migvelio@lemmy.world to Showerthoughts@lemmy.world · 1 year agoIf humans were born with 6 fingers on each hand we would be using base 12 instead of the decimal system.message-squaremessage-square35fedilinkarrow-up1179arrow-down111
arrow-up1168arrow-down1message-squareIf humans were born with 6 fingers on each hand we would be using base 12 instead of the decimal system.migvelio@lemmy.world to Showerthoughts@lemmy.world · 1 year agomessage-square35fedilink
minus-squarecircuitfarmer@lemmy.sdf.orglinkfedilinkarrow-up26·edit-21 year agoThere’s also evidence of an early base-12 system in use for some Indo-Europeans – it’s likely why the English morphology doesn’t become compositional until 13: Ten (not compositional) Eleven (not compositional) Twelve (not compositional) Thirteen (related to three-ten) Fourteen (relates to four-ten) Etc.
minus-squaremySFWaccount@lemmy.calinkfedilinkarrow-up4·1 year agoCool! I never really thought of it that way.
There’s also evidence of an early base-12 system in use for some Indo-Europeans – it’s likely why the English morphology doesn’t become compositional until 13:
Ten (not compositional)
Eleven (not compositional)
Twelve (not compositional)
Thirteen (related to three-ten)
Fourteen (relates to four-ten)
Etc.
Cool! I never really thought of it that way.