I'd put traditional Danish numbering a bit further up the list... it's pretty strange (http://www.olestig.dk/dansk/numbers.html)
Number systems of the world, sorted by complexity of counting (2006)
21–30 of 121 posts
Re: Number systems of the world, sorted by complexity of counting (2006)
#22I don't understand how the author is judging complexity. The top one, Huli, is a base-15 number system but looks quite regular otherwise. French, on the other hand, switches from a base-10 to a base-20 at 80 and then switches things up at 97. According to the listing, Welsh sits somewhere between these two but it has separate numbering systems for {20s, 40s, 60s, 80s}, {30s, 70s, 90s}, and {50s}. That seems much more…
Also, Swiss French, which has proper words for seventy and ninety, is considered more complex than French French, even though I'd consider having specific words simpler (especially given the complexity of 97 (which is said as 4 x 20 + 10 + 7)
67 isn't much better, either. It's 60 + 10 + 7.
Re: Number systems of the world, sorted by complexity of counting (2006)
#23Another article that was published a while ago had an interesting take on it. There is a quite high correlation between numbering system of a language and how quickly/well kids speaking that language learn counting and math skills. Apparently, the article itself is taken down, but I found an archived version. https://web.archive.org/web/20141215072819/http://playthink....
It seems that a child will perhaps learn to count quicker in Japanese than in French, say, but the complexity and inclusion of factors/compounds also seem like they would push a more complex understanding of number to be adopted.
I wonder if a French people make change with 20 Euro-cent coins more often than others do.
Re: Number systems of the world, sorted by complexity of counting (2006)
#24Another article that was published a while ago had an interesting take on it. There is a quite high correlation between numbering system of a language and how quickly/well kids speaking that language learn counting and math skills. Apparently, the article itself is taken down, but I found an archived version. https://web.archive.org/web/20141215072819/http://playthink....
Maybe it's been taken down because it reeks of bad linguistics and bad anthropology. Not to mention the obvious that being good at counting doesn't make one good at academic subjects. I studied math and didn't see a number larger than 10 after I got my BSc.
Re: Number systems of the world, sorted by complexity of counting (2006)
#25Can any native Hindi speakers comment on the difficulty of doing math in a language where every number 1-100 has its own name?
I am not a native Hindi speaker by any means, and I certainly haven't done math in it. But my experience (in places like Delhi) is that people routinely use Hindi up to 20, then give up and switch to English.
Re: Number systems of the world, sorted by complexity of counting (2006)
#26I don't understand how the author is judging complexity. The top one, Huli, is a base-15 number system but looks quite regular otherwise. French, on the other hand, switches from a base-10 to a base-20 at 80 and then switches things up at 97. According to the listing, Welsh sits somewhere between these two but it has separate numbering systems for {20s, 40s, 60s, 80s}, {30s, 70s, 90s}, and {50s}. That seems much more…
Also, Swiss French, which has proper words for seventy and ninety, is considered more complex than French French, even though I'd consider having specific words simpler (especially given the complexity of 97 (which is said as 4 x 20 + 10 + 7)
Did you interpret the table backwards? Swiss French is considered simpler:
1. (most complex)
19. French
33. Swiss French
69. (simplest)Re: Number systems of the world, sorted by complexity of counting (2006)
#27Can any native Hindi speakers comment on the difficulty of doing math in a language where every number 1-100 has its own name?
Every number doesn't have its own name. If you observe closely there is a pattern. From 21 to 99, you can observe that every digit at tens place decides the suffix and the digit at ones place decides the prefix.
Re: Number systems of the world, sorted by complexity of counting (2006)
#28Can any native Hindi speakers comment on the difficulty of doing math in a language where every number 1-100 has its own name?
I am not a native Hindi speaker by any means, and I certainly haven't done math in it. But my experience (in places like Delhi) is that people routinely use Hindi up to 20, then give up and switch to English.
This is only true for young urban middle class people.
Re: Number systems of the world, sorted by complexity of counting (2006)
#29Nice to see that Mandarin and Japanese have simple number systems compared to English. It might be worthwhile to learn them and impress your friends while you're reading numbers from restaurant menu-cards :)
Re: Number systems of the world, sorted by complexity of counting (2006)
#30I think they're understanding the complexity of the Japanese number system by quite a lot: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_counter_word
Classifiers are mostly orthogonal to the number system, and they're really no different from e.g. English using "a herd of cattle" or "a murder of crows" to redundantly encode the kind of thing being talked about. I'm actually not aware of any language that doesn't have different units of measurement for different objects, it's just that some languages effectively make it mandatory to use them. (E.g. in Chinese you c…
No way. It is absolutely different in practice because of Japanese counter words.
A counter word is a counting prefix (different from the abstract number word) plus different suffixes for a variety of things. This object is long and thin, so it has one suffix. This object is a drop of liquid, so it has another suffix. This is a small animal, so it gets another suffix. The counting words for use with these suffixes are different from abstract numbers.
Frankly, the system is bananas.
Abstract numbers in Japanese are very simple and logical, but the overall counting system of e.g. English is objectively simpler, and I don't think you can disregard counting when examining the number system.
In English, it would be equally correct to say "10 cows" or "a herd of cattle." Literally translating the first (without counting words) in Japanese would be incorrect.