This is a variation of the major system adapted for vowel-rich languages using the Igbo language spoken in Nigeria as a point of reference.
ZINA stands for Zinachi’s Igbo Natural Association. Zinachi is my Igbo name, it is a natural association because it comes naturally to an Igbo speaker.
It’s quite similar to the Ben system but it is instead a V-C-V system instead. Igbo is highly sound based. Spelling in Igbo is usually just sounding out letters. For example, aka (hand) is spelt out ah-ki-ah. There are a lot of three sound words in Igbo. In other words, a translation system that ignores vowels may not seem very natural and comfortable to an Igbo speaker.
For the above reasons, it seems quite sensible to assign values to vowels as well. Igbo language has 36 letters, in its alphabet, there are 8 vowels and twenty-eight consonants of which 9 are double. For the mapping, I inevitably had to add to non-igbo vowel sounds due to the incomplete number, the addrd vowel sounds are diphthongs and should be distnct from other sounds. I tried not to depart too much from the major system when mapping the consonant sounds:
Vowels: A, [au], [ei],E, I, Ị, O, Ọ, U, Ụ. Pronunciations: A as in action,[au] as in out, [ei] as in eight, E as in agent, I as in easy, Ị as in iguana, O as in orange, Ọ as in organ, U as in cool, Ụ as in church.
1-A, 2-[au], 3-[ei], 4-E, 5-I, 6-Ị, 7-O, 8-Ọ, 9-U, 0-Ụ. I mapped here based on alphabetical order, you are welcome to reassign, but remember that it’s a sound based system.
Consonants mapping:
0-S,Z
1- T,D
2-N
3-M
4- H
5- L
6- SH, J,CH
7- KW, K, G, GW
8- F,V
9- P,B,GB,KP.
I have omitted some letters for clarity, R is removed of its because of the ‘similarity’ to L for speakers.
Examples: aja(sand) codes to 161, akpa(bag) codes to 191, akwa(egg) codes to 171. Of course words in the language can take on different meanings based on tone but this is not an issue.
Why should everyone learn and use this? It gives the ability to read numbers. It is easier for translating and easily maps to Igbo names and to large numbers. Eg: Zinachidịnma maps to 05216516231, using it for such a long name isn’t optimal but you can see my point. Book (Akwụkwọ) maps to 17078. Thus a large number system can be formed by mapping to everyday objects.
The only ‘problem’ I can see is the possibility of forming words that don’t mean anything in Igbo, for these you can either consult other languages or let creativity lead you.
Edit: I talked about three digit numbers, but I think a newcomer (I’m also a newcomer
) should instead learn the conversions and then a two digit list, to quickly compound. For example instead of aja as 161, you always have Tị as 16 so you quickly combine that with any other system for the one digit, you may wonder why not encode as tịt?, I advise as a general rule to only turn a two-digit into a syllable, and ALWAYS end with a vowel a one digit can be easily held in working memory but this is just my opinion, do what works for you. So with a two digit system you see 2453, and immediately go nelei, which is meaningless but you can convert to something like kneeling on a bale of hay,on the other hand if you first memorised a 3-digit list, you’ll still have to use 2-digit and one digit images and I don’t advise trying to compress two three digits to avoid sound loss. I hope to first master two digit grouping, then go on to three groups if possible, I may even try encoding 10digits into a single image (for long numbers, not speed.
This method can be mapped to cards, I think Simon Reinhard does something like this for cards. I believe that with a little bit of creativity, this can work for a number of languages. Igbo just happens to be the language I know.
Note: This is still a work in progress and I hope to post updates on my progress here.
I would like to know your takes on this, for which other languages will this method be nice?
. Credits to Jan Zon for the idea behind this method.
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