Re: numbers as letters

Ray wrote:
<<
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.
 >>

Wow, this is really cool!  As you point out, it's not incredibly
useful for us, but could there exist a culture where there wasn't
a need to count incredibly high (pre-industrialization) where
such a number system might evolve naturally?  For this, I'm
not so much interested in the C = numeral V = 10's idea, so much
as a system where the symbols (whatever they are) can be
arranged in any order and produce the same number.  I suppose
it would eventually settle down and a fixed order would be
decided upon, but if you had it so that they *could* be arranged
in any order...

Let's say you just had the numerals and slashes ( / = 10, // = 100,
etc.).  In a given script, you could have the same--say something
like in my Sheli orthography, where the top half is the numeral
and the bottom half the 10's.  You could then have numbers
like this:

78/8///9//

Which would be 8,987.  I think this could work!

All right, so on the plausibility scale, what do you think: Could
a system like this evolve naturally (even if it only existed for a
short amount of time)?

-David
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"sunly eleSkarez ygralleryf ydZZixelje je ox2mejze."
"No eternal reward will forgive us now for wasting the dawn."

-Jim Morrison

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