We can get even more, a bit more philosophical here as well when we
actually link to what we were talking about in (week) one about writing systems.
So often it's asked why some of the Asian countries are much stronger in mathematics
than, for example, European countries, And one thing people sometimes mention is,
well the language of their number system is just much more transparent then ours
which may help with some of the processing.
So to give an example of the somewhat lack of transparency in English.
If you think about, if we take say the teens.
So we've got 13, 14.
If we think about how transparent the numerical quality of those terms is,
we can tell, well especially with 14,
we can tell there's something about a four there.
And then if we know there's 13, 14, 15 we can extrapolate
the teen is something to do with the teen numbers.
But 13 is not completely transparent.
We've got to link the 'thir' to a three.
But then if we think about 11 and 12, if you see those written out,
where's the clue to actually what the numerical properties are there?
So, at the moment, we're still trying to work out how much of a hindrance this is,
and it's not going to be the whole factor, but it is an interesting reflection on
how actually certain languages may just give children a head start and
make certain things slightly easier, especially if phonology and
language are issues for you.
