Appendix:Garo counting

This page gives a description of the process of counting in Garo.

Other numbers
Other numbers can be made using the following format:


 * Thousands place Hundreds place Tens place-Ones place

For example, 4321 would be hajalbri ritchagittam kolgriksa. If there is a zero in a place value, the number can be left out: 4021 would be hajalbri kolgriksa.

Zero
There is not really any equivalent of "zero" in Garo. Instead, a Bengali borrowing, "" is used to write 0.

Counting objects
Counting objects in Garo is not akin to counting in English. Garo and its close cousins use a special system with classifiers to tally things.

Garo has a rich variety of classifiers which correspond to specific nouns based on their properties. Sak, for example, is the classifier for humans and human-like beings. It is suffixed with a number to count humans or nouns relating to humans, like "woman" or "teacher".

"mande saksa", or simply "saksa" can mean "one man". "skigipa sakgittam" will mean "three teachers". However, "mandesa", will not mean "one man", rather "the height of one man", as is also the classifier for the height of people.