Unusual methods of counting

This week the Charles Fudgemuffin blog takes a look at various unusual methods of counting from around the world...

1) The remote South American tribes method of counting

Doctor: "Take some tablets some times a day."
Patient: "For how long?"
Doctor: "For some weeks."
Numbers are important when it comes to medicine.

I mention in one of my books that some remote South American tribes only have number words for one and two! If you go any higher than that then you just say 'some'.

So for example, if you had five beans and wanted to count them you would say, "One, two, some, some, some."

The good thing about this very laidback method of counting is that whether you're a billionaire, or you only have five pounds, you both have the same amount of money ... some!

2) The Oksapmin method of counting

In the western world we use a decimal system of counting, or base 10, most likely because we count on our fingers and we have ten fingers.

12 and 16.

However, the Oksapmin people of New Guinea use 27 body parts for counting and they therefore have a base-27 counting system. They start at the thumb of one hand, then continue up via various arm parts up to the nose, then down to the little finger on their other hand.

Here are a few examples of numbers/body parts used in the Oksapmin method of counting:

1 = tip^na / thumb
6 = dopa / wrist
12 = nata / ear
16 = tan-nata /opposite ear
27 = tan-h^th^ta / opposite little finger

3) Korean counting system

I visited South Korea a few years ago, and one thing I found unusual was that they have two sets of numbers depending on what it is you're counting.

If you're counting items or age then native Korean numbers are used, but if you're counting money or dates, or quoting phone numbers or addresses, then you have to use Sino-Korean numbers instead.

It all sounds unnecessarily confusing to me!

4) Danish counting system

When counting in Denmark, I recommend using a calculator.

Danish numbers seem pretty familiar until you get to 50, and then things start to get a little weird. The number 50 is halvtreds, which is short for 'half third times twenty' or '2½ x 20'. The number 70 is 'half fourth times twenty' or '3½ x 20', and 90 is 'half fifth times twenty' or '4½ x 20'.

To make matters even more confusing, in Denmark they don't say fifty two. Instead, they say 'two and fifty' or 'two and two and a half times twenty'. How confusing! Imagine being a young Danish kid trying to learn how to count!

5) Telling the time in Norway

Five past half to three.

In English we would say 3:30pm as half past three. However, in Norwegian they would say 'half to four'. To make matters even more complicated instead of saying 'twenty five to four', in Norway they would say 'five past half to four'!

A Norwegian girl taught me how to tell the time in Norway and it seemed perfectly normal to her, but it was weird to me, so I suppose it's just what you're used to.



To round things off, here are a couple of silly examples of strange methods of counting...

6) The Star Wars method of counting

Here's how to count to eight in the Star Wars universe...

4, 5, 6, 1, 2, 3, 7, 3.5, 8

7) The Microsoft method of counting

Here's how Microsoft count to ten when updating Windows...

1, 2, 3, 3.1, 95, 98, NT, 2000, XP, Vista, 7, 8, 10

Incidentally, if Microsoft stick to regular numbers from now on, then the 85th version of Windows from now will be another version of Windows 95!