Photo by Susan Holt Simpson on Unsplash
Did you know some languages do not have numbers? Few, some, or many is all humans needed for the longest time. Eventually one-two-three became useful. Then, likely, five to ten, and, taking off the shoes, got you to twenty.
English even hints at the importance of the most basic numbers – one through ten – being easy-to-pronounce and short-to-spell. Eleven and twelve continue the uniqueness. After that, everything is duplicates – the teens, twenties and so forth. One through ten came first, and came first a long time in the language world before even eleven and twelve, let alone “high” numbers like fifteen.
Would numbers be different for other species?
Caleb Everett discusses in “‘Anumeric’ people: What happens when a language has no words for numbers?” (published 25 April 2017) cultures in humanity where number do not exist or exist on a minimal level.
How fun would this be to bring to a sci-fi worldbuilding? Read the article – the one line about how minutes and seconds coming from Mesopotamia gives me so many ideas.