Researchers at MIT recently discovered an Amazonian language with only 300 speakers that has no word to express the concept of “one” or any other specific number.
The team, led by MIT professor of brain and cognitive sciences Edward Gibson, found that members of the Piraha tribe in remote northwestern Brazil use language to express relative quantities such as “some” and “more,” but not precise numbers.
It is often assumed that counting is an innate part of human cognition, said Gibson, “but here is a group that does not count. They could learn, but it’s not useful in their culture, so they’ve never picked it up.”
If it is the case that numbers are not inherent to human societies, then what type of technology are they? The researchers suggest that numbers arise in language as a consequence of a social need for them. What could this need have originally been? Perhaps trade and commerce are at the root? But isn’t this supposed to be a natural behaviour of man?
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