Number Systems Other Than Base 10.

  Although most countries use base ten number systems, there are several civilizations and situations which do not use the same base.

The Oksapmin people of Papua-New Guinea use a base 27 number system because they count 27 different body parts from the thumb to nose, the wrist, etc.

The people in Mexico who speak Tzotzil use a base 20 counting system by counting all their fingers and toes.  Once they get to 21their language describes it as the first digit of the next man, 22 is the first two digits of the next man, etc. 

The African language, Yoruba, has a base 20 number system but they add the digits 1 to 4 to the 10, 20, etc so 13 is 10 plus 3 but then it subtracts for 5 to 9 so 15 might be 20 minus 5 but 78 might be 20 x 4 minus 2.

Another Papua-New Guinea language, Alamblak uses only the numbers 1, 2, 5, and 20 to create all the other numbers so thre is 1 + 2, 27 is 20 + 5 + 2 + 2 while 14 is 2 x 5 + 2 + 2.

If you speak Bukiyip, another Papua-New Guinea language, you'll use either base 3 or base 4 depending on what you are counting. Things like coconuts, and fish are counted in base 3 while Betel nuts and bananas are counted in Base 4.

Papua-New Guinea has other languages such as Ndom who has a base 6 number system or Huli which is base 15.

The Babylonians are known for their base 60 while the Mayans used a base 20 system. Even the modern French language shows remnants of a base 20 because 80 is 20 times 4, 81 is 20 times 4 plus 1 etc.

Its interesting to discover that although our society is base 10 with its decimal money system, the metric world, our counting system, there are still places out there whose language does not have a base 10 system.  I find that quite interesting.

Let me know what you think.  I'd love to hear.

If you do much with computers, you know they use a binary system (base 2) which represents true or false, on or off, and a hexadecimal based (base 16) system to express colors on web pages.