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A great-great-great grandmother thought to be the oldest person in the world has died in Japan aged 117.

Nabi Tajima, who was born August 4, 1900, became the world's oldest seven months ago after the death of 117 year old Jamaican Violet Brown.

Ms Tajima, who was thought to be the last person born in the 19th century, had seven sons, two daughters and reportedly more than 160 descendants, including great-great-great grandchildren.

ITV News 22 april 2018

Was Nabi Tajima born in the 19th Century or the 20th Century ?

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Nigel J
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    related: When did this century start 2001 or 2000? and Does the nth century contain the (100n)th year? – Mari-Lou A Apr 23 '18 at 07:17
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    Unless something very strange happened after 4th August 1900 for the rest of the year, I suspect ITV News mean that she's thought to be the last living person born in the 19th Century. – Phil M Jones Apr 23 '18 at 08:52
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    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/19th_century And what has that to do with the English language and its usage anyway? – Kris Apr 23 '18 at 09:23
  • My first year of life began at zero time. After my first year, I was one year old. It seems illogical to me that centuries do not do the same. – Nigel J Apr 23 '18 at 09:40
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    @NigelJ So when did you start the second decade of you life? In year 10 or in year 11 of your life? The first year of your life was year one, not year zero. – oerkelens Apr 23 '18 at 10:25
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    @oerkelens When we say "I'm in my thirties", we mean "I am between 30 and 39 inclusive", not "between 31 and 40 inclusive"; that is the 4th decade of your life (after 0-9, 10-19, and 20-29). Similarly, "the 1930s" would widely be recognised as "between 1930 and 1939", not "between 1931 and 1940", and that is the 4th decade of the 20th Century. So it is perfectly logical to call "1900 to 1999" the "20th Century". – IMSoP Apr 23 '18 at 11:18
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    @oerkelens The more I think about it, the more I disagree with your comment and agree with Nigel's. The first year of your life was the one leading up to your first birthday; your age during that year was zero. Your "11th year" started on your 10th birthday, which also marked the beginning of your second decade. – IMSoP Apr 23 '18 at 11:54
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    Little known fact: the 20th century was the only one to have 99 years! Everyone at the time knew that the first day of the 20th century was 1 January 1901 and everyone at the time knew that the first day of the 21st century was 1 January 2000. That's only 99 years! – CJ Dennis Apr 23 '18 at 11:57
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    Nerdy questions are always popular on Stack Exchange... – Mari-Lou A Apr 23 '18 at 12:20
  • @Mari-LouA Graduation at last ! I am quite overwhelmed. – Nigel J Apr 23 '18 at 12:23
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    @IMSoP But "the thirties" is not the same as "the fourth decade". See also this answer. Your twenties actually start when you turn 20, in other words after you have finished your 20th year and start your 21st year (the year during which you say you are 20 - to keep it simple) – oerkelens Apr 23 '18 at 12:51
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    @oerkelens You appear to be saying exactly the same thing I just said. The first decade ends on your tenth birthday, and the second begins. There is absolutely a "year zero" with ages. The complication is that there is no "year zero" in the Gregorian calendar, and there is some debate about whether that's actually relevant two thousand years later. – IMSoP Apr 23 '18 at 13:06
  • @IMSoP To stir the pot: But your tenth birthday represents the first day of the eleventh year of your life... There is a "year zero", but not a "zeroth year" – Chronocidal Apr 23 '18 at 13:20
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    @Chronocidal Indeed. If something occurs in january of year 0, then it occurs 'within' the first year. But it does not occur in 'year one', it occurs in 'year zero'. – Nigel J Apr 23 '18 at 13:25
  • @Chronocidal Absolutely, and your 100th birthday represents the start of your 101st year, and your second century. If you lived long enough, your 2000th birthday would mark the start of your 21st century, and your 3rd millennium. The oddity comes in labelling the supposed 10th birthday of Jesus as the end of "year 10", rather than the beginning of it as we do with all other anniversaries. – IMSoP Apr 23 '18 at 13:31
  • As my answer further down elucidates, "August 4, 1900" is a shortened form of "the fourth day of August in the ninteen-hundredth year of <Our Lord/the Common Era>", not "the fourth day of August in year ninteen-hundred" - so "1900 A.D." is actually "year 1899" – Chronocidal Apr 23 '18 at 13:31
  • @NigelJ It doesn't look right, but it's an extension of the logic about century names. Forget the weird boundary years like 1900. The year 1950 is in which century? The 20th. The year starts with '19' but the century is called the 20th. Strange but it would be incorrect . What about the year 150? (starts with '1'). It's in the 2nd century. And the year 50? 1st century. If you accept that (if you don't, you'll have trouble understanding writing about history), then you have to do something similar with the century of the year 1900. Yes, it seems weird, but that's just how it works out. – Mitch Apr 23 '18 at 14:01
  • @Mitch I find it amazing that this question earned FIVE downvotes. Nigel is asking a question, he did not state any preference. If someone had the temerity to post that the journalist made a mistake and should have written 20th century because that is how 90% of the English speaking population would interpret 1900 to refer to, then I could understand the downvotes. But nobody did, because nobody wanted to look like a fool (me). – Mari-Lou A Apr 24 '18 at 07:12
  • Does anyone really think that the majority of people know that the number zero did not exist in Latin? Does anyone remember? Apparently, only computer engineers and programmers do because it is a problem they have to face, or studied at class. Only a PITA would pick an argument over this issue. – Mari-Lou A Apr 24 '18 at 07:14
  • @Mari-LouA I'm not sure about the DVs. It's a good question to have asked here, it's just the answer turns out to be not particular to English. If you number things a certain way, then logically derived names for groups of those numbers will be counterintuitive. This problem occurs in all languages. – Mitch Apr 24 '18 at 13:22
  • @Mitch I'm not disputing as to whether it's about the English language or usage, I'm disputing the downvotes because if the users were DVing because the question was off-topic then they should also DV the answers. If users DVoted because the answer is so obvious, and googlebale (i.e. general reference) then users who answered an easy question should not be rewarded. If the user who posted the top ranked answer believed the question was on-topic in the first place, why haven't they voted to reopen it? Double standards. Hypocrisy etc. – Mari-Lou A Apr 24 '18 at 13:33
  • @Mari-LouA I don't think you can simplify it all that way. People downvote for all sorts of reasons (because others have, because they don't like the name, because misformatted, etc etc). Not everybody can vote to close, down votes are supposed to be different from votes to close (but obviously they're easily confoundable). About the top answer voting to reopen, you don't know what their schedule is or if they've revisited the question or noticed that it's closed. Also, even if an idea is googlable, that doesn't make it necessarily GenRef/Do research. etc etc. – Mitch Apr 24 '18 at 14:11
  • Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat. – Yoichi Oishi Apr 29 '18 at 20:57
  • The 19th century was 1801-1900. So she was born on the last year of the 19th century. The (current) 21st century is 2001-2100. –  Jan 05 '20 at 15:58

3 Answers3

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In the Western calendar system based on the Gregorian calendar, the year zero does not exist. That means we started counting with year 1.

That means that the first decade, the first century and the first millennium all started in the year 1, not in the year zero.

From there it follows that the second century started in the year 101, and the 20th century in the year 1901.

However, a lot of people like round numbers, and a lot of people celebrated the beginning of the third millennium on January 1st, 2000, instead of 2001.

Technically, Nabi was indeed born in the 19th century, because the 20th century didn't begin until January 1901. In common usage most people will however consider 1900 the start of the 20th century.

psmears
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oerkelens
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    Is that not GR? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/19th_century And what has that to do with the English language and its usage anyway? – Kris Apr 23 '18 at 09:22
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    @Kris "Is that not GR?" - what is "GR"? – Reversed Engineer Apr 23 '18 at 11:20
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    @DaveBoltman it's just EL&U jargon, GR stands for "general reference", an defunct reason for closing questions. We now have "lack of research" in its place. – Mari-Lou A Apr 23 '18 at 12:17
  • I think the last two paragraphs of this answer are incredibly important: this is a site about language and usage, not about logic and pedantry. The fact is, many people consider it useful to have a term for "1900 to 1999 inclusive", and will use "the 20th Century" as that term (the obvious alternative, "the 1900s", is ambiguous, as it could also refer to "1900 to 1909 inclusive"). – IMSoP Apr 23 '18 at 13:49
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    Oerkelens, you say "In common usage most people will however consider". I think that is sidestepping the issue of correctness. People who do that are factually incorrect. It's a very easy mistake to make, and I'm going to celebrate the party when all the digits change too, but it is still a terminological mistake. – Mitch Apr 23 '18 at 14:06
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    @Mitch This is where this question touches on English usage. In reality, people use the expression "20th century" when they mean the period that started on 1/1/1900 and ended 31/12/1999. Whether that is actually "correct" according to people who look at the calendar is not very relevant in everyday usage. – oerkelens Apr 23 '18 at 14:30
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    @Mitch This is just the age-old conflict between prescriptivism and descriptivism. This answer does a reasonable job of covering both angles. – IMSoP Apr 23 '18 at 15:17
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    @IMSoP, Oerkelens: the conflict between pre- and de- scriptivism is what 'hopefully' means for a sentence. What '20th c' means is different; it has a stipulated meaning. It can be derived from 1st principles, and it's usage can definitively be described as right or wrong. – Mitch Apr 23 '18 at 15:47
  • I wonder if proponents of descriptivism realise that they (probably unknowingly) agree to giving 100% score to all question completed by English language and spelling examination candidates everywhere and anywhere, since their answers in the exam, being a use of the language being described, become part of the language, are thus correct? – Reversed Engineer Apr 23 '18 at 16:55
  • @Mitch I don't see why this term is any different to any other. It is a part of the language which is used to communicate a meaning from one person to the other; a descriptivist approach says that if both the speaker and the listener agree that "20th Century" means "1900 to 1999 inclusive", then that is its meaning according to the language of those two people. The concept of "a stipulated meaning" pre-supposes some authority with the right to stipulate it, and is necessarily a prescriptivist position. – IMSoP Apr 23 '18 at 17:52
  • @DaveBoltman Descriptivism does not imply that a single user of the language can apply any rules they like to the language; it merely says that language rules arise out of the consensus of language users, not the diktat of any particular authority. It is certainly a more complex way of analysing those rules, but I would argue that prescriptivism is simply a wilful oversimplification for the convenience of those wishing to codify and "police" the rules. Anyway, this is a debate people have had thousands of times, and we should waste no more time re-hashing it here. – IMSoP Apr 23 '18 at 17:56
  • @IMSoP Yes, this is more appropriate for discussion. I'd be happy to do so on chat. I'm on main chat, ping me there. – Mitch Apr 23 '18 at 18:25
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Ms Tajima was born in the 19th Century. That is, between 1st January 1801 and 31st December 1900. I think if you were a mathematician you would like to argue that the calendar should have began at 0, however it didn't it began at 1 which means that each following century began at 101, 201 and so on.

user294833
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    Mathematicians would not have a problem with something being ℕ and not ℕ0. Personally I find that people with less knowledge of maths have the biggest problem with centuries starting with 1. Your answer is correct though. – Bent Apr 23 '18 at 08:02
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    It is not a matter of mathematics (or plain arithmetic). It seems to be a matter of convention. I would be interested to know who decided this convention and whether the general populace had any say in the matter. – Nigel J Apr 23 '18 at 09:42
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    @NigelJ You can't have a year nought. It's either before Christ (BC or ante Christum natum) or in the Year of Our Lord (AD). If you're going to ask about whether the people had a choice, there wasn't really a choice to make since a year nought made absolutely no sense. – JDF Apr 23 '18 at 10:59
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    You can't say "should have began". That's not grammatical. – tchrist Apr 23 '18 at 11:07
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    @Deonyi: We could have had a year nought... We don't, but could have. And it would have made perfect sense, the year before 1 would be 0, and the year before that would be -1. –  Apr 23 '18 at 11:07
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    @Pakk Of course we could have, but in our current Gregorian calendar, it would be illogical. I assumed Mr Johnstone was desirous of keeping 2018 2018. – JDF Apr 23 '18 at 11:14
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    @Deonyi: OK, I thought you said that we could not have a year nought. But you are right, it would be impossible/illogical in the current Gregorian calender, if further changes are not allowed. But a revised Gregorian calender that would have a year 0 could function fine, but has the big problem that all years before the year 1 would be off by one. –  Apr 23 '18 at 11:30
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    @Pakk: of course you can have a year zero. Just use the proleptic Gregorian calendar with astronomical year numbering. Look - you're dealing with dates. Dates are actually quite mutable. There is nothing special about them. Many people say that today is "April 23rd, 2018", but it's all just a matter of convention. And not everyone goes along with it. Consider, for example, all the other calendrical systems which are also in use worldwide. Really, you can have today be whatever day you want. The trick is to get others to agree. :-) – Bob Jarvis - Слава Україні Apr 23 '18 at 11:37
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    @BobJarvis: I completely agree with all that you say here. –  Apr 23 '18 at 11:48
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The year 1900 is more properly referred to as 1900 A.D. (or 1900 C.E.) which is itself an abreviated form of "The 1900th year of our Lord" (a.k.a. "The 1900th year of the Common Era")

Because we are ordering years rather than counting them, we use Ordinal numbers instead of Cardinal numbers. For example, once you are born you are 0 years old - but it is the 1st year of your life. The 12 months leading up to that point are the 1st year before you were born (or, arguably, the last, but that makes counting backwards rather awkward). This means that the Year is 1-indexed rather than 0-indexed, so the 1st decade ran from 1 A.D. to 10 A.D., and the 1st century from 1 A.D. to 100 A.D.

An Ordinal number starts at 1, and can have a vector/direction, but not a sign (it is always positive): The 1st dog to your left is not the -1st dog to your right, and there is no 0th dog in any direction.

(Unless you are a dog - but who would know?)

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  • A.D. is traditionally prepended at the start of a data. That is, AD 2018. It's usually expressed fully as 'the Year of our Lord Two Thousand and Eighteen'. – JDF Apr 24 '18 at 00:03