About the Department
Feature: Caleb Everett
UM Linguist Studies the Anumeric Language of an Amazonian Tribe
Most people learn to count when they are children. Yet surprisingly, not all languages have words for numbers. A recent study published in the journal of Cognitive Science shows that a few tongues lack number words and as a result, people in these cultures have a difficult time performing common quantitative tasks. The findings add new insight to the way people acquire knowledge, perception and reasoning.
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The Anthropology Department offers a wide range of courses for students in pursuit of the Bachelor of Arts degree, from basic four fields of cultural anthropology, linguistics, physical anthropology, and archaeology, to advanced study of topics such as underwater archaeology, Caribbean cultures, primatology, and Iron Age Europe.
The science of anthropology holds that to understand the principles of human behavior, we must compare our own behaviors with those of people from other times and places around the world. These comparisons demand evolutionary, cross-cultural studies of human behavior, constantly changing, ever intriguing us.
The field is especially suited to a multi-ethnic, multi-lingual, and multi-cultural urban center such as Miami, and the research programs of the department faculty reflect the compositions and concerns of the larger community.
