Notice how 11 and 12 aren’t one-teen and two-teen?
On each hand is 4 sets of 3 knuckles, touch your thumb to each knuckle and your finger counting on one hand higher than we can with two. Pretty sure there’s some pretty neat math tricks with their method too, almost like built in abacus.
(though, notice that our words for “eight” and “nine” are derived from those for “two” and “one”. We used base 8 before migrating to Europe and applying the local standard. Then it was "two left until the new ten and “one left until the new ten”
With base 8 you can use your fingers to count up to 24 because you can use your thumbs for marking the “tens”. Or to 32, but that already takes a little bit of an effort because from my perspective your left thumb is on the right.)
But yeah, base 10 is the worst. 12 can be divided by 3 without problems. And base 8 allows counting far higher with just fingers.
But yeah thanks! When I saw it was Finns I checked the Danes because they’re always doing their own thing, they go by 20s, so tens alternate “half 20s”.
More like the people who invented a lot of shit used base 12.
Things restarting at 12, is because the thing is so old, it predates base 10.
Like, pick a language, count to thirteen:
Ein, zwei, drei, fire, funf, sechs, seben, acht, neun, zein, elf, zwolf, dreizein…
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen…
Notice how 11 and 12 aren’t one-teen and two-teen?
On each hand is 4 sets of 3 knuckles, touch your thumb to each knuckle and your finger counting on one hand higher than we can with two. Pretty sure there’s some pretty neat math tricks with their method too, almost like built in abacus.
But all this is off memory.
Yksi, kaksi, kolme, neljä, viisi, kuusi, seitsemän, kahdeksan, yhdeksän, kymmenen, yksitoista, kaksitoista, kolmetoista…
(though, notice that our words for “eight” and “nine” are derived from those for “two” and “one”. We used base 8 before migrating to Europe and applying the local standard. Then it was "two left until the new ten and “one left until the new ten”
With base 8 you can use your fingers to count up to 24 because you can use your thumbs for marking the “tens”. Or to 32, but that already takes a little bit of an effort because from my perspective your left thumb is on the right.)
But yeah, base 10 is the worst. 12 can be divided by 3 without problems. And base 8 allows counting far higher with just fingers.
Still better than Danish…
/s
But yeah thanks! When I saw it was Finns I checked the Danes because they’re always doing their own thing, they go by 20s, so tens alternate “half 20s”.
I thought we got it from the Babylonians, turns out we actually got it from the Ancient Egyptians.
Nope, it’s just down to how many “decans” you could see at any one point during the night.
The cool math trick I know of is using your other hand to count groups of 12, 5 fingers times 12 knuckles is 60.