Re: Historical Sound Change & Numbers Puzzle
From: | Joseph Fatula <joefatula@...> |
Date: | Sunday, March 11, 2007, 8:21 |
Eugene Oh wrote:
> That's a really interesting number system you've got there, Joseph --
> what made you decide to construct it this way? To put it another way,
> wouldn't the language's speakers find it hard to count, since the
> Fibonacci series isn't all that intuitive?
>
> Eugene
While the Fibonacci series may be easy to construct, you're absolutely
right - it's not the way we think about numbers. As you can see, the
Fibonacci-based number system of the ancestral language has given way to
a 10-based number system in its descendant. The point of this project
(well, one of the points anyway) is to take an alien language (alien
might not be the right word - let's say "non-human") and have it change
as humans begin adopting the language. I was trying to think of a
radically different way to count, something that would work, but would
not be done in natural languages.
Joe
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