The Arctic: Inuit Numbers
摘要
Eskaleut number systems are quinary-vigesimal, counting by groups of five and twenty. Such numbers reflect counting with the hands and feet, as illustrated by the names given to the numbers in the Greenland Inuit number system. Inuit numbers accumulate, with a few subtractive (back-counting) formations. These systems show that counting with the toes isn’t limited to the tropics, as is widely believed, since it is also practiced in the coldest places on the planet. Counting beyond twenty recruited the hands and feet of other people or bundles of household items. Bundles also condensed counting in a way that mitigated the need to develop terms for higher numbers. Inuit numbers have been undergoing a digital revitalization over the past several decades. Indigenous number systems are often displaced by Western numerals through processes of contact, education, and political incorporation. In the mid-90s, to resist this trend, Inuit students and their teacher invented a set of written numerals, named “Kaktovik numerals” after their Alaskan village of origin. Kaktovik numerals are a quinary-vigesimal system with place value and zero.