The Piraha: Cognitive Anumeracy in a Language Without Numbers

[Josquius]

I can easily imagine how a society can get by without numbers.
I mean thinking about it- how often do you use numbers in every day speech? Thinking about upon it I really don't think its as common as you may first think. And that's our modern number reliant society, not a primitive group who have little need for numbers.

[Razgovory]

Yeah, I remember reading about Everett's claims.  I'm quite skeptical, since he makes all sorts of off the wall claims and he's really the only source.

I suspect much of this falls within the domain of "telling the outsiders a good yarn creates revenues" - a well-known issue in anthropology. 

Yeah, there is probably a lot of that.  A lot of it sounds like traveler tales.  Some of it might be that he became enamored with a foreign culture and ascribed all sorts of unique things to them.  For instance he claimed that their language lacks the ability to make recursive statements.  The ability to make recursive statements is considered a universal of human language.  So it's an extraordinary claim and as far as I know, Everett is the only one making it.

[Grey Fox]

 

@ Tyr

[Razgovory]

"How many figures are on your right hand?"

"Fuck if I know!"

[Eddie Teach]

I can easily imagine how a society can get by without numbers.
I mean thinking about it- how often do you use numbers in every day speech? Thinking about upon it I really don't think its as common as you may first think. And that's our modern number reliant society, not a primitive group who have little need for numbers.

Hard to conduct much trade (even with a barter system) without using numbers.

[Valmy]

I can easily imagine how a society can get by without numbers.
I mean thinking about it- how often do you use numbers in every day speech?

All the time.  At work, school, at home, and out running errands.

Thinking about upon it I really don't think its as common as you may first think.

Pretty significant parts of my life revolve around doing things at certain dates and times and carefully budgeting money.  And that is not even mentioning pretty common topics of discussion like the weather.  I have a real hard time imagining even the 18th century version of my culture functioning very well without numbers.  Even topics of social conversation.

[CountDeMoney]

This was interesting about ten years ago when I first read about the Piraha and Everett. I don't think he's worked there since that time so not sure why this is worthy of note at this date.

As you know, you post on Languish with the useless Timmay threads you have, not the useless Timmay threads you might want or wish to have at a later time.

[jimmy olsen]

I can easily imagine how a society can get by without numbers.
I mean thinking about it- how often do you use numbers in every day speech? Thinking about upon it I really don't think its as common as you may first think. And that's our modern number reliant society, not a primitive group who have little need for numbers.

Every time you look at a clock, use a phone and pay a bill you're using numbers. At our job we have to count our students, count the worksheets, give them grades, etc.

[Grey Fox]

Never mind all that complicated number counting.

How many shoes & socks do you put on in the morning?

[Josquius]

Key word: speech.
I check the time, count money and read prices every day of course but it's not too common that I actually have to say a number (well, except one/an).
In a world without clocks and money....even if they had numbers far more common would be "Look at those monkeys over there!" rather than "Look at those five monkeys over there!"

[The Brain]

Sigh.

[Eddie Teach]

Hopefully he's on the sauce.

[Grey Fox]

Key word: speech.
I check the time, count money and read prices every day of course but it's not too common that I actually have to say a number (well, except one/an).
In a world without clocks and money....even if they had numbers far more common would be "Look at those monkeys over there!" rather than "Look at those five monkeys over there!"

But speech is not just doing it out loud, it's thinking.

You are learning japanese, no? Do you think in Japanse in your head or do you translate from english all the time?

[Malthus]

This was interesting about ten years ago when I first read about the Piraha and Everett. I don't think he's worked there since that time so not sure why this is worthy of note at this date.

Some of these guys are being 'head-hunted' by major banks to help solve the financial crisis.

The banks could use a bit of "head-hunting" ... 

[Malthus]

Yeah, I remember reading about Everett's claims.  I'm quite skeptical, since he makes all sorts of off the wall claims and he's really the only source.

I suspect much of this falls within the domain of "telling the outsiders a good yarn creates revenues" - a well-known issue in anthropology. 

Yeah, there is probably a lot of that.  A lot of it sounds like traveler tales.  Some of it might be that he became enamored with a foreign culture and ascribed all sorts of unique things to them.  For instance he claimed that their language lacks the ability to make recursive statements.  The ability to make recursive statements is considered a universal of human language.  So it's an extraordinary claim and as far as I know, Everett is the only one making it.

Sometimes, the claim is made with the express intention of attracting benefits. The most famous example of that was the tribe in the Phillipines that alleged to have had no contact whatsoever with the outside world - they got their own national park out of it (later, turned out that was their goal - a tribe that had 'nothing interesting whatsoever about them' clearly does not rate their own national park, and they knew it).