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Cherokee Numerals

(thereader.mitpress.mit.edu)
91 points horseradish | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0.21s | source
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JdeBP ◴[] No.26521599[source]
It's also interesting how history has taken us to the point that an anthropologist names a numeral system invented in India and brought to Europe via Africa "Western", because readers will understand that name, and uses that name in contrast to a system that was invented in the actual West.

Also, not enough is made of the fact that the numeral system was based upon United States decimal coinage. Viewed in terms of 1 cent, 5 cent, and 10 cent coins, with the added notion of a barred gate for 1 to 5 (as explained), the numerals actually make a lot of sense; especially if one considers them as erosions into arcs and squiggles caused by rapidly drawing the original full circles and bars.

* 1 to 5 are the five-barred gate with the downward bars mostly elided or reduced to squiggles for speed and the pen not removed from the paper in between bars.

* 6 to 10 are a 5 cent piece reduced to an arc plus one to five 1 cent pieces as bars, again mostly elided.

* 11 to 15 are a 10 cent piece still mostly a circle plus one to five 1 cent pieces.

* The 30 to 90 symbols are the superscript notation described in Lowery's biography, but prefixed instead of suffixed. 50, for example, is a prefixed 5, as reduced to a squiggle, before a 10 cent piece.

The text states that numerals above 20 had the numerals from 1 to 9 appended. By implication, therefore: 16 to 25 are a 10 cent piece, plus a 5 cent piece, plus one or two barred gates of 1 cent pieces; and 26 to 29 are a 10 cent piece, plus two 5 cent pieces, plus some 1 cent pieces.

It would appear that Sequoyah didn't encounter 25 cent pieces often enough to warrant retaining them in the system as it evolved.

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1. ceratin6 ◴[] No.26522622[source]
I rather thought this stupid:

> We don’t know what impetus exists for developing a ciphered-additive system where the signs for 20 through 90 have their own distinct signs, and where there is a multiplier for 10 in place of a zero

Romantic languages have an obvious difference when reading the words representing them when in comes to numbers under ten, 11-15, and multiples of ten to 90. English’s 11-12 differs from other teens. 20-90 may perhaps be hybrids of words and numerals to eliminate confusion or seem more familiar to speakers.

It’s also obvious why a multiplier for 10 would replace zero, as that’s what it does.

Am I missing something here??