@@LexisLang yeah but literally every other number has something for it. If it's an even number it doesn't feel THAT random, and literally every odd number makes me think of another number, either a multiplication or something else, EXCEPT 17. There is no number more random than 17 and that is final
English used to be a base 12 language. That's why we have separate names for "eleven" and "twelve". Rather than saying "oneteen" or "tweteen". Same for many western Indo-European languages. It makes me wonder where the base 10 system started from. My first assumption is that we borrowed it from Arabic because they gave us the numbers, but I wouldn't know where to begin researching that specifically.
Actually, English has always been base-10. Proto-Indo-European, the oldest known ancestor of English was base ten and there is no mainstream history of the language using base-12. "Eleven" and "twelve" originally meant "one left over" and "two left over" (after the important number of ten). I don't believe it's known why this is, but 12's divisibility and usefulness has been known for millennia - Roman fractionals were base 12, for instance. It's probably this and how frequent 11 and 12 are compared to higher numbers that's why it's so prevalent. Of course, it could be that Pre-PIE, there was some B-12 usage, or perhaps one of the pre-IE languages of Europe gave contact phenomena, but if so, most of the evidence of this has been lost. Arabic numerals came to Europe in the 10th century, but weren't common until the 15th. Given all the written documents we have before this time which use base-10, it can't have been the influence of Arabic giving us this system. Besides, Arabic numerals are descended from the numerals of ancient India, originally used by the Indo-Aryans, who are also Indo-European, so they used base-10 too. Sorry for the ramble. This is just such a fascinating topic - thanks for bringing it up. If anyone ever writes a paper or dissertation or whatever on this, I'd love to see it. :)
@@jasminekaram880 Yes! I suspect it stuck around because it's so divisible too, but it does stem from Sumerian. I'm not so sure on the origin of 12 divisions - whether Sumer used a sub-base of 12 or whether that's down to the Romans' base-12 fractions (which I believe is the origin of 12 inches to a foot). I didn't go too in depth on all this because this is primarily a language video, but there's so much extra stuff I could have discussed - it's all so interesting! :D
@@LexisLang Ive looked into it more, and have come to the conclusion that you're wrong. There is written attested evidence that the early Germanic peoples have used both base 10 and base 12 alongside each other. In fact, your etymology example only supports my claim even more, because it shows that there was a need to specify that one was "left over" for that base 12 counting system they were using. There are reports in Old English of the word "hundred" referring to both '100' and '120', and that they were often used in contrast to each other as a "long hundred" and a "short hundred". That and the abundant use of a "score" as a system of measurement in contrast as "six score" vs five times twenty" description of other measurements. Constructions like "They had hundred men, and they went to Jomsborg - 80 men were sworn, 40 went away" and certain arithmetic evidence shows that at least to some extent, Germanic peoples were using a base 12 counting system to at least some degree. Also, it was common for glosses in Old English to specify decimal counting by annotating it as "ten-wise" or "twenty-wise", which would have not been nececarry if there was only decimal counting among the English people. Likely falling out of use because of the overall sprachbund of western Europe being on a base 10 counting system. The leading theory as to why the Germanic people had seemed to adopted both counting systems is due to suspected earlier contact in the Proto-Germanc or pre Proto-Germanic era with some simitic tribes that would have lived in around the areas that people often think the Germanic ancestors traveled and settled through. Some of this contact is supported in words that were in proto germanic, that werent in any other PIE language, but shares resemblance with some simitic words. such as Proto-Germanic *furkhtaz, Proto-Semitic *prkh, 'fright'; Proto-Germanic *magaþ, Early Semitic makhat, 'maiden', and some possible shared deities. this is supported by the fact that evidence of this base 12 counting system was also supposedly used in Gothic. Sorry for the ramble, but Ive been thinking about this for a while and it didnt line up with what I knew about old english and it's measuring conventions, and think you might be interested in following up with this topic a bit more.
@@WGGplant No problem with the ramble - we're all here to learn! I knew about the long and short hundreds, but remember that 120 isn't base 12 alone - more like 10 and 12 in concert. As I understood, though, a lot of the different words for numbers, like "score", "gross", "dozen", "grand", etc. are because base-10 can become less efficient for higher generalised numbers. What I meant by "there's no history of it" was that these have existed for ages, but they haven't been the main, neutral counting system. There are of course exceptions, but there's never been a time when "hundred" or "thousand" haven't been major large numbers, as evidenced by their continuous evolution and attestation. Their meanings do get hazy, of course, but hopefully the point still stands. As you say, this isn't an area of particular expertise, so I'm not 100% on everything - this is just my understanding. I'd always be happy to learn more and update and correct my understanding. Thank you so much for your continued interest - civil discussions like this can be rare. Feel free to add to this if you like (but just be aware youtube doesn't proactively tell me when you do). :D
I use Cambria Math throughout the video. It's available by default in MS Office apps, I believe. I really like how it looks and it supports IPA and lots of diacritics and other unicode characters , so it's one of my go-tos at the moment. :D
I don't know - some sort of complex mixed radix. I believe there's also another system in TP with just ala, wan and tu, then mute above that? That's more like Pirahã. The system you showed though is weirdly complex for TP. I assume it's just to keep the wordcount down, but it does seem weirdly implemented. :)
That is very nice! I'm glad you enjoyed the video! Just a shame it doesn't really work in other bases... "GD" doesn't quite have the same ring to it :P
Ah. Thank you for watching! Glad you enjoyed! French, definitely weird. It's very interesting and nice seeing why it's like that, but definitely seems weird at first. :)
Hello, Lexis. I know your channel is small now but I'm sure it will grow fast some day. It would be great chatting about linguistics and nerdy stuff! I'd recommend sharing some kind of contact media. Thank you for your educative content. ♥️🫂
Hi! I'm glad you like my stuff! I am growing very slowly. I've listed my email on the "about" tab of my channel page (you may have to do a captcha to see it, dk), so if ever you want to get in touch, feel free to use that. I'm not a big fan of social media, so I'm not on much, but maybe eventually I'll create some official accounts to use and make chatting easier. I would like to cultivate a little community here and I hope that'll develop as I grow, but I have big plans for if I ever do get bigger. As I'm sure you can tell, I'm a big fan of nerdy stuff, so I'm always happy to discuss either here or elsewhere. Thank you so so much for your support! :D
"Thanks Δ' watching" lmao
Only took 10 months for someone to spot it. ;D
17 is the most random number anyway and no number base will change it
Well, I guess except in base 17, but then literally every other number is really random. :)
@@LexisLang yeah but literally every other number has something for it. If it's an even number it doesn't feel THAT random, and literally every odd number makes me think of another number, either a multiplication or something else, EXCEPT 17. There is no number more random than 17 and that is final
English used to be a base 12 language. That's why we have separate names for "eleven" and "twelve". Rather than saying "oneteen" or "tweteen". Same for many western Indo-European languages. It makes me wonder where the base 10 system started from. My first assumption is that we borrowed it from Arabic because they gave us the numbers, but I wouldn't know where to begin researching that specifically.
Actually, English has always been base-10. Proto-Indo-European, the oldest known ancestor of English was base ten and there is no mainstream history of the language using base-12. "Eleven" and "twelve" originally meant "one left over" and "two left over" (after the important number of ten). I don't believe it's known why this is, but 12's divisibility and usefulness has been known for millennia - Roman fractionals were base 12, for instance. It's probably this and how frequent 11 and 12 are compared to higher numbers that's why it's so prevalent. Of course, it could be that Pre-PIE, there was some B-12 usage, or perhaps one of the pre-IE languages of Europe gave contact phenomena, but if so, most of the evidence of this has been lost.
Arabic numerals came to Europe in the 10th century, but weren't common until the 15th. Given all the written documents we have before this time which use base-10, it can't have been the influence of Arabic giving us this system. Besides, Arabic numerals are descended from the numerals of ancient India, originally used by the Indo-Aryans, who are also Indo-European, so they used base-10 too.
Sorry for the ramble. This is just such a fascinating topic - thanks for bringing it up. If anyone ever writes a paper or dissertation or whatever on this, I'd love to see it. :)
@@LexisLang Interestingly Sumerian the first written language had base 60, hence the way we count time is base 60. :)
@@jasminekaram880 Yes! I suspect it stuck around because it's so divisible too, but it does stem from Sumerian. I'm not so sure on the origin of 12 divisions - whether Sumer used a sub-base of 12 or whether that's down to the Romans' base-12 fractions (which I believe is the origin of 12 inches to a foot). I didn't go too in depth on all this because this is primarily a language video, but there's so much extra stuff I could have discussed - it's all so interesting! :D
@@LexisLang Ive looked into it more, and have come to the conclusion that you're wrong. There is written attested evidence that the early Germanic peoples have used both base 10 and base 12 alongside each other. In fact, your etymology example only supports my claim even more, because it shows that there was a need to specify that one was "left over" for that base 12 counting system they were using.
There are reports in Old English of the word "hundred" referring to both '100' and '120', and that they were often used in contrast to each other as a "long hundred" and a "short hundred". That and the abundant use of a "score" as a system of measurement in contrast as "six score" vs five times twenty" description of other measurements. Constructions like "They had hundred men, and they went to Jomsborg - 80 men were sworn, 40 went away" and certain arithmetic evidence shows that at least to some extent, Germanic peoples were using a base 12 counting system to at least some degree.
Also, it was common for glosses in Old English to specify decimal counting by annotating it as "ten-wise" or "twenty-wise", which would have not been nececarry if there was only decimal counting among the English people. Likely falling out of use because of the overall sprachbund of western Europe being on a base 10 counting system.
The leading theory as to why the Germanic people had seemed to adopted both counting systems is due to suspected earlier contact in the Proto-Germanc or pre Proto-Germanic era with some simitic tribes that would have lived in around the areas that people often think the Germanic ancestors traveled and settled through. Some of this contact is supported in words that were in proto germanic, that werent in any other PIE language, but shares resemblance with some simitic words.
such as Proto-Germanic *furkhtaz, Proto-Semitic *prkh, 'fright'; Proto-Germanic *magaþ, Early Semitic makhat, 'maiden', and some possible shared deities.
this is supported by the fact that evidence of this base 12 counting system was also supposedly used in Gothic.
Sorry for the ramble, but Ive been thinking about this for a while and it didnt line up with what I knew about old english and it's measuring conventions, and think you might be interested in following up with this topic a bit more.
@@WGGplant No problem with the ramble - we're all here to learn! I knew about the long and short hundreds, but remember that 120 isn't base 12 alone - more like 10 and 12 in concert.
As I understood, though, a lot of the different words for numbers, like "score", "gross", "dozen", "grand", etc. are because base-10 can become less efficient for higher generalised numbers. What I meant by "there's no history of it" was that these have existed for ages, but they haven't been the main, neutral counting system. There are of course exceptions, but there's never been a time when "hundred" or "thousand" haven't been major large numbers, as evidenced by their continuous evolution and attestation. Their meanings do get hazy, of course, but hopefully the point still stands.
As you say, this isn't an area of particular expertise, so I'm not 100% on everything - this is just my understanding. I'd always be happy to learn more and update and correct my understanding.
Thank you so much for your continued interest - civil discussions like this can be rare. Feel free to add to this if you like (but just be aware youtube doesn't proactively tell me when you do). :D
Thank you, very informative and well presented.
Thank you for watching! I'm very glad you enjoyed it! :)
10, 12, 20, & 60 are different ways of finger counting, as you have described
That's right. :)
What font do you use in Chockchi language the one that use Cyrillic?
At 1:06 you mean?
@@LexisLangyap, what font is that? It's look so good in the Cyrillic
I use Cambria Math throughout the video. It's available by default in MS Office apps, I believe. I really like how it looks and it supports IPA and lots of diacritics and other unicode characters , so it's one of my go-tos at the moment. :D
@@LexisLang auw thankie 😁 ngl the font looks so classy though, i like it
toki pona, base i don’t even know
0 ala
1 wan
2 tu
3 tu wan
4 tu tu
5 luka
6 luka wan
7 luka tu
8 luka tu wan
9 luka tu tu
10 luka luka
100 ale
I don't know - some sort of complex mixed radix. I believe there's also another system in TP with just ala, wan and tu, then mute above that? That's more like Pirahã. The system you showed though is weirdly complex for TP. I assume it's just to keep the wordcount down, but it does seem weirdly implemented. :)
You have 333 subscribers and the video has 3 likes (I was the third like)
That is very nice! I'm glad you enjoyed the video! Just a shame it doesn't really work in other bases... "GD" doesn't quite have the same ring to it :P
Not any more!
Wolof 10.. giggity
Pardon?
@@LexisLang nothing :).. just. a 13 year old boy in me giggles when seeing the Wolof number words... awesome vid though (french is weird ammirite)
Ah. Thank you for watching! Glad you enjoyed! French, definitely weird. It's very interesting and nice seeing why it's like that, but definitely seems weird at first. :)
Listening to you was pure torture, why are you speaking like that, as if isn't bad enough that you have a fake video title
I'm just speaking normally. Also not sure what's 'fake' about the title. Thank you for leaving a comment, though! :)
Hello, Lexis. I know your channel is small now but I'm sure it will grow fast some day. It would be great chatting about linguistics and nerdy stuff! I'd recommend sharing some kind of contact media. Thank you for your educative content. ♥️🫂
Hi! I'm glad you like my stuff! I am growing very slowly. I've listed my email on the "about" tab of my channel page (you may have to do a captcha to see it, dk), so if ever you want to get in touch, feel free to use that.
I'm not a big fan of social media, so I'm not on much, but maybe eventually I'll create some official accounts to use and make chatting easier. I would like to cultivate a little community here and I hope that'll develop as I grow, but I have big plans for if I ever do get bigger.
As I'm sure you can tell, I'm a big fan of nerdy stuff, so I'm always happy to discuss either here or elsewhere. Thank you so so much for your support! :D