Kaktovik Inupiaq numerals

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Inuit, like other Eskimo languages (and Celtic and Mayan languages as well), uses a vigesimal counting system. Inuit counting has sub-bases at 5, 10, and 15. Arabic numerals were not adequate to represent the base-20 system, so students from Kaktovik, Alaska, came up with the Kaktovik Inupiaq numerals,^[1] which has since gained wide use among Alaskan Iñupiaq, and is slowly gaining ground in other countries where dialects of the Inuit language are spoken.^[1]

The numeral system has helped to revive counting in Inuit, which had been falling into disuse among Inuit speakers due to the prevalence of the base-10 system in schools.

The picture below shows the numerals 1–19 and then 0. Twenty is written with a one and a zero, forty with a two and a zero, and four hundred with a one and two zeros.

The corresponding spoken forms are:

(19 is formed by subtraction from iñuiññaq 20, just as 9 is formed by subtraction from 10. See Inupiat language.)

In Greenlandic Inuit language:

(Dependent on the region in Greenland. Numbers differ, as do accents)

References

1. 1 2 http://www.ankn.uaf.edu/SOP/SOPv2i1.html#oldway