Science Literature

There can be no disputing the fact that languages vary with time. To describe observed changes, researchers frequently use the word "evolution", with the limited meaning of change over time. However, since Darwinism has profoundly affected culture, there is always the temptation to presume that languages increase in complexity with time, and that ancient languages (and the languages of people with an under-developed culture) are primitive. This tendency is apparent in a recent research paper on the subject of words that handle numbers:

"Apart from their efficiency, cognitive tools can also be ordered according to their presumed evolution. Because tools are typically developed in order to improve their efficiency, it is reasonable to assume that numeration systems evolve from being simpler to more sophisticated."

The keywords here are "presumed evolution". The conceptual model for the development of language involves usage, and as people get more sophisticated in their culture, so also does their language. But is this conceptual model correct?

Hunter-gatherers in the Amazon rainforest

The research was stimulated by recent controversies relating to the Piraha people of the Amazonian Basin: their culture is characterized by an extreme focus on immediate experience, so concepts, vocabulary and grammar outside the present are largely lacking. This case created a discussion about how "numerical cognition depends on language", and in turn this has stimulated further research.

"We set out to highlight the cognitive efficiency of some allegedly primitive systems in another part of the world and to show how they may have evolved from abstract to more specific as a result of cultural adaptation."

The authors based their fieldwork in Papua New Guinea. There were particular reasons for this:

"One of the remarkable facts about numeration systems in Polynesian languages is their large extent. Clearly, Polynesians were interested in high numbers and had a need to operate with them."

They looked particularly at languages with more restricted counting sequences and came up with some very interesting findings.

"To sum up, the linguistic analysis reveals that the specific counting systems in Mangareva did not precede an abstract system but were rather derived from it, despite their nonabstract nature. And the cognitive analysis suggests that this was done deliberately and for rational purposes."

In other language groups in the same area, there were local needs to extend the options for counting and handling large numbers.

"Both lines of development started from the same regularly decimal and abstract numeration system inherited from Proto-Oceanic and therefore speak against a linear evolution of numerical cognition. Numeration systems do not always evolve from simple to more complex and from specific to abstract systems."

This research leads to numerous interesting avenues of thought, but here we will focus on the presuppositions scholars bring to their work. In particular, we should note that the presupposition of 'simple to sophisticated' is misleading in linguistics. There are no primitive languages to research! (for a podcast on this, go here). Languages are complex, and there is no evidence that they ever were anything other than complex. Darwinistic influences are entirely responsible for the concept of a primitive language - not evidence. We do have evidence for complex languages becoming simpler and for complex languages becoming more complex (as is reported in this paper), but the starting point is always complexity. Theories of language based on the gradual emergence of complexity are theory-driven and deserve careful scrutiny, particularly when scholars justify their model with the words: "it is reasonable to assume".

The Limits of Counting: Numerical Cognition between Evolution and Culture
Sieghard Beller and Andrea Bender
Science, 319, 11 January 2008: 213-215.

Abstract: Number words that, in principle, allow all kinds of objects to be counted ad infinitum are one basic requirement for complex numerical cognition. Accordingly, short or object-specific counting sequences in a language are often regarded as earlier steps in the evolution from premathematical conceptions to greater abstraction. We present some instances from Melanesia and Polynesia, whose short or object-specific sequences originated from the same extensive and abstract sequence. Furthermore, the object-specific sequences can be shown to be cognitively advantageous for calculations without notation because they use larger counting units, thereby abbreviating higher numbers, enhancing the counting process, and extending the limits of counting. These results expand our knowledge both regarding numerical cognition and regarding the evolution of numeration systems.

Podcast: There are no primitive languages (22 minutes, May 26 2006)

Bower, B. The Piraha challenge: an Amazonian tribe takes grammar to a strange place, Science News, Dec 10, 2005