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Counting system different from base 10 | ||
Tags: Number System | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Philological Room |  | |
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6704 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes  Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 9 of 25 01 February 2011 at 11:11pm | IP Logged | ||
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The Danish number system has some traits in common with the French one,. I once commented on it in my log as follows:
"The etymology of the Danish words for 50 (halvtreds), 60 (tres), 70 (halvfjerds), 80 (firs) and 90 (halvfems) shows that we once had a numbersystem based on the number 20 (presumably invented by barefoot people). But those who learn the language now should just learn the words without doing the mathematics inherent in them. " 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| psy88 Senior Member United States Joined 5592 days ago 469 posts - 882 votes Studies: Spanish*, Japanese, Latin, French | Message 10 of 25 02 February 2011 at 2:01am | IP Logged | ||
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I believe the Ancient Sumerian and Babylonians used a sexagesimal number system, i.e a base 60 system. We still use a base 60 when we tell time,as in 60 seconds = one minute, 60 minutes=one hour.
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| furrykef Senior Member United States furrykef.com/ Joined 6473 days ago 681 posts - 862 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Japanese, Latin, Italian | Message 11 of 25 02 February 2011 at 6:27am | IP Logged | ||
That's just the written system. The spoken system is definitely base ten (with the oddity that they say e.g. "two from thirty" and "one from thirty" instead of "twenty-eight" and "twenty-nine", but the system still repeats every ten numbers). 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| clumsy Octoglot Senior Member Poland lang-8.com/6715Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5179 days ago 1116 posts - 1367 votes Speaks: Polish*, English, Japanese, Korean, French, Mandarin, Italian, Vietnamese Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written), Swedish Studies: Danish, Dari, Kirundi | Message 12 of 25 28 February 2011 at 5:44pm | IP Logged | ||
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I have found something very interesting:
多くの言語が膠着語的で、能格言語であるこ とが知られている。また、2進数ないし3進数 数詞を持つ言語が多く、このため「アボリ ニは3より多い数を数えられない」と言われ ることがあるが、これは誤りである。 It's about Australian Aboriginal languages (from Wikipedia). I could not find the equivalent text in English. However, They mean that Australian Aborigine people use binary or "trinary" counting system!!! Also here in English: http://www.kerryr.net/pioneers/binary.htm Australia's aboriginal peoples counted by two, and many tribes of the African bush sent complex messages using drum signals at high and low pitches. Morse code, as well, uses two digits (dots and dashes) to represent the alphabet. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| jdmoncada Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 5035 days ago 470 posts - 741 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Finnish Studies: Russian, Japanese | Message 13 of 25 28 February 2011 at 6:53pm | IP Logged | ||
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Does the fact that Japanese uses "ichi man" for 10,000 count? The numbers in that sequence are "one ten-thousand, two ten-thousand, three ten-thousand" (10,000; 20,000; 30,000), and so on.
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| Sanghee Groupie United States Joined 5069 days ago 60 posts - 98 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Mandarin, Korean | Message 14 of 25 28 February 2011 at 7:48pm | IP Logged | ||
I was wondering this as well (for Korean though, where 10,000 is also said like man/만, though the one in one ten-thousand isn't said in Korean). I think it's still considered base ten, but after 9,999 it goes up in different intervals than in English. There isn't a new word (eok/억) until 100,000,000. I have trouble counting past 99,999 (구만구천구백구십구) because I'm still not quite used to this way of counting.. but I'm pretty sure it's base ten. Edited by Sanghee on 28 February 2011 at 7:49pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| t123 Diglot Senior Member South Africa https://github.com/t Joined 5612 days ago 139 posts - 226 votes Speaks: English*, Afrikaans | Message 15 of 25 28 February 2011 at 9:01pm | IP Logged | ||
Base 10 means 10 digits, 0-9, so Japanese is base 10. Computers usually use base 2, so it only has 0 and 1 as digits. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| clumsy Octoglot Senior Member Poland lang-8.com/6715Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5179 days ago 1116 posts - 1367 votes Speaks: Polish*, English, Japanese, Korean, French, Mandarin, Italian, Vietnamese Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written), Swedish Studies: Danish, Dari, Kirundi | Message 16 of 25 04 March 2011 at 10:49pm | IP Logged | ||
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According to Wikipedia.
The Decimal system is the most common - people have 10 fingers. There re some languages that use 5 number systems. Khmer or Wolof. And French uses 12. Check Wikipedia for decimal. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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