In this thread an Amazonian tribe is mentioned that supposedly doesn’t have any concept of time. Later on I mention that I long ago read about Amazonian tribes who don’t have any number above three. Are there actually groups of people who don’t have any terms for time or large numbers? Or are these cases of gullible anthropologists?
I don’t want to sound like a jerk, but they were referenced in the other thread.
I thought the OP was referencing yet another tribe. Do you think I misread?
Here’s a post in the news group Language List that mentions several languages which supposedly have no numbers:
Having read the Wiki article, it raises the question as to why they have no need for numbers, colours, distinction between singular and plural and other refinements.
Surely at some point, someone must have wanted to say - ‘I say, chaps - we’ve got twelve yellow and six brown fish here. I’ll have nine yellow ones and three brown, and the rest of you can have the others.’
People can get by without specific words for lots of things. If I reference “that thing that hangs down in the back of your throat” you’ll know exactly what I mean. Most people wouldn’t even recognize the correct word for it.
In the fish example, you could say “I want these fish” and then use your hands to indicate. And instead of yellow and brown, you might say “We have lighter fish and darker fish.”
These wouldn’t work in a written language, of course. Maybe that’s why they seem so strange to us. But in an oral culture, they can rely on nonverbal communication to convey the “missing” information. Heck, they might consider it redundant to specify the number, color, pluralness, etc. since that information is plainly obvious to everyone.
Even in English, the bulk of what we communicate is done so nonverbally through tone of voice, facial expressions, gestures, etc. A phrase like “That’s just great” really can’t be communicated through words alone - we need context and voice inflection to know whether it is good or bad.
There might be no motivation for a person to want nine yellow fish, if he can’t eat them all himself before they go bad.
They are very small fish.