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Amazonian Tribe Has No Word To Express Numbers
In 2004 we discussed the Piraha, a tribe in the Amazon, when a study appeared characterizing their language as a "one, two, many" language. Now reader mu22le informs us of a new study of the Piraha pointing to the possibility that they use no number words at all. Instead they seem to use the word formerly thought to mean "two" to represent a quantity of 5 or 6, and the "one" word for anything from 1 to 4. The language has about 300 native speakers. "The study... 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."
Has no word to express.. uhhmm... forgot what it's called now.
Do it yourself, because no one else will do it yourself. [beta blockade 10-17 Feb]
How do they say: First Post! ??
??? Have no words for numbers
???
???
??? Profit!
molmod.com - computing tips from a molecular modeling
Shouldn't it be "a large number, but not five or six" speakers?
Hold on cowboy! It has been many seconds since you last posted, please wait another many seconds before you can post again.
Do it yourself, because no one else will do it yourself. [beta blockade 10-17 Feb]
then there's also no way to collect taxes. I should move...
MP3 Search Engine
They've got a long way to go until they figure out the meaning of life then...
How do they express IP addresses?
How do they indicate successful termination of their C programs?
Should be "one, two, many"
KDawson, you got a link to your own website wrong, on your own website. You n00b.
I heard they have discovered that some ancient tribes in the world are still using imperial measurement. Hard to believe!
Darn! Just as I was coming up with a nice scheme of making monogamy a little bit more exciting!
"No hun, it is just us few in the bed, like always"
I'm gonna have one girlfriend there.
Full Tilt
Sir I don't know where you do your trading, but I can get you 2 baskets of peas for 5 ears of corn.
In a world of acronyms, the words are the real victims.
Instead they seem to use the word formerly thought to mean "two" to represent a quantity of 5 or 6, and the "one" word for anything from 1 to 4.
Bartenders and police officers in the US dealing with drunks are very familiar with this method of counting.
Anyone want to try and estimate the error on that?
Lots!
Integrate Keynote and LaTeX
If they asked instead, "how many children do you have", or "how many people are there in that hut", they would most likely
"None of your god-damn business, you pesky anthropologist ... now get your ass out of my rain forest!"
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
How many hogs heads for one of those naked Amazonian tribal chicks?
We used to tease and say "1-2-many" is how baboons count
Maybe they are good at relational database modeling then!
My other account has a 3-digit UID.
society's that use currency/money, rather than hunter/gatherers...
and where do apostrophes come from?
It's also possible all the smart people were doing other important things in the tribe.
"Yeah, they want somebody to sit around and count things all day again. Uh, give them DogBrain, he never does anything all day anyway."
(in Piraha)
Do we get to choose which particular English speakers we send there? I've started a list already (*mumblegrumble!@$Fskn*motherinlaw*).
Do it yourself, because no one else will do it yourself. [beta blockade 10-17 Feb]
well said! That is why I believe stupidity is simply floating point errors caused by limited cache: This will obviously result in variance of constants :-)
To put the whole thing into an analog accuracy befudgement argument just sounds cleverererrreder...
About 2 Library of Congress worth.
What day is it? Could you please tell me?
With only 300 people, they're probably all closely related, which explains why they might have trouble counting family members. It also explains why they have a word for "5 or 6", doubtless used for fingers and toes.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
So, being single, married, and a polygamist is all the same?
It would also be funnier.
"Take cover, the rookie is compiling his first code!"
"We're all gonna die!"
Try not to take me more seriously than I take myself.
"Boopai, the white men are coming. Remind the six Kaaxai sisters that it is forbidden to utter our sacred number words in front of the outsiders."
"Yes, Pibaoi, I shall tell them. I will return in 36 minutes, approximately 5 minutes before the outsiders reach the village."
"Good man, Boopai."
"Oh, and Boopai, while you are there, get the 113 exchange-beads the sisters owe me from 3 months ago."
"Yes, Pibaoi, I will."
- For the complete works of Shakespeare: cat
Wow. Any more trolly and we'd need a "Threshold: -Many!"
Back in the day, my grand-dad bagged himself quite a lot of Canadian piranhas.
What's the value of information that you don't know?
So you ARE working at my company aren't you? I just wish the rookie was placed a little closer to the executive suite...
higher living standards.
And that requires Numb3rs.
Friday nights at 10:00 on CBS...
Cheers!
Atheist: Buddhist in a Prius
No fee needed - it's under a Destructive Commons License. :)
Lord Blackadder, a favorite in the court of Queen Elizabeth I, teaches the foul-smelling peasant Baldrick mathematics:
The lesson
Transcript:
Blackadder: Right, Baldrick, let's try again, shall we? This is called adding. If I have two beans, and then I add two more beans, what do I have?
Baldrick: Some beans.
Blackadder: Yes...and no. Let's try again, shall we? I have two beans, then I add two more beans. What does that make?
Baldrick: A very small casserole.
Blackadder: Baldrick, the ape creatures of the Indus have mastered this. Now try again. One, two, three, four. So how many are there?
Baldrick: Three
Blackadder: What?
Baldrick: And that one.
Blackadder: Three and that one. So if I add that one to the three what will I have?
Baldrick: Oh! Some beans.
Blackadder: Yes. To you Baldrick, the Renaissance was just something that happened to other people wasn't it?
"It is nice to know that the computer understands the problem. But I would like to understand it too." --Eugene Wigner
And bring cameras. Tape these guys 24x7. There's an idea...
WARNING: Smartphones have side effects--most of them undocumented.
Why bother looking them up? We all know that 64.9% of all statistics are made up on the fly. The other 36.7% are erroneous.
Layne
I see nothing really wrong here. Where I live people routinely give non descriptive meaning to words as numbers. I'm learned not to try to figure it out but just accept it. I mean who really knows what the difference is between a ass-load and a shit-load. Or how much is really in a fuck ton.
Just smile and nod, that's what I do.
Supporting World Peace Through Nuclear Pacification
Nah, we'd just write everything in Perl. Pretty much any sequence of characters is a valid Perl program. Don't ask me what it does, but it's a valid program.
Ungabunga: "They are lost and we need to find them!"
Chief Jongajonga: "How many people?!?"
Ungabunga: "Only one"
Chief Jongajonga: "WTF"
Architectural Renderings
The pygmy Bonobo chimps live with fewer predators and more resources than regular chimps. You know what they do with all their spare time? Lots and lots of very dirty primate sex.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Or few. For one the size of a Volkswagen beetle.
Hog's heads or naked chicks?
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
I mean who really knows what the difference is between a ass-load and a shit-load. Or how much is really in a fuck ton.
Well, to be fair the fuck ton is defined in terms of shit-loads; the shit-load is defined in terms of an ass-load; and the ass-load is defined by a fecal mass stored in a hermetically sealed container in a vault in France. Finally, for reasons no one has found, the fecal mass is changing.
Anyway my point is that unit confusion is not unreasonable in this case.
You're thinking small. Why miniaturize the laser, when we could instead enlarge the sharks? -John Searle
Just hope you're not using VS.Net. That background compiler could be deadly.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
Is that a metric shit-load or an imperial shitload?
sudo ergo sum
Or so they tell us . . .
An Invisible Entity of Vast Power whose existence must be taken on faith alone: Liberal Media
What, naked chicks, the size of a Volkswagen Beetle? Where is the shortest way OUT of this jungle, back home into civilization? No, wait...
A World in a Grain of Sand / Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Infinity in the Palm of your Hand / And Eternity in an Hour.
Finally, for reasons no one has found, the fecal mass is changing.
Shit always gets deeper.