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Re: numbers as letters

From:Jean-François Colson <fa597525@...>
Date:Tuesday, May 8, 2007, 14:01
Philip Newton wrote:
> On 5/8/07, MorphemeAddict@wmconnect.com > <MorphemeAddict@...> wrote: >> Does anyone know of a system for reading digits (0-9) as letters >> (probably consonants only, with arbitrary vowels added for >> pronounceability)? > > You could go with the Lojban system - "no pa re ci vo mu xa ze bi so" > for 0-9 (note |ci| = /Si/, otherwise you can use IPA values for the > letters); each digit has a unique consonant, and you can take the > usual vowel, ignore it, or substitute it with one of your choice. (The > vowels follow an a-e-i-o-u progression for 1-5 and 6-9, incidentally.) > > FWIW, Lojban uses digit names exclusively, even in numbers larger than > 9; for example, "123" is read "pareci", with no morpheme for "hundred" > or "ten" used. (Part of the audiovisual isomorphism, I presume.) > > Cheers,
Very interesting. So I guess lojbanists would translate 10^12 (= 1,000,000,000,000 = one British billion = one American trillion) as panononononononononononono. Am I right? JF

Reply

T. A. McLeay <conlang@...>