The Language of Numbers with Stephen Chrisomalis

Wednesday, November 10, 2021 | 6:30 p.m.

We express numbers using number words (one, two, three) and number symbols (1,2,3), each of which has its own etymology, and neither of which is more inevitable than any other vocabulary.  So where do number symbols and number words actually come from?  And what alternatives have been lost along the way? Join linguistic anthropologist Stephen Chrisomalis for a lively discussion of the language of numbers and what the way we talk about numbers reveals about how we see the world.

Stephen Chrisomalis’ new book Reckonings: Numerals, Cognition, and History is available through our Bookshop.org storefront.