> Roger Mills wrote:
> >Sylvia Sotomayor wrote:
> >
> >> Hi,
> >>
> >> I am redesigning my dictinary for Kelen (yet again), and I am planning
> >> on having short glosses (one word, maybe two) for each stem or base
> >> word, and also longer definitions for each fully formed and inflected
> >> word. My question: given that Kelen has a base 8 counting system,
> >> should I gloss 'āllōr' as 32 or 40? It has the functional equivalent
> >> of 40 in the language, being 8x4, but refers to 32 things.
> >>
> >I'd suggest you insert an explanatory comment, like:
> >"āllōr forty (base 8 = 32 base 10)"
> >That will prevent IMO any confusion/mistakes on the part of the reader.
>
> I OTOH don't much like calling your number "forty". I find it handy to
> always have "ten" around to mean 'the number of dots in ..........' even
> when "10" can't be relied upon to play that role. And besides,
> "functional
> equivalency" between bases is hardly cut and dried -- who says the
> base-ten
> equivalent of 32_8 isn't 50, also being half the base squared?
> (Probably
> something in the Kelen system says so, actually. But still.)
>
> I'd gloss your a:llo:r simply as '4*8' or '8x4' or some other variant,
> inserting a comment that this 8 is the base if you deem it necessary.
>
> Alex
> --
> Alex Fink
> a4pq1injbok_0@fastmail.fm
>
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