I have some ideas to say complex numbers

Language learning: How to speak Toki Pona, translation problems, advice, memory aids, tools and methods to learn Toki Pona and other languages faster
Lingva lernado: Kiel paroli Tokiponon, tradukproblemoj, konsiloj, memoraj helpiloj, iloj kaj metodoj por pli rapide lerni Tokiponon kaj aliajn lingvojn
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Raphaël
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I have some ideas to say complex numbers

Post by Raphaël »

To say fractions we can say that like in english:
-for the fractions: numerator+nanpa+denominator
-for the very big numbers:100=ali lili, 1,000=ale, 1,000,000=ale suli,1,000,000,000=ale suli suli, 20=tu suli, 500=luka suli, 40=mute suli
aikidave
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Re: I have some ideas to say complex numbers

Post by aikidave »

Sonja has just given us advanced number words a few months ago for 20 = mute and 100 = ali. Let's not mess with these words for 20 and 100.

Down the road, I would like to see new words for 1000, 10,000, etc. maybe based on metric system roots.
But for now, I just want to see Sonja's book come out to clarify the current questions we have.
janMato
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Re: I have some ideas to say complex numbers

Post by janMato »

Any proposed system needs to be somewhat compatible with the 3 official ones

wan, tu, mute, mute, mute, ...
wan, tu, tu wan, tu tu, tu tu wan, ...
wan, tu, tu wan, tu tu, luka, ....
jan Ape
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Re: I have some ideas to say complex numbers

Post by jan Ape »

Here's a pretty good idea:


We can use the word nanpa to indicate a digit/number.


tu tu (2+2=4) nanpa tu wan (2+1=3) nanpa can mean "43"


tu(2) nanpa ala(0) nanpa wan(1) nanpa ala(0) nanpa can mean "2010"


In other words, you're just counting each digit of the large number like how in English you would say "2", "0", "1", "0" to spell out "2010". What do you think?

tu (2) nanpa li tu e tu tu (2+2=4) nanpa can mean "2/4"

tu nanpa en tu nanpa can mean "2+2"

tu nanpa li weka e wan nanpa can mean "2-2"

I'm not sure about multiplication though.
Last edited by jan Ape on Fri Apr 09, 2010 7:02 pm, edited 1 time in total.
janMato
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Re: I have some ideas to say complex numbers

Post by janMato »

jan Ape wrote:Here's a pretty good idea:
We can use the word nanpa to indicate a digit/number.

tu tu (2+2=4) nanpa en tu wan (2+1=3) nanpa can mean "43"

tu(2) nanpa ala(0) nanpa wan(1) nanpa ala(0) nanpa can mean "2010"

In other words, you're just counting each digit of the large number like how in English you would say "2", "0", "1", "0" to spell out "2010". What do you think?
It's a half measure. Might as well go whole hog decimal, which would require mapping 3 to 9 to existing words (the same way luka was mapped to 5). I forget what's been propose before so I'll skip this step. Then juxtaposition works fine and "en" would be a natural for the decimal.

wan luka tu en ala ala luka = 152.005

Then picking 4 words for the operations we can get exponentials, say suli/weka/unpa/kipkisi (grow/remove/multiply as in go forth and.../cut), wawa as a suitable calque for exponents.

wan luka tu en ala ala luka unpa [ten*] wawa luka luka = 152.005 * 10 ^ 55. I'm half way to a google now.
* replacing ten with a suitable re-mapped word, like noka for example.

It isn't that we don't know how to do math, in fact, I can establish a convention and start using in in a discourse in less than a paragraph. It's that we can't get the community to agree to use it because the toki pona design spec said try not to use numbers.

On one hand, it's frustrating. On the other hand, if all you have is a broken hammer, eventually you'll find a use for it. For example, without numbers you have to switch to qualitative mental models. You wouldn't want to say, "He's six feet under" because calquing with numbers is cumbersome. You wouldn't want to say "catch 22" for the same reason.
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