Abstract
Our counting system is based on the number ten. Why just ten? Probably because we have ten fingers. Finger counting is widespread among both primitive and civilised peoples (see Figure 1).
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Notes And References
H Vedder, Die Bergdama (Hamburg, 1923) p. 165.
A. Seidenberg, ‘The Diffusion of Counting Practices’, University of California Publications in Mathematics 3, 4 (1960), 216.
S. S. Dorman, Pygmies and Bushmen of the Kalahari (London, 1925) p. 61.
K. von den Steinen, Unter den Naturvölkern Zentral Brasiliens (Berlin, 1894) pp. 406–7, (translated by Margot McIntosh).
Seidenberg, op. cit., p. 218.
Ibid., pp. 218–9.
From Theodor Kluge, Zahlenbegriffe der Völker Amerikas, Nordeurasiens, der Munda, und der Palaioafrikaner (Berlin, 1939) p. 223.
K. Menninger, Zahlwort und Ziffer (1958) (trans. P. Broneer) Number Words and Number Symbols (MIT Press, 1969) p. 61.
Ibid., p. 69.
O. Neugebauer, The Exact Sciences in Antiquity (Brown University Press, 1957).
Menninger, op. cit., p. 49.
Seidenberg, op. cit., p. 225.
Menninger, op. cit., p. 36.
Seidenberg, op. cit., p. 263.
Menninger, op. cit., p. 36.
Seidenberg, op. cit., p. 270.
Menninger, op. cit., p. 223.
From C. Zaslavsky, Africa Counts (Prindle, Weber, and Schmidt, 1973) p. 18.
Menninger, op. cit., p. 224.
Ibid., p. 223.
Menninger, op. cit., p. 39.
From Menninger, op. cit., p. 226.
G. Trevelyan, History of England, 2nd edn (Longman, Green, 1942) p. 125.
Menninger, op. cit., p. 237.
From C. R. Jossett, Money in Britain (Warne, 1962) p. 17.
Ibid., pp. 91–2.
From Menninger, op. cit., p. 244.
Ibid., pp. 253–4.
Ibid., pp. 254.
Zasvlasky, op. cit., pp. 93–5.
Menninger, op. cit.,p. 256.
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© 1989 The Open University
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Flegg, G. (1989). Counting Systems. In: Flegg, G. (eds) Numbers Through the Ages. Palgrave, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-20177-8_2
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