DASA

A popular history of mathematics states that the advance of the Beaker Folk into Neolithic Europe was accompanied by the spread both of the Indo-European language and the decimal system. The statement is supported by list of number words from a selection of Indo-European languages which use the Base - 10 or decimal method of numeration. The implication is that prehistoric Europe was familiar with Base - 10 counting three millennia before its introduction in written form.

It is intriguing, of course, to think that one might reconstruct modes of counting in a remote and illiterate society, for which no direct evidence is available. Yet there can be no certainty that numbers used today have remained constant since prehistoric times; and one must be careful to text the hypothesis against all the most relevant languages.

Sanskrit, meaning ‘perfect speech’, is the second oldest of the recorded Indo-European languages. It was the language of ancient India and, in Hindu tradition, of the Gods. It was employed c.1500 BC for composition of Vedic literature. Its prime followed shortly after the fall of the Indus civilization, which invented the decimal system.

Sanskirt’s numbers words were definitely based on decimal counting. Its units 1-10 corresponded with those found in other Indo-European languages. Its tees were simple combinations of the units with the word for ten, hence ‘ekadasa (1+10 = 11) or trimasti ( 3 X 10 = 30). Its word for 1,000, dasasta , meaning ‘ten hundreds’, stood along side sa-hasra, a variation used in the formation of still higher numbers. It had a single word, crore for 10 million, and another satam, to express percentage. Latin numbers too, are essentially decimal. But their structure bears no relation to Roman numbers, which are based on conglomerates of units, fives and tens.

Page 79 “Europe a History”