GB336
Body-part tallying systems are counting systems that use body parts other than hands, feet, fingers or toes. Counting starts from one hand, tallying parts of the body along the arm, up to the head and then continuing with symmetric tally points down the other side of the body. Body-part tallying systems are usually only used in some social situations, such as traditional bride price negotiations. Some languages with decimal, quinary or vigesimal systems use words for head or body to represent 10 or 20, the word for hand to mean 5 or the word for eye to mean 1. These do not count as body-part tallying systems in the absence of a sequence of other body-part tally points.
- If both an earlier stage and a borrowed counting system are attested, only code the earlier stage.
- If only a clearly borrowed counting system is attested, and nothing is known about an earlier stage, code ?.
- If in doubt whether a counting system is borrowed or not, code it as if it were not borrowed. Note that a language can have different counting systems existing in parallel.
- Code 1 if a source mentions that there is a body-part tallying system and you can verify this in the presented numerals.
- Code 1 if you find a body-part tallying system in the numerals presented in a grammar or a dictionary.
- Code 0 if a source mentions that there is no body-part tallying system or you can verify this in the presented data.
- Code 0 if a language has a minimal counting system (e.g. if there are no numerals beyond 4 or 5).
- Code ? if the source does not contain enough data (e.g. not enough numerals) to verify whether or not there is a body-part tallying system.
Kobon (ISO 639-3: kpw, Glottolog: kobo1249)
Kobon has a body-part tallying system (Comrie n.d.). Counting in Kobon starts on the left little finger and runs on to the right middle finger, after which counting continues back in the direction of the left side of the body. In this system, the same terms are used for the left and right body parts, which means that their meaning can be ambiguous out of context (e.g. wañɨg nöbö ‘little finger’ may mean ‘1’ or ‘24’). Kobon would be coded 1.
1 left little finger wañɨg nöbö
2 left ring finger igwo
3 left middle finger igwo aŋ nöbö
4 left forefinger (index finger) igwo mɨlö
5 left thumb mamɨd
6 left wrist kagoƚ
7 left forearm mudun
8 left inside of elbow raleb
9 left biceps ajɨp
10 left shoulder siduŋ
11 left collarbone agɨp
12 left hole above breastbone mögan
13 right hole above breastbone mögan
14 right collarbone agɨp
15 right shoulder siduŋ
16 right biceps ajɨp
17 right inside of elbow raleb
18 right forearm mudun
19 right wrist kagoƚ
20 right thumb mamɨd
21 right forefinger (index finger) igwo mɨlö
22 right middle finger igwo aŋ nöbö
23 right ring finger igwo
24 right little finger wañɨg nöbö
Chan, Eugene. 2020. Numeral systems of the world. https://lingweb.eva.mpg.de/channumerals/.
Comrie, Bernard. 2013. Numeral bases. In Matthew S. Dryer & Martin Haspelmath (eds), The world atlas of language structures online. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.
Comrie, Bernard. n.d. Typology of numeral systems.
Hammarström, Harald. 2010. Rarities in numeral systems. In Jan Wohlgemuth & Michael Cysouw (eds), Rethinking universals: How rarities affect linguistic theory (Empirical Approaches to Language Typology 45), 11–60. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Owens, Kay & Lean Glen. 2018. Body-Part Tally Systems. In History of number: Evidence from Papua New Guinea and Oceania, 61–72. Cham: Springer.
Comrie, Bernard. n.d. Typology of numeral systems.
- GB333 Is there a decimal numeral system?
- GB334 Is there synchronic evidence for any element of a quinary numeral system?
- GB335 Is there synchronic evidence for any element of a vigesimal numeral system?
Jakob Lesage