‘Anumeric’ people: when a language has no words for numbers

That's interesting. I wonder how far back in evolution this goes and where is the common ancestor that first came with basic math abilities programmed in. And what sort of advantage it creates in the natural environment.

I'll be honest, I'm not going to look up the work.

Do those experiments show definitively that babies and animals understand that 1 + 1 = exactly 2 and nothing else? Or do they understand that 1-ish + 1-ish is more than 1 -- because this isn't that much different from what anumeric groups understand. Less and more are different from discrete arithmetic, strictly speaking.

For instance, 1 fish + 1 fish might be > 3 fish, if the first two fish we're talking about are 20 and 40 lbs respectively, and then the second set of three fish are ten pounders each. In the "real world", hunter-gatherers deal with continuous mass problems at least as often as they deal with standardized, discrete units.

Did these babies and animals understand that 1 + 1 = 2 and only 2, and not 2.5? Or 3?

The abstract idea of arithmetic is something on the scale of reasoning about an idealized circle, say, which doesn't exist in nature on a day-to-day basis.

Non-mobile link:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity

>which has generally been refuted by linguists in recent years

The strong version has been refuted, the 'soft' version is pretty well accepted among linguists.

I think of it as a pie that can be sliced up in different ways. All humans have a full pie. But how we choose to categorize our emotions and thoughts into words absolutely has a huge impact on our cultural and internal priorities, mores etc.

I think your example describes a type of jamais vu[1]. It happens to me (and presumably everyone else) too.

[1]"A sense of unfamiliarity with, or of never having experienced or seen before, something that should be familiar." https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/jamais_vu

Among many linguists the whole study of the Pirahã language is sort of bogus because it goes against a few core ideas of Chomsky that they love so much, almost like a dogma. I've never heard a linguist describing Everett's work as anything other than "cute, but wrong". Personally, I think that's all sad scientifically speaking.

Any examples of languages like this? Are you speaking about the number base that the language works in? I have heard that a base-12 system would be much more useful than base 10 due to its greater factoring potential (2x6, 3x4). This is why there are 12 inches in a foot, and 12 hours in a day, it makes working with thirds and quarter units much easier. Wouldn't it be even greater if we worked in base 12 and 12 was represented as 1-0?

I've wondered if Chinese and other Asian languages make math a little bit more straightforward with their more consistent logic in the naming of numbers. 11 = 10+1, 21 = 2x10+1, etc. European languages are logical to a decent extent but we absolutely have more exceptions.

My favorite numbers language quirk has always been French with its preserving the 'four-score' in its numerology. i.e. 95 = 4x20+15

At about 44 minutes, it states that they are being taught to count? Or do you mean something else?

I found it sad because their previous life/existence was fascinating; it seemed to be an example of a successful (as measured by happiness) human society that was amaterialistic.

Everett defending Everett.

It get that's a common thing, but would prefer an external party to agree with some of his outlandish claims.