Numbers, Dates, & Time
We use numbers everywhere for common tasks such as giving directions, determining quantities, and navigating our day. In Hisyëö even the concept of having multiple of something is considered apart of the same category of numbers. This category is called "determiners" and some determiners are quantities and others are concepts related to numbers.
Cardinal Numbers
To express your internet usage or uber cost, we need quantifiers that will tell us exactly how many of something we have. The table below provides the numbers that you'll need to count all the way up to a trillion.
- Latin
- ɽʋʄꜿɟʌ
| Number | Hisyëö |
| 0 | |
| 1 | |
| 2 | |
| 3 | |
| 4 | |
| 5 | |
| 6 | |
| 7 | |
| 8 | |
| 9 | |
| 10 | |
| 11 | |
| 12 | |
| 13 | |
| 14 | |
| 15 | |
| 16 | |
| 17 | |
| 18 | |
| 19 | |
| 20 | |
| 21 | |
| 22 | |
| 23 | |
| 24 | |
| 25 | |
| 26 | |
| 27 | |
| 28 | |
| 29 | |
| 30 | |
| 31 | |
| 32 | |
| 33 | |
| 34 | |
| 35 | |
| 36 | |
| 37 | |
| 38 | |
| 39 | |
| 40 | |
| 50 | |
| 60 | |
| 70 | |
| 80 | |
| 90 | |
| 100 | |
| 101 | |
| 234 | |
| 1000 | |
| 1,000,000 | |
| 1,999 | |
| 1,234,567 | elvü düi, düi viyën son dus nonkü elvü kut, tiü viyën toü dus xëti |
Tens, Thousands, Millions
As you can see above, you use elvü with the number directly following it representing how many groups of 3 places. This is the same amount as we put commas or periods in our number representations.
Quantifying Things
If you supply a number on the left-hand side of any noun phrase (in the determiner position), it effects whether the noun is seen as plural or singular. These are called Cardinal Numbers. You can supply any amount of number words here and they follow the rules shown above to generate their value or amount.
- Latin
- ɽʋʄꜿɟʌ
If you specify only the number 1 (kut), it acts like the indefinite article ("a/an" in English) but this is often times omitted due to context being sufficient.
The language allows you to omit any sense of plurality. Words do not change when plural and they can represent plural or singular things. This frees you from having to worry about how to properly pluralize words or which words have to match the plurality of the head word. In Hisyëö there is no need for any of that and typically you will setup some context of what a particular object is referring to and then you just use the head noun to refer back to that prior definition including the plurality established.
Besides kut for singular, these are the words used for plurality
Which Place?
If you supply a number on the right-hand side of any noun phrase (in the modifier position), it indicates which specific value in a list of values, also known as the placement. These are called Ordinal Numbers.
| English | Hisyëö | ɂ́ɟɀʇɽı |
|---|---|---|
| Zeroth | ||
| First | ||
| Second | ||
| Twelfth | ||
| Eighteenth | ||
| Twentieth |
Any series of numbers can be an ordinal as long as they appear on the right-hand side of a noun phrase.
- Latin
- ɽʋʄꜿɟʌ
As you'll see in the next section, this ordinal-on-the-right usage how we communicate dates and time as well.
Navigating The Calendar
Telling people on what day, week or month something has or will occur is an extremely important tool in any language. Without a calendar system, how can we schedule a doctor's appointment, go out on a date, or find out when our favorite show returns?
Days of the Week
The Hisyëö week days are, unlike the rest of the calendar, named after the most prevalent color of the planets of our solar system as seen in true color photography of the planet. The start of the week was chosen as Monday to coincide with the near majority of the world agreement on this and it allows Saturday and Sunday to be the "Weekend" (könyëc/ɔ̃ıɀ̄ʇ wëxön/ʒʇɋ̃ı).
| Planet | True Color Photo | English | Hisyëö | Abugida |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mercury |  | Monday | ||
| Venus |  | Tuesday | ||
| Earth |  | Wednesday | ||
| Mars |  | Thursday | ||
| Jupiter |  | Friday | ||
| Saturn |  | Saturday | ||
| Uranus |  | Sunday |
In order to indicate a specific day use one of the demonstrative pronouns (övo, ulyö, onö). Otherwise, a weekday (or really any use of lono) is either one or many unspecified days. You can use a day as a condition in a hön prepositional phrase:
- Latin
- ɽʋʄꜿɟʌ
Asking what day of the week it is can be done by asking what color of day:
Months of the Year
The months of the year do not use such a system, instead they rely on the ordinal numbers that were shown above.
| Month | Hisyëö | Abugida |
|---|---|---|
| January | ||
| February | ||
| March | ||
| April | ||
| May | ||
| June | ||
| July | ||
| August | ||
| September | ||
| October | ||
| November | ||
| December |
To remember which months have 31, 30, and 28 days, try using this children's rhyme:
WIP Translation
- Latin
- ɽʋʄꜿɟʌ
Seasons
The seasons were chosen to reflect what unique characteristic each season has. We've also got ways to describe the seasons in equatorial regions too.
| Season | Hisyëö | Abugida |
|---|---|---|
| Spring | ||
| Summer | ||
| Autumn/Fall | ||
| Winter | ||
| Wet | ||
| Dry |
To say something is "in the summer" or similar, supply one of these as the object of a hoi preposition.
Exact Dates
Specifying an exact date involves using ordinals for the day, the week day terms, and ordinals for the months. When specifying what date a weekday has, a relative clause is used to treat the following phrase as an appositive.
- Latin
- ɽʋʄꜿɟʌ
Saying Years
Years are said like two segments of 2 numbers. For example, 1931 is "19" and "31"; 384 is "3" and "84". If the most significant segment is under 10, you can use xünyu preceding the final year digit. If you are referring to a recent date, you can often just mention the final segment.
To say dates in "BC" or "BCE", use the phrase yë ılık zızıme sodolun.- Latin
- ɽʋʄꜿɟʌ
When you are setting up a date or appointment, often times you want to provide which weekday in addition to the date.
- Latin
- ɽʋʄꜿɟʌ
Similar to English, the appositive "the 15th of March" must be closed by a comma to return to the main sentence clause for the remaining consituents.
- Latin
- ɽʋʄꜿɟʌ
Talk The Clock
If you know how to count to 12, you can talk about hours; if you know how to count to 60, then you can talk about minutes and seconds.
To ask the time, you use the copula with a null subject. The complement uses the interrogative pronoun, so there is no need for a sentence ender.
- Latin
- ɽʋʄꜿɟʌ
Often times, nı is omitted because it is often easy to decipher from context who or what the subject is. Pay attention to what is being described in either the current sentence or what the subject was from preceding sentences. In some cases, this ends up being "it" or "there" in English. In other cases, it ends up being the prior sentence's subject. Here's some examples of how to respond to these questions:
- Latin
- ɽʋʄꜿɟʌ
Hisyëö uses the 12-hour clock to reduce the need for multiple word ordinals to create times like "23:00". Often times, you can deduce which half of the day from context. If you need to use the equivalent of "a.m." or "p.m":
- Latin
- ɽʋʄꜿɟʌ
For some specific times with importance, here's how to translate:
- Latin
- ɽʋʄꜿɟʌ
Now you can say many things about the time of day or describe when things occur. In order to give any sentence a time that it occurred, we use the hoi preposition.
- Latin
- ɽʋʄꜿɟʌ
Durations
If you need to say an amount of time rather than a point in time, you follow the normal approach for creating plurality: provide the number words in the determiner slot (left side of the head word).
- Latin
- ɽʋʄꜿɟʌ
Most of the time when we are referring to time, we think of it as a specific location on the flow of time (hence why it shares the same preposition particle as we use for denoting the location of an action). When you need to refer to a duration/length of time we use a different particle meant for distances and durations.
- Latin
- ɽʋʄꜿɟʌ
Exact Times
If you need to talk about specific times within an hour, there is a base modifier content word that does double duty as a time unit for minutes.
- Latin
- ɽʋʄꜿɟʌ
Measurements
To indicate a measurement of something, it helps to have a way to describe a "unit" of measurement. There is no exact word for this in Hisyëö, although
cëö and yogö have their uses which we'll discuss below. The word "unit" means "singular entity" which suggests that we should reach for the number one (kut). To help add some clarity, let's use the agentive verb noun particle to create a meaning of "one-er" or something whose state is primarily about oneness.- Latin
- ɽʋʄꜿɟʌ
Other than the time words, the rest of the measurement units are done by just referring to what kind of measurement the unit is for.
Temperature
- Latin
- ɽʋʄꜿɟʌ
Since "Celcius" and "Fahrenheit" are names, you can use these if needed. The proper spellings would be:
Mass/Volume/Weight
A unit of mass is 1 gram. Add cënpö for kilograms or cüti for milligrams.
It is widely recommended that adults consume 15-35 grams of fiber daily, although many Americans fall short.
—Casey Seiden, Verywell Health, 3 May 2024
- Latin
- ɽʋʄꜿɟʌ
Length/Width/Height
A unit of length is 1 meter. cënpö for kilometers or cüti for millimeters.
In computer simulations, their average charge was strong enough to lift 100 pollen grains at least six millimeters in less than a second.
—Will Sullivan, Smithsonian Magazine, 2 Aug. 2024