Finger Counting, or Dactylonomy, is the art of counting along one's fingers. Though marginalized in modern societies by Arabic numerals, formerly different systems flourished in many cultures, including educated methods far more sophisticated than the one-by-one finger count taught today in preschool education.
Finger counting can also serve as a form of manual communication, particularly in marketplace trading – including hand signaling during open outcry in floor trading – and also in games such as morra.
Finger counting varies between cultures and over time, and is studied by ethnomathematics. Cultural differences in counting are sometimes used as a shibboleth, particularly to distinguish nationalities in war time. These form a plot point in the film Inglourious Basterds, by Quentin Tarantino, and in the novel Pi in the Sky, by John D. Barrow.
Read more about Finger Counting: Sports, Historical Counting
Famous quotes containing the words finger and/or counting:
“This is the finger of God!”
—Bible: Hebrew, Exodus 8:19.
The magicians to Pharaoh.
“Love is sinister,
is mean to us in separation;
makes our thin bodies thinner.
This fellow Death
lacks mercy
and is good at counting our days.
And Master,
you, too, are subject
to the plague of jealousy
so think:
how could womenfolk,
soft as sprouts,
live like this?”
—Amaru (c. seventh century A.D.)