Number system: view article

Menu 1. Base 10 2. Base 12 The number system in Mulva is mostly base 10. But since the money and units of measurement are base 12 for ease of use, merchants and shopkeepers often use a base 12 system. Since Mulva doesn't have any symbols for numbers this causes less confusion than might be expected.

[top]Base 10

The base words of the base 10 system are as follows:

English	Mulel sg.	Mulel pl.
one	néf	néfin
two	fást	fástin
three	trésk	tréskin
four	kóma/fásti¹	kóman
five	mátr	mátrin
six	mán	mánin
seven	békr	békrin
eight	stím	stímin
nine	léf	léfin
ten	ósk	óskin

^{1. The plural form of two (without the n) is often used for four.}

The plural forms are used when counting f.ex. pairs of things.
fátle-r
sock-PLPlural (number)
more than one/few trésk-in-emel
three-PLPlural (number)
more than one/few-3Third person (person)
neither speaker nor addressee.INInanimate (gender/class)
for non-living things.PLPlural (number)
more than one/few
Three pairs of socks

To make the numbers from eleven to nineteen the singular word for the unit is put in front of the word for ten. So néfósk is eleven and kómaósk is fourteen. Fásti is more common than kóma for four but fourteen is kómaósk and never *fástiósk. To make twenty, thirty and so on up to ninety the plural form of the number is put in front of the word for ten. So fástinósk is twenty and békrinósk is seventy. Then to make numbers like seventy-nine the word for the unit is put in front of the compound. Fástibékrinósk f.ex. is seventy-four and stímmátrinósk is fifty-eight.

[top]Base 12

The word for twelve in the base 12 system is fáml. Eleven on the other hand is still néfósk. The word for thirteen in this system is fámlkanéf where ka is a preposition meaning to, for. Similarly twenty-three in this system is fámlkanéfósk. For multiplications of twelve the word for the number twelve is to be multiplicated with is put in front of fáml in the plural form but without the final n followed by son. This makes twenty-four fástisonfáml and sixty mánisonfáml. For numbers like fifty-five units are added to these forms with ka, so fifty-five is kómansonfámlkaléf^* and 118 is léfisonfámlkaósk.

^*kóman gets to keep the n because it only gains -n in the plural form and not -in.

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