Terms such as are found there may readily be duplicated from almost any quarter of the globe.

The Soussous of Sierra Leone[126] call 99 _tongo solo manani nun solo manani_, _i.e._ to take (10 understood) 5 + 4 times and 5 + 4.

The Malagasy expression for 1832 is[127] _roambistelo polo amby valonjato amby arivo_, 2 + 30 + 800 + 1000.
The Aztec equivalent for 399 is[128] _caxtolli onnauh poalli ipan caxtolli onnaui_, (15 + 4) x 20 + 15 + 4; and the Sioux require for 29 the ponderous combination[129] _wick a chimen ne nompah sam pah nep e chu wink a._ These terms, long and awkward as they seem, are only the legitimate results which arise from combining the names of the higher and lower numbers, according to the peculiar genius of each language.

From some of the Australian tribes are derived expressions still more complex, as for 6, _marh-jin-bang-ga-gudjir-gyn_, half the hands and 1; and for 15, _marh-jin-belli-belli-gudjir-jina-bang-ga_, the hand on either side and half the feet.[130] The Mare tribe, one of the numerous island tribes of Melanesia,[131] required for a translation of the numeral 38, which occurs in John v.

5, "had an infirmity thirty and eight years," the circumlocution, "one man and both sides five and three." Such expressions, curious as they seem at first thought, are no more than the natural outgrowth of systems built up by the slow and tedious process which so often obtains among primitive races, where digit numerals are combined in an almost endless variety of ways, and where mere reduplication often serves in place of any independent names for higher units.