One of the Yoruba units is 200; and all the odd hundreds up to 2000, the next higher unit, are formed by subtracting 100 from the next higher multiple of 200.

The system is quite complex, and very artificial; and seems to have been developed by intercourse with traders.[65] It has already been stated that the primitive meanings of our own simple numerals have been lost.

This is also true of the languages of nearly all other civilized peoples, and of numerous savage races as well.

We are at liberty to suppose, and we do suppose, that in very many cases these words once expressed meanings closely connected with the names of the fingers, or with the fingers themselves, or both.

Now and then a case is met with in which the numeral word frankly avows its meaning--as in the Botocudo language, where 1 is expressed by _podzik_, finger, and 2 by _kripo_, double finger;[66] and in the Eskimo dialect of Hudson's Bay, where _eerkitkoka_ means both 10 and little finger.[67] Such cases are, however, somewhat exceptional.
In a few noteworthy instances, the words composing the numeral scale of a language have been carefully investigated and their original meanings accurately determined.