nanpa luka ( five & hand )

Signs and symbols: Writing systems (hieroglyphs, nail writing) and Signed Toki Pona; unofficial scripts too
Signoj kaj simboloj: Skribsistemoj (hieroglifoj, ungoskribado) kaj la Tokipona Signolingvo; ankaŭ por neoficialaj skribsistemoj
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Kuti
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nanpa luka ( five & hand )

Post by Kuti »

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janKipo
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Re: nanpa luka ( five & hand )

Post by janKipo »

Well, yes, except that 'luka' means arm at least as much as hand, and foreleg, too. The world is pretty much stuck with decimal numeration as a result of this happenstance of five fingers, though there signs of quartal (thumbs don''t count -- or, rather, are used to count) and octal (twice quartal, of course; "octo" is the dual of 'quatuor' and 'novem' marks a new beginning) annd a few of three based and twelve and twenty and 60.
janMato
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Re: nanpa luka ( five & hand )

Post by janMato »

Interesting, just like a Vulcan salute!

I think what we've really discovered is that the Romans learned their math from the Vulcans.

More seriously, yes, to the extent that toki pona is a primitive language of primative people, it would be expected to have body part numbers. I would think the number systems that aren't connected to the body somehow would be in the minority.
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jan Josan
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Re: nanpa luka ( five & hand )

Post by jan Josan »

I remember in high school learning how to count to ninety-nine with two hands. Did anyone else learn this? Is this even still taught?
janKipo
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Re: nanpa luka ( five & hand )

Post by janKipo »

Boy, how does that one go? I just learned (not in school but in some sci fi mag) to count to 2^10, but that was never presented as practical.
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Re: nanpa luka ( five & hand )

Post by janMato »

That's chianbop, korean hand abacus http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chisanbop

It's about as popular right now as other abacus and slide rule skills.
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Re: nanpa luka ( five & hand )

Post by janMato »

janKipo wrote:I just learned (not in school but in some sci fi mag) to count to 2^10, but that was never presented as practical.
Binary would be great fun but one of the basic operations (shift left/shift right) to multiply and divide by 2, takes a heck of a lot of concentration and dexterity.
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jan Josan
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Re: nanpa luka ( five & hand )

Post by jan Josan »

Ah thanks jan Mato, I never knew where it came from. I was trying to write out how to do it, but that explanation is much better than the one I was hacking out.
janKipo
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Re: nanpa luka ( five & hand )

Post by janKipo »

Well, ABACUS is the simplest version of recursive number theory, even easier than Turing machines, and the Chinese abacus, at least, is still much in use by older Chinese businessmen, though I suppose all their juniors are into (not necessarily faster) calculators. Slide rules, on the other hand, seem to have simply disappeared; I couldn't even find one at Nerds 'R' Us.
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