Title: A Proposal for Counting in Proto-Fubarnii and Descendants Post by: zaratan on January 28, 2013, 08:35:19 am Fubarnii likely count in Base 8, so I devised this numbering system.
0 = vo-uuk (no one/nothing) 1 = uuk (one/this) 2 = od (two/that) 3 = vuth (few/three/hand) 4 = vuth-uuk-aab (hand with one) 5 = vuth-od-aab (hand with two) 6 = od-vuth (two hands) 7 = kaap-ind (to [my] hoof/leg; I made up the word for foot/leg) 10 = bos (person); Note that 10 here indicates a complete set of 8. 11 = bos-uuk-aab (person with one) 12 = bos-od-aab (person with two) 13 = bos-vuth-aab (person with hand) 14 = bos-vuth-aab-uuk-aab (person with hand with one;what a mouthful!) 15 = bos-vuth-aab-od-aab A = bos-od-vuth B = bos-kaap-ind 20 = od-bos (two people); two sets of 8 = 16 in Base 10 100 = gus-uv/f-gus (many of many); 8 sets of 8 = 64 in base 10 1000 = gus-el-gus (many-ing-many); 512 in base 10 It still needs some work, but it's a start. More later... Title: Re: A Proposal for Counting in Proto-Fubarnii and Descendants Post by: Carcharoth on January 28, 2013, 11:07:17 am Excellent thoughts!
Why base 8? Base 6 would be a natural starting point (6 fingers), but seems too low. I like the binary implications for base 8 and I could see the symmetry appealing to the fubarnii engineers. The numbers make sense for PF and would be heavily abbreviated in modern dialects: Vok, uk, od, vut, vubuk, vubod, vubut, uuklop, bos. Only thought is that there is a lot of 'v' words there. That might get adjusted over the generations for clarity. Maybe something like: Vok, uk, od, uut, shbok, vubod, tuutut, uuklop, bos. Title: Re: A Proposal for Counting in Proto-Fubarnii and Descendants Post by: zaratan on January 29, 2013, 05:43:09 am I went with base 8 because Bethar mentioned in her alphabet post that Gethuch suggested the Fubarnii count in base 8. Also, Fubarnii don't wear shoes, so I figure they'd have an easy reference with their feet. I decided that the word for hoof and leg are the same. Also, i changed the word klop to kaap to make it less English-ly. "And" has been replaced with "with" in accordance with Fubarnii grammar.
I agree that they'd likely wear down over time or change in some form. Hopefully, I will be able to derive those sooner than later. |