User:Ssstephen/Reading/Number System Invented by Inuit Schoolchildren
Kaktovik numerals
These are base-20 written numerals relating to the spoken Iñupiaq counting system, which have a visual link to their meaning in the number of strokes they use. The article is really about the numerals but makes me think more of base systems. The arguments for base-12 sometimes sound really strong, it definitely would be easier for arithmetic for humans.
When someone says base-20 you assume the "20" part refers to the number of combined fingers and toes most humans have, that is that it is a number in a decimal base system. Some people choose to use the word "dozenal" instead of "duodecimal" but "dozen" or "douzaine" just come from the Latin word "duodecim". The word "uncial" has been suggested as an alternative (Crosby, W.S., The Duodecimal Bulletin Vol. 1 No. 2, pp. 9-X) which has other interesting relationships to latin in a typographic sense. Another Alaska reference from Crosby:
The merits of counting by dozens don't need much arguing; the facts are pretty eloquent, given opportunity and time to do their work. The person to whom I've have the least trouble in explaining the system was a lad with a grade school education with whom I worked in Alaska, cutting and forming concrete-steel reinforcing. Having wrestled with feel and inches, and with dividing lengths into halves and thirds for so long, with him the idea clicked with no exhortation or argument on my part.
The "Imperial System" is thought of as something British or American, so clearly linked to colonial powers even in it's name. This is a system where things are divided: halved, quartered, eighthed, like territories in north Africa or the midwest US where lines drawn on a paper map become real borders instead of the other way around. But the "Metric System" is something scientific, something measured, it values careful observation and rationality. So where does the "Uncial System" fit into this? It is a transdecimal system, it breaks out of the scientific tradition of decimation without submitting to division. But base-12 feels just as Anglo-Saxon to me, or American. Grover Cleveland Perry argued for base-12 in his incredibly titled Mathamerica, 1929. He has some very wacky and fun reasons that twelve rules ten drools, including:
The Constitution, the symbol of our national Unity (one-ness) was originally signed by twelve sovereign political divisions or states. Its full political power is now complete and represented by Four Dozen states. This Nation, and its mission, symbolizes the city that “lieth foursquare, which cometh down from God, out of heaven” and is “beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole earth.”
Really interesting to wonder if the transition to America having 50 states instead of 48 is numerologically symbolic. Should America now expand to having 64 states, a 6-bit federation. Surely 128 states us more useful, plus a parity bit gives a full 8-bit union.
When are numbers used the most commonly? When. When is it now? Sexagesimal and duodecimal systems are so familiar to all of us because they do have a (quite) universal use for time. Sexagesimal is similar mathematically because it takes the factors of 12 (2, 3, 4, 6) and includes the obvious omission 5. How can you count without five. When I count my fingers I have ten. I count on my right hand from right to left and then on my left hand from left to right. In fact I count the thumb in the center, then flip it to the outside to count the fingers back in. And I end up in the middle with ten, whether I like it or not.