Counting Sheep

Dear Folks -
Here's something to hang the mailbox on! I couldn't sleep the other night and began . . . (ahem) counting sheep. That worked for about, oh, 2 minutes and then I began thinking about sheep in general. Well one thing led to another and I learned something new and interesting about sheep culture.

In historic times, a shepherd's first job in the morning and last job as night was counting sheep. At least in Great Britain, shepherds had their own language of counting which used a Base 5 system -- 5 fingers on a hand, and the other hand to grasp the crook. (We use a Base 10 system). This particular system and language coupled with knobs, notches, lines, and grooves created in his crook to act as an abacus allowed a shepherd to keep track of up to 399 sheep and, historically at least, there weren't many flocks larger than that. The language is at least as interesting as the concept. The count begins, "yan, tan, tethera, mether, pimp, citer, liter, ova, dova, dic." Adding in the numbers we know as 11-15 gives you yan-a-dic, tyan-a-dic, tethera-dic, methera-dic, bumfit. Then with a new group of 5, he would continue yan-a-bumfit, tan-a-bumbit, tethera-bumfit, methera-bumfit, and then Giggot. You can see how this goes -- Giggot will get each of the words added to it, and so on -- but the concept, the words, and cadence are fascinating.

And by the way, do any of you old movie fans find these words tickling a memory somewhere? It is a variation of this counting system that Eulalie Mackecknie Shinn of Music Man fame uses when she counts "in the Indian tongue" during her unforgettable Talent Show presentation.

Thinking of ewe -
The Shepherd