one, isi two, hini three, kethòm four, phili five, phòngo six, theròk seven, theròk-si eight, ner-kèp nine, sir-kèp ten, kèp eleven, kre-isi twelve, kre-hini thirteen, etc. kre-kethòm a score, ing-koi twenty-one, etc. ing-koi-ra-isi thirty, thòm-kèp forty, etc. phili-kèp a hundred, pharo
Here the first thing to be noticed is that the three numerals between six and ten are not independent vocables, but compounds; seven is six plus one: eight is ten minus two, and nine is ten minus one. In most of the other languages of the family this is not so; the Boro, the Naga, and the majority of the Kuki-Chin languages all have independent words for seven, eight, and nine. It appears to be only in the Kuki-Chin group that we can find an analogy to the Mikir words for these three numerals. In Anal, a language of the Old Kuki family spoken in Manipur, seven is tak-si which seems to be identical with the Mikir theròk-si; and in Meithei (the language of the Manipuris) eight is ni-pan,"two from ten," and nine is ma-pan, "one from ten."
We next notice that ten is expressed by two separate words, kèp (in ten and its multiples) and kre (in the compounds from eleven to nineteen). So far as vocabularies have yet been published, the only other tribes of the Tibeto-Burman family [45] which have a word resembling kèp for ten are Maring Naga, one of the Naga-Kuki languages, where it is chip, and Shö or southern Chin, where gip is used for ten in the sequence thirty, forty, fifty, etc. (thum-gip, thirty, mli-gip, forty, ngha-gip, fifty, exactly corresponding to the Mikir thòm-kèp, phili-kèp, phòngo-kèp). The close resemblance of the other numerals in Maring to Mikir forms is noticeable; four is fili, five funga, and six tharuk. The other word for ten, kre, strongly resembles the Angami kerr or kerru and the Kachcha Naga gareo; in the Central Naga group the prefix ke- has been replaced by ta- or te-, and the words for ten are ter, tara (Ao), taro, tara, tare (Lhota), etc. In the Naga-Kuki group Sopvoma has chiro, Maram kero, Tangkhul thara, etc. In the Kuki-Chin group Meithei tara is the same word: in the Central Chin another prefix, pu-, pö-, or pa-, is used, and we have Lai pöra, Banjogi para, Taungtha parha. There are no Boro forms which correspond to kre, nor any much resembling kèp.