Re: Base 8 counting in Gevey

En réponse à Andreas Johansson <and_yo@...>:

>
> Speaking of bases, I assume that those languages that only have words
> for
> numbers up to three or so don't use any base at all. Now, does anyone
> know
> what the highest named number is among langs that don't use bases?
>
It depends what you mean by base. Base in a mathematical definition has nothing
to do with language but with the way to represent numbers. Bases in languages
are the "root" numbers used to count. For instance, French uses both base 10
and base 20 (for numbers until 16 and for numbers from 60 until 99). Port-
Essington, a language of Tasmania, has only numbers until 4, but it counts them
as 1, 2, 2+1, 4. Base 2?

Christophe.

http://rainbow.conlang.free.fr