Not all languages spoken by the human tongue has math. In fact, math itself is it’s own language, a way to describe and understand the world. Some languages have simple math, and some have a more robust system.
Not all languages have math, let alone have a need to count to high numbers like ‘ten’ or ‘hundreds of thousands’. Most people haven’t even considered the existence or fathom the idea of a quadrillion (X,000,000,000,000,000) anything, dollars or whatever.
Not many people have counted from 1 to 1,000.
Since there was no need to count high numbers in smaller tribes, there was also no linguistic-need to make a new ‘word’ for each number that you count to. It was more like thinking up imaginary numbers that you couldn’t conceptualize into the world.
How often do you count with the fingers on your hands? If you didn’t have a need to count to ten, would you ever exceed ten? So, in this way, you can see how a language might just stop counting high numbers.
It seems trivial without having a purpose to count high. Maybe a child or curious person might have thought of doing such a thing, but if their language doesn’t include a way to count higher than their base number (i.e. a base 10 system counts to ten and restarts), then they would have to invent a new way to count higher than that.
So some languages don’t work with ‘high-numbers’. I just wanted to include this as a side note because language is a tool, and so we make new ‘tools’ or ‘words’ to help mean new ‘things’. Words mean things, sort of thing.
I would be even willing to go far out on a limb and say that there may exist a tribe that had no numbers at all. A tribe that didn’t quantify things through language. They might know size and values, but they might not have a language for it. (Although, I don’t have specific examples in mind).
Words are a tool for us to reference and navigate through this world or reality. A common philosophical question can be framed like so;
If we didn’t observe it, is it real?
To relate to words and numbers;
If we didn’t have a name for it, A Word, does it exist?
If we can’t count to it or conceptualize it, does it exist?
Thus, if we didn’t have a need to count that high, we may resort to simply saying our language equivalent to ‘many’ or ‘a lot’ for large values.
Words, including each unique number representing itself, means something. The value 10 is different from the value 14. As such, we have to be able to discern the difference as well as understand to some degree each value, and what the number (and symbols) represents.
As it turns out, Numbers by extension are words, thus Numbers Mean Things. Which is more important for a quantitative analyst or statistician but still applicable to everyone else living in the world of numbers.
Additionally, some schools or disciplines of math don’t work with complex integers or imaginary numbers. So most people won’t know the higher occultic level of knowledge that is in high level math. Meaning Mathematicians can speak a language of math that is beyond the language of algebra (simple math) that common people are taught to comprehend.
That’s also a key thing, that we were taught numbers. Language is taught or learned through use and understanding from our environment, friends, role models, and culture.
Those that don’t know Sine and Cosine, won’t know to deeply the language of trigonometry and see the same beauty of the connection of geometrical shapes.
Likewise, those that don’t understand calculus won’t understand derivatives and it’s relation to time.
And further, there are more math and theories and theorems that paint all sorts of unique perspectives to look at the world. Languages beyond Trigonometry and Calculus. There are more languages of math, each with a unique take or perspective. From non-Euclidian to cartesian and more.
Arguably, each theorem or equation that is beautifully describing the world is itself a unique sentence.
But our language of math itself isn’t integral to language, that’s because math itself is it’s own language. Each number is akin to a letter, and each value a word. Each equation a sentence. Each Large Theorem a paragraph.
Epilogue;
It’s important to note that our math that the world uses relies on arabic numerals, because it shows our relation to human society and how we evolve as a culture and our language. We don’t often use roman numerals or the eastern number systems in the majority of the world. It’s partly due to culture and what’s the nearest ‘official’ language of math that people speak, and it seems Arabic Numerals is the most common taught language in most of the world.
It’s also worth pointing out that the Base 10 number system is the one we commonly subscribe to. For instance, Binary is a base 2 number system, and hexadecimal is a Base 16 number system. So depending on which language we use to describe the world, we may describe it in different ways. the value 10 vice the value 1010 (binary) or A (Hexadecimal).
I am making this note to help point out that Words and Numbers are very similar. That, arguably, they’re contextually interchangeable (depending on context of course). That the language we use to describe our world includes the language of numbers, and that can help us to further our understanding of the world as well.
So as we discover our origins of language, we can also discover our origins of math as a subset of language. This is a great idea, because if we know where we came from, we can find out where we’re going, thus we could invent new neologisms in math using our history of math.
And I’ll repeat this because I just came up with it in the process of writing and I find it rather charming;
Math itself is it’s own language.
Each number is akin to a letter,
and each value a word.
Each equation a sentence.
Each Large Theorem a paragraph.
Numbers Mean Things
Thus
Words Mean Things
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