Desana numerical symbols: An indigenous creation narrated by Diakuru and Kisibi (original) (raw)
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Revising the history of number: how Ethnomathematics transforms perspectives on indigenous cultures
Revemop, 2020
Many accounts of the history of number rely on written evidence such as clay, stone, and wood engravings or paintings. However, some of the oldest cultural groups (between 5 000 and 30 000 years old) have had only recent contact with the rest of the world, namely between 80 and 140 years ago but these were oral cultures without written records. Finding out about their understanding of number has involved analysis of the types of counting but also how counting related to the rest of their cultural relationships. There is some surprising evidence of diversity of number systems, longevity of the systems, and the interplay with cultural practices that begs respect for Indigenous cultures. Brief summaries of this history of number in Papua New Guinea and Oceania and the diversity of systems is followed by how this new knowledge can inform school mathematics learning in any part of the world.Keywords: History of number. Indigenous mathematics. Papua New Guinea. Melanesia. Pacific. Longevi...
Humans, 2024
Wu, Shiyue, and Francesco Perono Cacciafoco. 2024. Understanding through the Numbers: Number Systems, Their Evolution, and Their Perception among Kula People from Alor Island, Southeastern Indonesia, Humans, 4, 1: 34-49. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3390/humans4010003 - This paper aims at documenting and reconstructing the linguistic processes generating and substantiating the use of number systems, numbers in general, elementary arithmetic, and the related concepts and notions among the Kula people from Alor Island, Southeastern Indonesia. The Kula is a Papuan population from the Alor–Pantar Archipelago (Timor area). The name of their language, Kula (or Kola), corresponds to the ethnonym. The language is, currently, endangered and not completely documented. At the level of linguistic features, numeral systems and the terms for numerals from Eastern Alor exhibit, to some extent, unique characteristics, if compared to other languages spoken in other sectors of the island. Therefore, the Kula numbering system is not only significant at the lexicological and lexicographic level, but also represents the essential role of cognitive strategies (e.g., the choice of the base for the numbering systems and the visual representation of counting with the aid of actual ‘objects’, like hands and fingers) in the coinage of numerical terms among the local speakers. Indeed, the development of numeral systems reflects the evolution of human language and the ability of humans to construct abstract numerical concepts. The way numerals are encoded and expressed in a language can impact the patterns according to which numerical notions are conceptualized and understood. Different numeral systems can indicate variations in cognitive processes involving notions of quantities and measurements. Therefore, the structure and characteristics of a numeral system may affect how numeral concepts are mentally represented and developed. This paper focuses on the number system of the Kula people and the lexical units used by the local speakers to indicate (and to explain) the numbers, with the related concepts, notions, and symbolism. The investigation delves into the degrees of abstraction of the Kula numeral system and tries to ascertain its origins and reconstruct it. Moreover, the article applies to the analysis a comparative approach, which takes into account several Papuan and Austronesian languages from Alor Island and Eastern Timor, with the dual aim of investigating, at a preliminary level, a possible common evolution and/or divergent naming processes in local numbering systems and their historical–linguistic and etymological origins. - Keywords: anthropological linguistics; language documentation; numbering systems; Kula language (Lantoka/Lamtoka-Tanglapui); Alor Island
Toward a history of cross-cultural written symbols
It is our assumption that the goal of primitive written symbols was to create suprasubjective representations. And we feel that it has continued to be the case all over the course of History. In an increasingly globalised world, this goal seems even more evident, and we could highlight that symbolic representations tend to be supraregional, supranational, supracultural and supraideological. The Arabic, the Chinese or the Suzhou numerals are nowadays restricted to specific uses and regions. Instead the Hindu-Arabic numerals, widespread by modern computers, are commonly used everywhere. Millions of people know the meaning of symbols such as 2, 3, 4, 5, =, ≠ , ≥ ,√, ∞. Almost everybody is able to recognize the usual iconic signs that mean ‗disabled person' or ‗smoking is forbidden'. And in spite of their importance in nowadays society a project devoted to the study of the origins, the spread and the evolution of those symbols is still lacking. The aim of our paper is to point out the theoretical and methodological assumptions upon which a history of cross-cultural written symbols should be undertaken.
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Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, 2017
How and when did hominins move from the numerical cognition that we share with the rest of the animal world to number symbols? Objects with sequential markings have been used to store and retrieve numerical information since the beginning of the European Upper Palaeolithic (42 ka). An increase in the number of markings and complexity of coding is observed towards the end of this period. The application of new analytical techniques to a 44–42 ka old notched baboon fibula from Border Cave, South Africa, shows that notches were added to this bone at different times, suggesting that devices to store numerical information were in use before the Upper Palaeolithic. Analysis of a set of incisions on a 72–60 ka old hyena femur from the Les Pradelles Mousterian site, France, indicates, by comparison with markings produced by modern subjects under similar constraints, that the incisions on the Les Pradelles bone may have been produced to record, in a single session, homologous units of numeri...
The Global Victory of the Indo-Arabic Numerals
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Numbers in American Indian Mythology
Numbers in American Indian Mythology, 2016
The paper analyses the symbolism of numbers of North American Indians, the meanings attributed to certain numbers, their role in the daily and ceremonial life of different tribes, as well as their mythological functions. Although American Indian numerical symbolism has much in common with that of other traditional societies, in some aspects it is unique. It is widely represented in their mythology, where numbers not only reveal the system of world order, spatial and temporal relations and understanding of the world which had been developed in the minds of the ancestors of modern American Indians, but to this day remain important symbols and life reference points for them.
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STUDIES IN AFRICAN LANGUAGES AND CULTURES, 2020
In this study we offer a detailed synchronic and diachronic account of the hitherto un(der)-documented numeral systems of the four closely related (Eastern) Bantu language varieties: Ikoma, Nata, Ishenyi, and Ngoreme-together forming the Western Serengeti subgroup. We describe the essentially identical formation and organization of numerals in these language varieties while also noting the morphosyntactic behaviour of numeral expressions and their extended uses. Based on an extensive quantity of comparative data, we furthermore disentangle the historical background to the numerals and their systematization in Western Serengeti, connecting this specific linguistic domain with the wider genealogical profile of this subgroup.
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Numerical recording systems among the indigenous groups of southern Costa Rica, 2023
The main objective of this document is to present indigenous notational systems, and their recent forms of usage, in three Chibchan towns in Costa Rica, an area where there were no empires or states during the pre-Columbian period, to associate the use of this recording technology with these types of political systems, as it has been done until recently. This is a qualitative and exploratory study. In Talamanca, there are records from 1875 to the present. Among Borucas, Ngöbes and Bribris, this practice had mainly a mnemonic use. Thanks to these results, we are left to analyze and rethink the association of this record form with the presence of states or empires in the archaeological past, and the possibility of creating recoding systems.