Peanut Counting: view article

When included in a sentence, numbers should be enclosed in quotes, to prevent unnecessary confusion.

Peanuts count in base 8 (octal) instead of base 10 (decimal), due to having four digits on each hand.

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Counting, physically: open palm is 0, you count the number of fingers held down starting at whichever thumb you prefer, so for one, you hold down one thumb (holding out the fingers and middle thumb, for two you hold down the thumb and closest finger, for three you hold down the thumb and both fingers and for four you make a fist. to count onward to the next hand an open palm is meaningless cause it just adds nothing but you count 5-8 in the same way, starting at a thumb, holding down fingers as you go.
So one closed fist and one thumb out (three fingers down) is 7.

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A number comes after the thing it modifies: noun bi number.

It’s kind of like saying “There are three” but for everything. A cat is three in number rather than three cats.
“There are five dogs” > “dog-pl + bi + five + copula-pres”
“There were two trees” > “tree + bi + two + copula-past”

Note that dog pluralizes but tree does not: this is because trees are not animate whereas dogs are.
You can also use the animate or inanimate to-be verbs, which means something like “there were two trees” is “tree + bi + two + to be-past.” (ʙìɂ bi leuxi e̱unílnar)

This is probably the only case the verb “to be” does not follow a particle lò… This happens with most other verbs as well, dropping the gáo or lò particle as the case may be. They CAN be said but it sounds strange and clumsy. Basically, numbers rarely take particles even when standing on their own.
Words like “more,” “many,” “how many” etc. function grammatically as numbers.

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Numbers end in “xi” but apply this to the total number as a whole--saying 21 you don’t say leuxi-baxi (2-1), you say leubaxi (21₈ or 17₁₀). Numerals are written simply next to each other, like 21 or 十四. (the system bears little resemblance to Japanese or Chinese past the teens though)

What about big numbers? Well, like 8 has a special sound (lalxi) so too does 100₈. 100₈ is (ba)seulxi. 200₈ is leuseulxi. 300₈ is giseulxi. It is simply written in the script, however, as 3-0-0. The second 0 is essentially read is seul. Technically 100₈ could be pronounced as baseulxi but that’s generally considered unnecessary or overly formal.

The xi is unwritten in numerals--to differentiate strings of numbers, a single dot is placed between the numbers. Sort of like if we wrote phone numbers as 5･5･5・3・6・50・3・4・6・2 instead of (555) 360-3462.

Number progression functions similarly to English.

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If you do not know how base 8 works, like I did not (and also still don't entirely) here is a hopefully simplified explanation:

The basic numerals are 0-7, and then you run out, and start over at zero, moving over one 8s place to make 10₈ (8₁₀). And then so, 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 10(8), 11(9), 12(10), 13(11), 14(12), 15(13), 16(14), 17(15) and then you run out again and increase the 8s place by one--20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, etc. 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 100, 101, 102, 103, 104, 105, 106, 107, 110, And so on!

100₈ is 64₁₀ because 100 in base 8 is eight 8s, while 100 in base 10 is ten 10s. ✎ Edit Article ✖ Delete Article

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