Re: numerals

YHL wrote:
>On Thu, 5 Apr 2001, Andreas Johansson wrote:
>
> > YHL wrote:
> > >On Wed, 4 Apr 2001, Andreas Johansson wrote:
> > >
> > For really large numbers, the Tairezazh system is actually more economic
> > than ours. We need words for every 3rd power of ten (plus for 10^1 and
> > 10^2), but the numbers in between are expressed by adding a number up to
>999
> > before the nearest smaller integer power. Tairezazh only need words for
>the
> > 1st, 2nd, 4th, 8th, 16th, 32th etc power of ten. Thus they need fewer
> > (different) words to express numbers greater than 1000, tho' the
>difference
> > is small up to a few more powers of ten.
>
>Hmm--I confess in math I don't work with numbers much at all, but after a
>while you start using SI and exponents to express large numbers, or else
>switch to bigger units.  I find 10^9 easier to process than 1 000 000 000
>myself.  :-p
I too.

The average Tairezazh-speaker won't have much more use for enormous numbers
like, say, 12,076,560,553 in their daily lives than do we. In addition,
saying "round" numbers* like 20,000 is quite easy in Tairezazh too (its
_seitsfail_).

Their mathematicians surely employ things like exponents etc to juggle big
numbers, or simply feed 'em into computers, but I've not found the
inspiration to find out how to say "10^32" or such in Tairezazh yet. Perhaps
simply a unitary word meaning "exponent" or something like that - _thel
[something] vefthel-sei_?

                                                Andreas
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