Kaktovik students created a counting system that is a direct reflection of the way one counts in Iñupiaq. “It’d be hard to come up with anything as clear and easy to use as the ones that the kids came up with.”
The international encoding standard Unicode has included Kaktovik numerals, designed by Iñupiaq students almost 30 years ago, in its latest version. Teachers in Alaska say it has spurred an interest in math.