The Amerind language family includes all the aboriginal languages of North and South America, except for those belonging to the Eskimo-Aleut and Na-Dene families. Comparative linguistic evidence from extant (or attested) Amerind languages indicates that Proto-Amerind-the language from which all Amerind languages derive-used a system of counting in which an obligatory numeral prefix, ^*ne-, preceded the numeral root. The first three numerals in Proto-Amerind seem to have been ^*ne-k'^we‘1, ’^*ne-pale‘2, ’and ^*ne-q^walas‘3.’A fourth numeral, Proto-Amerind ^*ta-pale‘4, ’combined a reflexive prefix with the Proto-Amerind root for‘2’in order to express the number‘4.’