MIT-led team finds language without numbers (fwd link)

[phil cash cash]

MIT-led team finds language without numbers
WEBWIRE – Friday, June 27, 2008

Amazonian tribe has no word to express ’one,’ other numbers
Anne Trafton, News Office

An Amazonian language with only 300 speakers has no word to express  
the concept of "one" or any other specific number, according to a new  
study from an MIT-led team.

The team, led by MIT professor of brain and cognitive sciences Edward  
Gibson, found that members of the Piraha tribe in remote northwestern  
Brazil use language to express relative quantities such as "some" and  
"more" but not precise numbers.

It is often assumed that counting is an innate part of human  
cognition, said Gibson, "but here is a group that does not count.  
They could learn, but it’s not useful in their culture, so they’ve  
never picked it up"

The study, which appeared in the June 10 online edition of the  
journal Cognition, offers evidence that number words are a concept  
invented by human cultures as they are needed, and not an inherent  
part of language, Gibson said.

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