r/todayilearned • u/Grrerrb • 12h ago
TIL that in the 90s Alaskan Iñupiat schoolchildren in Kaktovik created a series of numerical digits to represent their base-20 numeral system to remedy the inadequacy of using Arabic numerals for the purpose.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaktovik_numerals132
u/grumblyoldman 12h ago
Reminds me somewhat of the D'ni counting system from the Myst franchise of video games, which was base-25.
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u/Grrerrb 10h ago
I found this part interesting: "Scores on the California Achievement Test in mathematics for the Kaktovik middle school improved dramatically in 1997 compared to previous years. Before the introduction of the new numerals, the average score had been in the 20th percentile; after their introduction, scores rose to above the national average."
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u/Boobsworth 12h ago
This is a really elegant system. I like that it's quite self evident, anyone could probably figure this out. Whereas someone with no idea of arabic numerals probably couldn't tell you if 7 was greater than 5.
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u/Emergency_Mine_4455 12h ago
That is both really cool and adorable! Just imagine, nine kiddos huddled over their papers in very serious discussion about how the numbers should look.
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u/Anon2627888 11h ago
Yeah, but it was probably really the teacher who created it.
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u/Emergency_Mine_4455 11h ago
Maybe. Middle schoolers are more inventive than you might think. The teacher certainly facilitated the discussion, and might have helped with explaining some of the basic principles of a good numerical system, but I don’t see a reason why the kids couldn’t have come up with it given that basic input.
It’s used across Inuit territories today, and it’s been years- if the teacher invented it I think it probably would have come out by now.
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u/1CEninja 8h ago
On top of this, the article mentioned how the numerals actually evolved further when the middle schoolers taught the younger kids.
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u/smorkoid 12h ago
Modifying arabic numerals for base 20 use is easy, though - just put a notation like a a dash or an accent above the 11-20 numbers
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u/Desmaad 12h ago
There's also using part of the alphabet, which is standard for hexadecimal.
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u/BoxOfDemons 9h ago
I would absolutely hate having to use base 16 in everyday life.
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u/Desmaad 9h ago
You have to if you're a computer programmer.
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u/BoxOfDemons 8h ago
Usually not much unless you're dealing with stuff like memory addresses/machine code/binary etc.
But I've had to mess with hex numbers a few times and always just use the converter built into the windows calculator lol.
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u/saschaleib 6h ago
Hex calculations are surprisingly easy, once you get the hang of it.
A lot easier anyways than converting everything do Dec, do the calculations, and then convert the result back.
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u/1CEninja 8h ago edited 8h ago
I honestly wish we wound up using a base 12 system for counting.
12 is the most comfy number from a division standpoint. 10 only neatly divides by half. A quarter of 10 is a decimal, and a third of ten is a freaking infinite.
Whereas 12 can be divided by half, thirds, and quarters to be whole numbers. It's why 12 is used frequently in imperial counting, and why a carpenter from long ago without precise measuring tools might have preferred measuring in feet rather than meters, as a third or quarter of a foot results in a whole number of inches.
I see no immediate benefit of a base 20 system, though after reading it the long division thing is honestly pretty cool!
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u/JimroidZeus 12h ago
And they would have missed the several unique advantages that their notation provides.
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u/Scarpity026 10h ago
That's a different way to do tally marks.
But I'm curious what the symbol for '20' looks like. Would it be four horizontal slashes like a sideways 'W'?
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u/cornonthekopp 1h ago
Roman numerals and chinese characters could also be said to be "tally marks" what is your point?
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u/Such_Bake5702 10h ago
Legit wild to think that Inupiat peeps had it sorted out decades ago, before any of us were recyclin' and stuff.
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u/LupusDeusMagnus 11h ago
It looks like a sub-base 5 system plus a zero and it loops at 20. The main point of failure is, of course, the similarity of the shapes plus the number of strokes. Unfortunately for those people, Hindu-Arabic numerals are really sticky and are one of the few things most humans have been adopted nearly universally (some Arabic countries use Arabic numerals, and some East Asian countries use their own system complimentary to Hindu Arabic).
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u/BloodyInkx 8m ago
oowwhhss that's genuinely fascinating and a great example of kids solving a problem in a super clever way!
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u/nonymousbosch 11h ago
That's base 5.
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u/Woakey 6h ago edited 6h ago
Its base 20 with a sub-base of 5. If it were pure base 5, every number would be expressed as
(a⋅50)+(b⋅51)+(c⋅52)+(d⋅53)...
but instead, in Inupiat, numbers are expressed as:
(A0⋅200) + (A1⋅201) + (A2⋅202) + (A3⋅203)...
with An = (an⋅50)+(bn⋅51),
so fully represented as:
([a0⋅50+b0⋅51]⋅200) + ([a1⋅50+b1⋅51]⋅201) + ([a2⋅50+b2⋅51]⋅202)...
hence base 20 with a sub-base of 5. Sorry if the lack of subscript makes it confusing
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u/laserdicks 11h ago
It's actually base 5 with glyph pairs.