I think the point is to put yourself in the place of someone so bereft of technology and formal education and imagine how you would tally sheep. Also interesting how you can probably get children started earlier with lending a hand if you teach them a counting system based on singing. This is probably why we have the alphabet song.
Edit: I also find it interesting that this is a system only for tallying, not arithmetic. As one of the articles in my ensuing dive pointed out, nobody says, “Miney + eeny = moe” or “Dik minus tethera equals…”
Edit: And that the first two counting numbers being “something ending in nuh” and “something starting with tuh/duh” is an ancient idea, coming from long before Roman times and predating Latin.
(and the continued astonishment I get at Indo-European languages being native from Iceland all the way to India and Siberia -- maybe I should say "from Iceland to Ireland, Italy to Iran and India")
Edit: I also find it interesting that this is a system only for tallying, not arithmetic. As one of the articles in my ensuing dive pointed out, nobody says, “Miney + eeny = moe” or “Dik minus tethera equals…”
Edit: And that the first two counting numbers being “something ending in nuh” and “something starting with tuh/duh” is an ancient idea, coming from long before Roman times and predating Latin.