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作者：Anonymous 在 罕见奇谈 发贴, 来自 http://www.hjclub.org
从巴西土著人的算术能力看语言与思维的关系 ( 2004-8-21 13:39 )
(能查阅到"科学"杂志的, 不妨去验证一下是否真的有这篇文章.)------------------------------------------------
人们常常会因为自己学不好数学而懊恼，但比起生活在巴西亚马逊森林里的土著居民，人人都称得上是数学家。因为人类学家发现他们根本不识数，这也成为困扰人类学家多年的问题。现在有研究者声称，已经解开了这个秘密——因为这个部落的语言中严重缺乏与数字相关的词汇。
生活在亚马逊森林中的皮拉哈部落在语言研究中具有传奇性地位，因为他们的语言中关于数字的只有3个词：一、二和很多。而更加令人迷惑的是，在皮拉哈语中，“一”和“二”的音节是完全相同的，区别只在于发音时的升调和降调。
美国哥伦比亚大学行为学家彼得·乔丹在20日出版的美国《科学》杂志上发表了研究文章。
彼得·乔丹曾3次前往亚马逊森林与皮拉哈人共同生活了数月，他发现皮拉哈人的智力没有问题，他们在算术方面的极差表现是因为他们的语言中根本没有与数字相对应的词汇。
几十年来皮拉哈人极差的计算能力都困扰着人类学家，目前还有大约200名皮拉哈人生活在亚马逊森林的低洼地区，他们10人或者20人群居在一起。皮拉哈语中“他”和“他们”是同一个词，仍过着打猎和采集野果生活的皮拉哈人也分不清自己抓到的大马哈鱼的数量。
乔丹教授为皮拉哈人设计了一系列简单的算术考题，他让皮拉哈人在给出的数字边上排列物体。部落中的成年人在“二”或者“三”数字上能够准确地放上东西，但当数字上升到8或者10时，他们的准确率急剧下降。
乔丹教授说：“他们的算术技能与不会说话的婴儿、猴子、鸟类以及老鼠相似。”
50年前科学家就已经发现，一些哺乳类动物具备计算能力———例如狮子。大猩猩和短尾猴更是能从一数到九，但皮拉哈人甚至是扳着手指也数不到五。
皮拉哈人可能为一个古老的难题作出了解答：到底是语言决定思维还是思维决定语言？答案或许是：语言决定思维。
先有语言再有思维，还是先有思维再有语言，这是语言学家和人类学家长久以来争论不休的问题。其中一方的观点是，人类文化和思想决定了人类语言；另一方却认为，语言决定着我们的思维方式。其中，后者的代表人物是本杰明·沃夫，上世纪前50年代最有影响力的语言学家。以他的名字命名的沃尔假说认为，如果我们的语言无法描述某些事情，我们就无法对这些事情产生我们的观点和认识。
最近，沃尔假说又有了新的有力证据。
由于受工业化和西方文明的影响，我们的社会已经进入数字时代。每天，我们要在7:15起床，将电视调到11频道收看今天的天气大概为华氏78度，从兜里掏出25.75美元零钱为汽车加油，赶在9:00整到达单位……现代社会的人类每时每刻都离不开数字，而在这样的时代，只知道3个数字的皮拿哈人如何生存？这样有限的数字语言，他们会怎样思考和工作？
生活在巴西亚马逊河流域的皮拿哈部落只有200多位居民，他们主要以狩猎、渔业和农业为生，丝毫没有受到人类现代文明的影响，最奇怪的是，他们只知道1、2、3这三个数字语言。
美国哥伦比亚大学生物行为学副教授比特·乔敦，长期从事婴幼儿语言能力的研究，近几年对这一部落产生了浓厚的兴趣，并对他们进行了数年的跟踪实验。乔敦选择了几位皮拿哈男人进行了几项试验。他要求这些男人进行简单的匹配测验，比如先挑出4块砖，他们能否也会挑出相同数量的砖头呢？结果是，涉及2、3个物体时，他们做得非常好，但数字再往上增加时，他们的成绩就会急剧下降。
乔敦发现，当商人到他们村庄卖东西时，皮拿哈人经常会上当受骗，因为他们大多数活动不需要数字，因而对数字的概念非常模糊。“人们在需要精确计算时才需要数字，但我们发现，皮拿哈人多数事情是通过大致估算完成的，而且做得非常好。当他们建造房屋时，他们只需要把砖头垒到屋顶就行了，数字并不是他们生活的必需。”
对数字的有限认识也影响了他们的手工艺制作。像大多数原始部落居民一样，他们制作项链，但是那些会数数的部落，制作的项链是对称的，而皮拿哈人制作的项链并不对称，往往一边4个珍珠，而另一边只有2个。
乔敦认为，皮拿哈人的生活是对沃夫假说的一个实证。或许我们应该这样理解“语言决定思维”：对某些语言的缺失，并不是不能思考，而是用自己独特的方式理解世间万物
下面是英文:
Linguistics Language barriers Aug 19th 2004 (From The Economist print edition)
Can a concept exist without words to describe it?
TAKE heart, those of you who struggled with maths at school. It seems that words for exact numbers do not exist in all languages. And if someone has no word for a number, he may have no notion of what that number means. The Pirahã, a group of hunter-gatherers who live along the banks of the Maici River in Brazil, use a system of counting called “one-two-many”. In this, the word for “one” translates to “roughly one” (similar to “one or two” in English), the word for “two” means “a slightly larger amount than one” (similar to “a few” in English), and the word for “many” means “a much larger amount”.
In a paper just published in Science, Peter Gordon of Columbia University uses his study of the Pirahã and their counting system to try to answer a tricky linguistic question.This question was posed by Benjamin Lee Whorf in the 1930s. Whorf studied Hopi, an Amerindian language very different from the Eurasian languages that had hitherto been the subject of academic linguistics. His work led him to suggest that language not only influences thought but, more strongly, that it determines thought. Language Peter Gordon’s article is published in Science.
Daniel Everett, who has worked with Dr Gordon, posts an abstract of an article on the absence of numerals in Pirahã language.While there is no dispute that language influences what people think about, evidence suggesting it determines thought is inconclusive. For example, in 1972, Eleanor Rosch and Karl Heider investigated the colour-naming abilities of the Dani people of Indonesia. The Dani have words for only two colours: black and white. But Dr Rosch and Dr Heider found that, even so, Dani could distinguish and comprehend other colours. That does not support the deterministic version of the Whorf hypothesis.
While recognising that there are such things as colours for which you have no name is certainly a cognitive leap, it may not be a good test of Whorf's ideas. Colours, after all, are out there everywhere. Numbers, by contrast, are abstract, so may be a better test. Dr Gordon therefore spent a month with the Pirahã and elicited the help of seven of them to see how far their grasp of numbers extended. Using objects with which the participants were familiar (sticks, nuts and—perhaps surprisingly—small batteries), he asked his subjects to perform a variety of tasks designed to measure their ability to count. Most of these tests involved the participant matching the number and layout of a group of objects that Dr Gordon had arranged on a table.
The tests began simply, with a row of, say, seven evenly spaced batteries. Gradually, they got more complicated. The more complicated tests included tasks such as matching numbers of unevenly spaced objects, replicating the number of objects from memory, and copying a number of straight lines from a drawing. In the tests that involved matching the number and layout of objects they could see, participants were pretty good when faced with two or three items, but found it harder to cope as the number of items rose. Once it was beyond eight, they were getting it right only three-quarters of the time.
The only exception was in those tests that used unevenly spaced objects—an arrangement that can be perceived as a group of clusters. Here, performance fell off when the number of objects was six, but shot up again when it was between seven and ten. Dr Gordon suggests that the participants used a “chunking” strategy, counting the clusters and the numbers of objects within each cluster separately.Things were worse when the participants had to remember the number of objects in a layout and replicate it “blind”, rather than matching a layout they could see. In this case the success rate dropped to zero when the number of items became, in terms of their language, “many”. And line drawing produced the worst results of all—though that could have had as much to do with the fact that drawing is not part of Pirahã culture as it did with the difficulties of numerical abstraction. Indeed, Dr Gordon described the task of reproducing straight lines as being accomplished only with “heavy sighs and groans”.
The Pirahã are a people who have steadfastly resisted assimilation into mainstream Brazilian culture. Their commerce takes the form of barter, with no need to exchange money. Exact numbers do not exist in their language simply because there is no need for them. And in this case, what you do not need, you do not have. At least in the field of maths, it seems, Whorf was right
作者：Anonymous 在 罕见奇谈 发贴, 来自 http://www.hjclub.org |
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