Maybe you missed this statement in perldata:

  Variable names
    Perl has three built-in data types: scalars, arrays of scalars, and
    associative arrays of scalars, known as "hashes". Normal arrays are
    ordered lists of scalars indexed by number, starting with 0 and with
    negative subscripts counting from the end. Hashes are unordered
    collections of scalar values indexed by their associated string key.

-- Randal L. Schwartz, Perl hacker
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