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Much as per question - Uncia is the Latin for one-twelfth and thence is used for coin (As),length (Pes),weight (Libra), area (Jugerum) etc from whence derives inch and ounce. I can find nothing much about Greek fractions not even the name for one-twelfth; and not much about Greek pre-Roman measurements. Finding Indo-European equivalents would be a step further and Sanskrit would be a step sideways. Help please.

J King
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  • The entry for inch on Etymologeek may be of some interest here. – nwr Apr 14 '22 at 17:01
  • One site looking at Vedic measurements takes the 2 inch segment from Mohenjo-Daro marked with 8 divisions and determines an almost spurious accuracy of 6.7056mm per unit and thence a set of measurements up towards the mile. There is also mention of Gudea’s rule (2175 B.C.) [of Lagash in the Persian Gulf] which is preserved in the Louvre and shows intervals in Sumerian Shusi of 0.66 inches, which is exactly equal to the Indus-Saraswati Angula of 16.764mm. ??Accuracy to a 1/1000th of a millimeter?! Wow – J King Apr 14 '22 at 22:00
  • Greek for 1/12 was(/is) ἕν δωδέκατον (=one twelfth). I don't believe they had a word for it, but they often skipped the self-explanatory unit numerator and simply used the ordinal δωδέκατον (twelfth) of the denominator. The symbolic writing of it was even more problematic, as they'd have to double-accent ιβ. I have personally never stumbled on it. So, then, δωδέκατον. – Cosmas Zachos Apr 14 '22 at 22:49
  • Strictly speaking, the Greeks did not have the concept of fraction as number, though Eudoxus developed a theory of proportions which we may interpret as rational numbers. The closest thing to fraction appeared in Greek commercial texts. The symbolism is described by Cosmas in his comment above - 1/12 being the double accented $\iota\beta$. In rhetorical style the Greeks would write "of the one the twelfth" (του ενός ο δωδέκατος). Source: paraphrasing Leo Correy, A Brief History of Numbers. – nwr Apr 15 '22 at 00:11
  • Thank you for Etymologeek which is useful for the oinos /one of IndoEuropean but the diagram slides past the transition from unus to uncia with no mention of the fractioning or twelfth-ing. – J King Apr 15 '22 at 19:05
  • I did not know that the Greeks were so successful as mathematicians without any use of fractions. The 'dodecatos'(?) you offer has no link to 'uncia'. Is there a Greek word in any way equivalent to 'uncia' - part, segment, piece ?? Thanks folks – J King Apr 15 '22 at 19:07
  • Have a look at the accepted answer on Linguistics Stack Exchange - Why is 1/12 called uncia in Latin for considerations of how oinos (one) may have become uncia and its relation to 1/12. – nwr Apr 15 '22 at 23:50
  • Dodecatos, indeed, has no linguistic link to uncia. Greeks were a commercial culture, so they used fractions more often than our culture. If you read up on Archimedes' successive approximations to π with fraction sequences, you'd be left in no doubt! – Cosmas Zachos Apr 16 '22 at 14:57
  • The 'accepted' answer seems to me incomplete especially there is merely a statement that a unit 'oinos' somehow became 'a specific part ie 1/12 of a larger unit)- so I asked my questions! Cosmas, you write that the Greeks used fractions (no surprise) ... so I wondered what their words were for them (in particular 1/12). – J King Apr 17 '22 at 06:59
  • @CosmasZachos As far as I understand, the Greeks drew a sharp distinction between number and geometric magnitude. Similarly, the ratio of geometric magnitudes would not be thought of a numbers or fractions by Archimedes. This is my understanding. Geometric magnitudes such as $\pi$ or $\sqrt2$ were not numbers, nor were the ratios of magnitudes. – nwr Apr 17 '22 at 15:19
  • ? I thought I answered that , above: δωδέκατον [(en) dodecaton], but linguistically unrelated. But Greek has very poor grammatical and lexical links to Latin--Lexically, it is closer to Sanskrit and ancient Persian. Just because Greek and Latin rubbed shoulders for centuries and borrowed copiously from each other, one might not branch out from latin to Greek "roots"... – Cosmas Zachos Apr 17 '22 at 15:26
  • sounds like this thread is coming to a flimsy thread (from my point of view of hoping to get a better answer than was available before re pre-Latin uncia & 1-twelfth. – J King Apr 18 '22 at 19:02
  • Greek is *not* pre Latin; isn't this clear? Are you interested in the history of the Latin term, or just the Greek nomenclature, which is clear (I hope)? Why don't you ask it in here? – Cosmas Zachos Apr 19 '22 at 15:08
  • I suspect Greek should be irrelevant here, int terms of linguistic affinity, but these two links might be informative. If you were only interested in the linguistics, Greek is a dead end. But Ptolemy's astronomical tables should convince you that Greeks used fractions a lot. For instance, 1+ 1/12 = 13/12 is "ἐπιδωδέκατος " [a twelfth on top of one], a construction the Romans only had for "sesqui" for 3/2, (but I might be misinformed there). – Cosmas Zachos Apr 19 '22 at 21:00
  • Cosmas - I'm not unaware that Greek is not 'pre-Latin' albeit both are Indo-European (and I'm not planning to go into the differing paths from proto-IE onwards). – J King Apr 20 '22 at 16:14
  • Onwards ... Your 'epidodekaton(?) does not usefully offer any 'uncia' link. I was not saying Greeks did not use fractions; I was wanting the words used [akin to uncia] if they existed. – J King Apr 20 '22 at 16:20
  • No words akin to uncia. No cognates (I think). No etymological affinity. I'm not sure why you keep returning to the canard... – Cosmas Zachos Apr 20 '22 at 19:39
  • Cosmas - my original request was not for just Greek but any pre-Roman source. None has been identified in the course of this query so I'm going to have to leave the query unresolved (in my judgment). Thanks very much for all your help. JK – J King Apr 21 '22 at 20:35

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