Did the ancient Slavic people somehow sense and adjust to how the brain operates when counting?
In my native Serbian, when counting up to four, nouns have one form, but from five upwards, a grammatical form changes, sometimes radically, basically indicating an indeterminate “amount” of something (including living beings).
Could the answer be related to the latest research which shows that the brain uses one system to count up to four (when it is very precise – it is called “subitizing”), but, from five upwards, something changes and the brains become imprecise (“estimative”):
Next time when you see a picture of 7 people, you will know why it takes you a while to assess how many persons are in there (and you’ll probably be wrong). Czechs, Croats and Serbs will also use a separate noun to indicate that.
Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-023-01709-3
