Re: Telona number system

>  I didn't mention it before, but the normal way
>> of expressing numbers over about eighty is to use a translation of the
>> decimal system.  For example, to say 'One thousand, nine hundred and
>> eighteen students entered the university this year.' one would use an
>> expression corresponding to 'ten ten ten plus nine ten ten plus nine
>> two'.....
>
>NO NO!!!! COP-OUT!!! ;-) At the least, maybe you could have them discover
>cubing (ede+pen??).  And I guess I'd allow simpler constructions for 200,
>300...1000, 2000--
I agree that is a cop-out. If you must have them fall back on a base
system... Your highest prime with a name was 17 - nua. Why not a base 17
system for those higher numbers?

>[tha ede] ala or _maybe_ ra {tha ede}; tha {cubed}, ra [tha {cubed}]???
>After all, I guess it's a little time-consuming to figure out what prime(s)
>make up 1729 (is there an easy way?).  But I'd bet that priests/scientists
>would go to the trouble in their formal writings
>ObConlang. 1. In Kash, primes are called epikalap, a compd meaning
>"pure/virginal number".
Rhean hasn't got a name for prime numbers yet. Milasakar (indivisible)?
Kihonni (basic/elemental)? Saaf (pure)? Ag'igri (chief in importance)?

>2. In Gwr, the largest number named is 1000, chih.  Million is chih maq,
>lit. 1000 vast, but maq here means 'multiplied by itself'; (US) billion
>(thousand million) is chih maq 2 (1000^2), then chih maq 3 (1000^3) and so
>on.
That's cool, you've got something like "... to the power of ..." in a nice
short word _maq_. Might this be used for other exponents? _8 maq 4_ for
8^4, for example?

I've got a very dull decimal system going. The only spice I added was when
I saw a discussion (in which I did not actually participate) about
resurrecting the term "miriad" for 10 000. I then changed Rhean's larger
numbers so that the names go by leaps of four powers of ten (like
Japanese), rather than three.
10 as'on
100 storok
1000 dural
1 0000 miryad (yes!)
10 0000 as'on miryad (etc)
...
1 0000 0000 ülyad (hundred million)
...
1 0000 0000 0000 rhalyad (trillion)

And I may or may not allow the large numbers to be pluralised: _dural
miryad_ vs. _dural miryadi_.
I also allowed an informal way of talking about very large numbers to enter
proper use. You simply name the number of zeroes: the term "googol" is
translated as _stroknolyad_ "hundred-zero-iad". I guess a googolplex would
be _stroknolyad-nolyad_ "googol-zero-iad".

M

Reply