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What happens when a language has no numbers?

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Re: What happens when a language has no numbers?

#21

Post by apostlion »

adamnemecek wrote: post #13
curiousdannii wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"How many children/pigs/dogs are in the house? Did we forget any?"

Yeah, or alternatively how many wolves are approaching? It seems like it would be advantageous to be able to communicate whether 5 or 50.

Fuzzy buckets are wonderful for exactly this kind of case. If you're alone, it doesn't matter whether there are 5 or 50 wolves - you're fucked anyway.

On the other hand, if you're a scout for an armed band of hunters, 5 are no longer “a lot”, it is “some” - and 50 is a lot.

Re: What happens when a language has no numbers?

#22

Post by apostlion »

elnate wrote: post #10
riffraff wrote: post #6

trivia: there are some languages out there which don't have different concepts for PIROS and VÖRÖS, and just bunch them together under a single color ("red" in english).

Red is a broad group of colours. There are plenty of more specific names for types of red, like scarlet or ruby, does that qualify?

I've seen somewhere a test for how many color words are there in the language - only color-words which do not correspond to a specific material or plant which color is emulated are accepted. So “red” or “blue” is fine, as is “piros” or “vörös” - but “sky blue” (color of sky), “ruby” (color of the gemstone) or “scarlet” (color of the Scarlet cloth) are not.

Re: What happens when a language has no numbers?

#23

Post by peteretep »

Theodores wrote: post #14

...they spark up conversation with the neighbouring tribe that has no concept of time! http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-13452711 ...and then it all falls to pieces because they have no concept of god! More to the point, what is the big deal with counting if there is no concept of private property?

Well, you know, science and computers and medicine and all that stuff.

Re: What happens when a language has no numbers?

#25

Post by seandougall »

dm2 wrote: post #7

It's not much different than most people rarely using Greek characters as formulas or constants.

Pretty different, actually -- the point is that they (supposedly) have no counting system at all. They lack the concept of numbers, not just the words.

Re: What happens when a language has no numbers?

#26

Post by riffraff »

elnate wrote: post #10
riffraff wrote: post #6

trivia: there are some languages out there which don't have different concepts for PIROS and VÖRÖS, and just bunch them together under a single color ("red" in english).

Red is a broad group of colours. There are plenty of more specific names for types of red, like scarlet or ruby, does that qualify?

in english/italian etc.. I can say that magenta and scarlet are both kinds of red, but there is nothing above the hungarian voros & piros, you can only say they are both colors.

Re: What happens when a language has no numbers?

#27

Post by prof_hobart »

apostlion wrote: post #22
elnate wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Red is a broad group of colours. There are plenty of more specific names for types of red, like scarlet or ruby, does that qualify?

I've seen somewhere a test for how many color words are there in the language - only color-words which do not correspond to a specific material or plant which color is emulated are accepted. So “red” or “blue” is fine, as is “piros” or “vörös” - but “sky blue” (color of sky), “ruby” (color of the gemstone) or “scarlet” (color of the Scarlet cloth) are not.

So orange wouldn't be counted as a colour in English? I'm not sure what value there is in measuring the amount of colour names in a language based purely on their etymology.

Re: What happens when a language has no numbers?

#28

Post by prof_hobart »

petsos wrote: post #19
adamnemecek wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, or alternatively how many wolves are approaching? It seems like it would be advantageous to be able to communicate whether 5 or 50.

What would you do differently if it was 5 or 8 wolves? Having concepts like "a few" and "a lot" seems to be enough for this case.

Decide whether to send one or two of your group of 8 hunters after each of the wolves?

Re: What happens when a language has no numbers?

#29

Post by prof_hobart »

Theodores wrote: post #14

...they spark up conversation with the neighbouring tribe that has no concept of time! http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-13452711 ...and then it all falls to pieces because they have no concept of god! More to the point, what is the big deal with counting if there is no concept of private property?

I left the house with a somewhat largish amount of children. I've still got a somewhat largish amount of children, so I can't have left any of them behind.

Re: What happens when a language has no numbers?

#30

Post by apostlion »

prof_hobart wrote: post #27
apostlion wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've seen somewhere a test for how many color words are there in the language - only color-words which do not correspond to a specific material or plant which color is emulated are accepted. So “red” or “blue” is fine, as is “piros” or “vörös” - but “sky blue” (color of sky), “ruby” (color of the gemstone) or “scarlet” (color of the Scarlet cloth) are not.

So orange wouldn't be counted as a colour in English? I'm not sure what value there is in measuring the amount of colour names in a language based purely on their etymology.

Orange wouldn't. By this logic, many oddities in color naming can be abstracted over languages, see for example:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_Color_Terms:_Their_Univer...

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