[mennis16]

Doesn't this still depend on what specifically "math" is referring to? Sure there is some underlying concept, but when people use the word math I think they are largely referring to the language that has been/continues to be built up to describe those concepts. Without at least learning the existing language one would have to rebuild a ton of foundations themselves before they could do much of anything. I suppose you could say the same thing about e.g. biology but I don't think it's quite analogous, as terminology is nowhere near as precise and things often don't abstract super nicely.