[tied] Re: IE right & 10

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Peter P" <roskis@...> wrote:

> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "petusek" <petusek@...> wrote:
> >
> > >> presumed to be fairly recent in Finnish since the original FU
> > >> speakers had a base 6 number system, [...]
> >
> > Did they? Can you give me some examples? Not that I object to
> it, ...
>
> > Petusek
>
> I just restated from Nykysoumen Sanakirja by Häkkinen p 133.
>
> It is also known that the numbers 1 to 6 are related in most

Uralic

> languages, but numbers above 7 are not, so base 10 counting seems

to

> have evolved later.
>
> Why a base 6 system? If you count the fingers of one hand, 1-5

and

> record this counts with a finger of the other hand, 6 will

represent

> the first finger of the other hand, 12 the next 18 the

next, ...24,

> 36. So using 10 fingers one can count to 36.
>
> Peter P

************
Was there really a base 6 counting system in Uralic? I mean,
do 12, 18, etc. function in any way like 20, 30 in the decimal
system? There being a linguistic break after 6 isn't the same
thing.
http://www.leeds.ac.uk/linguistics/research/WP2000/Nels&Toiv2.pdf
discusses such a break in one of the Sami languages. Unless I
missed it, the authors don't explain why it's there and not at some
other point in the number series.
Dan Milton