Re: numbers as letters

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/,
Yep - and Leibnitz outlined a scheme in which the nine consonants _b, c,
d, f, g, h, l, m, n_ represented the digits 1 to 9 respectively. However
the vowels added were not arbitrary: they denoted powers of 10, thus _a,
e, i, o, u_ = x1, x10, x100, x1000, x10000 respectively. Thus, e.g.
81374 is written and pronounced _mubodilefa_.  However, as each syllable
has a unique meaning, they may be written in any order, thus 81372 could
also be written _bodifalemu_, _lemudibofa_ etc., etc.!

I am not convinced that the freedom of syllable order is a good thing.
Nor do I know how Leibnitz proposed to express zero or numbers greater
than 99999.

A more interesting system IMO was proposed by G. de Kolvorat in 1927 in
which all the numbers from 00 through to 99 are represented by a single
CV syllable, beginning with _ba_ = 00 and ending with _zu_ = 99. To
express any number you just break it up into groups of two (prefixing a
leading zero if necessary) and spell it out, e.g.
164750 --> 16-47-50 = femina
50462 --> 05-04-62 = caburi

See http://nov.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIL_Numeral_Suffixes for a brief
description. Unlike Leibnitz's scheme, the order of syllables is
significant (a "good thing" IMO), it represents zero and there is no
upper limit to the number it can represent (the highest in theory being
an infinite number of  'zu'!).

In the auxlang Babm [bO'a:bOmu] denotes the numbers 1 to 9 by _b, d, f,
g, h, j, k, l, m_ each surmounted by a tilde or 'long mark'. Babm uses
the letters of the Roman alphabet as a _syllabary_ - normally the vowel
is short for these symbols, but when used as numerals it is lengthen.
zero is denoted by _o_ [O:]. Other letters (with diacritics) are used
for 10, 100, 1000 etc. etc. Not as good as De Kolvorat's system IMO.

None of these examples meet the criterion "with arbitrary vowels added
for pronounceability" (tho it might be argued that Okamoto's use of the
Roman letters in his syllabary is somewhat arbitrary), but they may be
of interest.

--
Ray
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