Counting in Kabiye

Language overview

The Kabiye language (kabɩyɛ) belongs to the Niger–Congo language family, and more precisely to the Gur languages branch. It is spoken by the Kabye people from the north of Togo. The Kabiye counts about 1.2 million speakers.

Due to lack of data, we can only count accurately up to 100 in Kabiye. Please contact me if you can help me counting up from that limit.

Kabiye numbering rules

Now that you’ve had a gist of the most useful numbers, let’s move to the writing rules for the tens, the compound numbers, and why not the hundreds, the thousands and beyond (if possible).

• Digits from one to nine are rendered by specific words, namely kʋɖʋm [1], naalɛ [2], naadozo [3], naanaza [4], kagbanzɩ (or naanʋwa) [5], loɖo [6], lʋbɛ [7], lutozo [8], and nakʋ [9].
• From twenty to forty, the tens are formed on the root of the multiplier digit. Fifty uses the same pattern, but on its second form, naanʋwa. From sixty to ninety, the tens are formed by addition on fifty. Hence we have: hiu [10], nɛɛlɛ [20], niidozo [30], nɩɩnaza [40], nɩɩnʋwa [50], nɩɩnʋwa nɛ hiu [60] (50+10), nɩɩnʋwa nɛ nɛɛlɛ [70] (50+20), nɩɩnʋwa nɛ niidozo [80] (50+30), and nɩɩnʋwa nɛ nɩɩnaza [90] (50+40).
• Compound numbers are formed stating the ten, then the word nɛ and the unit (e.g.: hiu nɛ naadozo [13], niidozo nɛ kagbanzɩ [35], nɩɩnʋwa nɛ lutozo [58]).
• The word for hundred is mɩnʋʋ.
• The word for thousand is kudoku.

Write a number in full in Kabiye

Let’s move now to the practice of the numbering rules in Kabiye. Will you guess how to write a number in full? Enter a number and try to write it down in your head, or maybe on a piece of paper, before displaying the result.

Books

Gur languages

Dagbani, and Kabiye.

Other supported languages

As the other currently supported languages are too numerous to list extensively here, please select a language from the full list of supported languages.