Balls and Walnuts
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Evening coolness
I’ve made it to round four of the Samhain contest. Cooler still, my pick for winner has also advanced to the next round: Amme’s entry (see comment #16). Go Amme!
But, here you go, some linguistic coolness:
The Interpreter
Has a remote Amazonian tribe upended our understanding of language?
by John Colapinto
The people, members of a hunter-gatherer tribe called the Pirahã, responded to the sight of Everett—a solidly built man of fifty-five with a red beard and the booming voice of a former evangelical minister—with a greeting that sounded like a profusion of exotic songbirds, a melodic chattering scarcely discernible, to the uninitiated, as human speech. Unrelated to any other extant tongue, and based on just eight consonants and three vowels, Pirahã has one of the simplest sound systems known. Yet it possesses such a complex array of tones, stresses, and syllable lengths that its speakers can dispense with their vowels and consonants altogether and sing, hum, or whistle conversations.
Check it out. The photo alone (atop the article) is worth a click.
D.
That was a totally cool article…
Glad you liked it. I always love it when discoveries fluster the experts.
Amme is good! I read an early version of the book she’s entering.
Also, will you install the subscribe to comments plug in please?
I am fascinated by linguistics — the theory, not the quantification and details. Just the acquisition of speech. I enjoyed the article, particularly the parts about King Kong. These people are not stupid. We can’t relate, necessarily, on a host of levels, but they understood the storytelling. “He is her spouse.” I cracked up.
The more I think about it, the more it seems that the article had all the makings of a great drama: passionate researcher slowly comes to realize that what he is studying undercuts the bedrock of his discipline; researcher’s (ex-)wife, equally as brilliant, but unable to change her views because it would undercut her faith in God; an exotic locale; political intrigue (even if it is academic politics)…
Many novels have been written with fewer dramatic elements, that’s for sure.
May: No plugin needed. Just add http://ballsandwalnuts.com/wp-commentsrss2.php to your RSS reader and you’ll get all the comments for the site.
Thanks for the link — excellent article!
“What photo do you want for the top of the article, dude?”
“Let’s go with the floating disembodied head. That’s always good for a chuckle.”
“Somehow I knew you’d say that.”
Fascinating! I found the war of the theorists almost as interesting as the Pirahã.
Congrats on making it to the next round, too.
wow. SO COOL. i love linguistics. even the tree-structure part of it–i took linguistics first semester and was just fascinated by it all. but things like this article really get me–how we develop language, how different groups develop completely unique languages…and i’ve always been interested in things like american accents–how the same word might sound completely different but still mean the same thing.
good find, doug.
Thank Daily Kos — that’s where I heard about it 🙂
Oy, everyone, I’m having one of Those Days. Barely enough time to comment on my own blog. ER will be calling me any time now about my bloody nose patient . . .
Congrats!
Congrats on making it to the fourth round!
1. How did I know yours would be the one about the doctor and the vulva?
2. I cannot tell you how squicked out I am by the idea that my doctor might be evaluating my vulva for it’s relative sexiness.
3. Great article. It strikes me that the tribe are sort of the pinnacle of the Zen/New Age practice of living completely in the moment. Life is hard, anything can happen. You’ve got what you need now, why think about the past or future? Better yet, why not eliminate it from your very language and way of thinking so you can always be completely “in the now”?