DANISH NUMBER NAMES AND NUMBER CONCEPTS

This paper raises some questions concerning the relation between Danish number names and digits in the canonical base 10 system. Our hypothesis is that in Danish, number names are more complicated than in other languages, and for this reason, Danish children have more difficulties learning and working with numbers. From this point of view, we make a theoretical investigation among different languages and how the names influence the conceptual understanding of numbers. We compare Danish, English and Japanese number names and show from semiotic and cognitive perspectives how the qualitative differences in how the first 100 numbers are named may give rise to linguistically determined differences in children's concept of numbers and in the cognitive load of arithmetic processes.