Part 1: Counting in threes

Three words count everything Phi counts: mu (zero), ta (one), wi (two). Everything past two is groups, and the first group-word, shao (three-group), carries you to eight. The primer's market chapter opens exactly here, with a child counting eggs on the road to the village:

ta lipha powea. wi lipha powea. ta shao lipha powea.
one LIFE.CLF egg. two LIFE.CLF egg. one three-group LIFE.CLF egg.
(One egg. Two eggs. Three eggs.)

One, two, one-three-group. The jump at three is the whole system in miniature: Phi never says "three" as a bare digit, because there is no bare digit: there is a group, counted like any other noun. ta shao is one three-group the way ta wiru is one basket.

Reading the pattern

[base numeral] [scale unit] [remainder], a count of groups, then what is left over:

Notice what never appears: a remainder of three. The moment you have three left over, you have another group: ta shao ta shao is not a number, it is a mistake (Part 8 collects it). The remainder after any group count is always mu, ta, or wi, and mu is simply unsaid.

The rhythm drill

Ternary counting has a spoken rhythm English counting lacks, and the fastest way to own it is aloud, walking, one number per step, the child's way:

ta. wi. ta shao. ta shao ta. ta shao wi. wi shao. wi shao ta. wi shao wi.

Then backwards. Then starting from four. Then only the even steps. The goal is not speed for its own sake: it is that ta shao wi stops being arithmetic and becomes five, one word-shape, heard whole. A learner who still computes on hearing has not finished this part; a learner who hears quantity directly is ready for the scale.

mu: the count that is absence

mu counts what is not there, and Phi lets absence be counted as calmly as presence:

mu powea.
zero egg.
(No eggs.)

mia mu suliwa nila.
1SG zero snake see.
(I see zero snakes.)

Alongside mu stands the quantifier mawha (none): mawha suliwa. (no snake at all). The difference is register: mu counts, where mawha declares. The well story ends with mawha suliwa because the household is not tallying snakes; it is pronouncing the well clear.

Drill: hear it whole

Cover the right column. Read each aloud, say the quantity, uncover, check. Repeat until no line takes longer to understand than to say.

wi shao ta          — 7
ta shao wi          — 5
wi                  — 2
wi shao wi          — 8
ta shao             — 3
mu                  — 0
wi shao             — 6
ta shao ta          — 4

Then produce: 6, 3, 8, 1, 5, 0, 7, 4, 2, aloud, in order, then shuffled. Tomorrow, again. This is the times-table stage of the pamphlet; nothing later works without it, and nothing later is this dry.