Development of Language Influenced By Geographical Elevation

A study reveals that the development of a language is influenced not just by the environment but also of geological elevation. The study notes a trend in language with ejective consonants (sounds produced with a burst of air) being predominant in regions of high elevation.

There are about 6,000 and 7,000 languages currently used in the world today. These can be grouped by common ancestry into language families. There are hundreds of language families but the predominant language families are:

• Indo-European languages - These are languages that include English, Spanish, Russian, and Hindustani (Hindi/Urdu). 46% of the world's population speak languages under this family.
• Sino-Tibetan languages - 21% of the world's population speak this language which includes East Asian language,Mandarin Chinese, and Cantonese
• Niger-Congo languages - Cover African language such as Swahili, Shona, and Yoruba. 6.4% of the world's population speak this language.
• Afroasiatic languages - Include the Arabic, Hebrew language, and the languages of the Sahara region, such as the Berber languages and Hausa.
• Austronesian languages - spoken by 5.9% of the population covers the area from Madagascar to Oceania and includes Malagasy, Māori, Samoan, and many of the indigenous languages of Indonesia and Taiwan.

Plot of the locations of the languages in the sample. Dark circles represent languages with ejectives, clear circles represent those without ejectives. Clusters of languages with ejectives are highlighted with white rectangles. For illustrative purposes only. Inset: Lat-long plot of polygons exceeding 1500 m in elevation. Adapted from Figure 4 in [8]. The six major inhabitable areas of high elevation are highlighted via ellipses: (1) North American cordillera (2) Andes (3) Southern African plateau (4) East African rift (5) Caucasus and Javakheti plateau (6) Tibetan plateau and adjacent regions.
Credit: Caleb Everett, associate professor of anthropology in the College of Arts and Science at the University of Miami

Studying The Innate and Cultural Cognitive Origins of Math

Mathematics or Math evolved from counting, measurement, study of shapes and motions of physical objects. One definition of math is that it is the study of quantity, structure, space, and change.

The practical application of math has been ingrained into human activity since the discovery of writing and communication.

The primary investigation into the origin of math and its discoveries and methods can first be found ancient documents such as the following:

• Plimpton 322 - Babylon c. 1900 BC
• Rhind Mathematical Papyrus - Egypt c. 2000-1800 BC
• Moscow Mathematical Papyrus - Egypt c. 1890 BC

All of these texts cover the Pythagorean theorem, which seems to be the most ancient and widespread mathematical development after basic arithmetic and geometry.

Some would argue that the discovery of the Pythagorean theorem in 6th century BC is where the study of mathematics begins. The theorem, the square of both sides of a right triangle equals the square of the hypotenuse, is attributed to Greek mathematician, Pythagorias. Even the word "Mathematics" started with the Greeks. It means "subject of instruction. The Greeks expanded and refined math methods through deductive reasoning and mathematical rigor in proofs.

Aside from the Greeks, Chinese mathematics made early contributions as well, including a place value system. The Hindu-Arabic numeral system and its rules likely evolved over the course of the first millennium AD in India and was transmitted to the west via Islamic mathematics. Islamic mathematics, in turn, developed and expanded the mathematics known to these civilizations. Many Greek and Arabic texts on mathematics were then translated into Latin, which led to further development of mathematics in medieval Europe.

Looking past written records, scientists and researchers have wondered how the fundamental concept of math began with the human race.

Study finds twist to the story of the number line

Tape measures. Rulers. Graphs. The gas gauge in your car, and the icon on your favorite digital device showing battery power. The number line and its cousins – notations that map numbers onto space and often represent magnitude – are everywhere. Most adults in industrialized societies are so fluent at using the concept, we hardly think about it. We don't stop to wonder: Is it "natural"? Is it cultural?

Now, challenging a mainstream scholarly position that the number-line concept is innate, a study suggests it is learned.

The study, published in PLoS ONE, is based on experiments with an indigenous group in Papua New Guinea. It was led by Rafael Nunez, director of the Embodied Cognition Lab and associate professor of cognitive science in the UC San Diego Division of Social Sciences.

"Influential scholars have advanced the thesis that many of the building blocks of mathematics are 'hard-wired' in the human mind through millions of years of evolution. And a number of different sources of evidence do suggest that humans naturally associate numbers with space," said Nunez, coauthor of "Where Mathematics Comes From" and co-director of the newly established Fields Cognitive Science Network at the Fields Institute for Research in Mathematical Sciences.