Greetings

Call me J.J. I am from New York in the United States.

I have come across this forum rather by accident, through Wikipedia. Originally I was looking through articles about one of my true passions--Linguistics. Specifically, I was reading about the origin of languages, which led me to reading about the hypothetical pre-Indo-European Vasconic languages of Europe and from there about the base-twenty numbering system that they supposedly used. Then, it was a short trip to here.

I may be wrong about this, but I suspect most of the people on this forum are "math people". Now I'll be honest with you: I am terrible at mathematics and, frankly, the whole subject bores me. I don't know a cosine from a cocker spaniel and memories from eleventh grade math class give me the shivers. I am, all the way, a Linguistics, Literature, Art, and History type person. I do know enough math to get through daily life, but that's about it.

However, I find myself interested in this concept here. Primarily, I'm interested in all (forgive me) "fringe" theories and groups, adhering or belonging to several myself. The mere fact that you are willing to even fantasize about something so "out there" is something I almost admire for it's Breadth and Depth of Imagination.

But, also, I do believe that numbers may have cultural and psychological value. This is seen through the deep symbolical, sometimes even religious, value various civilizations have placed on numbers and mathematics. Three, Seven, Twelve, and Forty are, of course, featured prominently in the Scriptures--they have religious value. The ancient Romans devoted a great chunk of their "liberal arts" curriculum to mathematical concepts: the Quadrivium of Arithmatic, Geometry, Music, and Astrology, which was second to the Trivium of Grammar, Dialectic, and Rhetoric. Our ancestors were very fond of tying various disciplines together, connecting mathematical concepts intimately with astrological, alchemical, artistic, and even theological and philosophical concepts.

Given how imbedded in our minds mathematical concepts like the base-ten counting system are, one wonders what effects a different counting system might have one the human psyche. One wonders if certain numbers (Three, Seven, Twelve, Sixteen) are superior or more "perfect" in some way than others. Are other numbers inferior, like the dreaded Number Six, number of Fallen Man? Our ancestors certainly thought so. Are there not numbers called "perfect numbers" or "sublime numbers"? And what about Geometry? How important are geometric concepts in creating Beauty in Art, Music, and Architecture? What part can the Pure Objectivity of Math play in the utterly Subjective World of Pure Art...?

Keeping these ponderings in mind, I have many questions about this "dozenal" counting theory, but I shall ask them on the appropriate fora.

Thank you for your time.

God bless you,

-J.J.

Welcome JJ to the forum! Your challenging questions are welcome and will strengthen the thoughts of others on the forum. I am not a mathematician, but am a registered architect who draws pictures of construction sites, so I work most often with contractors. Usually I work with engineers and estimators, marketing people and the like. I know about cosines and use them because that helps me draw things at their proper size when rotated at a given angle. BUT I have unfortunately entirely forgot calculus.

Your insights are interesting.

Merry Christmas, God bless you.

Mike.

Welcome to the forum. I'd like to comment on some of the things you have mentioned:

- The modern Basque language(s) do use vigesimal, although mixed with decimal: Numbers one to ten (bat, bi, hiru, lau, bost, sei, zazpi, zortzi, bederatzi, hamar), then the teens are ten-based (hamaika, hamabi, hamairu, hamalau, hamabost, hamasei, hamazazpi, hamazortzi, hemeretzi), as are the hundreds (ehun, berrehun, hirurehun, laurehun, bostehun, seiehun, zazpiehun, zortziehun, bederatziehun) and larger numbers (mila, bi mila, hiru mila... milioi, bi milioi... bilioi...), but the naming of the other tens is based on twenty (hogei): thirty (hogeita hamar), forty (berrogei), fifty (berrogeita hamar), sixty (hirurogei), seventy (hirurogeita hamar), eighty (laurogei), ninety (laurogeita hamar); e.g., 144 ehun eta berrogeita lau, 1728 mila zazpiehun eta hogeita zortzi, 20736 hogei mila zazpiehun eta hogeita hamasei, 248832 berrehun eta berrogeita zortzi mila zortziehun eta hogeita hamabi.

- Since you're interested in linguistics, I guess you may be interested in the topic of naming dozenal numbers. In this respect, there have been many proposals for English, and fewer it seems for other languages. I have already posted mine around here, and have also a proposal for Spanish (which I haven't posted yet because I think there are no other Spanish speakers around), this one based in what-if hypothetical dozenal words "reconstructed" all the way back to Latin and further to PIE.

- Certainly, I don't agree with the superstitious labelling of six as an "inferior number". In fact, I think six is quite an extraordinary number, being fundamental to so many geometrical figures (hexagon, hexahedron, etc) and being one of the few small-sized versatiles (the combination of the two first primes 2 and 3, which make it far more useful for everyday life than the "hand-y" but not-so-"handy" prime 5 and the "lucky" but mostly "decorative" prime 7). Six is a very useful number and as such can be found in all sorts of practical situations, from cubes and dice to soft drink six-packs and half-a-dozen egg packs to hexagonal floor tilings and honeycombs.

Where have u gone u-ax-ac-tum? the world turns its lonely eyes to u... woo hoo hoo! Where is that guy? just vaporized into the Madrid air. Miss his take on things (not that y'all else aren't interesting). Must be doing biggah and bettah things.

Thanks sincerely for your appreciation. I hadn't imagined I would be missed.

I've been lurking around and reading the forum from time to time, but some deep-meaning personal and professional events have happened in my life during the past months (particularly since late November) which have kept me from finding the time to properly sit down and weave some words and ideas together.

I remember I left the thread on ordinal numbers unfinished just when I was about to explain how positional ordinals work. I'll try to retake it from where I left it soon (probably around mid-September).

YAY!

Looking forward to the return of the brilliant Madrileņo! Whatever doesn't kill you seņor, makes you mas forte! Buena suerte, todas las cosas pasaron (Sorry, four years of Spanish used to learn Italian in situ in 1992, now I am translating from Italian to Spanish)! Yeah sure you were missed! (I even miss DAJ, wasn't here for vaxan, but would miss him too if I knew him. Us swedes have to stick together, though I am only 0;16 pergross swedish. Every town needs an...* well, maybe I'm that guy now). Uaxactum's comin home! Ka-chow! (too much of my kiddos' movies!).

I was on jury duty, totally dozenal! well, not totally. they need onezen-two jurors, two of them are schmucks who get to watch for onezen nine days in case one or two of the other dozen fail to make it, the dozen actually get to do stuff, mostly argue. The pool was fourzen people. nice! The pay - get this - one dozen dollars per day! That's about one and a half euros!** If it's federal its more, but at least here in town it's a tidy dozen dollars, free parking/metro, access to all the downtown restaurants (ahem on your own dime, buck-o), and treatment fit for a king at security. Was all prepared to say GUILTY, cuz its fun, at least as fun as saying fore when you're playing golf (actually, I've served as the foreman in the past, that tends to repeat itself, and insisted on facts and logic rather than emotion, so the plaintiff's legal team threw me out. dgoodmaniii would be logically proud! Yay! once in a while, under oath, I definitely can be serious!). At least I got to say, "Your Honor" about a dozen times, and even "May I approach the bench?" (What bench?) Heck I think I even was on twelfth street! I at least crossed it, or got a cup of coffee there. I saw the twelfth street sign?

*And no, I wasn't going to say something bad, I was going to say "naysayer": every town needs an naysayer. Don't getcha feelins huyt! We all like to say nay once in a while to stir the pot. In my own case, I do mean "idiot".

**Yes I know it ain't exactly one and a half euros - it's probably even less now that I've typed it. It's around 6 and two thirds dozen yuan, which is probably more relevant. Heehee we'll know who's type A by who corrects this...and dat's okay. I'm a meticulous and fastidious type A tech-nerd that has a laissez le bon temps roulez type B interface. Product of my own twentysomething personal and professional events, thankfully nearly twentysomething years ago, when recessions were tidy and small. But uaxactum it's these events that make us better men in the end, so Godspeed. In all the seriousness I can muster, I look forward to your return. (ka-chow!)

Why are there twelve people on a jury?

I've heard that it comes from astrology, that there should be one person of each of the 12 personality types. This is of course stupid, not just because of astrology, but because juries shouldn't represent every personality type. They should have an excess of ISTJs.

Why are there twelve people on a jury?

I've heard that it comes from astrology, that there should be one person of each of the 12 personality types. This is of course stupid, not just because of astrology, but because juries shouldn't represent every personality type. They should have an excess of ISTJs.

I'm a criminal attorney in Virginia, which means that every felony jury I've tried (I'm a prosecutor) has had twelve jurors (misdemeanors get seven, as do civil trials). I don't think the twelve number has anything to do with astrology, especially given that our current method of picking veniremen to be jurors is pretty much unchanged over a thousand years (all right, so now we don't a priori exclude women, blacks, and Catholics, but otherwise it's the same) and it doesn't involve investigation of personality types at all, at least in any formal way.

Honestly, I think the number twelve for jurors has only one reason behind it, as does a great deal of our common law system: we have twelve jurors because we've *always* had twelve jurors, for as long as anybody's bothered to keep track, and nobody's ever seen any reason to change it.

Plus, all the jury boxes have twelve chairs already built in, so...

Interestingly enough, in Virginia *grand* juries only have five jurors. But then, they decide by majority vote rather than unanimity, and their standard of proof is only probable cause rather than beyond a reasonable doubt, so cancelling out bias by ensuring a larger number of votes all for the same thing just isn't as important. So we can trust it to a distasteful decimal number. :-)

I was thinking more in terms of how the tradition got started in the first place, not that we'd choose that reason today. Just like we wouldn't consider the width of a horse's behind if we needed a new standard rail gauge.

Another theory relates it to the twelve disciples.

And having twelve chairs gives courtrooms the flexibility of arranging them in either a 2×6 or 3×4 pattern. Maybe that's the reason!

A majority vote works better with an odd number of jurors, for obvious reasons.

Found this on Wikipedia that gives some history on the number of jurors. Why they picked 12 we don't know, but since the bible has so many references to 12 as significant number, (12 tribes of Isreal for example and many more), it could be they picked 12 as a "safe" biblical number. What I can't understand is why there were only 10 commandments. Maybe because these were prescriptions of behaviour and they didn't want 12 of them.

Apparently (programme on Discovery) there were more - not specifically Jewish, either. Part of the common literature and religious beliefs. Some of the Psalms etc echo Egyptian hymns too.