In that regard your argument is a little like saying kids test question such as "Jennifer has 3 apples and gives one to Bob and Terry, how many does she have left" isn't decimal because the calculation is written in English rather than as a "number sentence" (as schools call them). But clearly the kids are still thinking about those numbers as decimal even if the question is not phrased as a mathematical equation.
Whereas some other cultures used base-12 or base-60 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexagesimal) which, incidentally, are also believed to originate from finger counting much like base-10 was.
I believe the Romans also thought about things in decimal despite their numerals being logarithmic. However their numerals do follow the decimal orders of magnitude.