Cultural differences in counting (summary)

Many people assume that numbers and math are the same all over the world. But scientist have discovered that this is not true. People in different parts of the world use different methods to count on their fingers. In the United States, people begin counting with their first, or index, finger. In China, people count by using a variety of finger positions. Some languages have only a few words for numbers and others don't have any words for numbers. A group of scientists worked with aboriginal children in Australia. The scientists studied people who have a very small vocabulary for numbers. In tests, aboriginal children listened to taps from a stick and then put out markers to match the number of taps they heard. The children put out the correct number of markers. In a similar study the Piraha tribe don't have words that means some and more. Although all humans have the ability to understand quantities not all languages have numbers and not all people use counting.