Vigesimal

Abstract: This study intends to bring Ife (Togo) into a linguistic limelight using the numeral systems. Numerals are a very important aspect of the day to day socio-economic and linguistic life of Ife (Togo) people. The traditional Ife (Togo) number system is vigesimal. In this study, forty-two different number words are listed for Yoruba Ife (Nigeria) and Yoruba Ife (Togo) and compared with Standard Yoruba. We compared the Ife (Togo) number words and counting patterns with that of the Standard Yoruba and Ife (Nigeria) and discovered that, by the nature of the components of these numbers, majority of the basic number words are either bisyllabic or trisyllabic, each syllable having the form VCV for the cardinals, and CVCV for the ordinals. There are irregularities in tonality; there are also alternations in the sequences of the vowel (oral and nasalized) and consonant sounds. This work finds out that Ife (Togo) has two counting patterns. In the first pattern, it uses addition solely to derive the number words but with a counting pattern where 'ten', 'twenty' and the added number units are taken as a whole. In the second counting pattern, subtraction is used to derive number words but this is applicable only to three numbers i. e. seventeen – /mɛɛtadinoɡu/, eighteen – /meeʤidinoɡu/ and nineteen – /mɔkɔdinoɡu/. The Ife (Togo) dialect of Yoruba mostly uses additive number positions. The dialect favours additive number positions more than the subtractive and the multiplicative positions. In other words, higher numbers are frequently used as bases for addition not as bases for multiplication in Ife (Togo). There are many linguistic variations in the number words employed by Ife (Togo) and Ife (Nigeria) dialects of Yoruba, such variations can be attributed to changes in time and distance.

Abstract: The vast majority of the three hundred or so modern Tibeto-Burman languages have decimal numeral systems, like most contemporary languages, and more specifically like their large influential neighbours, the Sinitic and Indo-Aryan languages. Like most languages again, their favorite way of constructing higher numbers is by multiplication and addition. On inquiry some of them reveal less common bases, 20, 12, 5 and even 4 as the building blocks of their number systems. These are used in parallel with a decimal system, mixed into it, or as the unique system of the language. Some are only traces and some are full-fledged systems, like Dzongkha, which can compute all numbers up to 160.000 (20⁴) including all intermediate numbers in its vigesimal system. Only the Maya language of Central America has been described with a comparable complexity. Principles of number-building other than addition and multiplication, like fractions inside a number, or overcounting, which have become rare in other parts of the world, are also attested, although not always recognized by descriptors. A complete typology of number systems has much to learn from Tibeto-Burman languages. More field-research is urgently needed to collect these fast disappearing systems, which foreign educators and local speakers alike unfortunately regard as a hindrance to socio-economic development.