Brazillian Tribe defies linguistics theories
Posted: 23 Apr 2009 03:04
Link to article.
It's pretty long, but the short version is: guy goes as missionary to convert Amazonian tribe to Christianity; tribe's attitude towards life and language convinces him that there is no God, and that Chomsky and his cronies are completely wrong about language and how it works.
Interesting both as a criticism of silly academics touting ridiculous theories, a cultural study of people who literally believe that only their experiences are real, and a real-life example of how language and culture are intertwined. Frank Herbert would have eaten this shit up.
I was particularly interested in the part where the Pirahã apparently have no way to express abstraction, because their entire way of looking at the world is concrete as anything. I loved the reference to the word for someone going away literally meaning, "going out of existence." They're xenophobic as hell, but I can't help but love their materialist and in-the-moment philosophy.
It's pretty long, but the short version is: guy goes as missionary to convert Amazonian tribe to Christianity; tribe's attitude towards life and language convinces him that there is no God, and that Chomsky and his cronies are completely wrong about language and how it works.
Interesting both as a criticism of silly academics touting ridiculous theories, a cultural study of people who literally believe that only their experiences are real, and a real-life example of how language and culture are intertwined. Frank Herbert would have eaten this shit up.
I was particularly interested in the part where the Pirahã apparently have no way to express abstraction, because their entire way of looking at the world is concrete as anything. I loved the reference to the word for someone going away literally meaning, "going out of existence." They're xenophobic as hell, but I can't help but love their materialist and in-the-moment philosophy.