Number Systems, and number derivation

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holbuzvala
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Number Systems, and number derivation

Post by holbuzvala »

So numbers are fun, right? But what's maybe more fun than numbers themselves is deriving them. In Azvolai, I'm working on a base-20 number system, where each number is a word for a thing in the natural world that exhibits that number, and no numbers of the 20-bases are derived from each other. This is what I have so far:

1. 'head' (everyone has only one)
2. 'eye(s)' (everyone has two)
3. 'pubic hair' (it grows in three regions: 2x armpits and crotch), OR 'reproduction' (because for a child to be born you need three people involved: the father, mother, and child)
4. 'limb(s)'
5. 'hand' (because we have five fingers)
6. 'beetle' (six legs)
7. 'moving celestial object(s)' (from the ground without a telescope, you can see 7 object move across the sky: sun, moon, mercury, vernus, mars, jupiter, saturn)
8. 'spider' (8-legs)
9. 'pregnancy' (lasts for 9 months - with a month here measured as a lunar cycle)
10. 'hug' (because this action requires two hands/arms which involves 10 fingers)
11. 'toe' (because if you're counting to 11 on your hands, you run out of fingers and so have to move onto your feet)
12. 'rib(s)' (mostly everyone has 12 ribs per lung) OR 'short year' (as it has only 12 lunar cycles in it)
13. 'long year' (has 13 lunar cycles in it)
14. 'knuckle(s)' (you have knuckle 14 joints in your hand)
15. 'foot' (when you get to 15, you've finished counting with one foot)
16.
17.
18.
19.
20. 'body' (is has 20 digits, fingers and toes)

The blank ones I've no thought of yet. Any ideas of what things naturally occur in groups of 16-19, or which can be got to slightly roundabout like with '11' and '15'?

I'm interested to see your number systems too! Like how in Arabic the word for 20 is the word for 10 with the plural suffix on it (instead of the dual), and 30-90 are 3-9 with the plural suffix on them.
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Creyeditor
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Re: Number Systems, and number derivation

Post by Creyeditor »

Have you looked at bodypart counting systems in natlangs? I think especially Papuan languages exhibit this.
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Iyionaku
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Re: Number Systems, and number derivation

Post by Iyionaku »

A few notes that come to mind for me:
holbuzvala wrote: 23 Apr 2018 09:46 3. 'pubic hair' (it grows in three regions: 2x armpits and crotch), OR 'reproduction' (because for a child to be born you need three people involved: the father, mother, and child)
I think 'pubic hair' is very unlikely to use, especially as you don't use a direct resemblance but rather a far-fetched analogy. The latter is more likely, but it's still questionable.
holbuzvala wrote: 23 Apr 2018 09:46 7. 'moving celestial object(s)' (from the ground without a telescope, you can see 7 object move across the sky: sun, moon, mercury, vernus, mars, jupiter, saturn)
This would presuppose that a culture developed astronomy before the ability to count to ten - maybe the most implausible one of them all.
holbuzvala wrote: 23 Apr 2018 09:46 9. 'pregnancy' (lasts for 9 months - with a month here measured as a lunar cycle)
(...)
12. 'rib(s)' (mostly everyone has 12 ribs per lung) OR 'short year' (as it has only 12 lunar cycles in it)
If your conpeople live in our world, a pregnancy lasts for 40 weeks, which equals about 10 lunar months. The 'year' thing is more plausible, as a solar year equals about 12.4 lunar cycles.
holbuzvala wrote: 23 Apr 2018 09:46 4. 'limb(s)'
(...)
16
If your conpeople don't perceive the thumb to be a finger (many cultures do, in fact) you can have a clever solution for it: Say, 4 is 'fingers' (of a hand) and 16 is 'all fingers' (if the great toe is also not regarded to be a toe).
holbuzvala wrote: 23 Apr 2018 09:46 17.
18.
19.
I think it's more naturalistic to have those derived than not. You could propably hat 18 as 'three beetles', but 17 and 19 are prime numbers and thus you will have severe difficulties to find an occurrence of those numbers in nature, and even then it would appear very forced and unnaturalistic. You could of course work with sound shifts and have them derived, yet so strongly changed that one cannot easily spot it. For example, 17 is 'footandeyes', 18 is 'bodyminuseyes', 19 is 'bodyminushead' but due to sound shifts you might have something like 'fodais', 'bodais' and 'bodsed', for example (overly simplified process description, it's not that easy; but I think the point is clear).
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idov
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Re: Number Systems, and number derivation

Post by idov »

I agree with Iyionaku on most accounts. "Pubic hair" seems too taboo and too abstract. I would probably go for "phalanx" or "joint" (wrist, elbow and shoulder).
I think you could get 12, 17, 18 or nineteen from the vertebrae below the neck and seven from those in the neck. 16 is easy, that's the number of pairs of teeth.
If you allow planets and other celestial objects, you might as well count the stars in a constellation to get a number.
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