or how to count in all languages: One, two, three, lots...

Mark Changizi and Shinsuke Shimojo of the California Institute of Technology have been investigating the relationship of our visual recognition system to how we have developed language scripts. They have studied 115 different alphabets, and found most languages average three strokes per character.

This is no coincidence as three is the greatest number our brains can recognise without counting, they say.

Their comments are also interesting on inbuilt redundancy and other aspects – see New Scientist of 12th Feb

http://www.newscientist.com/channel/being-human/mg18524865.000