Re: Counting in Toono

Matt Pearson wrote:

> >>Interesting system.  I've never heard of a base-9 system, and especia=
lly
> >>not with this system! 1, 2, 3, 4, 9-4, 9-3, 9-2, 9-1, 9 - fascinating.
Even if I never have thought if this in terms of a conlang I've played se=
veral
times in base 3 sistems of (-1, 0, +1) for counting systems for Integer
(reather than Natural) numbers.  Combining three symbols (-,0,+) and our
standard positional notation, you could say:
-+0 for -6
-++ for -5
 -- for -4
 -0 for -3
 -+ for -2
  - for -1
  0 for  0
  + for  1
 +- for  2
 +0 for  3
 ++ for  4
+-- for  5
+-0 for  6
+-+ for  7
+0- for  8
+00 for  9
+0+ for 10
++- for 11
++0 for 12
+++ for 13

etc.

> >It's based on the "balanced ternary" system discussed by Donald Knuth,
> >which has the digits 0, 1, and -1. Negation is just a matter of flippi=
ng
> >the digits, and so on.
As usual, I didn't invent somethink new :-(

> >Do you think that it's just _too_ bizarre for a naturalistic artlang?
> >Numbering feels consciously artificial enough to me that having a weir=
d
> >number system doesn't bother me too much.
>
> Reminds me of how we tell time after the half hour:  Rather than "three
> quarters after eight" we say "a quarter to nine".  Then there's languag=
es
> where 8:30 is "half nine" - i.e. halfway to nine.
Or even "fem i half nio" (five to half nine) as Swedish speakers use for
8:25.  Also 8:35 is "fem efter half nio" (five after half nine).  Well, a=
fter
digital watches become more common "=E5tta (och) tjugifem" and "=E5tta (o=
ch)
trettifem" become more and more common as many English speakers just say
"eight forty five" instead of "a quarter to nine".

Then the system is not unnatural, but I guess that representation must al=
so be
according, mainly when large numbers are involved.  My own (incounsious) =
use
is to say "un cuarto para las nueve" when looking an analog(sp?) watch an=
d
"ocho (y) cuarenta y cinco" when reading a digital one.

> When I looked at your original post, I 'read' the numbers above four
> as "four before nine", "three before nine", "two before nine", and
> "one before nine" - kind of like a countdown to nine - rather than as
> "nine minus four", "nine minus three", etc..  Thinking in terms of
> subtraction makes my head spin, but thinking in terms of counting order
> (e.g. the second-to-last number before you reach nine) makes perfect
> sense!
>
> Matt.
>
> ------------------------------------
> Matt Pearson
> mpearson@ucla.edu
> UCLA Linguistics Department
> 405 Hilgard Avenue
> Los Angeles, CA 90095-1543
> ------------------------------------



--
Carlos Eugenio Thompson Pinz=F3n
  ITEC-Telecom, Colombia

  cthompso@alpha.telecom-co.net
  http://alpha.telecom-co.net/~cthompso/

Di mi beh em je lok mi ju je kom lon vu am je