Indian Antiquary Vol 36

SR No.: 032528
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Richard Carnac Temple
Publisher: Swati Publications
Publication Year: 1984
Total Pages: 430
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 15 MB

Page 381

DECEMBER, 1907.)
RECORD OF THE LANGUAGES OF SAVAGES.
363
5,000 pairs in Car Nicobarese, dròngte lák, half lake, i.e., half 10,000 pairs. Here lák is borrowed from the Far Eastern laksa, lak, 10,000 (one form of the Sanskrit laksha, just as lakh for 100,000 is another in modern India ), and dròngle (döktai) is not otherwise found in Car Nicobarese. This term dròngte is applied also to the "half (waned ) moou" while drônga means * waning.”
It will have been noticed that there are alternative terms for "score"; one old one, as shown by the Shon Pei form, and one newer: the newer term being now used for "score" and the old one to tell or multiply it by the score. In going into the cocoanut-counting system these alternative terms will be found put to yet another use. Again, the Shom Pen have a special term for score-of-scores, tēo: and can tally up to large figures by scores : one score, two scores, three scores, one more one teo, one tēn. This idea, too, will be found to be of value when going into the system of counting cocoanuts.
Another subvorsion of inter-island custom is to be noticed in Car Nicobar, where one is ordinarily kahok, but for cocoanuts one is the universal heng.
Beyond the score-of-scores (400) the Nicobareso havo so seldom to engmerate ordinary objects that their nomenclature for the numerals then becomes, though clear, uncertain, as will be seen from the different method by which the various islanders arrive at the same sum. At the same time the fact that the Shom Pen stop at 600, the others, except the Cur Nicobarese, at 700, and the Car Nicobarese themselves at 2,000, is not due to want of intelligence, but to want of practical use : just as we stop practically at a million and most people are uncertain as to whether a billion is 10 or 100 or 1,000 or even a million millions, and as beyond the billion the terms become academic.
e. - The Small Numbers. As regards the smaller simple numbers, the terms for them have got quite away from any idea now of connection with the hand or multiplication of each other, though both can be seen after examination to be present. The word for hand, tai, in Nicobarese is a "lost root" and now only exists for parts of the hand, thus -ok-tai, back of the) hand ; oal-tas (in-hand) palm; kane-tas (stick-hand ) and even tai, finger. So lanai is certainly a derivative of tai, formed with the differentiating infix an, thus - tai, hand, fingers, t-an-ai, five. Next we find clear roots 4 (du, an, di) two and fu (ki) pair: whence in various forms, di, two;foan, four (two pair); en-foan, eight (twice two-pair). So in Shom Pen three, six and nine (luge, lagàu, lungi) are clearly the inflected remains of some such connected multiples, and in the other dialects" six" is three pair; lue, three, (ta )-fu-al, six, * pair of three (ta is a common radical prefix in the language). Tafual (tafual, tak al, tahòl), which in that case is really a numerical coefficient, also means a pair in all the dialects except Shom Ped, and is built up etymologically in the same way as the homonym for six quite legitimately, thus - ta-fu-a, prefix-root-suffix; while we see the root again in Shom Pen in the (probably inixed) compound term for half-a-pair" ma-haukod (P)-two-pair. The term heung-hata for nine is an elliptical phrase heang hata (shòm), oue less (ten), as will be seen later on.
1.- Commercial Bookoning. Tarning now to the second system-the Nicobarese roethod of reckoning cocoannts for commerce and currency, and from cocoanuts money, which they do not possess themselves, carries them into large figures. It is still a tally system, adopted for commercial purposes by all except the Bhom Pen, from the system of tallying by the score.
Cocoanats as currency are seldom used in small quantities and the Nicobarese get quickly to the score by counting the nuts in pairs - thus, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine pairs, one score. Tally.