Publications
Publication details [#55994]
Hansford, Gillian F. 2012. Numbers that Chumburung people count on. In Idström, Anna and Elisabeth Piirainen, eds. Endangered Metaphors. (Cognitive Linguistic Studies in Cultural Contexts 2). John Benjamins. pp. 221–252.
Publication type
Article in book
Publication language
English
Keywords
Language as a subject
Place, Publisher
John Benjamins
Annotation
Numbers are not very metaphorical according to Dobrovol’skij and Piirainen (2005). Nevertheless they can have both figurative and symbolic significance. Inspired by them, and remembering Comrie’s comment (2005) that linguists often do not record the full numerical system in a language, this paer investigates the Chumburung language of Ghana. The integers from one to ten are taken in order; two fits Lakoff’s more is better metapho; three and four provide symbolism for the difference between male and female. There are two kinds of week in Chumburung, one with six and one with seven days, which govern some ritual activities. Numbers larger than ten are then studied, in particular because of a changing monetary system, to see whether any might be endangered.