Numbers as "Core Vocabulary" (was IE "Urheimat" and evidence from Uralic linguistics)

[Peter A. Michalove]

Dr. McLaughlin is quite right that numerals are often unstable lexemes,
despite popular belief.  In addition to the issues he points out about
counting systems, there's another factor that frequently leads to the
replacement (by borrowing) of numerals.  One of the activities that leads
to language contact and bilingualism is trade.  Of course, trade is an
activity in which the numerals are essential, and one must know the
numerals of one's trading partners.

Therefore numerals are often subject to borrowing (others have cited
several examples on this list), and the case of Indo-European, where the
numeral system is well preserved throughout almost all of the family, has
probably acted as a misleading example

At 01:00 PM 2/6/00 -0700, you wrote:
>Numbers are one of the very WORST things to look at in order to make even a
>preliminary decision about relationship.  The main problem with numbers
>(other than two and three) are that in the majority of hunter-gatherer
>societies, they are intimately tied to the way that fingers are used in
>counting.  Throughout Native North America there are variants of systems
>like this:  'one' = 'finger'; 'two' = two; 'three' = 'one down' (i.e., one
>finger besides the thumb is still not raised); 'four' = 'all up'; 'five' =
>'open', 'palm' or 'hand'; 'six' = 'two threes'; 'seven' = 'five + two';
>'eight' = 'two palms'; 'nine' = 'one missing'; 'ten' = 'whole'.  There are
>variations on this including whether one raises fingers to count or lowers
>them, whether and when the thumbs are included, whether the count starts on
>the right hand or on the left, etc.  As this number/finger systems starts to
>break down, other words can be borrowed or developed internally to fill the
>gaps, but the very unstable nature of counting means that number words
>should NOT be included in any list of "core vocabulary".

>John E. McLaughlin, Ph.D.
>Assistant Professor
>mclasutt at brigham.net

Peter A. Michalove      michalov at uiuc.edu
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