Global Numbers

Global Numbers

Mark Rosenfelder of Zompist.com fame collects numbers from languages around the world (natural and constructed). Once when submitting numbers for Dunia, I asked him, "If you were going to derive ten forms for an IAL [international auxiliary language], using C(V)V(C)C, what would they be?" His reply:

Hmmm... for the same money I'll give you two variants. First, if I felt

the world needed one more Euroclone:

on du tri char pan sesh sat nau dest

This is based on a quick visual inspection of all the Indo-European

languages, so it ends up with more Indic influence than most Euroclones.

Though as I was doing this, I was tempted to just steal Tocharian A.

Without accents it's sas wu tre stwar pany sak spat okat nyu sak.

I think that's a very nice list!

For a more worldwide list:

nek [Algonquian]

du [IE and Austronesian]

kim [Quechua]

ne [Bantu and Algonquian]

lim [Austronesian]

truk [Sino-Tibetan]

sab [Semitic and IE]

wash [Maya and maybe Austronesian]

tis [Semitic]

dek [IE]

Best wishes,

--Mark

It took me about six months to realize he didn't answer the question. :-)