What happens when a language has no numbers?

[michaelfeathers]

Anyone interested in the Pirahã should read 'Don't Sleep, There Are Snakes: Life and Language in the Amazonian Jungle' by Daniel Everett ( http://www.amazon.com/Dont-Sleep-There-Are-Snakes/dp/0307386... )

There's quite a bit about the language, but the backstory of Daniel going over as a missionary and losing his faith (and family) while trying to convert a happy people in no need of religion is stunning.

[andyjohnson0]

Everett gave a very interesting talk [1] to the Long Now org a few years ago in which he describes some of his experiences working with the Pirahã. Video is available at [2].

[1] http://longnow.org/seminars/02009/mar/20/endangered-language...

[2] http://fora.tv/2009/03/20/Daniel_Everett_Endangered_Language...

[riffraff]

trivia: there are some languages out there which don't have different concepts for PIROS and VÖRÖS, and just bunch them together under a single color ("red" in english).

[elnate]

Red is a broad group of colours. There are plenty of more specific names for types of red, like scarlet or ruby, does that qualify?

[adamnemecek]

Yeah, it's called https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity

I believe that Russian has something similar to Piros/Voros with shades of blue.

[tokenadult]

Yes, the book described in this Wikipedia article

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_Color_Terms:_Their_Unive...

(which I read years ago) makes a case for a language-universal gradation of color terms in the spectrum of visible light, with some languages having few of the terms, and some languages having more, and some languages having quite a few. (In the languages I know best, English has more color terms than Chinese, but Russian has more than English.)

[JonSkeptic]

I am surprised that no one has mentioned the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis[0]. It's incredible, the effect that language can have on the mind. Given that they can communicate in whistles and hums, I'd also be interested in a study about their music as well.

[0]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity

[Pitarou]

Everett argues in the other direction. He believes that the unusual aspects of their language stem from their unusual culture.

[apostlion]

Why would a culture that has no trade need numbers? Approximate buckets are good enough for the hunter-gatherer lifestyle.

After all, it were Sumerian traders and bureaucrats who gave us both figures -and- numbers -and- a way to write them down.

[curiousdannii]

"How many children/pigs/dogs are in the house? Did we forget any?"

[Pitarou]

I really don't know whether to believe this article. The whole setup sounds a little too ... perfect.

We have:

* a language where "speakers can dispense with their vowels and consonants altogether and sing, hum, or whistle conversations"

* a language that "contains no words at all for discrete numbers"

* a tribe too arrogant to learn any other language

There are stranger things in the world, but I'd take a long, hard look at the guy reporting these facts before I took them at face value

[koala_advert]

Here's an interview with a Pirahã speaker:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SHv3-U9VPAs

[w1ntermute]

I don't see any (English) subtitles, do you?

[joe_the_user]

Oh Gawd...

Read: http://web.mit.edu/linguistics/people/faculty/pesetsky/Nevin...

Edit: and sure this is the Chomskians debunking the "upstart" Danial Everett but this is thorough, clear and convincing in contrast to the haphazard novelty that most Piraha discussion involves. A language with future? How...? Well, actually the answer would be just no, that's not how it works. And sure, this headline says "number" but all the discussions are interlinked.

[einhverfr]

I don't now. I read it. It seems that given that most of the documentation of the language was done by Everett, the Chomskians have some difficulty getting around some points.

I found the discussions of anumeracy in that PDF quite problematic because they basically argued we don't know enough about the language to say one way or another. Some of the difficulties, particularly adding vs removing spoons posed significant interpretation problems for me. Of course if I was differentiate between a few spoons and a bunch of spoons, the lines would be different if adding spoons vs subtracting them. This is because the relative frame of reference is different.

It seems to me that the problem is fraught with insurmountable epistemological problems which can't be solved and therefore people get to make best guesses. In general though I would trust the one who speaks the language more fluently than the one who doesn't. This isn't to address novelty claims. Bahasa Indonesia, for example, mostly lacks relative tenses as well, and Proto-Indo-European probably did as well.

[Pitarou]

It's clear that Everett has a lot more work to do before any of his claims will stand up to scrutiny.

Like I said earlier, it all sounds a little too perfect. Unpolluted by outside contact (because they refuse to learn a language that can't be whistled), the Piraha have no need for past, future, creation myths, kinship systems beyond the first degree, numbers, and so on. It's a dream of what we might be like if we were freed of our corrupt culture.

Is Everett an heir to Margaret Meade?

[favadi]

I use a language has no numbers every day (Bash).

[pavel_lishin]

    for x in {0..3}; do echo $x; done

[agumonkey]

Can't help but to think abotu lambda calculus encoded numbers.

[Pitarou]

Nothing to do with the Piraha, I fear. Get some sleep.

[etherealG]

In science approximation is so common there's a required notation for experimental measurement for it. Perhaps they're just accept that sooner than us.

[dm2]

It's not much different than most people rarely using Greek characters as formulas or constants.

[seandougall]

Pretty different, actually -- the point is that they (supposedly) have no counting system at all. They lack the concept of numbers, not just the words.

[Theodores]

...they spark up conversation with the neighbouring tribe that has no concept of time!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-13452711

...and then it all falls to pieces because they have no concept of god!

More to the point, what is the big deal with counting if there is no concept of private property?

[prof_hobart]

I left the house with a somewhat largish amount of children. I've still got a somewhat largish amount of children, so I can't have left any of them behind.

[peteretep]

Well, you know, science and computers and medicine and all that stuff.