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Japanese does have two different words for seven though. なな for everything that is not related to telling time, and しち when you're referring to units of time.

But this is a welcome trade for the regularity and simplicity of the rest of the number system. Although the flexibility available in European languages as described elsewhere in this thread does allow for texturizing things in a poetic or evocative way. being able to get two or three jobs done with one set of words is sometimes nice even if it does make things complicated when all you want is the most common usage of those words.




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