User:Loekıa/Numbers: Difference between revisions

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Revision as of 18:40, 17 October 2023

Officially, Toaq Delta has nothing to say about how numbers work. So, here's my unofficial proposal for a number system!

Background

In previous versions of Toaq, numbers took the form of verbs of cardinality (e.g. heı was "to be ten in number"). But this system was far from perfect: it made it awkward to talk about numbers in the abstract, and gave us no natural way to extend the system to more "exotic" numbers like the negative integers, non-integers, or even zero for that matter.

Now, there have been plenty of number system proposals in the past (particularly in the days of Toaq Beta), but now that we have prefixes to play with and special grammar for pronouns, I think Delta has given us the chance to do even better.

The basics

In their most basic form, numbers are pronouns.

󱛄󱛊󱛃󱛍󱚺󱚱 (kóam) zero
󱛀󱛊󱚹 (shí) one
󱛃󱛊󱚲 () two
󱚺󱛊󱚺󱛂 (sáq) three
󱚾󱛊󱛃 () four
󱚴󱛊󱚴 () five
󱚹󱛊󱚹 () six
󱚶󱛊󱚹󱛍󱚺󱛎󱚹 (díaı) seven
󱚻󱛊󱛃󱛍󱚺󱛎󱚹 (róaı) eight
󱚵󱛊󱚴󱛎󱚹 (néı) nine

󱚵󱚴󱛍󱚲 󱚴󱛊󱚴 󱛃󱛊󱚲 󱚻󱛊󱛃󱛎󱚹 󱚺󱛊󱚺󱛂 󱛕 (Neu fé gú róı sáq.) Five is the sum of two and three.

To form larger numbers (up to 9999), digits are accompanied by a scale: 󱛆󱚴󱛎󱚹 (heı) for tens, 󱚴󱚲󱛍󱚴 (fue) for hundreds, and 󱚲󱚹󱛂 (bıq) for thousands. For example, 1234 would be spoken as 󱛀󱛊󱚹󱚲󱚹󱛂󱛃󱚲󱚴󱚲󱛍󱚴󱚺󱚺󱛂󱛆󱚴󱛎󱚹󱚾󱛃 (shíbıqgufuesaqheıjo). Note that we never write out 󱛄󱛊󱛃󱛍󱚺󱚱 (kóam) as a digit, and 󱛀󱚹󱛆󱚴󱛎󱚹 (shıheı) may be abbreviated to 󱛆󱚴󱛎󱚹 (heı). This means that we can write the year that Toaq Beta was released as 󱛃󱛊󱚲󱚲󱚹󱛂󱛆󱚴󱛎󱚹󱚶󱚹󱛍󱚺󱛎󱚹 (gúbıqheıdıaı).

To form even larger numbers, put the appropriate SI prefix (󱚰󱚴󱛃󱚺 (mega), 󱛃󱚹󱛃󱚺 (gıga), 󱚷󱚴󱚻󱚺 (tera)…) after each group of three digits.