quipu

«quipu» in Mova's school dictionary: A set of knotted coloured strings used by the Inca people… — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples, with 2 sentences of Mova's corpora that use it.

part of speech

noun (a quipu, quipus)

meaning for a pupil

(history) A set of knotted coloured strings used by the Inca people of South America to record numbers and information, such as how many people, animals or goods there were. tree →

sense in the lessons

In history and maths lessons about the Incas, the quipu shows that a writing-free civilisation could keep records: the type and position of knots stand for units, tens, hundreds (a base-10 system), and the colours for different things. Officials called quipucamayocs read them. Phrases: «Inca quipu», «knotted strings», «record numbers».

examples

• The Incas used a quipu to count llamas. tree →
• Each knot on the quipu stood for a number. tree →
• A knot near the end of the string showed units; higher up meant tens and hundreds. tree →
• We made our own quipu from coloured wool. tree →
• Experts are still trying to work out if quipus recorded words too. tree →
• The quipu helped officials keep track of taxes. tree →

note

Also spelled «khipu». Plural «quipus». Pronounced KEE-poo. Maths: the quipu uses place value in base 10, like our numbers, with an empty space for zero. Not an English word in origin — it comes from Quechua, the Inca language.

In the corpora

• They had no writing as we know it, but kept records with knotted strings called quipu.
• The Inca kept records with quipu, strings with knots of different colours and positions, to count people, taxes and goods.

Trees and pragmatics

Every meaning and example of «quipu» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.