The Aboriginal languages of southeast Australia have an ingenious counting system – there’s a physical mnemonic built directly into the language.
Takver (user:tirin) Original artwork by Charles Troedel, 1864 [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
Those examples are from the Wurundjeri, but a similar counting system must have been spread across nearby peoples, because the system was used to communicate between them. Message sticks were inscribed with numbers and sent with a messenger to plan shared events like corroborees.
Categories: Language Mathematics & statistics Oceania Places Sciences
The Generalist
I live in Auckland, New Zealand, and am curious about most things.
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