Piraha: counting & The Story of One

[Wilson Gray]

If anyone cares, in this week's NYer, there's a letter that briefly
discusses the Piraha question from the perspective of the M.I.T.
school of linguiistics.

-Wilson

On 4/26/07, Amy West <medievalist at w-sts.com> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Amy West <medievalist at W-STS.COM>
> Subject:      Re: Piraha: counting & The Story of One
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> I was away for a while and was very glad to follow the Piraha
> discussion. I had heard a bit about it on NPR's Weekend Edition, I
> believe. From that story, I was most interested in the lack of
> recursion; I wasn't intrigued so much by the counting.
>
> However, the focus of this discussion has reminded me that I saw a
> bit about counting in Australian Aboriginal languages in Terry Jones'
> _The Story of One_. They had a younger aboriginal talking to his
> older uncle and demonstrate how the uncle counted -- I can't recall
> the specifics of the counting.
>
> ---Amy West
>
> >Date:    Wed, 18 Apr 2007 13:05:41 -0400
> >From:    Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
> >Subject: Re: Piraha
> >
> >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? I seem to
> >remember a discussion of this claim as a fallacy in Pei's book, The
> >Story of Language. Of course, I am more than aware that no "real"
> >linguist takes anything that ol' Mario has to say seriously. I first
> >heard his ideas shat upon by barracks-mates at the old Army Language
> >School back in 1960.
> >
> >And yes, I have read Colapinto's article.
> >
> >-Wilson
>
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