Can you solve it? Numbers in New Guinea

A rare way to countToday is the International Day of the World ’s Indigenous People, which aims to raise awareness of issues concerning indigenous communities. Such as, for example, the survival of their languages. According to theEndangered Languages Project, more than 40 per cent of the world ’s 7,000 languages are at risk of extinction.Among the fantastic diversity of the world ’s languages is a diversity in counting systems. The following puzzle concerns the number words of Ngkolmpu, a language spoken by about 100 people in New Guinea. (They live in the border area between the Indonesian province of Papua and the country of Papua New Guinea.)Continue reading...
Source: Guardian Unlimited Science - Category: Science Authors: Tags: Mathematics Education Science Papua New Guinea Linguistics Source Type: news