Word: everetts
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...Snakes,” a work chronicling his life with and research on the Pirahã, paint a picture of a near-idyllic retreat. However, the response the work has provoked at home—particularly within the linguistic community—has been far from tranquil. And while Everett and this book are gaining national attention for the unique nature of his discoveries, he’s also raising quite a few eyebrows in the world of academia. The Pirahã are a small tribe of Amazonian indigenous people who dwell on the banks of the Maici River...
...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...
...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...
...when the talking stops and the sentences have all been diagramed, Everett's book becomes more than just the personal journey of a man deep in the heart of godless, grammatical darkness. There is no horror for Everett or the Pirahã, just friendship, respect, and endless fascination with each other's differences...