Linguistics

A language with no words for exact numbers, not even 'one'

The Pirahã, an Amazonian people, use only relative quantity words like 'few' and 'many' — researchers found no way to express an exact number in their language at all. In matching tasks, Pirahã speakers performed accurately without a memory component but grew inexact once one was required, suggesting number words are a cultural tool for memory rather than an automatic feature of language.

Michael C. Frank, Daniel L. Everett, Evelina Fedorenko, Edward Gibson, Number as a cognitive technology: evidence from Pirahã language and cognition — Cognition, 2008

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