In sixth grade, my friend Paco and I decided to embark on a little adventure. We were supposed to fill our classroom's water jug, but we got sidetracked by the idea of grabbing snacks before the usual recess rush. We left the water jug at the fountain and went to a nearby small store.

We rushed down the dirt path to the small store owned by Juana. The store itself was a small house made of handmade brick adobe, illuminated mostly by sunlight streaming through the main door. In our hometown, speaking Mixteco is the norm. Conversations in Spanish are rare, especially with adults and elders within the community.

As we entered, we greeted Juana with a formal Mixteco greeting,

"¿Á iy'ullo'ndo?" (Are you here?)

“Hà.” (Yes) Juana responded, welcoming us warmly.

Paco quickly grabbed some candies, chips, and orange juice. I picked up a soda, chips, and peanuts. Paco quietly counted his total while asking how much each item cost and paid Juana with his coins. When it was my turn to pay, I handed Juana a 50 pesos note, which was a new bright pink plastic note compared to the old paper ones. They had just started to circulate in Mexico that year.

Juana told me the total cost was " Uxi-Oní " (13), a number which I did not quite know how much it was. However, she hesitated with the math and asked if I could figure out how much change she was supposed to give me back. The items were 6 pesos for the soda, 5 pesos for the chips, and 2 pesos for the peanuts, totaling 13 pesos. I quickly calculated that my change should be "treinta y siete" (37). Juana, not knowing numbers in Spanish, asked if I could tell her the amount in Mixteco.

Despite growing up speaking Mixteco at home, I only knew how to count numbers 1 through 4 in Mixteco. I learned English from kindergarten to 5th grade in the US and spoke English with my siblings. At home, Mixteco was the only language we spoke. I started to learn and talk a little in Spanish about 1 year and a half since we moved to Oaxaca.

I asked Paco if he knew how to say 37 in Mixteco. He shrugged and said no. I tried to recall the Mixteco numbers I knew at the time. I remembered that "Uxi" was 10 and "Oko" was 20. They were sort of easy to remember as I recall my mother would say a 10 pesos coin was Uxi. Then I remembered that the 20 pesos note was called Oko, similar to the bug spray popular in our region, OKO.

Mixteco numbers work by adding the numbers together to create a larger one. After some struggle, I determined that 30 was "Oko-Uxi" (20-10) and that I needed to add 7 more to make 37. I asked Paco again to see if he maybe knew how to say 7 in Mixteco. Once again, he said no. I couldn't remember the word for 7 in Mixteco. I saw Paco counting on his hand starting from 1, 2, 3, 4, and he struggled to count any further from there. I slowly started to recall that 6 was Íñu, and 9 was Iìn. I felt close to deciphering this ancient language, I just needed to figure out 7 and 8. In my head, the words Uxa and Ona or Onu popped up. I figured I could be off by one number, which would be okay. Eventually, I concluded that 37 was Oko-Uxi-ùxa. (20-10-7)

Nervously, I told Juana my change should be "Oko-Uxi-ùxa." (20-10-7) We all laughed at the humorous situation, and Juana kindly gave me the correct change. She laughed with us, never making us feel embarrassed. With our snacks and the water jug in hand, we returned to our classroom.

The experience lingered in my mind for days. I prided myself on my mathematical skills and knowing numbers in Spanish, English, and even Roman numerals. Yet, I felt a sense of shame for not knowing the Mixteco numbers—the language of my parents, ancestors, and entire community. The Mixteco numbers felt so foreign to me, but they should have been something I knew intimately.

Learning from Grandmother

I had to learn the numbers, I thought to myself, and who better to teach me than my grandmother? One evening, after my grandmother was lying down getting ready to sleep, I asked her if she could teach me how to count the numbers in Mixteco. My two cousins were nearby and were also curious to learn how to count in Mixteco. “Very well, I will count the numbers,” my grandmother responded.

She began, “1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, [ Ií, Uví, Oní, Komi, O'ón, Íñu, ùxa, Ónà, Iìn, Uxi ]

10-1,10-2... [Uxi-Ií , Uxi-Uví ]

20-10-4, 20-15, 20-15-1, 20-15-2... [ Oko-Uxi-Komi, Oko-Xaùn, Oko-Xaùn-Ií , Oko-Xaùn-Uví ]”

As my grandmother counted to 37, I realized a mistake I made during the events of getting my change from Juana. It was not "Oko-Uxi-ùxa" (20-10-7) to say 37 in Mixteco; the correct way is Oko-Xaùn-Uví (20-15-2). Juana was being more than just polite and not correcting me. I felt more embarrassed about the encounter than ever.

Grandmother finished by reaching to "Ií ciento" (100)

She counted up to 100 for us three times. My cousins struggled to remember some numbers, and my grandmother would correct them. I, however, started to see a pattern. The numbers repeated after a certain point. I asked my grandmother if she knew that there was a pattern there.

Grandmother just responded, “I don’t know what you are talking about. This is just the order in which you count from 1 to 100.”

I told my cousins that there was a math pattern there, and once you knew it, all the numbers were easy to remember. One of my cousins just looked at me and said that I was wrong. I couldn’t explain it very well for them to understand, but I knew I was right.

Understanding the Pattern

You see, to count from 1 to 99, you only need to remember 13 numbers/words, and with those 13 numbers/words, you can count from 1 to 99 much easier if you understand the math rule in adding those Mixteco numbers together:

1 to 10 have a unique word
11 to 14 you add 1, 2, 3, 4 to 10
15 has a unique word
16 to 19, you add 1, 2, 3, 4 to 1520 has a unique word. This is where the number becomes very long to say but is fairly easy.
21 to 39 is just 20 plus all the above from 1 to 19
40 is Uvi-xiko, which means two 20s. The Oko for one 20 becomes Xiko when it’s multiple 20s.
If a Small number comes after a Big number, it is added. For example, 18 (Xaun-Oni) 15 plus 3 = 18
If a Small number comes before a big number, it is multiplied by it. For Example: 60 (Oni-Xiko) 3 times 20s = 60.
The main rule to follow is to always count from 1 to 19. Each time a multiple of 20s is reached you add 1 more to the front small number.
It is similar to the Roman numbers. Roman numbers have 7 symbols.
Mixteco has a total of 15 unique words that are used to count up to 64 million.
Modern Mixteco numbers only use 13 words and borrow words from the Spanish language to say 100s, 1,000s, and 1,000,000s.

[To hear 1-100 in Mixteco, Click Here]

Embracing My Heritage

I graduated from 6th grade that same year. (My mother holds my younger sister Adela, next to me)

As days passed since that evening my grandmother taught me, I felt accomplished to have learned the numerical system in Mixteco. However, this feeling of guilt and shame did not go away. I knew that I did not speak or fully understand Mixteco like my community here in our hometown. I was not speaking it natively like everyone else. It dawned on me that what I was seeing was my language fading away right in front of me and from me.

To remedy this feeling and the conflict I was having internally, I set myself the goal to learn as much as I could in Mixteco and to learn even more about my culture. I will learn from my parents, grandparents, and the whole community—all I can learn so my language does not fade away from me.