Spoken Binary Defined

Try this system with other numbers and different representative sounds.

Speaking numbers in English (and many other languages) involves the use of "scale" words, such as "ten", "hundred" and "thousand", to represent powers of ten. Numbers spoken before a larger scale word are multiplied and numbers spoken after a larger scale word are added. So "ten thousand hundred" is 10 * 10³ + 10².

Spoken binary uses base two instead of base ten. Scales can be spoken as words. In the table below the words "duo" and "quad" are used to represent scales 2¹ and 2². Also illustrated is the used of individuals sounds for scales. The scales 2⁰, 2¹ and 2² are represented by the individual sounds [i] ("ee"), [u] ("oo") and [s].

Hexadecimal Scales

No representation of scale 2³ was needed since 2*4 can be spoken and equals 2³. In order to avoid repeating scale representations, a representation for 2⁴ is required, and in general 2²ⁿ for positive integers n.

As the base of hexadecimal is 2⁴, the representations of "sub-hex" scales (below sixteen) can be viewed alternatively as representaions of hexamdecimal digits, and binary scales 2²ⁿ can be equivalently considered hexadecimal scales 4^2(n-1).

A challenge of representing scales with individual sounds, is maintaining pronouncability and intelligibility with an increasing number of distinct scales involved. One strategy that works well is to only use consonants for hexadecimal scales and introduce a "null" vowel such as "a". The null vowel can be suffixed to hexadecimal consontants to aid intelligibility and can also be used in isolation to represent zero. Numerically, the "null" symbol represents nothing and is ignored when evaluating a spoken numbers numerical value.

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