Kaktovik Numerals

 

I’m fascinated by the Inuit languages in Alaska, Canada and Greenland. There are many of these languages: they ring much of the Arctic Ocean. I just learned that they use a base 20 system for numbers, with a ‘sub-base’ of 5. That is, quantities are counted in scores (twenties) with intermediate numerals for 5, 10, and 15. This makes a lot of sense if you look at your fingers and toes.

But the Inuit didn’t have a written form of their number system until the early 1990s, when high school ...