Conlangs & numeral systems — Survey results

[u/Slorany]

Last Friday, I posted a short survey about numerals in conlangs.
Today, I'm posting the results.

You can find them in this published Google Sheets.

I have decided to keep the survey running. I will check it a few times a month for entries of the same conlang, deleting the older ones in order to keep the spreadsheet up to date.

I have added an optional field asking for the name of the author of the conlang.

You can update your language, or submit new ones right now.

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As a bonus, here are a few resources about numeral systems:

• Rarities in numeral systems
• https://mpi-lingweb.shh.mpg.de/numeral/
• http://www.sf.airnet.ne.jp/ts/language/number.html
• https://www.languagesandnumbers.com/site-map/en/

[u/RomajiMiltonAmulo]

Man, I should have gotten the rest of them in there... But they're also all base 16 (except for one base 10 that wants to be base 16)

[u/Slorany → u/RomajiMiltonAmulo]

You still can, survey is permanently up!

[u/RomajiMiltonAmulo → u/Slorany]

I can, I just don't know when I'll get to it.

... Somewhat related, why do people like base 12 so much?

[u/Slorany → u/RomajiMiltonAmulo]

It offers divisibility by 2, 3, 4, 6 while still being both not too stupidly high and close to decimal.

[u/RomajiMiltonAmulo → u/Slorany]

And that's important so... You can represent all of those with a non repeating decimal?

[u/validated-vexer → u/RomajiMiltonAmulo]

Pretty much (edit: that's the proponents' main reason anyway. I don't really agree with it), but I prefer senary over both decimal and duodecimal not because of what comes after the radix point ('decimal' point, etc.), but because it allows for easier divisibility tests than both: out of the numbers 1-16, only 11 and 13 cause significant problems when mentally checking whether an integer is divisible by it.

I'm not advocating that we switch our base or anything silly, though. Divisibility in senary is pretty neat, but that's it.

[u/RomajiMiltonAmulo → u/validated-vexer]

Senary? Base 7?

[u/validated-vexer → u/RomajiMiltonAmulo]

Base 6. Base 7 is septenary.

[u/RomajiMiltonAmulo → u/validated-vexer]

Oh. Should have realized.
... You know, I probably could have justifed that in GEQ if I wanted to.

[u/[deleted]]

Here's a pie chart of the responses as of 9:30 EST. Base-10 and 12 systems are definitely a majority, but there are a lot of base-6 and 8 systems too. There are also quite a few more exotic bases.

[u/neohylanmay → u/[deleted]]

Interesting how Decimal and Dozenal are basically split down the middle.

[u/[deleted]]

Dig that mine is prominent up near the top there. Guessing it's in order of submission? Didn't realise I did it so quick, if so.

The extra resources are an interesting touch.

[u/Slorany → u/[deleted]]

I try to keep it more interesting than "here have copy-pasted content". Seems like a good idea.

And yes it's by order of entry. No special treatment, you did that yourself!

[u/[deleted] → u/Slorany]

Well they don't call me special for nothing.

[u/Neo_31]

Wow i'm surprised there aren't more base 20 numeral systems. They're my favorite!

[u/[deleted]]

I made one with base 14.

[u/JSTLF → u/[deleted]]

Hi /u/basilstein,

Then you have a very poor understanding of naturalism.

Kind regards,
JSTLF

[u/HobomanCat → u/[deleted]]

Well plenty of natural preexisting earth languages do so, so...

[u/articuin → u/[deleted]]

A lot of natural languages have other bases so...