Word: everetts
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Lowdown: Everett is a linguistics professor at Illinois State University, and in addition to cultural observations like the ones above, he spends a lot of time reveling in his passion for sentences and structure. The Pirahãs language contains just eight consonants and three vowels; their repetitive staccato sounds like indecipherable gibberish to just about everyone else in the world except for Everett. Until he came along, no one outside of the tribe had ever become fluent in Pirahã. A few years ago, Everett made waves in the linguistics world when he challenged Noam Chomsky's idea that...
...Sleep, There Are Snakes Daniel L. Everett Pantheon Books; 283 pages The Gist...
...Daniel Everett came to the Pirahã as a Christian missionary. Thirty years later, he left an atheist. The indigenous Brazilian tribe had no need for his Jesus, just as they had no need for numbers, colors, rituals, sound sleep, daily meals, permanent shelter, the concept of God or stories about things that happened in the past. The 350-member tribe (whose name is pronounced pee-da-HAN) is one of the last remaining hunter-gatherer cultures in the Amazon. Although they have had contact with the Western world since 1714, their customs have remained remarkably unchanged. Don't Sleep...
...welcome" or "hello." Instead of bidding someone goodnight, they say, "Don't sleep, there are snakes" - a gentle reminder that wild beasts lurk in the nearby jungle ready to slither, scurry or pounce at the first hint of an unsuspecting, defenseless snore. "Goodnight," is an empty phrase, argues Everett. At least the Pirahã saying serves a purpose...
...Malcolm is one of those people who’s involved in everything,” says Thomas G. Everett, the Harvard director of jazz bands. “He’s like a musical sponge.” Campbell plays in multiple music ensembles, including Kuumba, has recorded for the student-run record label Veritas Records, and works in a physics...