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Date: Fri, 20 Aug 2004 09:33:59 +0100
From: Zefram <zefram@fysh.org>
To: lojban-list@lojban.org
Subject: [lojban] Piraha and SWH
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I've just read a newpaper article about the Piraha group of Amazonian
Indians and their amazing language.  The article was about the language
lacking any exact number words: there are words for "few" and "many",
but not "one", "two", or "three".  Piraha people turn out to be incapable
of the simplest counting tasks.  They're unable to distinguish between
groups of four and five objects.  When asked to copy a group of identical
objects, they can't accurately reproduce any number higher than about
four.  It's an interesting case for the SWH.

I can't find a copy of the article online, or any other short description
of that phenomenon.  However, I did find a scholarly paper which discusses
several similarly interesting aspects of the Piraha language:

	"Cultural Constraints on Grammar and Cognition in Piraha",
	Daniel L. Everett, Department of Linguistics,
	The University of Manchester,
	http://lings.ln.man.ac.uk/info/staff/DE/cultgram.pdf

	extract from the abstract: "... Piraha culture constrains
	communication to non-abstract subjects which fall within the
	immediate experience of interlocutors.	This constraint explains
	several very surprising features of Piraha grammar and culture
	...".

It's fascinating reading.

-zefram