainland French schools taught (and still teach) the vigesimal forms. Two parallel standards, both correct French, both well-attested historically.

The Académie royale de langue et de littérature françaises de Belgique, founded in 1920, is the official body for French linguistic norms in Belgium. It explicitly recognises septante, nonante, and the broader Belgian French specificities as standard Belgian French. The same Académie also publishes guidance on Belgian French vocabulary specific to the country (belgicismes) such as septante, nonante, but also déjeuner for breakfast (vs French petit-déjeuner), dîner for lunch (vs French déjeuner), etc.

Belgian French in Everyday Use

In Brussels, in Liège, in Charleroi, in Namur, in any French-speaking Belgian city, the question quel âge as-tu? answered with j’ai septante-cinq ans (75 years old) is unambiguously Belgian. A French person would understand septante-cinq immediately because the form is documented and recognised, but they would not produce it themselves; they would say soixante-quinze. Conversely, a Belgian hearing soixante-quinze would know it’s a French speaker, perhaps a tourist or a French-trained professional.

Belgian official documents use the Belgian forms throughout. Government statistics, tax forms, postal codes, train timetables, supermarket prices, restaurant menus all use septante and nonante. The Belgian railway company SNCB announces departure times in Belgian French; a train departing at 17:50 is announced as train de dix-sept heures cinquante (the time-of-day pattern is the same; it’s only the discrete numeric forms that differ). Belgian price displays: cinquante-cinq euros nonante (55,90 €) is the implicit-centimes form using the Belgian numeric.

Belgian broadcast media (RTBF, RTL Belgium) uses the Belgian forms. Belgian films and television use them. Belgian children grow up with these forms as the only ones they hear in everyday life until they encounter mainland French content. Belgian francophones are bilingual within French in a sense: they understand the French forms as a passive register but produce the Belgian forms actively.

Belgium vs Switzerland: One Form Different

Belgian French and Swiss French share two of the three regional forms but not all three. Both use septante for 70. Both use nonante for 90. The difference: for 80, Belgium uses quatre-vingts (the same as France), while certain Swiss cantons (Vaud, Valais, Fribourg) use huitante. Other Swiss cantons (Geneva, Neuchâtel) use quatre-vingts like Belgium and France.

So the full divergence map looks like this. France: soixante-dix / quatre-vingts / quatre-vingt-dix. Belgium: septante / quatre-vingts / nonante. Swiss-Vaud and similar cantons: septante / huitante / nonante. Swiss-Geneva and similar cantons: septante / quatre-vingts / nonante (the same as Belgium). For 70 and 90, the Belgian and Swiss forms are uniform. For 80, only some Swiss cantons differ. See the dedicated Swiss French page for the cantonal breakdown.

Frequently Asked Questions