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Quinary Counting From the Americas

Examples of quinary counting (based on five) can be found in the languages of some of the peoples native to the Americas. In each of these examples the number words for 1 through 5 are used to build the number words for higher groups of five numbers.

Cahto people of California

1 laxa'

2 naka'

3 tak'

4 naka'-naka'

5 la'sane
(la is 'hand')

6 yiban laxa'
(yiban is 'on the other side'

7 yiban naka'

8 yiban tak'

9 yiban naka'-naka'

10 la'l ba'an

Aztecs of Central America

1 ce 11 matlactli once

2 ome 12 matlactli omeome

3 ei, yei 13 matlactli omei

4 nahui 14 matlactli omnahui

5 macuilli
('fingers taken with the hand') 15 caxtolli

6 chicuace 16 caxtolli once

7 chicome 17 caxtolli omome

8 chicuei 18 caxtolli omei

9 chiconahui 19 caxtolli onnahui

10 matlactli
(from 'hand' and 'torso' 20 cempoalli
('one counted group')

References

Hinton, L. (1994) California counting. In Flutes of Fire. pp. 113-122. Berkeley, CA: Heyday Books.

Payne, S. & Closs, M. (1986). A survey of Aztec numbers and their uses. In Closs, M. (ed.) Native American Mathematics. pp. 213-235. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press.

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