TEST-3

Numeration

One of the first great intellectual feats of a young child is learning how to talk, closely followed by learning how to count. From earliest childhood, we are so bound up with our system of numeration that it is a feat of imagination to consider the problems faced by early humans who had not yet developed this facility. Careful consideration of our system of numeration leads to the conviction that, rather than being a facility that comes naturally to a person, it is one of the great and remarkable achievements of the human race.

It is impossible to learn the sequence of events that led to our developing the concept of number. Even the earliest of tribes had a system of numeration that, if not advanced, was sufficient for the tasks that they had to perform. Our ancestors had little use for actual numbers; instead, their considerations would have been more of the kind Is this enough? rather than He many? when they were engaged in food gathering, for example. However, when early humans first began to reflect on the nature of things around them, they discovered that they needed an idea of number simply to keep their thoughts in order. As they began to settle, grow plants and herd animals, the need for a sophisticated number system became paramount. It will never be known how and when this numeration ability developed, but it is certain that numeration was well developed by the time humans had formed even semi permanent settlements.

Evidence of early stages of arithmetic and numeration can be readily found. The indigenous peoples of Tasmania were only able to count one, two, many; those of South Africa counted one, two, two and one, two twos, two twos and one, and so on. But in real situations, the number and words are often accompanied by gestures to help resolve any confusion. For example, when using the one, two, many types of system, the word many would mean, Look my hands and see how many fingers 1 am showing you. This basic approach is limited in the range of numbers that it can express, but this range will generally suffice when dealing with the simpler aspects of human existence.

TRUE, FALSE OR NOT GIVEN

Q1. For the earliest tribes, the concept of sufficiency was more important than the concept of quantity.