Slightly off topic but I'm impressed you found this thread buried so far down. I was just complaining about how this style of consolidated long term discussion doesn't work in Lemmy and other Redditlikes, which is why I abandoned this post in favor of just making new posts.

Now, on to your question. Commonthroat uses a base 12 number system because the majority of its speakers are surface-dwellers who primarily use their forefeet to manipulate objects. Outlander uses a base 24 system because there are far more speakers who are spacers living in zero-G who can use all four paws.

Quoting from the Outlander scratchpad thread on the CBB forum:

After reading the Wikipedia article on Classical Nahuatl, I was captivated by the fact that cardinal numbers are transparently derived from other words. I think this will be the case with Outlander. Further, since both Moonlitter and Partisan Territory have a large population of spacers, Outlander will have a base-24 number system for larger numbers, with numbers 1-24 clearly deriving from anatomical terms for digits and paws.

Here's what I have from the auto-generated Swadesh list:

one: snl two: qdc three: rMn four: sMP five: rC

When Outlanders count, they start with the left forepaw curled into a fist, with the inner thumb in front of the other digits and the outer thumb behind. For each number from one to six, a digit is uncurled, starting with the writing claw, then each digit from medial to lateral. The inner thumb is opened next representing five, and the outer thumb last for number six. This process continues with the right forepaw for numbers seven to twelve.

For surface dwellers, that's all the fingers they can practically use while reared up on the hind feet, but since the Outlands contains a large population of spacers, who use all 24 digits to count, the number system for the language as a whole reflects the spacer usage. When counting on the rear paws, the ankles are rotated 180 degrees such that the palm of the paw is facing outward (such a range of motion is common in arboreal animals).

The word for six is , derived from paw. For numbers seven-twelve, the numbers for one to six are suffixed with a chuff, from a reduced form of (right)

six: rkg seven: snlr eight: qdcr nine: rMnr ten: sMPr eleven: rCr twelve: rkgr

For numbers 13 to 23, the corresponding lower numbers are prefixed with <geg(s)->. The etymology is obscure, but it likely relates to the word for the palmar pads, reflecting the state of the paws when counting higher numbers, with all four palms facing outward showing the pads. The prefix is a yip stem. The final yip is elided in front of another yip, and a huff or chuff of the following syllable is geminated.

The expected word * for twenty four is sometimes seen when people are imitating puppyish speech patterns, similar to words like ninty-eleven for 101. The usual term is , which is a transparent derivative of (palm). , when used in the numeral sense, can itself be pluralized to yield <qGqql< "twenty-fours" to mean multiple sets of 24.

thirteen: gegsnl fourteen: gegqqdc fifteen: gegrrMn sixteen: gegsMP seventeen: gegrrC eighteen: gegrrkg nineteen: gegsnlr twenty: gegqqdcr twenty one: gegrrMnr twenty two: gegsMPr twenty three: gegrrCr twenty four: *gegrrkgr, qGq

For even higher numbers, the word (with/and) is used to join a lower numbers to . 25 is , "24 with one" 26 is "24 with two" and so on. is frequently dropped to yield and so on.

My stories are probably best viewed on the corresponding CBB thread

Here's a rough timeline:

• 100,000 years before present (BP): The dawn of sapience
• 95,000 BP: Yinrih achieve spaceflight
• 67,000 BP: the Bright Way commercializes, start of the Age of Decadence
• The Farspeaker's Apprentice takes place in the middle of this period
• The Artificer's Litter is (likely) fictional, but the head referenced in the story is built during this time and the story was written after the War of Dissolution, which is why it clarifies that the Bright Way is headquartered on Yih and not Hearthside.
• 34,000 BP: the War of Dissolution
• RTFM occurs at the close of the war after the alliance between the Partisans and Pious Dissolutionists has collapsed.
• The Spacer Confederacy occurs some time around the mid 18th century AD when Wayfarers' Haven is founded.
• Present Day
• First Contact which I haven't posted here, takes place in the generic "present day". Old lore had the Dewfall land in 2020 during the pandemic, and since 2020 was already such a crazy year everyone just shrugged and said "sure, why not" at the news that aliens have landed.
• The Angel and the Ape occurs a month or two after First Contact. The missionaries are still getting to know humanity and learning English.
• Beating the Heat and The Tornado occur on the same day, three to five months after First Contact.
• Are we as Mayflies? happens during that summer The missionaries still assume that it will take another 250 years for more yinrih to arrive.
• The Mass Router occurs about a year after First Contact
• The Ansible happens a few days later
• Everybody Poops Together and The House of Friendship occur years later after the mass router has made travel between Sol and Focus trivial.
• An Alien Through Alien Eyes is in-universe fiction written some time before the invention of the mass router, since Sunbeam mentions taking hundreds of years to travel from Focus to the bugs' planet.
• Meanwhile, in an Alternate Universe... is, well, an alternate universe where Earth and humanity are the subjects of a yinrih's conworld instead of the other way around. It takes place in one of Welkinstead's floating cities, so it happens some time during the age of decadence or post war period.

There's also A Lonely Galaxy wiki with all the stories as well as other info, but updating it is slow going.