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[–] 20 points 10 months ago* (4 children)

It’s like someone had doubts people could count much past 12

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.

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  • [–] 7 points 10 months ago (1 child)

    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…

    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.

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  • [–] 2 points 10 months ago