Dactylonomy is counting using what?
Finger-counting Finger-counting Finger-counting, also known as dactylonomy, is the act of counting using one's fingers. There are multiple different systems used across time and between cultures, though many of these have seen a decline in use because of the spread of Arabic numerals. Finger-counting can 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 is known to go back to ancient Egypt at least, and probably even further back. Complex systems of dactylonomy were used in the ancient world. The
Finger-counting and was thus in keeping with the dignity of the scribe's profession. Books dealing with dactylonomy, such as a treatise by the mathematician Abu'l-Wafa al-Buzajani, gave rules for performing complex operations, including the approximate determination of square roots. Several pedagogical poems dealt exclusively with finger counting, some of which were translated into European languages, including a short poem by Shamsuddeen Al-Mawsili (translated into French by Aristide Marre) and one by Abul-Hasan Al-Maghribi (translated into German by Julius Ruska. A very similar form is presented by the English monk and historian Bede in the first chapter of his "De temporum ratione,"