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Body-part Counting System
Some languages of the world have numeral systems that do not make use of an arithmetic base. One such system is the body-part counting system which make use of further body parts to extend the system beyond the ten fingers. Counting typically begins by touching (and usually bending) the fingers of one hand, moves up the arm to the shoulders and neck, and in some systems, to other parts of the upper body or the head. A central point serves as the half-way point. Once this is reached, the counter continues, touching and bending the corresponding points on the other side until the fingers are reached. Use The body-part counting system is quite typical of a number of languages within the New Guinea Highlands. Oceania * Foi, an East Kutubuan language, features a body-part numeral system that counts up to 37. *Oksapmin, a Trans–New Guinea language spoken in Sandaun Province, features a body-part counting system that goes up to 27. Geoffrey Saxe, in ethnographic work, has ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Language
Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of methods, including spoken, sign, and written language. Many languages, including the most widely-spoken ones, have writing systems that enable sounds or signs to be recorded for later reactivation. Human language is highly variable between cultures and across time. Human languages have the properties of productivity and displacement, and rely on social convention and learning. Estimates of the number of human languages in the world vary between and . Precise estimates depend on an arbitrary distinction (dichotomy) established between languages and dialects. Natural languages are spoken, signed, or both; however, any language can be encoded into secondary media using auditory, visual, or tactile stimuli – for example, writing ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Numeral System
A numeral system (or system of numeration) is a writing system for expressing numbers; that is, a mathematical notation for representing numbers of a given set, using digits or other symbols in a consistent manner. The same sequence of symbols may represent different numbers in different numeral systems. For example, "11" represents the number ''eleven'' in the decimal numeral system (used in common life), the number ''three'' in the binary numeral system (used in computers), and the number ''two'' in the unary numeral system (e.g. used in tallying scores). The number the numeral represents is called its value. Not all number systems can represent all numbers that are considered in the modern days; for example, Roman numerals have no zero. Ideally, a numeral system will: *Represent a useful set of numbers (e.g. all integers, or rational numbers) *Give every number represented a unique representation (or at least a standard representation) *Reflect the algebraic and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
New Guinea Highlands
The New Guinea Highlands, also known as the Central Range or Central Cordillera, is a long chain of mountain ranges on the island of New Guinea, including the island's tallest peak, Puncak Jaya , the highest mountain in Oceania. The range is home to many intermountain river valleys, many of which support thriving agricultural communities. The highlands run generally east-west the length of the island, which is divided politically between Indonesia in the west and Papua New Guinea in the east. Geography The Central Cordillera, some peaks of which are capped with ice, consists of (from east to west): the Central Highlands and Eastern Highlands of Papua New Guinea including the Owen Stanley Range in the southeast, whose highest peak is Mount Victoria at 4,038 metres (13,248 feet), the Albert Victor Mountains, the Sir Arthur Gordon Range, and the Bismarck Range, whose highest peak is Mount Wilhelm at 4,509 metres (14,793 feet), which is an extinct volcano with a crater lake; the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Foi Language
Foi, also known as Foe or Mubi River, is one of the two East Kutubuan languages The East Kutubuan languages are a small family of Trans–New Guinea languages Trans–New Guinea (TNG) is an extensive family of Papuan languages spoken on the island of New Guinea and neighboring islands ‒ corresponding to the country Papu ... of the Trans-New Guinea family spoken along Lake Kutubu and Mubi River, located in the Southern Highlands Province of Papua New Guinea. Dialects of Foi are Ifigi, Kafa, Kutubu, Mubi. A Swadesh list for the Foi language was documented by The Rosetta Project in 2010. The estimated number of Foi speakers as of 2015 is between 6,000 and 8,000. Grammar Syntax Foi is a subject–object–verb language, similar to most languages in Papua New Guinea. Foe adopts the usage of focused objects as sentence-initial. In noun phrases, Foi follows the pattern of Noun + Quantifier and Adjective + Noun. Adverbial phrases are marked postpositionally by ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
East Kutubuan Languages
The East Kutubuan languages are a small family of Trans–New Guinea languages Trans–New Guinea (TNG) is an extensive family of Papuan languages spoken on the island of New Guinea and neighboring islands ‒ corresponding to the country Papua New Guinea as well as parts of Indonesia. Trans–New Guinea is the third-lar ... (TNG) in the classification of Malcolm Ross. There are just two languages, : Fiwaga and Foi, which are not close to the West Kutubuan languages. These were linked in a "Kutubuan" family by Franklin and Voorhoeve in 1973, but there is some debate over whether they are closer to each other than to other Kikorian languages. Although East Kutubuan has proto-TNG vocabulary, Ross considers its inclusion in TNG to be questionable. References * {{Languages of Papua New Guinea Languages of Papua New Guinea Kutubuan languages ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oksapmin Language
Oksapmin is a Trans–New Guinea language spoken in Oksapmin Rural LLG, Telefomin District, Sandaun, Papua New Guinea. The two principal dialects are distinct enough to cause some problems with mutual intelligibility. Oksapmin has dyadic kinship termsThe Oksapmin Kinship System , retrieved May 21, 2009. and a body-part counting system that goes up to 27.. Classification Oksapmin has been influenced by the Mountain Ok languages (the name "Oksapmin" is from Telefol), and the similarities with those languages were attributed to borrowing in the classifications of both |
Trans–New Guinea Languages
Trans–New Guinea (TNG) is an extensive family of Papuan languages spoken on the island of New Guinea and neighboring islands ‒ corresponding to the country Papua New Guinea as well as parts of Indonesia. Trans–New Guinea is the third-largest language family in the world by number of languages. The core of the family is considered to be established, but its boundaries and overall membership are uncertain. The languages are spoken by around 3 million people. There have been three main proposals as to its internal classification. History of the proposal Although Papuan languages for the most part are poorly documented, several of the branches of Trans–New Guinea have been recognized for some time. The Eleman languages were first proposed by S. Ray in 1907, parts of Marind were recognized by Ray and JHP Murray in 1918, and the Rai Coast languages in 1919, again by Ray. The precursor of the Trans–New Guinea family was Stephen Wurm's 1960 proposal of an East New Guine ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sandaun Province
Sandaun Province (formerly West Sepik Province) is the northwesternmost mainland Provinces of Papua New Guinea, province of Papua New Guinea. It covers an area of 35,920 km2 (13868 m2) and has a population of 248,411 (2011 census). The capital is Vanimo. In July 1998 the area surrounding the town Aitape was hit by an enormous 1998 Papua New Guinea earthquake, tsunami caused by a Magnitude 7.0 earthquake which killed over 2,000 people. The five villages along the west coast of Vanimo towards the International Border are namely; Lido, Waromo, Yako, Musu and Wutung. Name Sandaun is a Tok Pisin word derived from English "sun down," since the province is located in the west of the country, where the sun sets. The province was formerly named West Sepik Province, for the Sepik, Sepik River that flows through the province and forms part of the province's southern border. Physical Geography The Sandaun Province has beaches along the northern coast, as well as mountainous areas throu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Geoffrey B Saxe
Geoffrey B. Saxe (born June 12, 1948) is an American developmental psychologist. He is a Distinguished Professor of the Graduate School in the School of Education at UC Berkeley. He is a former President of the Jean Piaget Society for the Study of Knowledge and Development, elected member of the National Academy of Education, elected fellow of the American Educational Research Association, and former Editor-in-Chief of the international journal, ''Human Development''. Saxe's research focuses on the interplay between cultural and cognitive developmental processes in the reproduction and alteration of ideas in human communities. Using mathematics as an illustrative domain, Saxe situates his work in the collective practices of daily life. He has also extended his developmental perspective to a program of design research in mathematics education. Education and early life Saxe grew up in Los Angeles, attending public schools along with his sister. His parents, the children of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kobon Language
Kobon (pronounced , or ) is a language of Papua New Guinea. It has somewhere around 90–120 verbs. Kobon has a pandanus language, spoken when harvesting karuka. Geographic distribution Kobon is spoken in Madang Province and Western Highlands Province, north of Mount Hagen. Phonology Vowels Monophthongal vowels are , diphthongs are . and may be and word-initially. () is written and () is written . Only and the diphthongs occur word-initially, apart from the quotative particle, which is variably /a~e~o~ö/. occur syllable-initially within a word. All vowels (including the diphthongs) occur syllable-medially (in CVC syllables), syllable-finally and at the ends of words. Many vowel sequences occur, including some with identical vowels. Consonants Kobon distinguishes an alveolar lateral , a palatal lateral , a subapical retroflex lateral flap ( ), and a fricative trill , though the frication on the latter is variable. Voiced obstruents may be prenasalized aft ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Papuan Languages
The Papuan languages are the non-Austronesian and non- Australian languages spoken on the western Pacific island of New Guinea in Indonesia and Papua New Guinea, as well as neighbouring islands, by around 4 million people. It is a strictly geographical grouping, and does not imply a genetic relationship. The concept of Papuan (non-Austronesian) speaking Melanesians as distinct from Austronesian-speaking Melanesians was first suggested and named by Sidney Herbert Ray in 1892. New Guinea is the most linguistically diverse region in the world. Besides the Austronesian languages, there are some (arguably) 800 languages divided into perhaps sixty small language families, with unclear relationships to each other or to any other languages, plus many language isolates. The majority of the Papuan languages are spoken on the island of New Guinea, with a number spoken in the Bismarck Archipelago, Bougainville Island and the Solomon Islands to the east, and in Halmahera, Timor and the Alor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Madang Province
Madang is a province of Papua New Guinea. The province is on the northern coast of mainland Papua New Guinea and has many of the country's highest peaks, active volcanoes and its biggest mix of languages. The capital is the town of Madang. Districts and LLGs Each province in Papua New Guinea has one or more districts, and each district has one or more Local Level Government (LLG) areas. For census purposes, the LLG areas are subdivided into wards and those into census units. Education Tertiary educational institutions in Madang Province include: *Madang Technical College *Madang Marine Time College *Madang Teachers College * Divine Word University (DWU) is a national university and a leading tertiary institution in Papua New Guinea. Formerly Divine Word Institute, it was established by an Act of Parliament in 1980 and was established as a University in 1996. DWU It is ecumenical, coeducational and privately governed with government support. Provincial leaders The provi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
