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Tribe has best excuse for poor math skills
If ever there was a topic fit for "Short Attention Span Theater ..."Language lacks words for most numbers Some people have a great excuse for being bad at math -- their language lacks the words for most numbers, U.S.-based researchers reported on Thursday. Members of a tiny, isolated Brazilian tribe have no words for numbers other than "one or a few" or "many" and seem to have trouble counting, the researchers reported. What no one realizes is that these people could be in great demand as ballot verification staff. The Piraha tribespeople are clearly intelligent, so the finding opens questions into how language may affect thinking, the researchers say in this weekâs issue of the journal Science. Peter Gordon of Columbia University in New York and colleagues studied the Piraha because there had been reports about their unique use of numbers. Talk about an anthropological study devoid of statistics. "I was able to take three field trips ranging from one week to two months living with the Piraha along with Dr. Daniel Everett and Keren Everett, two linguists who have lived and worked with the tribe for over 20 years and are completely familiar with their language and cultural practices," Gordon writes in his report. "They live along the banks of the Maici River in the Lowland Amazonia region of Brazil. They maintain very much of a hunter-gatherer existence and reject assimilation into mainstream Brazilian culture," he added. There are only about 200 Piraha and they live in groups of 10 to 20. "And not one of them is an accountant!" Posted by: Zenster 2004-08-20 |
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