Principia Discordia

I just had an interesting thought. In German, there are two ways to say "you" - du is the informal, familiar form, and Sie is the formal address (always capitalized, to differentiate from the other two sies [she and they] - and I'm tragically serious about this). It occurs to me that in Spanish, Italian and in Russian the same kind of system exists. It also occurs to me that in Sweden, this kind of thing was as standard as it now is in Germany, until a few decades ago when people started dropping the formal form and just using the familiar with everyone.
And I wonder... Germany, Spain, Italy, and Russia all have very recent, very clear totalitarian pasts. None of the world's English-speaking nations do. And in these states (at least Germany and Russia, afaik) this kind of mechanism of respect and appeal to authority still exists today. In Sweden, it used to but it's pretty much faded away by now.
Could there be a connection here?
This is a thought I had just now, off the top of my head. Anyone know of any research regarding this matter? Or something?
Also, can we mis-appropriate the du/Sie concept in some comical way?

dutch also has it. still does. although when i feel like i have to use the formal form, i get confused and do it only like 50 percent of the time :) unless the other person is really old or something. i need something that reminds me of using the formal form. but maybe that's just me.

i don't think it has much to do with authoritarian pasts.

as for research, i don't know, but i seem to remember there has been research showing that the language people speak doesn't actually affect their thinking or behaviour in general. and i'm not talking about e-prime here, because as soon as that would enter the creole-phase (with the second generation) the words for "to be" would pop back in and all subtle objective/subjective distinction "gains" would be lost, because children learn language in a particular way, it will always fit a certain mould.

but IMO there is no inherent "temperament" hidden inside language. in culture, yes, maybe, probably. language, no. it's a different mechanism.

Well actually italian case is a little different because we had TWO formal ways of adressing people...
So we have "tu",obviously the same as "du",the familiar form
then we have "lei" (literally "she") that is the formal.When using this,you use third person,so "you are beautiful" in formal sounds literally "she is beautiful".Only,having beautiful,as almost any other italian word indeed,a masculine and a feminine form,you use the appropriate form.
My point against Verbatim is the third,formal,way.
"voi" is the plural of "tu",using this as a respectful form is obviously based on ancient "plurale Majestatis",popes referred to themselves as "We,the pope" for example.
Fascism endorsed this form,despiting the more dumb sounding "lei" form (hey,even fascist aren't ALWAYS wrong).
During fascism "voi" was the official and most used formal form,but is nowadays completely faded and you sound like a shitty Jane Austen character if you use it...
So I think that respectful Vs common form in italy is more related to a later Boss/Worker dicothomy than to fascism,being the fascist form dead.

French has it too, and look at the French.

RJJB, in German the formal Sie is 100% identical in inflection to the "they" version of sie. Only difference is that the formal thingo is capitalized.
000, I don't imply that the language in any way caused totalitarianism, or even was a contributing factor. My point is rather that peoples with strong totalitarian pasts are more prone to actually stick to the formal forms. To Germans, the whole Sie thing comes totally natural, from what I've seen. I don't know if you're a rare Dutchie in that you get confused, but I've never met a German adult who was confused about it. People who "misuse" du do it on purpose, as an attack on authority, of sorts.
I think what I'm wondering is if people who lived under totalitarian regimes have a higher cultural affinity to the formalities of the language, making them less likely to confuse or forget these forms.

hmm

du and Sie are two different degrees of formality. If your hypothesis is correct, languages with more degrees of formality would have more ... hmmm... socially stratified cultures, right? I wonder if we can find one and look at it under a magnifying glass.

Upon research (http://home.unilang.org/wiki3/index.php/Politeness_in_language)--

Japenese and Korean both have even more complex tones of formality.

QuoteJapanese politeness is famous for its array of bewildering politeness levels. The most common formal version is the verb ending -mas(u) at the end of a verb, or the use of suffixes such as -san or -sama, or prefixes such as o- or go-. Depending on whether the person you are speaking with has a higher or lower social status, you would use different personal pronouns or verbs.

QuoteKorean politeness is not that famous, but it is definitively complex... So complex that just a few languages (2 or 3 perhaps) are similar in the politeness aspect. In Korean, you mainly have 3 forms of politeness: the impolite form, known as 반�?(Banmal), the informal polite (most used) and the formal polite. These rules apply for most of the words in the vocabulary.

do you regard Japan and Korea as having the same quality you're trying to identify in cultures that use the formal/informal distinction? (you described it as totalitarianism) The logic suggests that they'd have more of it.

Quote from: Hoopla on April 15, 2008, 01:40:18 PMFrench has it too, and look at the French.

:roll:

to verb:

ok i get your point.

but how do you know whether you should address someone in the formal form in German? relative age difference? or status?

because when i addressed the parents and grandmother of my austrian ex-gf with "Sie", i was later told this was felt as a littlebit odd, since i was considered part of the family now (sort of).

and status, when is someone higher status than you? your doctor? your professor? cause i know examples of both that would say "call me 'du'", kind of.

that's where it gets confusing for me :)

Quotedo you regard Japan and Korea as having the same quality you're trying to identify in cultures that use the formal/informal distinction? (you described it as totalitarianism) The logic suggests that they'd have more  of it.

Well,I think Verb meant more Hierarchy than totalitarianism,so it can be...
Maybe Japanese more complex hierarchy-related forms are influenced by a historically more complex social hierarchy (or structure,anyway)...

Formal forms could even be drawn from a more "tribal" conception:friends and family are "du",the others are "Sie".I don't speak German (unfortunately,it's a language I really dig), but in Italian the respectful form is used not only to show respect,but also to strangers (even if nowadays "tu" is getting more used in situations in wich it would've considered slightly rude sometime ago).
Maybe the different forms just trace a line around us..

Quote from: Hoopla on April 15, 2008, 01:40:18 PM
French has it too, and look at the French.

No doubt they still recall their glory days under Napoleon.  The garlic-eaters!

As for Japan, it was incredibly heirarchical for much of its history.  There is also quite the formal/informal language difference, and on several levels.  There is a level to use with equals (which gets used 90% of the time by youth today, I imagine), the level to use with superiors, and the level to use with inferiors.  Several verbs have entirely different verbs that go with these difference levels, while others simply get modified to hell.

Interestingly, my own study of the language has led me to notice that the more stuff you add on to a verb in Japanese, the more polite it usually gets.

for instance:
To be - iru
To be (polite) - irrasharu (a totally different verb)

So if you were to ask "Is <friend> there?", you would probably just say "<friend>, iru?"  This is totally lazy, since there's a couple of particles and copula that just completely get dropped, but that's colloquial speech.

If you were talking about somebody important, and were polite about such things, you could say several things, one of which being: "<name>-san ga irrashaimasen ka?" Which is actually asking a negative question, in a sort of "I wonder if his munifence NAME might condescend to tell me if he might be here?" way.

"Sorry" is also fun.  "Gomen" becomes "Moshiwakegozaimasen deshita".  Wheeee!

Quote from: triple zero on April 15, 2008, 03:46:45 PM
and status, when is someone higher status than you? your doctor? your professor? cause i know examples of both that would say "call me 'du'", kind of.

This is similar even in English, with professors asking you to call them by their first name instead of Mr/Mrs X.

Of course, hierarchy may not actually mean politically totalitarian.  It may be socially the case, even where there are high levels of freedom, that social norms are far more constrictive than legal ones.

Just wanted to point that out.

Quote from: triple zero on April 15, 2008, 01:12:53 PM
as for research, i don't know, but i seem to remember there has been research showing that the language people speak doesn't actually affect their thinking or behavior in general.

but IMO there is no inherent "temperament" hidden inside language. in culture, yes, maybe, probably. language, no. it's a different mechanism.

But, does culture not impact language? Perhaps verbatim's correlation is not cause, but effect? I'm of the opinion that Korzybski's argument may have been based on seeing effects, rather than identifying causes...

Quote from: triple zero on April 15, 2008, 03:46:45 PM
but how do you know whether you should address someone in the formal form in German? relative age difference? or status?

It's supposedly rather simple but confounds me to no end. Basically, you use Sie, except if:
-you are a student (in school or university) and the 2nd party is too
-the 2nd party is a child (as you can imagine, old people will discerningly use this to show they're old, when speaking to people otherwise Sie-worthy)
-the 2nd party is a friend, or family, or a friend of a friend, or a friend of family, or family of family (or, as you said, family of your Significant Other)
Except this is very slowly falling apart so I always want to say du but don't know if it would be a huge faux pas.

Anyhow, to get to the point, Ratatosk is closer to what I meant. I was thinking this element of language is a sort of indicator of culturally established hierarchy*, which in turn seems to be an excellent basis for totalitarian government and other societal ills. It also seems to me connected with the whole Authoritarian Personality business. Entirely anecdotal now, it seems to me that people who generally display authoritarian traits (i.e appeal to authority and/or assumption thereof) are also particularly likely to use Sie a lot. Young and/or rebellious, free-thinking types, tend to use Sie as little as possible.
I admit this is mere conjecture but it seems like a fascinating superficial effect of things otherwise stirring around beneath the surface.

*And in some sense it is, as it itself is a cultural system of hierarchy

Actually, English lost its informal form of you, as you is formal. Thou was the English informal, but fell out of use. I hypothesize that we English-speakers are overly-ceremonial, proper, and stuck up, so informality was dropped from the laguage. Another interesting note is that in the Anarchist-controlled areas during the Spanish Civil War, stangers and friends alike were pretty invariably greeted as tu (that u is supposed to have an accent, but I have no idea how to accent shit, so whatever).

God is addressed as du, no?

As for the English use of "you": it wasn't originally just a formal pronoun, but also a plural one equivalent to the modern "ya'll". I'm not sure if it was adopted because all English-speaking people were stodgy, really, but rather just general linguistic drift. Pronouns frequently change meaning, such as the modern introduction of the singular "they".

I thought that "ye" and "thee" were the plural forms of "you" and "thou," respectively. Or perhaps we are thinking of the laguage at different point of time?

According to my German teacher, Sie should be used basically whenever you address someone who's not a real close friend or family. People have to work together for literally years before they call eachother du. Now, that's all according to my German teacher, and having never actually been to Germany, I cant verify it.

Quote from: Ratatosk on April 15, 2008, 10:08:53 PM

Quote from: triple zero on April 15, 2008, 01:12:53 PM
as for research, i don't know, but i seem to remember there has been research showing that the language people speak doesn't actually affect their thinking or behavior in general.

but IMO there is no inherent "temperament" hidden inside language. in culture, yes, maybe, probably. language, no. it's a different mechanism.

But, does culture not impact language? Perhaps verbatim's correlation is not cause, but effect? I'm of the opinion that Korzybski's argument may have been based on seeing effects, rather than identifying causes...

I believe that culture does have a large impact on language. A language appears to have an impact on the perception of its speakers, because language is a part of culture, and culture certainly does influence your perceptions. It's sort of a chicken-or-the-egg scenario.  

A very good example of this culture/linguistic relationship is the Pirahã language (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirah%C3%A3_language). Pirahã is a language that has virtually no words to distinguish colors, numbers, or tenses to describe actions in the past. Their language is also extremely minimalistic, phonetically speaking. The people apparently lack the ability to grasp mathematics and instead use approximate measurements to deal with things.

Quote from: The Space Pope on April 16, 2008, 03:02:27 AM
I thought that "ye" and "thee" were the plural forms of "you" and "thou," respectively. Or perhaps we are thinking of the laguage at different point of time?

"Ye" and "you" were the plural forms of "thou" and "thee". "Ye" and "you", however, could be used as formal singular pronouns.

So, into modern English:

Thou - you
Thee - you (accusitive)

Ye - you (formal)
You - you (formal accusitive)

Ye - y'all
You - y'all (accusitive)

Whee, linguistics.

I know

Sometimes I really like it,
but other times it just gives me a headache.  :sad:

I am, alas, a word nerd.  I'll probably end up with a masters in either english lit or in linguistics (or hell, both).  I'm not sure I have quite enough of a logical rigorous mind to be a linguistics MASTAR, though.  Slightly more creative-brained that I am.

Yeah, I like linguistics because I really enjoy learning about languages and the cultures behind them. But I find that all of the formulaic standards and technical terms often times become daunting, and it does take a certain amount of dedication to get into. I'd much rather be able to understand and appreciate a language, rather than be able to identify its innermost mechanics.

Quote from: Pope Naughty Nasturtiums on April 16, 2008, 03:17:21 AM

Quote from: The Space Pope on April 16, 2008, 03:02:27 AM
I thought that "ye" and "thee" were the plural forms of "you" and "thou," respectively. Or perhaps we are thinking of the laguage at different point of time?

"Ye" and "you" were the plural forms of "thou" and "thee". "Ye" and "you", however, could be used as formal singular pronouns.

So, into modern English:

Thou - you
Thee - you (accusitive)

Ye - you (formal)
You - you (formal accusitive)

Ye - y'all
You - y'all (accusitive)

I conceed, good sir, to your superior liguistic knowledge.

Bah, I hardly know much. Most of my information comes from what I can scrounge from the internets.

Beats what I've gathered from High School English courses and a little bit of chance discovery.

The dutch formal 'u' is dying out i think.

I used to get confused all the time too but now i just use it when i want something from the one i'm talking to and i think they'll respond positively to it. (manipulative bastard=me)

i had another point but i forget, i forget again :(

Quote from: Professor Cramulus on April 16, 2008, 02:10:21 AM
God is addressed as du, no?

I think so. Not sure. I know in the bible, only du is used for everyone. I can't recall if this is because of the German of Luther's era was like that, or just because Sie did not map to any of the original languages and it would be a mistranslation (blasphemy!!!).

Quote from: Pope Naughty Nasturtiums on April 16, 2008, 03:07:05 AM

Quote from: Ratatosk on April 15, 2008, 10:08:53 PM

Quote from: triple zero on April 15, 2008, 01:12:53 PM
as for research, i don't know, but i seem to remember there has been research showing that the language people speak doesn't actually affect their thinking or behavior in general.

but IMO there is no inherent "temperament" hidden inside language. in culture, yes, maybe, probably. language, no. it's a different mechanism.

But, does culture not impact language? Perhaps verbatim's correlation is not cause, but effect? I'm of the opinion that Korzybski's argument may have been based on seeing effects, rather than identifying causes...

I believe that culture does have a large impact on language. A language appears to have an impact on the perception of its speakers, because language is a part of culture, and culture certainly does influence your perceptions. It's sort of a chicken-or-the-egg scenario. 

A very good example of this culture/linguistic relationship is the Pirahã language (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirah%C3%A3_language). Pirahã is a language that has virtually no words to distinguish colors, numbers, or tenses to describe actions in the past. Their language is also extremely minimalistic, phonetically speaking. The people apparently lack the ability to grasp mathematics and instead use approximate measurements to deal with things.

I've heard of these people before and read some interesting things on them.

Post upcoming, once my head is clear (give it 14 hours or so)

Quote from: Pope Naughty Nasturtiums on April 16, 2008, 03:07:05 AM

Quote from: Ratatosk on April 15, 2008, 10:08:53 PM

Quote from: triple zero on April 15, 2008, 01:12:53 PM
as for research, i don't know, but i seem to remember there has been research showing that the language people speak doesn't actually affect their thinking or behavior in general.

but IMO there is no inherent "temperament" hidden inside language. in culture, yes, maybe, probably. language, no. it's a different mechanism.

But, does culture not impact language? Perhaps verbatim's correlation is not cause, but effect? I'm of the opinion that Korzybski's argument may have been based on seeing effects, rather than identifying causes...

I believe that culture does have a large impact on language. A language appears to have an impact on the perception of its speakers, because language is a part of culture, and culture certainly does influence your perceptions. It's sort of a chicken-or-the-egg scenario.  

A very good example of this culture/linguistic relationship is the Pirahã language (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirah%C3%A3_language). Pirahã is a language that has virtually no words to distinguish colors, numbers, or tenses to describe actions in the past. Their language is also extremely minimalistic, phonetically speaking. The people apparently lack the ability to grasp mathematics and instead use approximate measurements to deal with things.

Piraha is fascinating... if it's real. IIRC there's only one westerner who speaks it. So if he's telling the truth and fully understands it, it really is quite fascinating.

Quote from: Ratatosk on April 15, 2008, 10:08:53 PM

Quote from: triple zero on April 15, 2008, 01:12:53 PM
as for research, i don't know, but i seem to remember there has been research showing that the language people speak doesn't actually affect their thinking or behavior in general.

but IMO there is no inherent "temperament" hidden inside language. in culture, yes, maybe, probably. language, no. it's a different mechanism.

But, does culture not impact language? Perhaps verbatim's correlation is not cause, but effect? I'm of the opinion that Korzybski's argument may have been based on seeing effects, rather than identifying causes...

yes it does, but not in this way.

"du" and "Sie" are not just two different words to address someone, they also have a different case for making verbs and such.

culture has an impact on what sort of things you have words for, verbs and nouns, but not (so much) on the more deeper levels of grammatical structure.

this is in fact the exact reason why people feel such a hostile resistance to adding words like "hir" and other genderneutral pronouns to their language. to make up your own verbs and nouns, sure, everybody does that all the time, but you can't simply "pick up" new more foundational parts of the language, not without quite some effort, at least.

Quote from: Pope Naughty Nasturtiums on April 16, 2008, 03:07:05 AMA very good example of this culture/linguistic relationship is the Pirahã language (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirah%C3%A3_language). Pirahã is a language that has virtually no words to distinguish colors, numbers, or tenses to describe actions in the past. Their language is also extremely minimalistic, phonetically speaking. The people apparently lack the ability to grasp mathematics and instead use approximate measurements to deal with things.

i don't really believe this. it would be the single example of shape of language actually affecting one's thought patterns.

i'll keep my judgement for when i've had time to read the wikipedia page.

There are some papers on it or something.  I'll find the stuff when I get around to my post.

Quote from: triple zero on April 16, 2008, 02:48:49 PM
culture has an impact on what sort of things you have words for, verbs and nouns, but not (so much) on the more deeper levels of grammatical structure.

Upon reflection this statement kept coming to mind. I have to heartily disagree. I wouldn't say that culture affects language, or vice versa. I would say that culture and language are one thing, a whole, inseparable.

Case at point, yours truly. My native language is American English. I have never lived in the United States, though I am a citizen. In a strange way, I identify with the US, for better or for worse. And I find in many ways I am culturally USAmerican. My sense of humor tends to be American, for instance. The style of thinking, writing and creation I encounter on the part of Americans seems much closer to my own preferences and tastes than even their Israeli counterparts, and I was born and raised in Israel and have only lived outside its borders for almost seven months. Now naturally I have been aware of these matters in a sense for most of my life. I probably chose, more or less consciously, to identify with the US. I could explain why but it's not relevant. The thing is, this goes both ways. I did grow up in Israel, and I do identify with Israeli culture in a sense. I can also see sometimes where it bleeds into what I consider more American about myself. I love Jew and Holocaust jokes, probably more than any of my cousins who grew up in the States (but then, more than my sister as well I think.) This is all anecdotal and again, what I propose is mere conjecture, but separating language from culture seems simply mistaken to me.

After all, a language is a group of dialects. A dialect is often a group of smaller dialects, which are sometimes themselves groups of smaller dialects, where in the end you get a very small group of idiolects - language as used by single individuals. Anything else you could group under "culture" seems to me the same. There is a cultural basis common to what we call the West, and this cultural basis can be (and is) called "Western culture". Then there is a subset of "Western culture" which might be called "Anglo-Saxon culture" where obviously you might find the customs, values and tastes which as a whole can be seen as "American culture" (save the jokes, I agree). Compare this to the fact that all Western cultures (except for a very very tiny, isolated minority) speak different versions of the Indo-European languages. And I believe cultural analysis would probably show that there is a larger group Western culture belongs to which would include the non-"Western" cultures that speak the other Indo-European languages. And among the Western cultures, you will again find a group of distinct cultures that speak Anglo-Saxon languages (or Western Germanic languages as they are called, iirc), one of which is called English, of which there is a large dialect group called American English. The two groupings map almost identically to one another without even trying.

To try and figure out whether language affects culture or culture defines languages is futile. Language is simply a part of the complex we call "culture", and entirely inseparable from it. The degree to which an individual's "cultural traits" vary from the norms of his or her culture will invariably be identical or nearly identical with the degree to which his or her idiolect varies from the norms of that culture's dialect or dialect group.

DISCLAIMER: I know this is not based on research or facts, etc, so no point in calling me on it. These are just my current thoughts about this matter.

Rereading what I wrote I also realize I am basically comparing two maps to say they describe the same territory. That is, I guess, my point. Just because you can map the cultural-linguistic complex in different ways does not mean each map is actually a distinct and separate thing.

Only 360 of them left! That is so sad. :(

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirah%C3%A3_people

Verb, would you consider yourself a third culture kid (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Culture_Kids)?

Here we are, some stuff on Linguistic determinism

http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/short/whorf.html

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/1094492 is on the Pirahã tribe.  If you cant read the full article (I dont know if you need subscription or not) just let me know and I'll copy it.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/0,1518,414291,00.html as well.

Ah, thank you!  :)
I've been meaning to read up more on the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, as well as other generally contested linguistic theories.

Oh, and it does appear that the second link requires a subscription to read the article.

Members of the Pirahã tribe use a "one-two-many" system of counting. I ask whether speakers of this innumerate language can appreciate larger numerosities without the benefit of words to encode them. This addresses the classic Whorfian question about whether language can determine thought. Results of numerical tasks with varying cognitive demands show that numerical cognition is clearly affected by the lack of a counting system in the language. Performance with quantities greater than three was remarkably poor, but showed a constant coefficient of variation, which is suggestive of an analog estimation process.

Department of Biobehavioral Sciences, Columbia University, 525 West 120th Street, New York, NY 10027, USA.

E-mail: pgordon{at}tc.columbia.edu

Is it possible that there are some concepts that we cannot entertain because of the language that we speak? At issue here is the strongest version of Benjamin Lee Whorf's hypothesis that language can determine the nature and content of thought. The strong version of Whorf's hypothesis goes beyond the weaker claim that linguistic structure simply influences the way that we think about things in our everyday encounters. For example, recent studies suggest that language might affect how people mentally encode spatial relations (1–3), and how they conceive of the nature of individual objects and their material substances (4). However, none of these studies suggest that linguistic structure prevents us from entertaining the concepts that are available to speakers of alternative linguistic systems.

The question of whether linguistic determinism exists in the stronger sense has two parts. The first is whether languages can be incommensurate: Are there terms that exist in one language that cannot be translated into another? The second is whether the lack of such translation precludes the speakers of one language from entertaining concepts that are encoded by the words or grammar of the other language. For many years, the answer to both questions appeared to be negative. Although languages might have different ways in which situations are habitually described, it has generally been accepted that there would always be some way in which one could capture the equivalent meaning in any other language (5). Of course, when speaking of translatable concepts, we do not mean terms like "molecule" or "quark," which would not exist in a culture without advanced scientific institutions. Failure to know what molecules or quarks are does not signal an inability to understand the English language—surely people were still speaking English before such terms were introduced. On the other hand, one would question someone's command of English if they did not understand the basic vocabulary and grammar.

Words that indicate numerical quantities are clearly among the basic vocabulary of a language like English. But not all languages contain fully elaborated counting systems. Although no language has been recorded that completely lacks number words, there is a considerable range of counting systems that exists across cultures. Some cultures use a finite number of body parts to count 20 or 30 body tags (6). Many cultures use particular body parts like fingers as a recursive base for the count system as in our 10-based system. Finally, there are cultures that base their counting systems on a small number between 2 and 4. Sometimes, the use of a small-number base is recursive and potentially infinite. For example, it is claimed that the Gumulgal South Sea Islanders counted with a recursive binary system: 1, 2, 2'1, 2'2, 2'2'1, and so on (6).

The counting system that differs perhaps most from our own is the "one-two-many" system, where quantities beyond two are not counted but are simply referred to as "many." If a culture is limited to such a counting system, is it possible for its members to perceive or conceptualize quantities beyond the limited sets picked out by the counting sequence, or to make what we consider to be quite trivial distinctions such as that between four versus five objects? The Pirahã are such a culture. They live along the banks of the Maici River in the Lowland Amazonia region of Brazil. They maintain a predominantly hunter-gatherer existence and reject assimilation into main-stream Brazilian culture. Almost completely monolingual in their own language, they have a population of less than 200 living in small villages of 10 to 20 people. They have only limited exchanges with outsiders, using primitive pidgin systems for communicating in trading goods without monetary exchange and without the use of Portuguese count words. The Pirahã counting system consists of the words: "hói" (falling tone = one") and "hoí" (rising tone = two"). Larger quantities are designated as "baagi" or "aibai" (= many").

I was able to take three field trips, ranging from 1 week to 2 months, living with the Pirahã along with Daniel Everett and Keren Everett, two linguists who have lived and worked with the tribe for over 20 years and are completely familiar with their language and cultural practices. Observations were informed by their background of continuous and extensive immersion in the Pirahã culture. During my visits, I became interested in the counting system of the Pirahã that I had heard about and wanted to examine whether they really did have only two numbers and how this would affect their ability to perceive numerosities that extended beyond the limited count sequence.

Year 1: Initial observations. On my first week-long trip to the two most up-river Maici villages, I began with informal observations of the Pirahã use of the number words for one and two. I was also interested in the possibility that the one-two-many system might actually be a recursive base-2 system, that their limited number words might be supplemented by more extensive finger counting, or that there might be taboos associated with counting certain kinds of objects as suggested by Zaslavsky in her studies of African counting systems (7, 8). Keren Everett developed some simple tasks to see if our two Pirahã informants could refer to numerosities of arrays of objects using Pirahã terms and any finger counting system they might have. Instructions and interactions with participants were in the Pirahã language. When it was necessary to refer to the numerosity of an array, Keren Everett used the Portuguese number words embedded in Pirahã dialogue. Such terms are understood by the Pirahã to be the language of Brazilians, but their meaning is not understood. In addition to this short session, during the first year trip, I continuously took opportunities to probe for counting abilities in everyday situations.

The outcome of these informal studies revealed the following: (i) There was no recursive use of the count system—the Pirahã never used the count words in combinations like "hói-hoí" to designate larger quantities. (ii) Fingers were used to supplement oral enumeration, but this was highly inaccurate even for small numbers less than five. In addition, "hói" and "hoí," the words for "one" and "two," were not always used to denote those quantities. Whereas the word for "two" always denoted a larger quantity than the word for "one" (when used in the same context), the word for "one" was sometimes used to denote just a small quantity such as two or three or sometimes more. An example of the use of counting words and finger counting is given in Table 1 in one of the informal sessions with an informant who appeared to be in his 50s. Videotaped extracts from the session are included in the supporting online materials (movie S1).


Table 1. Use of fingers and number words by Pirahã participant. The arrow (->) indicates a shift from one quantity to the next.
No. of objects    Number word used    No. of fingers
1    hói (= 1)    
2    hoí (= 2)    2
   aibaagi (= many)    
3    hoí (= 2)    3
4    hoí (= 2)    5 -> 3
   aibai (= many)    
5    aibaagi (= many)    5
6    aibaagi (= many)    6 -> 7
7    hói (= 1)*    1
   aibaagi (= many)    5 -> 8
8       5 -> 8 -> 10
9    aibaagi (= many)    5 -> 10
10
   
   5

* This use of "one" might have been a reference to adding one rather than to the whole set of objects.

The interpretation of these observations is limited by their informal nature and small sample size. However, the observations are supplemented with 20 years of observation by the Everetts as trained linguists in their analysis of the Pirahã language. One particularly interesting finding is that "hói" appears to designate "roughly one" — or a small quantity whose prototype is one. Most of the time, in the enumeration task, "hói" referred to one, but not always. An analogy might be when we ask for "a couple of Xs" in English, where the prototypical quantity is two, but we are not upset if we are given three or four objects. However, we surely would be upset if given only one object, because the designation of a single object has a privileged status in our language. There is no concept of "roughly one" in a true integer system. Even the informal use of the indefinite article "a X" strictly requires a singular reference. In Pirahã, "hói" can also mean "small," which contrasts with "ogii" (= big), suggesting that the distinction between discrete and continuous quantification is quite fuzzy in the Pirahã language.

Year 2: Experiments in nonverbal numerical reasoning. On my second visit to the Pirahã villages for a 2-month period, I developed a more systematic set of procedures for evaluating the numerical competence of members of the tribe. The experiments were designed to require some combination of cognitive skills such as the need for memory, speed of encoding, and mental-spatial transformations. This would reveal the extent to which such task demands interact with numerical ability, such as it is. Details of the methods are available on Science Online (9). There were seven participants, who included all six adult males from two villages and one female. Most of the data were collected on four of the men who were consistently available for participation. The tasks were devised to use objects that were available and familiar to the participants (sticks, nuts, and batteries). The results of the tasks, along with schematic diagrams, are presented in Fig. 1. These are roughly ordered in terms of increasing cognitive demand. Any estimation of a person's numerical competence will always be confounded with performance factors of the task. Because this is unavoidable, it makes sense to explore how performance is affected by a range of increasingly demanding tasks.


   Fig. 1. Results of number tasks with Pirahã villagers (n = 7). Rectangles indicate AA batteries (5.0 cm by 1.4 cm), and circles indicate ground nuts. Center line indicates a stick between the author's example array (below the line) and the participant's attempt to "make it the same" (above the line). Tasks A through D required the participant to match the lower array presented by the author using a line of batteries; task E was similar, but involved the unfamiliar task of copying lines drawn on paper; task F was a matching task where the participant saw the numerical display for only about 1 s before it was hidden behind a screen; task G involved putting nuts into a can and withdrawing them one by one; (participants responded after each withdrawal as to whether the can still contained nuts or was empty); task H involved placing candy inside a box with a number of fish drawn on the lid (this was then hidden and brought out again with another box with one more or one less fish on the lid, and participants had to choose which box contained the candy). [View Larger Version of this Image (33K GIF file)]


In the matching tasks (A, B, C, D, and F), I sat across from the participant and with a stick dividing my side from theirs, I presented an array of objects on my side of the stick (below the line in the figures) and they responded by placing a linear array of AA batteries (5.0 cm by 1.4 cm) on their side of the table (above the line). The matching task provides a kind of concrete substitute for counting. It shares the element of placing tokens in one-to-one correspondence with individuals in a to-be-counted group. The first matching tasks began with simple linear arrays of batteries. This progressed to clusters of nuts matched to the battery line, orthogonal matching of battery lines, matching of battery lines that were unevenly spaced, and copying lines on a drawing. In all of these matching experiments, participants responded with relatively good accuracy with up to 2 or 3 items, but performance deteriorated considerably beyond that up to 8 to 10 items. In the first simple linear matching task A, performance hovered around 75% up to the largest quantities. Matching tasks with greater cognitive demands required mental transposition of the sample array to the match array without benefit of tagging for numerical quantity. Performance dropped precipitously to 0% for the larger target set sizes in these tasks. One exception was task D with unevenly spaced objects. Although this was designed to be a difficult task, participants showed an anomalous superiority for large numerosities over small. Performance initially deteriorated with increased set size up to 6 items, then shot up to near perfect performance for set size 7 through 10. A likely interpretation of this result was that the uneven spacing for larger set sizes promoted recoding of arrays into smaller configurations of two or three items. This allowed participants to use a chunking strategy of treating each of the subgroups as a matching group.

When time constraints were introduced in task F (exposing the array for only 1 s), performance was drastically affected and there was a clear correlation between set size and accuracy beginning at set size 3. A line-drawing task (E) was highly affected by set size, being one of the worst performances of all. Not only do the Pirahã not count, but they also do not draw. Producing simple straight lines was accomplished only with great effort and concentration, accompanied by heavy sighs and groans. The final two tasks (G and H) required participants to keep track of a numerical quantity through visual displacement. In one case, they were first allowed to inspect an array of nuts for about 8 s. The nuts were placed in a can, and then withdrawn one at a time. Participants were required to say, after each withdrawal, if there were still any nuts left in the can or if it was empty. Performance was predictably strongly affected by set size from the very smallest quantities. The final task involved hiding candy in a box, which had a picture of some number of fish on the lid. The box was then hidden behind the author's back, and two cases were revealed, the original with the candy, and another with one more or one less fish on the lid. For quite small comparisons such as three versus four, performance rarely went over 50% chance responding.

There is a growing consensus in the field of numerical cognition that primitive numerical abilities are of two kinds: First, there is the ability to enumerate accurately small quantities up to about three items, with only minimal processing requirements (10–16). I originally termed this ability "parallel individuation" (17, 18), referring to how many items one can encode as discrete unique individuals at the same time in memory. Without overt counting, humans and other animals possess an analog procedure whereby numerical quantities can be estimated with a limited degree of accuracy (11, 19–26). Many researchers believe that large-number estimation, although based on individuated elements, is coalesced into a continuous analog format for mental representation. For example, the discrete elements of a large number array might be represented as a continuous length of a line, where a longer line inexactly represents a larger numerosity.

When people use this analog estimation procedure, the variability of their estimates tends to increase as the target set size increases. The ratio of average error to target set size is known as Weber's fraction and can be indexed by a measure known as the coefficient of variation—the standard deviation of the estimates divided by set size (23). Although performance by the Pirahã on the present tasks was quite poor for set sizes above two or three, it was not random. Figure 2 shows the mean response values mapped against the target values for all participants in the simple matching tasks A, B, C, and F. The top graph shows that mean responses and target values are almost identical. This means that the Pirahã participants were trying hard to get the answers correct, and they clearly understood the tasks. The lower graph in Fig. 2 shows that the standard deviation of the estimates increases in proportion to the set size, resulting in a constant coefficient of variation of about 0.15 after set size three, as predicted by the dual model of mental enumeration. This value for the coefficient of variation is about the same as one finds in college students engaged in numerical estimation tasks (23). Data for individual tasks and individual participants were consistent with the averaged trends shown in Fig. 2. Graphs are available in the supporting online materials (figs. S2 and S3).


   Fig. 2. (A) Mean accuracy and standard deviation of responses in matching tasks and (B) coefficient of variation. Figures for individual tasks and individual participants are available in the supporting online materials. [View Larger Version of this Image (18K GIF file)]


The results of these studies show that the Pirahã's impoverished counting system limits their ability to enumerate exact quantities when set sizes exceed two or three items. For tasks that required additional cognitive processing, performance deteriorated even on set sizes smaller than three. Participants showed evidence of using analog magnitude estimation and, in some cases, they took advantage of spatial chunking to decrease the cognitive demands of larger set sizes. This split between exact enumeration ability for set sizes smaller than three and analog estimation for larger set sizes parallels findings from laboratory experiments with adults who are prevented from explicit counting; studies of numerical abilities in prelinguistic infants, monkeys, birds, and rodents; and in recent studies using brain-imaging techniques (11, 23–30).

The analog estimation abilities exhibited by the Pirahã are a kind of numerical competence that appears to be immune to numerical language deprivation. But because lower animals also exhibit such abilities, robustness in the absence of language is already established. The present experiments allow us to ask whether humans who are not exposed to a number system can represent exact quantities for medium-sized sets of four or five. The answer appears to be negative. The Pirahã inherit just the abilities to exactly enumerate small sets of less than three items if processing factors are not unduly taxing (31).

In evaluating the case for linguistic determinism, I suggest that the Pirahã language is incommensurate with languages that have counting systems that enable exact enumeration. Of particular interest is the fact that the Pirahã have no privileged name for the singular quantity. Instead, "hói" meant "roughly one" or "small," which precludes any precise translation of exact numerical terms. The present study represents a rare and perhaps unique case for strong linguistic determinism. The study also provides a window into how the possibly innate distinction (26) between quantifying small versus large sets of objects is relatively unelaborated in a life without number words to capture those exact magnitudes (32).

References and Notes

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    * 2. P. Li, L. Gleitman, Cognition 3, 83 (2002).
    * 3. S. C. Levinson, S. Kita, D. B. M. Haun, B. H. Rasch, Cognition 4, 84 (2002).
    * 4. J. A. Lucy, Grammatical Categories and Cognition. (Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge, 1992).
    * 5. R. W. Brown, E. H. Lenneberg, J. Abnorm. Soc. Psychol. 49, 454 (1954). [CrossRef] [ISI]
    * 6. K. Menninger, Number Words and Number Symbols: A Cultural History of Numbers (MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 1969).
    * 7. C. Zaslavsky, Africa Counts: Number and Pattern in African Culture (Prindle, Weber, and Schmidt, Boston, 1973).
    * 8. R. Gelman, C. R. Gallistel, The Child's Understanding of Number (Harvard Univ. Press, Cambridge, MA, 1978).
    * 9. Materials and methods are available as supporting material on Science Online.
    * 10. S. Carey, Mind Lang. 16, 37 (2001).
    * 11. L. Feigenson, S. Carey, M. Hauser, Psychol. Sci. 13, 150 (2002). [CrossRef] [ISI] [Medline]
    * 12. B. J. Scholl, Cognition 80, 1 (2001). [CrossRef] [ISI] [Medline]
    * 13. T. J. Simon, Cognit. Dev. 12, 349 (1997). [CrossRef]
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    * 15. C. Uller, G. Huntley-Fenner, S. Carey, L. Klatt, Cognit. Dev. 14, 1 (1999).
    * 16. F. Xu, Cognition 89, B15 (2003). [CrossRef] [ISI] [Medline]
    * 17. P. Gordon, paper presented at the biennial meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development, New Orleans, LA, 25 to 28 March 1993.
    * 18. P. Gordon, paper presented at the European Society for Philosophy and Psychology, Paris, France, 1 to 4 September 1994.
    * 19. W. H. Meck, R. M. Church, J. Exp. Psychol. Anim. Behav. Processes 9, 320 (1983). [CrossRef] [ISI] [Medline]
    * 20. H. Barth, N. Kanwisher, E. Spelke, Cognition 86, 201 (2003). [CrossRef] [ISI] [Medline]
    * 21. S. Cordes, R. Gelman, C. R. Gallistel, J. Whalen, Psychon. Bull. Rev. 8, 698 (2001). [ISI] [Medline]
    * 22. C. R. Gallistel, The Organization of Learning (MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 1990).
    * 23. J. Whalen, C. R. Gallistel, R. Gelman, Psychol. Sci. 10, 130 (1999). [CrossRef] [ISI]
    * 24. S. Cordes, R. Gelman, C. R. Gallistel, J. Whalen, Psychon. Bull. Rev. 8, 698 (2001).
    * 25. S. Dehaene, The Number Sense (Oxford Univ. Press, New York, 1997).
    * 26. B. Butterworth, What Counts (Simon & Schuster, New York, 1999).
    * 27. J. S. Lipton, E. S. Spelke, Psychol. Sci. 14, 396 (2003). [CrossRef] [ISI] [Medline]
    * 28. M. D. Hauser, F. Tsao, P. Garcia, E. S. Spelke, Proc. R. Soc. London B 270, 1441 (2003). [Medline]
    * 29. S. Dehaene, E. Spelke, P. Pinel, R. Stanescu, S. Tsivkin, Science 284, 970 (1999).[Abstract/Free Full Text]
    * 30. J. R. Platt, D. M. Johnson, Learn. Motiv. 2, 386 (1971). [CrossRef]
    * 31. Cordes et al. (24) suggest that analog representations exist even for n = 2, because subjects made errors on a task in which counting was suppressed during rapid button pressing. However, errors in this range also occurred when subjects counted and might have been the result of perseveration errors rather than reflecting numerical representations.
    * 32. One can safely rule out that the Pirahã are mentally retarded. Their hunting, spatial, categorization, and linguistic skills are remarkable, and they show no clinical signs of retardation.
    * 33. I thank D. Everett and K. Everett for making this research possible; SIL in Porto Velho and E. Ramos for logistical support; and S. Carey, L. Feigenson, D. Everett, C. Tamis-LeMonda, M. Miozzo, G. Marcus, F. Xu, and K. Adolph for comments on the paper.

w00t thanks!

Cram, I'm not sure... I lived in the same city for my whole life until I left Israel. But in a sense, I was immersed in two different cultures in Jerusalem - Israeli culture and what I call American Jerusalemite culture (most American Jerusalemites wouldn't use that term but it seems to me a distinct culture and a relatively distinct group.) But really the latter was always "my" culture and the former "theirs"... I only really started appreciating Israeli culture as my own in the last year or two before I emigrated. But my mother is very clearly a TCK (moved to Israel from the States when she was 9 and lived a few years in the US as an adult before I was born) and my father every bit an Israeli, so if a TCK is defined by growing up outside the parents' culture, I suppose I am. (Because whether I was immersed in a distinct cultural group in Jerusalem or not, I've spent a great deal of time out of at least one of my parents' cultures.)
Frankly this is the first time I hear about Third Culture Kids and by glossing over the Wikipedia entry it's hard to tell, but some things there definitely ring a bell.

Quote from: atrasicarius on April 16, 2008, 03:03:28 AM
According to my German teacher, Sie should be used basically whenever you address someone who's not a real close friend or family. People have to work together for literally years before they call eachother du. Now, that's all according to my German teacher, and having never actually been to Germany, I cant verify it.

In theory the rules are that nobody who is not family or friends or introduced clearly as a friend will always be addressed as "sie" but there are degrees of formality even then. According to the same rules if you are introduced to somebody's family you wait until they offer you to call them "du". However, very old-fashioned and very formal environments aside (and they are very easy to recognize), these rules do no longer apply.
At the moment it seems to be the other way round: Unless you are talking to high-ranking politicians or your new boss or you say "du".
You can still say  "Sie Arschloch" to indicate that you do not want to know somebody.

God is addressed as "du, Herr" to indicate that he may be your lord but he is still close to you. (Or whatever.) (and yes, I am a native speaker)