Re: i do hope this isn't a wind-up....a language with 3 vowels and 8 consonants....


"abelard" <abelard3@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
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On Sun, 14 Dec 2008 16:10:16 -0000, "DVH" <dvh@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:


"abelard" <abelard3@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
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On Sun, 14 Dec 2008 08:53:56 -0000, "DVH" <dvh@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

"abelard" <abelard3@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
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http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/non-fiction/article5199750.ece
"What they can do is, however, far more fascinating than what they
cannot. Their language has a wide array of tones, stresses and
syllable lengths, and its speakers can dispense with vowels and
consonants altogether and convey their meaning by whistling, singing
or humming. Hum-speech is particularly used by mothers talking to
small children. Perhaps hearing this is something like hearing the
very beginning of language, when it was just emerging from the
rhythmic noises made by our human ancestors.

It doesn't seem to be a wind-up. They have words for three numbers -
approximately one (hói), approximately two (hoí), and many (aibaagi).

this is not in accord with the way the times reports everett's reports
of the situation

Agreed. Perhaps when the Times says they have no numbers, it means they
have
no numerals. I now see this: "in recent work Everett has claimed that
Pirahã
lacks even these numerals" (wikipedia). He seems to be quite
controversial.

I think the idea of not being able to count higher than ten comes from
tests
made after Everett's first accounts... I don't know.

See http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/1094492v1

"Members of the Pirahã tribe use a "one-two-many" system of counting. I
ask
whether speakers of this innumerate language can appreciate larger
numerosities without the benefit of words to encode them...Results of
numerical tasks with varying cognitive demands show that numerical
cognition
is clearly affected by the lack of a counting system in the language.
Performance with quantities greater than 3 was remarkably poor, but showed
a
constant coefficient of variation, which is suggestive of an analog
estimation process."


"They have no words for numbers or colours because these are general
and generalisation violates the IEP."

'two' and 'many' are numbers (or if you prefer number concepts or
number based)

though i see a more skeptical review here
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2008/dec/06/daniel-everett-amazon-tribes-piraha
not nearly so interesting if that is nearer the truth...

the first report (times) seems to amount to no universals....
now that would be interesting as (use of, misuse of, belief in)
universals are linked to much irrationality...

OK. I can't comment at the moment since I'm turning up lots and lots of
data.

But, isn't a disbelief in universals irrational? Could you give me some
examples of what you mean by universals?

the pen in your hand is an individual...pen/s is a universal.....
'this is a pen'...puts the object into a class....ie pen in that
sentence is a universal....but the pen is real (individual)
and in your hand (your hand is individual....the word hand
as a category is a universal)

i state/assert that universals only exist in individual heads....
they do not exist in the real 'external' world.....

i further assert/state that the universal in your head is not
'equal' to the universal in my head....it may be statistically
approximate (eg pragmatic)...

OK.

any statistic is a universal...eg 'the average'

if you wish to dig deep you could start hereabouts
http://www.abelard.org/category/category.php#universals


They apparently have good spatial consciousness and other skills needed
for
hunting.

Everett's account (it was serialised on R4 last month) emphasises their
lack
of awareness of future events and hence of future benefits. His daughter
became very ill, and the villagers crowded round the house peering into
the
windows. But they made no effort to alleviate her suffering, since that
would mean doing things which had no immediate effect.

Unsurprisingly, they have a low average age at death.

Thanks to Everett, they're used as a proxy for European numeracy and
hence
literacy in preindustrial times, particularly by Gregory Clark who I've
been
peddling recently.

see above and extend this 'proxy' thingy perhaps

It's a can of worms. There are questions of Whorfian dependency on
language
which I'm not equipped to deal with - I cover many fields and you've
exposed
my lack of specialisation again, damn you!

To simplify, Clark wonders what level of consciousness folk had throughout
the settled agrarian age (beginning 8,000 BC and ending around 1800).

how does he propose to count/label/define the levels?
http://www.abelard.org/iqedfran/iqedfran.htm#stages

Both approximately and precisely, according to the data available.

For example Tacitus recounts how a spectator stand collapsed at a small
gladiatorial demonstration, and claims fifty thousand were killed.

Roman tombstones frequently say the person was over 100 years old when he
died - sometimes 120.

Later, the numbers get more precise: A sample of 250 testators around 1600
gives a highest age at death of 88.

Bear in mind term "innumerate" is approximate. A farmer might be able to
count his twenty-five sheep, but he's relatively innumerate compared to me
who can find the square root of his sheep, divide them by 16.5 and so on.


The relevant paragraph is highlighted here: http://tinyurl.com/6ylp2o

Clearer is the proxy of age heaping, but it's less relevant to your
question
of universals. Age heaping is the tendency of innumerate people to round
their reported age up to the nearest 5 or 0. Only 20% of people ought to
report their age as ending in 5 or 0, but if 40% do so it's logical that a
certain percentage is innumerate. They have some formula to quantify the
variation.

ok with that bit...except...
i see nottink innumerate about rounding!

See above. You're sure you see *nothing* innumerate about it? If not, we may
just be disagreeing as to meaning.


i'm going to be disrupted for a few days....i'll try to keep up

regards

--
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