h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

mmmmmmmmmm?

Do chimps count?

http://www.summerscience.org.uk/07/node/15

Traveller in Time on top
"Hi there and welcome back

Think the greetings were first, must be some kind of words "

I would think a word for OW would have been invented early on.

Many animals can keep track of changes in small numbers of objects, but until you have words you can't have names for the numbers, so any sort of numbering or counting system must logically postdate the first words.

Noggin

Traveller in Time on top
"I doubt there were first numbers then words, the first words needed are greetings and alerts. "

I saw a documentary about numbers and the number zero, and apparently counting is only really needed in more complex societies (towns and cities) where there's a need to keep track of quantities. Otherwise, all you need is 1, 2, 3, lots. I seem to remember an interview with a man from a tribe that didn't have numbers who couldn't say how many children he had beyond "many", and obviously had never felt the need to.

"any sort of numbering or counting system must logically postdate the first words."

Not really. Providing you can agree symbolic representation there is no reason why just holding up 1 finger cannot mean '1' or 2 fingers '2' etc. you don;t need a word for 2 just a concept. The word 'two' is just as much symbolic as the gesture. And different cultures have developed different counting gestures. One that I remember uses the fingers for 1-4 but then uses a finger placed on the wrist, inner elbow, should etc to indicate other numbers.

"apparently counting is only really needed in more complex societies (towns and cities) where there's a need to keep track of quantities"
Hmmm, that sounds a bit 'stupid savages' to me. If I am the chief of the tribe have 'many' cattle then I could lose half of them and still have 'many' cattle and be unable to prove it, although I would probably suspect it. Whereas if I had 100 cattle and lost 50 I'd know that someone has been pilfering.

I can't believe that numbers were needed before the urge to express hunger, fear or warnings arose.

But to qualify the above - please define "word". Where is the fine line between a grunt (or a squeak, scream, shout) and a word?

I imagine the first poster might well have meant written words and written numbers.

ah - but written numbers as in 1,2,3,4 or as in one, two, three, four?

All the really old writing that we know of is pictographic rather than phonetic, including symbols for numbers.

Noggin

>>I can't believe that numbers were needed before the urge to express hunger, fear or warnings arose.<<

Indeed. Those are just simple 'one syllable' type communications though and don't need a 'word'. Birds can equally communicate such things as that with cheeps, squawks and trills unique to their species.

I can't see - although I'd be interested to see if I am corrected here - how there can be any kind of complexity to a communication system without both words and numbers being involved.

For example it seems useless to communicate that a food source for a family group has been located without being able to communicate both how far away it is and in what quantity (enough or not enough) and both need numbers, however approximate.
Similarly, if a pack of wolves was on the prowl it would be useful to know if there were just the two wolves or 50 - an important difference to a tribe of 20 individuals in terms of fight or flight.

I think Ellen put it beautifully with OW. Surely from a point of view of necessity, the first concept that would need mutual agreement on a representation would be scary-thing-not to-eat-touch-or-hump.

But that again toughes on my argument - does that really count as communication by language. Rats can squeak in pain but don't really talk to each other do they.

I'd guess the line between what you might call Received Grunting and legitimate language would have been crossed at whatever point caveman A pointed in a certain direction and called it "Ooh-ooh" instead of the traditional "ooh" to denote it was unsafe; and caveman B took the hint and shared his knowledge with others. Two oohs bad.

It wouldn't have to be especially sophisticated, just agreed upon; language as a code for understanding things beyond the basic primal responses, which are presumably more lungs than brain.

Vervet monkeys have three distinct words: for leopard, snake, and eagle. It took people ages to work it out, by noting their reactions to sounds played back on a stereo.

Obligatory link()

http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/003192.html

Ah but how do we know they don't also have a squeak for 'three'?

*comes back from that link*

Interesting I guess the 'words' have the upper hand so far.