The cowries were usually counted in piles, and piles were designated as cɛmɛ. 10 piles were designated as ba and 100 piles were designated as ba tan. While a pile or a cɛmɛ contained 60 cowries in some communities, it contained 80 cowries in others.
With the advent of colonization, however, the cowries will be replaced by European currency, and will only serve for decoration purposes. Although the cowries ceased to be used as currency, the appellations cɛmɛ, ba, and ba tan will continue to be utilized in the numerical as well as the monetary system.
While the decimal systems were initially 60 and 80, they will be influenced by the Arabic decimal system, which had 100 units, and later reinforced through the European decimal system. The cultural contact with the Arabs and the Europeans triggered a need to reevaluate the numerical system, which led to the adoption of the current decimal system.
At the monetary level, the Mandé submultiple unit Tama is adopted to designate 1 Franc CFA, and Dɔrɔmɛ, which is borrowing from the Spanish Duro (5 pesatas) is adopted to designate 5 Franc CFA.
All these contributed to create a discrepancy between the numerical system and the monetary system in Jula. For example, while Duru equates five (5) in the numerical system, it equates twenty-five (25) franc in the monetary system.
The following Table provides a summary of the correspondence between the numerical and the monetary system in French and in Jula.
Numerical Value (NV)
Monetary Value (MV)
Calvet, J.L. (1970). Arbitraire du Signe et Langue en Contact: les systèmes de numeration en Dioula, Bambara, et Malinké. La Linguistique (6): 119- 123.