...sooooo, we know math from birth? ..or conception even?

Numbers, The only true universal language.

That's what the brain does, it develops areas that get stimulation as its developing, and prunes those neurons it doesn't need and reassigns them to other tasks.

There are tribes around the world, and specifically in Panama in this case, where they do not have a number system as we know it. They have, for example, only the numbers "one," "two," and "many" or "more than two." Researchers have done many tests on this, and have come to the conclusion that they're not just suffering from culture confusion, they really can't tell the difference between having five rocks in one hand and four in the other. Their brains have disposed of those functions in favor of other ones.

For every number, there is a word. And since there are an infinite number of numbers, it follows that there must also be an infinite number of words. So, to suggest that there cannot be a word that doesn't refer to a number implies that there is a limitation on the number of words that are possible. Since there can be no limitation on an infinite quantity, it follows that a one-to-one correspondence between all words and all numbers is not enforceable.

Seems more likely to me that rather than having disposed of them, they simply never had them. The (very few) people in question speak Pirahã.

The story about Eskimos having many words for "snow" looks apocryphal, though.

Tangentally, I have a boy who is non-verbal in my SE class who I'm attempting to teach pre-acedemic skills to. He can match numbers of objects up to 5 with precision but any more than that and its hit or miss. Since he has difficulties with receptive language, he appears to be trying to match visually. He sometimes matches the pattern I put the blocks into and matches a higher number. It just reinforces for me the idea that language is key to organizing our thoughts.


edit- people first language

I know I said that numbers are the universal language it's also linear to think about it . To those like me who don't have much of a concept for it it is a hard language to master.



I work with children as well.
I guess being a student of Piaget and Elkind I have to agree that language is the way we organize our thoughts. For most of us our thoughts are conceptual. We have to organize and catorgorize. It is the first things we do is start naming things and putting things in groups.The same and different.


So I don't know if I was trying to help giff or just throw something out there to let you know I understand what you are saying.
It's very early here and I am barley awake yet.

I no longer work with non verbal kids. I have a bunch of really nice 2nd and 3rd graders though :)

New Topic
 

damn I thought this was on some other thread:(

From an article I was just reading this morning:

Also see the source of my .sig

Well, once ALL the known words are used, there would be a need for new words. Just imagine, you can always add a letter to word and make it a new one. So there'd be a the number "Cow" And let's say that's the last known word of all languages of all times, so now we use Cowp, then Cowpp, then Cowppp, and mix it up for fun.

Thanks for playing along with my original thought.

Well from the way they tell it a LOT of the ladies there ARE well-endowed...

Alas I had to be a LEG man eh...;-)

an "ag-er" is multi-lingual, mutli-cultural crossbreed of lifestyles, politics, dreams, and abstracts opinons.... looking for advancements into other cyber realms. ... via messageboads, etc.... (and they are a wide spread bunch in their thoughts.... ... I think Moses would have drowned half the bunch)