What is it about?
Yorùbá is a major language in Nigeria and other West African states and is widely spoken in the African diaspora. It has its own number system which like the language is in everyday use. The differences between modern Western numbers and Yorùbá numbers can be elaborated and explained by the differences in the logics of the language communities in which they have arisen. The differing number systems and languages offer differing ways of knowingfully 'doing' the world.
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Why is it important?
Understanding and respecting differences between our many knowledge traditions, is a crucial first step in fostering a decolonial moment in our world.
Perspectives
I assume that numbers originate in language use in particular situations. I reject transcendental or supernatural explanations of what numbers. For me neither modern numbers nor Yorùbá numbers are abstract objects--rather they arise in certain linguistic and practical collective actions.
Professor Helen Ruth Verran
University of Melbourne
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: The Dual Metrics of Contemporary Yorùbá Life, October 2023, Brill,
DOI: 10.1163/9789004678354_008.
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