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From: davidt@cogsci.ed.ac.uk (David Tugwell)
Subject: Re: Eleven & Twelve
Message-ID: <D41vrF.5sw@cogsci.ed.ac.uk>
Organization: Centre for Cognitive Science, Edinburgh, UK
References: <3h2rel$4cs@no-names.nerdc.ufl.edu> <D3nBK0.1B6@festival.ed.ac.uk> <3he9q1$rul@seminole.gate.net>
Date: Wed, 15 Feb 1995 16:42:49 GMT
Lines: 11

In article <3he9q1$rul@seminole.gate.net> hrick@news.gate.net (Rick Harrison) writes:
>Chinese also has a word for "dozen' and "a gross" (144).  Are there any
>language families or major languages that do _not_ show vestiges of
>base-12 numeration?
> 

Unfortunately, the Chinese "da2" (dozen) and "luo2" (gross) are recent 
borrowings from English rather than vestiges of our twelve-fingered 
forefathers. I can't recall the Chinese ever having been anything other 
than strictly decimal.

