Don't Sleep: There Are Books to Review
Feb. 11th, 2009 10:31 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bluegargantuaHey,
So this weekend I finished reading Don't Sleep, There Are Snakes: Life and Language in the Amazonian Jungle by Daniel L. Everett.
Mr. Everett is a linguist and former missionary. In the late 70's he traveled deep into the Amazon rain forest to study the language of the Piraha Indians, a small tribe of about 2-400 scattered along a tributary of the Amazon. The Piraha language has a very small set of phonemes (3 vowels and 7-8 consonants) and had received almost no serious linguistic study. Everett's job was to figure out how the Piraha language worked so that he could prepare a translation of the New Testiment and bring the gospel of Jesus to these poor unsaved people.
It didn't quite work out like that.
Turns out that the Piraha language is one of the most unusual languages ever studied. Most notably, the Piraha don't appear to have any number words in their language. You can have a small amount of something or a large amount of something, but you can't have one, two, many or some or all of something. The language is aggressively based in the present tense and despite an active belief in spirits, there are no creation myths or legends. Stories are always about things that the speaker has personally experienced or witnessed.
This latter aspect of the language is what renders the Piraha immune to Everett's role as a missionary. When he tries to tell them about Jesus, the Piraha ask if he's met him or if they could meet him. When they discover he's a long-dead (long-ascended?) person, he immediately falls outside of their cultural conception and they couldn't care less. This cultural demand for immediate experience and evidence eventually brings about a crisis of faith for Everett and he decides to give up on his missionary work and just focus on being a good linguist.
The book is divided up into three broad sections. The first part consists of stories and anecdotes of Everett's life among the Piraha and how he discovered things about their culture/language. The second part consists of a more focused analysis of the Piraha language and how it fits in (or doesn't) with contemporary theories of language. The final part is a short summary and discussion of the importance of capturing vanishing languages.
Everett clearly enjoys working with the Piraha and has a lot of respect and admiration for them. He does, however, try to stand back from some "noble savage" idealism with stories that show the Piraha at their best and worst. He's also got a beef with Chomsky who's linguistic theories his studies most strongly conflict with. There is, apparently, a bit more to this conflict than is evident in the book. Apparently Everett's studies have been wildly controversial among linguists since he's started publishing about them. Other scientists have/are being invited in to check Everett's work, but since he's the only fluent non-native speaker of Piraha it might be some time before his theories can be independently verified.
Allowing for these grains of salt, he does come across as a credible author and the book was a fascinating read. It certainly offers some interesting insights into how language and culture shape one another as well as a look into a radically different way of thinking about the world.
later
Tom
So this weekend I finished reading Don't Sleep, There Are Snakes: Life and Language in the Amazonian Jungle by Daniel L. Everett.
Mr. Everett is a linguist and former missionary. In the late 70's he traveled deep into the Amazon rain forest to study the language of the Piraha Indians, a small tribe of about 2-400 scattered along a tributary of the Amazon. The Piraha language has a very small set of phonemes (3 vowels and 7-8 consonants) and had received almost no serious linguistic study. Everett's job was to figure out how the Piraha language worked so that he could prepare a translation of the New Testiment and bring the gospel of Jesus to these poor unsaved people.
It didn't quite work out like that.
Turns out that the Piraha language is one of the most unusual languages ever studied. Most notably, the Piraha don't appear to have any number words in their language. You can have a small amount of something or a large amount of something, but you can't have one, two, many or some or all of something. The language is aggressively based in the present tense and despite an active belief in spirits, there are no creation myths or legends. Stories are always about things that the speaker has personally experienced or witnessed.
This latter aspect of the language is what renders the Piraha immune to Everett's role as a missionary. When he tries to tell them about Jesus, the Piraha ask if he's met him or if they could meet him. When they discover he's a long-dead (long-ascended?) person, he immediately falls outside of their cultural conception and they couldn't care less. This cultural demand for immediate experience and evidence eventually brings about a crisis of faith for Everett and he decides to give up on his missionary work and just focus on being a good linguist.
The book is divided up into three broad sections. The first part consists of stories and anecdotes of Everett's life among the Piraha and how he discovered things about their culture/language. The second part consists of a more focused analysis of the Piraha language and how it fits in (or doesn't) with contemporary theories of language. The final part is a short summary and discussion of the importance of capturing vanishing languages.
Everett clearly enjoys working with the Piraha and has a lot of respect and admiration for them. He does, however, try to stand back from some "noble savage" idealism with stories that show the Piraha at their best and worst. He's also got a beef with Chomsky who's linguistic theories his studies most strongly conflict with. There is, apparently, a bit more to this conflict than is evident in the book. Apparently Everett's studies have been wildly controversial among linguists since he's started publishing about them. Other scientists have/are being invited in to check Everett's work, but since he's the only fluent non-native speaker of Piraha it might be some time before his theories can be independently verified.
Allowing for these grains of salt, he does come across as a credible author and the book was a fascinating read. It certainly offers some interesting insights into how language and culture shape one another as well as a look into a radically different way of thinking about the world.
later
Tom
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no subject
Date: 2009-02-11 03:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-11 04:31 pm (UTC)Apparently not. And I believe this is something that's pretty well confirmed by independent researchers.
It's possible that the Piraha are just fucking with the researchers, which would be awesome, but they've never been able to figure out basic number tests.
later
Tom
no subject
Date: 2009-02-11 09:16 pm (UTC)A. Four: a mother, a father, a child, and a French anthropologist.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-11 05:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-11 11:37 pm (UTC)