4 ms·

Human brains seem to be suited to verbally counting in base ten however. I mean, languages as unconnected as Japanese, Chinese, Russian, Finnish, Hungarian, Ita

by Asooka 8y ago

Human brains seem to be suited to verbally counting in base ten however. I mean, languages as unconnected as Japanese, Chinese, Russian, Finnish, Hungarian, Italian, German, English, Navajo all count in base ten. There are of course outliers, but those tend to be very small isolated language communities. I think the ease of communication in base ten for humans outweighs any arithmetic improvements. You can always count things in groups of 12 or 60 if you want to be able to easily divide the group, but keep the numbers in base ten.

jagger11 8y ago
Russian, German and English have the same language root (PIE), the same for Finnish and Hungarian, so it's not an accident.
- jwilk 8y ago
  > Russian, German and English have the same language root (PIE) Same for Italian. German and English are even more closely related: they are both West Germanic languages.
  - yurishimo 8y ago
    I've heard this before and literally every time I hear it my mind is blown. As a native English speaker, I cannot see any similar patterns between German in English when I happen across random conversations on a site like Reddit in German. But looking at romance languages, I can see more similarities. Maybe it's because of my childhood environment in Texas, where most English speakers learn some basic Spanish by interacting with other people. I would love to see a passage of German that can be intuitively reasoned about by an English speaker with no experience with German solely based on context and perhaps root words. In all honesty I'd probably get confused though. :(
    - DoreenMichele 8y ago
      Written German and spoken German are somewhat different, just like written and spoken English are. You might find conversational German more legible. There was an episode of Barney Miller where one of the cops was translating for a German woman. At some point she says "Das ist mein bebe." Bebe is pronounced very similar to baby and means the same thing. I can't find a video of just the scene. It is Season 5, Episode 5 The Baby Broker. The Daily Motion has the episode, but it keeps glitching on me. I haven't been able to get to the scene in question. I also used to have German language resources that built on words that were readily understood by English speakers.
    - mikekchar 8y ago
      English is a kind of mutt language. The Angles, Saxons and Jutes were Germanic tribes and old English (aka Anglo-Saxon) is a Germanic language. In 1066 good old King Harold got an arrow in his eye at the Battle of Hastings and William the Conqueror (from Normandy, France) took over. From that point on, the language of the court in England was French. Over time, more and more of the French language got mixed into what is now known as English. On top of that, in the north you had people speaking Old Norse. Quite a lot of words (IIRC apple, gate and bucket are examples) come from there.
    - davidgay 8y ago
      There's plenty of obvious cognates. Without thinking too much, with rather rusty German, and from your comment: I = ich have = habe hear = hören before = bevor [in some meanings to be fair] and = und [Your first half sentence is a good example :)] is = ist can = können [and in general the whole can/können, shall/sollen, will/wollen connection - though the meanings have drifted a bit apart] when = wenn learn = lernen see = seeen word = wort More generally, my experience is that literal (i.e., word-for-word) translations from German to English sound weird, but often comprehensible, while literal translations from French usually end up as gibberish.
tomtimtall 8y ago
You can’t base your argument for why we seem suited to use base ten on the fact that connected civilizations that where all raised with the teachings of base ten. Humans will always look like we are naturally suited to do the things we do. Like we seem naturally suited to ride bikes or swim... yet when you see people who can’t do those things trying to learn them you realize it is quite un natural.

by Asooka 8y ago

jagger11 8y ago

Russian, German and English have the same language root (PIE), the same for Finnish and Hungarian, so it's not an accident.

jwilk 8y ago
> Russian, German and English have the same language root (PIE) Same for Italian. German and English are even more closely related: they are both West Germanic languages.
- yurishimo 8y ago
  I've heard this before and literally every time I hear it my mind is blown. As a native English speaker, I cannot see any similar patterns between German in English when I happen across random conversations on a site like Reddit in German. But looking at romance languages, I can see more similarities. Maybe it's because of my childhood environment in Texas, where most English speakers learn some basic Spanish by interacting with other people. I would love to see a passage of German that can be intuitively reasoned about by an English speaker with no experience with German solely based on context and perhaps root words. In all honesty I'd probably get confused though. :(
  - DoreenMichele 8y ago
    Written German and spoken German are somewhat different, just like written and spoken English are. You might find conversational German more legible. There was an episode of Barney Miller where one of the cops was translating for a German woman. At some point she says "Das ist mein bebe." Bebe is pronounced very similar to baby and means the same thing. I can't find a video of just the scene. It is Season 5, Episode 5 The Baby Broker. The Daily Motion has the episode, but it keeps glitching on me. I haven't been able to get to the scene in question. I also used to have German language resources that built on words that were readily understood by English speakers.
  - mikekchar 8y ago
    English is a kind of mutt language. The Angles, Saxons and Jutes were Germanic tribes and old English (aka Anglo-Saxon) is a Germanic language. In 1066 good old King Harold got an arrow in his eye at the Battle of Hastings and William the Conqueror (from Normandy, France) took over. From that point on, the language of the court in England was French. Over time, more and more of the French language got mixed into what is now known as English. On top of that, in the north you had people speaking Old Norse. Quite a lot of words (IIRC apple, gate and bucket are examples) come from there.
  - davidgay 8y ago
    There's plenty of obvious cognates. Without thinking too much, with rather rusty German, and from your comment: I = ich have = habe hear = hören before = bevor [in some meanings to be fair] and = und [Your first half sentence is a good example :)] is = ist can = können [and in general the whole can/können, shall/sollen, will/wollen connection - though the meanings have drifted a bit apart] when = wenn learn = lernen see = seeen word = wort More generally, my experience is that literal (i.e., word-for-word) translations from German to English sound weird, but often comprehensible, while literal translations from French usually end up as gibberish.

tomtimtall 8y ago

You can’t base your argument for why we seem suited to use base ten on the fact that connected civilizations that where all raised with the teachings of base ten. Humans will always look like we are naturally suited to do the things we do. Like we seem naturally suited to ride bikes or swim... yet when you see people who can’t do those things trying to learn them you realize it is quite un natural.