Re: number bases (was without subject)

If this is true for such a wide area, where did the arabics come up with
base 10?

Also I believe the Babylonias (I fairly sure the Egyptians) had a seven-day
week because of the number of wanderers (greek word is planet) in the
heavens.
Planet  English Spainish
Sun             Sunday
Moon            Monday  Lunes
Mars            Tuesday Martes
Mercury Wednesday       Miercoles
Jupiter Thursday        Jueves
Venus           Friday  Viernes
Saturn  Saturday        Sabado

More of the roots are visible in Spainish.

Tuesday was named after Tiw - god of war, so it's mars in a norse setting
Wednesday was named after Odin - god mixed up there.
Thursday was named after Thor - god of thunder, just like Jupiter was in
charge of in addition to being chief god.
Friday was named after Freya - goddess of love, so its venus in a norse
setting

-----Original Message-----
From: Mark J. Reed [mailto:markjreed@MAIL.COM]
Sent: Tuesday, January 13, 2004 11:17 AM
To: CONLANG@LISTSERV.BROWN.EDU
Subject: Re: number bases (was without subject)

Undoubtedly, although most of the ones I know have the same
predisposition to base 12.  This is no doubt due to the influence
of the ancient Babylonians, who I believe had two counting systems,
base 12 and base 60 (which adds five to the list of factors).
This is why we have 360 degrees in a circle, 60 seconds in each of
60 minutes of both arc and time, a 12-hour clock, etc.  And
in ancient Rome units were divided up into twelfths for convenience;
our word "ounce" comes from "uncia" which means 1/12, and in the
Troy system a pound is indeed 12 ounces, although in the avoirdupois
system it has grown to 16, matching the 16 fluid ounces in an (American
and old British wine) pint, which is supposed to be hold a pound of water
and is where the whole idea of a "fluid ounce" comes from.

Wow.  Let me catch my breath after that run-on.  Whew.

On the other hand, those same ancient Babylonians also gave us the seven-day
week, which is a prime number.  Go figure.

-Mark

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