Piraha

[Arnold M. Zwicky]

On Apr 18, 2007, at 10:05 AM, Wilson Gray wrote:

> Isn't "They can count only to two" an antiquated fallacy, based on a
> misunderstaning of the way that the culture uses number, that was
> first applied to the languages of Australia a century ago?

the claim is about counting in the sense of distinguishing groups of
different size, not in the sense of having number words for
counting.  here's the relevant piece of the New Yorker article, about
Peter Gordon:

During a two-month stay with the Pirahã in 1992, Gordon ran several
experiments with tribe members. In one, he sat across from a Pirahã
subject and placed in front of himself an array of objects—nuts, AA
batteries—and had the Pirahã match the array. The Pirahã could
perform the task accurately when the array consisted of two or three
items, but their performance with larger groupings was, Gordon later
wrote, “remarkably poor.” Gordon also showed subjects nuts, placed
them in a can, and withdrew them one at a time. Each time he removed
a nut, he asked the subject whether there were any left in the can.
The Pirahã answered correctly only with quantities of three or fewer.
Through these and other tests, Gordon concluded that Everett was
right: the people could not perform tasks involving quantities
greater than three.
-----

in this sense of "counting", some animals can count, at least a bit.
crows, in particular, have been claimed to be able to count to three,
four, or five, depending on who you read; as i recall, the
experiments that have been done are versions of the subtraction task,
though without the mediation of language.  and of course crows have
no number words.

now, there are languages with, in a sense, only two number words.
(i'm away from my sources and am doing this from memory, so be
tolerant.)  however, speakers of these languages can count, in both
senses: they can distinguish groups of objects of various sizes, and
they have a way of assigning names to these sizes.  let "x" be the
word denoting 1 and "y" the word denoting 2.  then you count:

x
y
y x
y y
y y x
y y y
y y y x
y y y y
...

this is a purely additive system, and it gets tedious fast.  it's
really only practical if you're not interested in counting very high,
and of course there are cultures where there's no need to count very
high.  (the need for counting no doubt comes with agriculture.)

the Pirahã just represent the limiting case.  knowing about systems
like the one above, you could have predicted that eventually someone
would find a group like the Pirahã.  dan everett seems to have been
that lucky linguist.

arnold

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org