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Number Systems of the World (found the link on CONLANG, will have to look at it when I have more time).

Numbers on zompist.com

Date: Monday, 25 October 2004 06:45 (UTC)
ext_78: A picture of a plush animal. It looks a bit like a cross between a duck and a platypus. (Default)
From: [identity profile] pne.livejournal.com
Indeed I do.

This one is a bit different, though: it looks at number systems ordered by complexity (for example, Mandarin with things such as "nine-ten-seven" for "97" are less complex than monstrosities such as the French "four-twenty-ten-seven").

Re: Numbers on zompist.com

Date: Monday, 25 October 2004 07:01 (UTC)
From: [identity profile] ubykhlives.livejournal.com
I had a quick look through - it's a very interesting page. But I wonder why Nimbian is so supposedly strange? It's a pretty ordinary system, if you overlook the fact that it uses 12 as a base rather than 10.

The French do do things weirdly, don't they? ;) I sometimes think "quatre-vingt" and so on might be a relic from Basque, which has a vigesimal system as basic. It's just a theory, but I can't think of any other reason why one would use a perfectly normal decimal system up to 69, and then start doing bizarre things like quatre-vingt-dix-neuf and soixante-douze.

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pne: A picture of a plush toy, halfway between a duck and a platypus, with a green body and a yellow bill and feet. (Default)
Philip Newton

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