Re: CONLANG Digest - 15 Jan 2000 to 16 Jan 2000 (#2000-17)
| From: | Nik Taylor <fortytwo@...> |
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| Date: | Monday, January 17, 2000, 22:15 |
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Muke Tever wrote:
> Yeah, I had looked it up... But the form of "eleven, twelve / elf, zwölf"
> being different from "thirteen, fourteen... / dreizhen, vierzehn..."[1]
> gives the appearance of base-twelve numbers, or at least the possibility of
> "natural-sounding" base-twelve counting without making up new words
Sure. In fact, I've imagined a usage _lev_ and _twel_ for base-10 11
and 12, and the suffix -doz for multiples of twelve, so that 71 =
fivedoz-lev. For 144, "gross", above that, perhaps you could just reuse
base-10 words, redefining "thousand" as 1728 (base10)
> I'm aware of the variant "jaw's harp" for "Jew's harp". (Had assumed
> perhaps the former was the origin, as the instrument apparently has naught
> to do with the Jews, but I couldn't find any way to check.)
Hmm, could be.
--
1 Wakalláf watyánivaf plal 273
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