<div>Thanks for everyone's contributions - every bit helps me </div> <div>understand a bit more.</div> <div> </div> <div>In Pazeh, hand is ima, or rima, but five, and the compound numbers </div> <div>6-9 use xasep, xaseb-1, xase-2, xaseb-3, xasebi-4 </div> <div><BR>(When I said Rukai in my last post, I was just getting confused).</div> <div> </div> <div>In Saisiyat, they´re ima? and aseb</div> <div>Saisyat also has a complex number-making system, quite different, </div> <div>but uses a similar phoneme in sayboshi - 6, sayboshi o ?aha? (6+1) </div> <div>and then kashpat - 8 (2x4). 9 is a?aha? and 10 is langpez. Quite a </div> <div>few Austronesian languages use (the last-one-before-10) for 9.</div> <div> </div> <div>The 'Saisiyat' number system is quite rare - Motu in E New Guinea has something like it - 8 is taura hana - I 'read' that as 1-2-4. Nghada and Lio in Flores have zua butu (2-4), and ruambutu (2-4). West Tarangan has Karugwa
(4-2), Ujir - karua, Dobel - ?aro, Kola </div> <div>- kaFarua, all in Aru. Weyewa in Sumba has pondopata (pondo-4), and that's about it.</div> <div> </div> <div>There are plenty of Austronesian number systems like the Pazeh </div> <div>5-1, 5-2, 5-3, 5-4 etc, 90 of which use their own number 5 in the </div> <div>system, and 127 that use 'something else'. The 116 Vanuatu </div> <div>languages I've got listed make up a large chunk of that. </div> <div> </div> <div>Which is why Im trying to find out what the 'something else' </div> <div>means.</div> <div> </div> <div>There are plenty of Papuan languages that also use the system, </div> <div>which is not surpising, because it's such a very obvious one. So, </div> <div>I've also listed the Papuan groups that are neighbours of </div> <div>Austronesians, or even next-but-one, and am trying to check </div> <div>whether there is any correlation between their number systems. </div> <div>(There's not a
lot between their number phonemes, with the </div> <div>exception of 'bang' that has something to do with 'hand' in many </div> <div>Papuan and Austronesian languages). </div> <div> </div> <div>In Taiwan Favorlang, achab = (5) and rima or addas (hand). Their </div> <div>6-9 goes naatap, na-ito, maaspat (ma-4), tannacho, zchiett, which </div> <div>is just totally incomprehensible.<BR> <BR>So it seems reasonable to consider the phoneme 'xaseb, aseb,achab' </div> <div>means something altogether different than just plain 'hand'. I </div> <div>don't understand how Laurent Sagart derives the proto- *RaCep from </div> <div>that, but then I'm not a linguist. But *RaCep would reflect into </div> <div>lasep, wouldn't it? Could the remaining s turn into R or l? (I </div> <div>know that s can become h - I've seen it with my own eyes in Savu).</div> <div>----------------------------------------------<BR>Local Surigaonons count using their right hand first, fist
closed, </div> <div>palm up, and the thumb bent over the forefinger. Little finger </div> <div>comes out first - 'one', then 2, 3, 4 (index-finger), then thumb - </div> <div>open hand = 'lima' = 5. Keep that hand open, (insurance!) then go </div> <div>through the same procedure with the other hand. +1,+2,+3,+4 </div> <div>(otherwise 1 before last) to two open hands or 'full'. (In </div> <div>Cebuano, sangka or pono means 'full' - any connection to the </div> <div>standard *sa-puluq ?)</div> <div> </div> <div>If you want to emphasise and limit the number - 'only one!', 'only </div> <div>two!', you use the hand held palm-down, with the fore-finger as </div> <div>'1' - see the betting signals used at the local chicken-fights at:<BR><A href="http://www.coconutstudio.com/Chickens_files/P4040020_cockfight_signals.jpg">http://www.coconutstudio.com/Chickens_files/P4040020_cockfight_signals.jpg</A>.</div> <div> </div> <div>The Mapos Buang, Austronesians who
live in East New Guinea, use a </div> <div>dfferent system: The normal Buang method is to start with the </div> <div>fingers of the left hand all extended, and then to bend them down </div> <div>one at a time starting from the little finger. For five the thumb </div> <div>wraps over the closed fist and counting starts with the right </div> <div>hand. Two clenched fists held together indicate ten.; kaunim<BR><A href="http://www.pnglanguages.org/pacific/png/pubs/0000476/Buang_Dictionary.pdf">http://www.pnglanguages.org/pacific/png/pubs/0000476/Buang_Dictionary.pdf</A></div> <div> </div> <div>That's why I set out on a red herring of trying to see if 'right' </div> <div>or 'left' had anything to do with these 'hand' words. It doesn't </div> <div>seem so.</div> <div> </div> <div>I would certainly appreciate any 'finger-counting' method </div> <div>anecdotes that anyone may have seen in action, as maybe this will </div> <div>help me understand a little
more of what's going on.</div> <div> </div> <div>From what I've read somewhere, some Papuan groups use 23 body-part </div> <div>names to achieve a base 23 number system, then start on the other </div> <div>side, to reach another 'two-score' with base 46. (I do hope that </div> <div>Austronesian number systems don't involve anything quite so </div> <div>complex). </div> <div> </div> <div>regards</div> <div> </div> <div>Richard Parker</div> <div><BR>Siargao Island, The Philippines. </div> <div>My website at <A href="http://www.coconutstudio.com">www.coconutstudio.com</A> is about the island and its </div> <div>people, coastal early humans, fishing, coconuts, bananas and </div> <div>whatever took my fancy at the time.</div>