Yorùbá, Igbo & Hausa numbers
Type a number or work out a sum, and read the answer in words — plus see how the word is built.
Traditional base-20. Counts down from the next twenty: 16 is four-taken-from-twenty.
Pieces marked + are added; pieces marked − (dashed outline) are taken away from the piece before them.
You can also type on your keyboard. Operator words without a check are still provisional — see the note below.
Every system at once
Type any number from 0 to 999,999.
How Yorùbá counting works
Traditional Yorùbá counting is base-20: ogún (20) is the building block, and bigger numbers are counted in twenties.
Numbers are often reached by subtraction from the next twenty rather than by adding up. 16 is not “ten and six” — it is ẹ̀rìndínlógún, “four taken from twenty”. The dín piece means “minus”, and lé means “plus”.
The modern school system (Òde-òní) is plain base-10 and add-only, and is what you will hear for prices, phone numbers and maths class.
Numeral forms vary by region and by source, and some wording here — the keypad operator words especially — is still awaiting native-speaker review. Treat this as a working reference, not the last word. If something looks wrong to you as a speaker, suggest the correct form — or tell us.
Corrections are credited on the contributors page.