The Piraha..

[fajrdrako]

A fascinating article:
The Interpreter - Has a remote Amazonian tribe upended our understanding of language? by John Colapinto.

When I read The Language Instinct by Steven Pinker, I was extremely impressed. It was my first introduction to Noam Chomsky's theories, and to the neurological model of linguistic studies. Fascinating. And ever since then, when I read about the linguistic controversy - is language preprogrammed into our brains? how much psychological freedom do we have in linguistic formation? - I tend to float towards the Chomsky/Pinker side of the debate. It makes so much sense to me.

But it may not be the whole story. I'd say the culture of the Piraha just proves that humankind is capable of all sorts of interesting diversity.

Or maybe it's more than that. Perhaps they have a deficiency of some sort of DNA, or an unusual chemical make-up that makes them see the world with unusual pragmatism.

Comments

[darthhellokitty.livejournal.com]

Isn't that the greatest article?!! I read it in the magazine a couple of weeks ago.

Maybe they're from another planet.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Isn't that the greatest article?

Isn't it, though! I love it when some aspect of the world has started to (however tenuously) make sense, and then along comes some huge piece of reality to contradict it. It must be like the Doctor's delight every time he encounters something "impossible".

As so often, I see a pattern of discovery - that the evidence is examined, there's a theory formulated, a good theory that gets more and more complex as all the ramifications are studied, and then kablooey, here comes a big piece of information that just makes it the whole picture more perplexing than ever.

Maybe they're from another planet.

It's scary the way that actually makes sense.