Inuit, like other Eskimo languages (and Celtic and Mayan languages as well), uses a vigesimal counting system. The vigesimal or base 20 numeral system is based on twenty (in the same way in which the ordinary decimal numeral system is based on ten). Inuit counting has sub-bases at 5, 10, and 15.
Arabic numerals weren't adequate to represent the base-20 system, so students from Kaktovik, Alaska came up with an Inuit numeral system that has since gained wide use among Alaskan Iñupiaq, and is slowly gaining ground in other countries where Inuit is also spoken.
The numeral system has helped to revive counting in Inuit, which had been falling into disuse among Inuit speakers due to the prevalence of the base-10 system in schools.
The picture below shows the numerals 1–19 and then 0. Twenty is written with a one and a zero, forty with a two and a zero, and four hundred with a one and two zeros. (see link)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inuit_numer…
Arabic numerals weren't adequate to represent the base-20 system, so students from Kaktovik, Alaska came up with an Inuit numeral system that has since gained wide use among Alaskan Iñupiaq, and is slowly gaining ground in other countries where Inuit is also spoken.
The numeral system has helped to revive counting in Inuit, which had been falling into disuse among Inuit speakers due to the prevalence of the base-10 system in schools.
The picture below shows the numerals 1–19 and then 0. Twenty is written with a one and a zero, forty with a two and a zero, and four hundred with a one and two zeros. (see link)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inuit_numer…
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Numbers written in the Inuit fashion. Their method of counting doesn't fit all too well with what we regard as our Arabic numbers, so some Inuit came up with a system more suitable for them. (The Inuit are people who used to be referred to as Eskimos, a word they mostly didn't like.)