Talk:D'ni numerals
From Guild of Archivists
Questions about numbers[edit source]
The numeric table lists 25 as fasE, or fahsee.
Meanwhile, Reading numbers says this about how to read 125: Similarly, in D'ni, "fahsee" (fasE) means "one twenty-five."
Wouldn't that make 25 either 'roonsee' or, perhaps, just 'see'?
- "One twenty-five" here means one unit of twenty-five, not 125. Talashar (talk) 00:02, 15 April 2025 (UTC)
- "fahsee" is 1×251 (i.e. 25), "breesee" is 2×251 (i.e. 50).
- The hypothetical "roonsee" would therefore be 0×251, which is to say 0 ("roon").
- 125 would actually be "vahtsee", because it's 5×251.
- While it's possible that "see" on its own _could_ be taken to have an equivalent meaning to "fahsee" (when taken as an analogy that "fahsee" means 1×251 and "see" means simply 251), that's not necessarily the case, it's equally possible that "see" might be some kind of abstract entity that doesn't make sense on its own and thus requires the speaker to specify the exact scale/quantity. Ultimately it depends on the rules of the language and this is something we don't know because we don't have a D'ni to ask nor a document that demonstrates it.
- On a tangentially related note, the numbers "nayvoo" (10) and "heebor" (15) likewise seem to be potentially comprised of two elements (given that their successors are "naygahfah" (11, lit. 'five-and-one') and "heegahfah" (16, lit. 'fifteen-and-one'), but that doesn't tell you anything about what those two elements might mean on their own, or even if they could be used on their own. E.g. it may or may not be coincidence that "nay" can mean 'root' and "bor" can mean 'page'. For comparison, English has 'fifteen', (which is effectively a corruption of five-ten, and at one point in history was actually 'fiveteen',) but 'fif' and 'teen' are (traditionally) not usable on their own - something similar might apply in D'ni. (Technically 'teen' has become usable on its own in modern English, but in that sense it's actually a clipping of teenager/teen-ager, not the '-teen' suffix in e.g. 'fifteen'.)
- - Pharap (talk) 06:28, 16 April 2025 (UTC)
