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Daniel Everett and the Pirahã language | ||
Tags: Rare Languages | Book | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Cultural Experiences in Foreign Languages |  | |
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6706 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes  Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 9 of 22 07 October 2010 at 8:28pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
I don't think you caught the joke. In his video mr. Everett tells how he came to the tribe as a missionary man, ready to convert those primitive jungle dwellers. Now, there is one peculiarity about their language: all verbs have an obligatory "who-said-it" affix, which states that YOU have seen something or somebody you have spoken to have seen it - only those two exist. So when Everett told the pirahã about Jesus, they asked: Have you seen him? erh, no. Has your dad seen him? erh, no. End of discussion, Jesus doesn't exist, and Everett isn't a missionary man any more. Actually he doesn't even believe in Chomsky... Edited by Iversen on 07 October 2010 at 8:30pm 6 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5384 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 10 of 22 07 October 2010 at 8:35pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
HA! Sorry, my bad! Well, I met Chomsky, so I believe in him ;) Edited by Arekkusu on 07 October 2010 at 8:35pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Fat-tony Nonaglot Senior Member United Kingdom jiahubooks.co.uk Joined 6143 days ago 288 posts - 441 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Russian, Esperanto, Thai, Laotian, Urdu, Swedish, French Studies: Mandarin, Indonesian, Arabic (Written), Armenian, Pali, Burmese | Message 11 of 22 07 October 2010 at 10:15pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I've read and enjoyed "Don't sleep. There are snakes." However it is just as much a
travelogue as a look at the Pirahã language. Although there's certainly no shortage of linguistics; the language isn't really dealt with in a systematic manner. I'd still recommend though it as an interesting account of "front-line" linguistic work in a very challenging environment. In other Pirahã news, Prof Everett has just been interviewed by the always interesting philosophy bites podcast. Well worth a listen. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6706 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 12 of 22 11 April 2012 at 11:08am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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While reading an other article at the same site I found this article, which demonstrates the dirty side of linguistics - especially the part played by a Brazilian 'linguist' named Cilene Rodrigues, who used her contacts to block Everett from ever again visiting the Pirahã.
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| Eumaeus Groupie Australia Joined 5607 days ago 75 posts - 134 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian | Message 13 of 22 17 April 2012 at 4:55am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Dan Everett has a new book out. It's called Cognitive Fire; Language as a Cultural Tool.
There was an interesting interview with him on the Guardian.co.uk Science Weekly podcast on the 8th of April, it's still available on iTunes. I read Don't Sleep There Are Snakes, twice actually, and highly recommend it. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| pesahson Diglot Senior Member Poland Joined 5731 days ago 448 posts - 840 votes Speaks: Polish*, English Studies: French, Portuguese, Norwegian | Message 14 of 22 07 May 2012 at 7:50am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Daniel Everett was on Science Weekly podcast from the Guardian.
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| Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6706 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 15 of 22 28 October 2012 at 7:34pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I watched a program Saturday on TV2 from Sweden which added some further information. Ken Everett wanted to get to back to the Pirahã, where he had spent many years, but suddenly all doors were closed. The filmteam could visit the tribe, but not Everett, oh no - Funai said no, and even a visit to Brasilia didn't help. But one interesting detail from the dirty war emerged: Everett did a lecture about the Pirahã and their language and guess who didn't turn up: THE WHOLE LINGUISTICS INSTITUTE OF THE UNIVERSITY OF BRASILIA boycotted the lecture! And there science has ended and stupid secterianism has taken over.
Everett never got the permission, but he did a video in the language and it was shown to the tribe members. But precisely this tribe has been selected for a bit of development - they have electricity and water and education now (and are happy about it) - including courses in the noble art of counting (another of the pecularities in the old days was they didn't had a number system based on 1,2,3,4 etc.). Luckily Everett and others have made recordings, and now the fun starts. A team of scientists have with the help of a computer tested different interpretations of the syntax of these recordings. And... there was NO recursion in the samples. Not ONE case of recursion in at least 1000 sentences (and not in the Swedish subtitles either - but they have been through two or maybe three translations so that doesn't count as evidence). The funny thing is that precisely the existence of recursion is one of the linguistic universals of Chomsky, and saying that it doesn't exist in Pirahã amounts to saying that it isn't a universal - period. Actually Chomsky was interviewed, and he declared 1) that is didn't really matter whether there was recursion in Pirahã, but there were higher things at stake (!), 2) it is obvious that language AND universal grammar are biologically founded. I would acknowledge that language probably has a biological basis in man (and woman) - even the apes can only muster rudiments of our skills - but claiming that this also leads to specific syntactical rules is by all means a bold hypothesis. Unfortunately mr. Chomsky has got that elevated status in the eyes of his loyal disciples that every criticism of even his most dubious statements is seen as unscientific and pure heresy, and let me predict: neither Chomsky nor his cohort of followers and certainly not the 'linguists' from Brasilia University will change their opinion about linguistic universals just because the central claim has been disproved. Remember, this is not science any longer - in science a disproved theory is dropped. PS: see also this thread and this one Edited by Iversen on 29 October 2012 at 3:20pm 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Josquin Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4847 days ago 2266 posts - 3992 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Latin, Italian, Russian, Swedish Studies: Japanese, Irish, Portuguese, Persian | Message 16 of 22 29 October 2012 at 10:11pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Maybe this is the documentary you saw, Iversen: The Grammar of Happiness. I found it very interesting. I think I'm gonna read Everett's book, too. Edited by Josquin on 29 October 2012 at 10:11pm 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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