Octal Number Reprsentation

[Txepä Tsyal]

Kaltxì ma ayeylan,
I am starting this thread in an attempt to make the Na'vi octal system a little easier. I do not know if I am the only one, but the solution of marking Na'vi numbers currently is still confusing.

77777° (°  is the new official symbol for octal numbers in na'vi transcriptions and can go either side of the number)

I for one can't get my mind past the fact that when I look at that number I see 77,777 and not the octal number it actually represents.

Octal just changes the value of the "places" instead of a tens place there's a eights place so octal 10 is decimal 8. It's a 1 in the eights place and a 0 in the ones place.  It's just a different way to show the same info.
    It wouldn't seem as wierd if we had special symbols for na'vi instead of 10 we'd see γλ then we'd that as eight and not also ten but we have to share symbols so  3642 looks like 1954 not ξσδθ

hope that makes sence

I agree with this sentiment, and have therefore assembled a form of representation that might make life a little easier. The font used is Tengwar Annatar (http://www.lillsjon.net/~v108e/navi-tengwar.pdf)

For those of you interested, the numbers and their explanations are in the spoiler.

Spoiler

In the Na'vi octal system, there are 5 known places, the ones, the eighths, the 64ths, the 512ths, and finally the 4096ths.
This first symbol represents the number 7, or kinä

The green part of the number represents the place value, in this case the ones. The blue dots beneath represent how many of the place value there are, with a maximum of six. The red part of the number is the distinctive 7th marker, showing that there are seven of the place values. Since the seventh marker is so distinctive from the rest, one may choose to omit the underlying six dots. Therefore

also represents the number seven

The other place values are represented as follows:
Eighths                       64ths                      512ths                   4096ths

Thus the number 37 is made with 4 dots under the eighths place value followed by 5 dots under the ones place value. (4 eights and 5 ones)
*NOTE: Since the place values each have their own symbol, they may come in any order since 4 eights and 5 ones is the same as 5 ones and 4 eights; Thus it is merely suggested that they follow the order of largest place value to smallest, from left to right, for the sake of clarity.

What are your thoughts?

[kewnya txamew'itan]

You could use tengwar but it doesn't really fit. Canonically, the transcriptions we use would have been devised by RDA scientists (most of whom probably can't read tengwar) and so they'd almost certainly use the standard scientific transcription for octal numbers (albeit with a slightly non-standard method of showing that they're octal).

And reading octal isn't too hard, it's just a matter of memorising powers of 8, once you've done that, with not too much work you can add the values of the places and get back to decimal again.

[`Eylan Ayfalulukanä]

I found the Tengwar notation far more confusing than °77,777 or 0o77,777. Although I haven't used it near as much as I have used hexadecimal, I am comfortable with octal.

BTW, the ° symbol in Windows 2K and newer is alt+0176.

['Oma Tirea]

.
BTW, the ° symbol in Windows 2K and newer is alt+0176.

Or even simpler:

Code Select Expand

[sup]o[/sup]

That way, you don't have to drag up a character mapper.

[Txepä Tsyal]

And reading octal isn't too hard, it's just a matter of memorising powers of 8, once you've done that, with not too much work you can add the values of the places and get back to decimal again.

I see what you are saying here, I was just reaching for something that would bypass one's immediate reaction to the number as decimal rather than octal, but now that I think about it, it would probably take the same amount of practice to recognize the numbers easily either way, *sigh*, oh well.