Numbers & Units In Old Tagalog

When the Spaniards settled in Manila in 1571, they discovered that the Tagalogs had a very strange way of expressing numbers. For example, to tell six thousand eight hundred and thirty-seven (6,837), they would say something like maika-7.thousand + maika-9.hundred + maika-4.ten + 7! In other words they used 7 for 6, 9 for 8 and 4 for 3, prefixing maika- to each product to signal the change. This complex numeration was quickly replaced by a calque of the Spanish system. Things, however, could still be quite tricky with coins and units of measurement whether Insulindian or Spanish. Often a unit was left out as in the case of maika-4 + 1/8, meaning 3 tostones + 1/2 real or 12 and 1/2 reales (silver coins). The book analyses the ancient numeral system in the first part. A rich lexicon of ancient terms is appended, and every term can be retrieved through the index.