Almost all civilized languages, however, except the Teutonic, and practically all uncivilized languages, begin their direct numeral combinations as soon as they have passed their number base, whatever that may be.

To give an illustration, selected quite at random from among the barbarous tribes of Africa, the Ki-Swahili numeral scale runs as follows:[53] 1.

moyyi, 2.

mbiri, 3.

tato, 4.