Comment by lgessler | Hacker News Reader

Top New Best Ask Show Jobs

Comment by lgessler | Hacker News Reader

Some unusual systems documented on these pages, pointed out by Gaston Ümlaut in his StackExchange answer[1]:

* Orokaiva (Trans–New Guinea): digit-tally system https://lingweb.eva.mpg.de/channumerals/Orokaiva.htm

* Fas (Fas): binary system (base 2) https://lingweb.eva.mpg.de/channumerals/Momu-Fas.htm

* Pazeh (Austronesian): quinary (base 5) https://lingweb.eva.mpg.de/channumerals/Pazeh.htm

* Amis (Austronesian): decimal (base 10) https://lingweb.eva.mpg.de/channumerals/Amis.htm

* Ron (Afro-Asiatic, Chadic): duodecimal (base 12) https://lingweb.eva.mpg.de/channumerals/Ron-Chadic.htm

* Barapasi (East Geelvink Bay): vigesimal (base 20) https://lingweb.eva.mpg.de/channumerals/Barapasi.htm

* Meyah (East Bird Head-Sentani): mixed-quinary/vigesimal https://lingweb.eva.mpg.de/channumerals/Meyah.htm

[1]: https://linguistics.stackexchange.com/questions/2652/which-m...

Fas doesn't appear to be base-2 number system in that it's not a positional number system. "Base" refers to the base of a positional number system.

It's an unary system, where one quantity is grouped (2) like in a sign-value system but also used when speaking and not just in symbolic notation.

It's like if our 10-centric languages we'd say thirty five as "ten ten ten five".

In fas you'd say thirty five as "two two two two two two two two two two two two two two two two two one"

Its a bit surprising that none seems to have invented base 2. It should be the most expressive way to count using fingers since it allows 32 number to be expressed with a single hand and 1024 numbers with two hands. But I guess that would be overengineering and annoying for most early cultures.

In 2nd century BC, the the indian scholar Pingala wrote Chandaḥśāstra where he developed a positional little endian (least significant digit on the left) base-2 system using a sanskrit short syllable for 0 and long syllable for one

Reply on news.ycombinator.com