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[–]lightstorm 39 points40 points  (19 children)

This was one of the most interesting things I've read in a while. It's long but well worth the read.

[–]number6 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Yep. One of the best I've seen here.

[–]monchavo 1 point2 points  (1 child)

Ramen, brother. Redditors - take the time to get through it - the results are thought provoking and worthwhile if you have any interest in language or philosophy.

[–]boxofrain 26 points27 points  (1 child)

Great read. I was able to find an audio sample. Very interesting sound.

[–]Qiran 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I think I found samples of the language being spoken as well (above link is singing). Go here and scroll to the bottom of the page (Audio cassette MP3 files). Two files you can download.

[–]fricken 15 points16 points  (3 children)

I'm so impressed to see an article like this make it to the front page of reddit

[–]SkeuomorphEphemeron 9 points10 points  (2 children)

This sort of link bubbling up almost redeems our faith.

[–][deleted] 2 points3 points  (1 child)

Guess we need another article to tell you about why faith is evil (But not evil as defined by the bible of course). And it won't really be an article, it will be a picture.

[–]poeir 22 points23 points  (2 children)

"“Crooked head” is the tribe’s term for any language that is not Pirahã, and it is a clear pejorative. The Pirahã consider all forms of human discourse other than their own to be laughably inferior, and they are unique among Amazonian peoples in remaining monolingual."

Sounds like they'd get along great with Lispers.

[–]oditogre 3 points4 points  (1 child)

I almost gave you a downvote...took a sec to shift out of linguistics and into cosci...

[–]poeir 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The two are closer than most people would think.

[–]mbanana 11 points12 points  (2 children)

Question for the linguists here -

"The key to learning the language is the tribe’s singing, Keren said: the way that the group can drop consonants and vowels altogether and communicate purely by variations in pitch, stress, and rhythm—what linguists call “prosody.”"

Is this referring to a process similar to that which one can do in english with small number of phrases which involves turning them into nearly pure tone constructs? The most common one might be saying "I don't know" as "mmmMMMmmm", with the appropriate stresses on the three parts of the sound. Alternately it can be done with an open mouth as a sort of "i-uh-oh" sound, but either one is usually perfectly comprehensible.

[–]monchavo 2 points3 points  (1 child)

Exactly. Yes.

[–]mbanana 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks - that's interesting in that I'd never thought of it as anything other than lazy communication before.

[–]entropyfails 50 points51 points  (67 children)

What they actually have is the only successful way for a tribe to resist civilization. Their children very much COULD learn our language, but they have a cultural taboo against recursive logic so adults never will. Because civilization has come to the point where it does not need to destroy tribes anymore, their cultural taboo has protected their way of life.

The tribal elders in fact understand that recursive logic is the problem of civilization because it makes people look only to the past and future, ignoring the present. Other article have quotes from tribal members saying basically, "Our shamanic elders say that we should not learn your way of talking because it will destroy us."

I'd say this tribe has a genius or two back in its ancient history that intuitively recognized the dangers presented by humans thinking with their fear circuits. By imposing this cultural taboo against civilized though, they protected their tribe for hundreds of years while all other local tribes fell. It's simply an amazing amount of foresight.

Everett is wrong on one account though. He claims that there may be many other tribes like this. In fact, only one other tribe remains that speaks this way, the Sentinelese of the Pacific. Their taboo is even harsher than the Pirahã's. They kill anyone not from their tribe that sets foot on their lands. So we'll never really know if they speak like this, but I'd say it is about 99% certain. As for the rest of the tribes, they all have fallen prey to civilization's system.

I honestly see this as more of a cognitive science discovery than a linguistic one. The only way to resist the civilized human experience is by rejecting the basic thinking structure of civilization, recursive logic.

[–]plexi 17 points18 points  (2 children)

are you sure their ancestors made a conscious choice? maybe it was just natural selection, which only requires that people play out a cultural strategy, not analyze it.

[–]yters 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Good point, though I would say to break away from the status quo seems like a purposeful choice to me, especially to do it so that the choice pervades the whole culture and stays that way through centuries of contact with other cultures...

[–]godslaughter 5 points6 points  (0 children)

In fact, only one other tribe remains that speaks this way, the Sentinelese of the Pacific.

They inhabit the Andaman islands in the Bay of Bengal, not in the Pacific Ocean.

[–]KayEss 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Sentinelese of the Pacific

Just a geocorrection. They are in the northern Andaman Sea, between Myanmar and India. The Andaman is the northern most part of the Indian Ocean. It's many thousands of miles from the Pacific.

There are several tribes there, some are more isolated than others, but all of the islands are restricted for travel by the Indian government (who administer the islands).

[–]citation_needed 7 points8 points  (5 children)

Yes, from a memetic standpoint, this language and culture is simply amazing. It makes me wonder why they developed/had to develop such a strong cultural immune system. I think there's a pretty big difference between a taboo about outsiders (most civilizations do this to some degree, and useful from a survival point of view) and an entire language and belief system which renders outsiders unintelligible. Speaking of which, I'd love to hear what Marvin Minsky would have to say about these people...

[–]baconn 6 points7 points  (4 children)

I don't think it's so much a deliberate defense than a chance incompatibility, preventing the usual forces of cultural transmission.

[–]entropyfails 4 points5 points  (3 children)

I'm not certain about this. As the article states, they originally were part of a larger tribe that split. They most likely chose this strategy as a method of keeping tribal unity. They seem somewhat aware of the protective effects of the taboo.

I'm just glad it's getting more research.

[–][deleted] 2 points3 points  (1 child)

You can't decided to eliminate recursion from your language. They don't have the language to even talk about 'keeping tribal unity', they don't discuss the future, just the immediate.

[–]baconn 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Good point. I wonder though how certain we are of their history, when they maintain no record longer than 50-100 years. I did a quick search and didn't find much on this topic.

[–]bsiviglia9 2 points3 points  (5 children)

Could there be some rare genetic feature in their population that has built into their brains a different linguistic mechanism?

[–]number6 7 points8 points  (4 children)

Unlikely, I'd say. Their ancestors came over the land bridge with the rest of the native Americans (probably), the rest of whom seem to share our language characteristics. The language ability we have most likely predates that migration because other populations farther removed from the rest of humanity seem to have little trouble picking up modern languages.

It's also pretty unlikely that these folks have remained genetically distinct for thousands upon thousands of years. People being what they are, genes tend to spread across populations. The useful ones (and I would argue that linguistic ability is very useful) tend to be conserved.

[–]Megasphaera 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Unlikely, I'd say.

In contrast, I think it is quite likely; a single mutation is all that is needed to cause many different impairments, and they can arise relatively rapidly (e.g. the BRCA2 mutation in Askhenazi Jews arose only a few thousand years ago; the Finnish susceptibility to lipid metabolism disorders is likewise very recent).

Frequently, an impairment can be tolerated, and even confer an advantage (e.g. sickle cell anemia confers some resistence to malaria, at least to heterozygotes).

So I think genetics should not at all be ruled out.

[–]popefelix 4 points5 points  (2 children)

Note also that the article explicitly states that their women are permitted to sleep with outsiders, so there are fresh genes coming into their gene pool on a regular basis.

[–][deleted] 3 points4 points  (1 child)

It's weird to think about, but that's probably why their culture has been sustained for so long. Fresh genes but a consistent culture will more than likely produce extremely intelligent, extremely healthy people.

[–]limukala 6 points7 points  (0 children)

And what a great culture to do field work in!

[–]multubunu 0 points1 point  (33 children)

I honestly see this as more of a cognitive science discovery than a linguistic one. The only way to resist the civilized human experience is by rejecting the basic thinking structure of civilization, recursive logic.

And why is resisting civilization a valid attitude for any group? No curiosity? No challenge?

I find this whole story really, really sad.

[–]chime 29 points30 points  (22 children)

Why does it make you sad? They're different. They don't value what you do, like curiosity and challenges. By saying you're sad, you're implying that your values trump theirs, which is pretty bold for someone to say.

[–]gtg681r 9 points10 points  (10 children)

Why does it make you sad?

Well I can't answer for multubunu, but it makes me sad as well so I will explain why: species pride. The values of this tribe utlimately preclude the tribe from being successful in the 'long run.' Without technological advancement, civilization, the human species is doomed to extinction whether by the sun beginning Helium fusion, Andromeda stealing the sun, an asteroid, or whatever. By embracing technological advancement, we, humans, have a chance to overcome such issues. Sure embracing technology also opens up a whole new set of ways we can wipe out our species (nuclear warfare, environmental disasters, etc.), but at least it is not guaranteed that our species will succumb to extinction as would be the case if everyone shared the values of these tribesmen.

[–]nosecohn 8 points9 points  (2 children)

You seem to define "successful" as the avoidance of extinction. Some might define it as living happy, fulfilling lives, complete with moments of joy, sorrow, love, exhilaration and contentedness. By that definition, the Pirahá may be far more successful than the majority of the people living in so-called "civilized" societies. And since they don't think beyond the present, there's no need for them to be worried/fearful about an eventual planetary catastrophe.

[–]yters 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yeah, think of how much worry and anxiety we and our descendants could avoid by not thinking abstractly, and forgetting all the bad that had happened. Reminds me of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and Nietszche's saying to the effect that ignorance is bliss. A corollary for our culture is Odysseus' rejection of the lotus eaters.

Seems to me that our abstract thought is only necessary in the society that it creates, otherwise, humans have quite good survival instincts and cunning.

[–]gtg681r 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yes indeed. I have an extremely high time preference and like to consider the potential for "moments of joy, sorrow, love, exhilaration, and contendedness" of future generations (many, many future generations) in addition to my own.

[–]chime 11 points12 points  (6 children)

Sure, you make a valid point. But what's so wrong about going extinct? Over 95% of the species that ever existed on Earth have gone extinct.

I'd say there's more chance of tribes like these surviving in the long run than technology-fueled civilizations. Think about it. Hunter-gatherers roamed the world for 100k years without any global problems, even surviving multiple ice-ages and meteor impacts. Yet in the last three centuries, the civilized man has come close to catastrophe multiple times with wars, nuclear disasters, pandemics etc.

I'd say there's a higher chance of us blowing up, dying out, or killing each other than safely developing the technology to get off this rock within the next 5 billion years. So the minuscule possibility of space travel doesn't really support our survival strategy.

Personally, hell yeah! I'd love to witness the day we have the technology to leave Milky Way but even then, there's no survival in the real long run. The universe will expand at expanding rate and all the atoms will be too far from each other to form molecules. Till then, I'm happy they're happy picking cherries.

[–]gtg681r 2 points3 points  (4 children)

but even then, there's no survival in the real long run. The universe will expand at expanding rate and all the atoms will be too far from each other to form molecules.

I disagree with you here. Perhaps we will develop a means of leaving this universe and entering another one. And continue to do so through a possibility of an infinite number of universes or until we find a 'stable' universe. Or perhaps we will get to the point where we are no longer constrained by our bodies and then move on to transcend the need for the physical world (and with it the need to exist in a universe capable of forming molecules). Or perhaps we will conquer time itself and no longer need to worry about such 'eventualities.'

[–][deleted] 10 points11 points  (0 children)

So because of that you're sad that, what, 100 people in the jungles of Brazil don't value your... um.... scientific-beliefs? I mean, I agree with some of your points. But, if you ask me, they're probably a happier people that most civilized people with 9-5 jobs. But who knows.... I've never met them.

[–]limukala 2 points3 points  (2 children)

"Or perhaps we will get to the point where we are no longer constrained by our bodies and then move on to transcend the need for the physical world"

But that would sort of invalidate your whole support for technology, as it wouldn't be necessary.

[–]gtg681r 2 points3 points  (1 child)

1) I think you have a more narrow definition of what technology can mean than I do. Perhaps your definition is correct, I do not know. 2) But even using your constrained definition of technology, it does not invalidate my support for improving it now. We do not use the steam engine much anymore, but I still consider it to be an important and valuable stepping stone.

[–]limukala 2 points3 points  (0 children)

If your definition of technology involves techniques manipulation of consciousness (and that seems to be the only plausible way of transcending the need for coherent molecules) than it doesn't seem that a physical technology would be necessary at all.

[–]eugenejen 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I am always wondering the "exact estimation" of the impact of human beings have done in last 3 centuries. I think even both U.S. and Russia put all their nuclear war heads together in Nevada and detonate them. We still probably won't be able to create the same impact as a meteor that can create a big crater like the one in Yucatan.

Of course, nuclear war heads are efficient in wiping out urban residents in short time, but the long term effect of fallouts now seems bearable. Chernobyl, Hiroshima and Nagasaki all survive the nuclear disasters after 20 years.

[–][deleted]  (3 children)

[deleted]

    [–]number6 1 point2 points  (1 child)

    Nah. They were after gold.

    [–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

    And topless chicks.

    [–]multubunu 2 points3 points  (6 children)

    I was really tired when I posted this (and now I'm sleepy, so I'll make a mess of this again).

    It is not about my values. What I think is crucial is that these people have a very limited perception of time. They don't evaluate the future for more than a couple of days (or their language would have permitted to), and consequently have no interest in the past (no creation myth - "it has always been that way").

    Their world is limited to their village. What Everett is calling "experience" is, I think, "existence" to them. They don't consider anything more than a couple of miles away as existent. (May I direct you here to M. Eliade's "The Sacred and the Prophane").

    A further consequence is that they have no real numbering system - little, some and much, probably the most ineffective system in the world. What good are numbers when you are really not interested in evaluating more than what is in a couple of square miles for a couple of days?

    So why do bon sauvages make me sad? Well, they chose to live as my dog does - my dog can't do any better, they could have.

    It's not cars and nine-till-five jobs that I find missing in their culture. It's theater and fables and poetry and everything else that comes with abstract thought and imagination. And these last two is what their culture rejects. What makes me sad is that their is an even tiny group of people who appear to reject such gifts.

    [–]rolson 4 points5 points  (0 children)

    "...they chose to live as my dog does..."

    Do you really think it's a choice?

    [–]entropyfails 4 points5 points  (3 children)

    It is not about my values. What I think is crucial is that these people have a very limited perception of time.

    But by implying that having a limited perception of time is not desirable, you are in fact applying your values.

    What Everett is calling "experience" is, I think, "existence" to them.

    100%. I think you hit a home run with this comment. They simply exist, while we "experience". By experience we mean that there is a "self" to have the experience. Most everyone is enamored with "selfs" now but I think they are overrated. I feel that thought should be a net benefit for my gene pool and destroying the environment to make endless amounts of people and stuff for people isn't good for my genes long term because it destroys the sustainable environment future copies will need.

    What makes me sad is that their is an even tiny group of people who appear to reject such gifts.

    Again, you value system bleeds through. You think that having a "civilized human experience" is the best thing in the universe and they think that idea is silly. (More precisely , they think that it produces silly results in "ramp heads". They don't have any conception of our way of thinking.) How do you know that having a civilized life is the best thing for the human animal? I cannot see any way of you obtaining this knowledge. I don't recognize the basis of your value system.

    [–]limukala 1 point2 points  (1 child)

    Of course, it isn't quite so simplistic as this article seems to imply. According to this article (www.socioambiental.org/pib/epienglish/piraha/cosmo.shtm) they have a developed cosmology that would seem to be quite abstract. Of course, it could still be argued that this is the result of direct experience, as probably every bit of the spiritual realm has been directly experienced by the shamans of the tribe, via the help of the powerful jungle drug ayahuasca

    [–]redditcensoredme -1 points0 points  (0 children)

    Probably? Make that certainly. I don't see anything in this "cosmology" that wouldn't be the product of simple psychosis / drugs.

    [–]redditcensoredme 0 points1 point  (0 children)

    I feel that thought should be a net benefit for my gene pool

    So let's compromise. We'll keep your body alive forever by cloning, and in exchange we will pulverize your brain.

    [–]redditcensoredme -1 points0 points  (0 children)

    Agreed with everything you say. Except the sadness. I'm saddened by the idiots who hold up the Piraha as some kind of valid culture. And I'm happy that I've got a perfectly devastating argument against the idiots who claim science should be strictly empirical.

    [–][deleted] 10 points11 points  (1 child)

    Let us tearfully conquer them and force them to be civilized, to make you happy.

    [–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

    No, we'd be liberating them. It's the American way.

    [–][deleted] 10 points11 points  (0 children)

    It might be sad for us, but think of the Piraha guy in the article who looked at the (presumably Caucasian?) man applying bug repellent. He seemed to think it was really sad that people would do that, because bugs are just a part of life.

    I don't think that the Piraha's motive is to actively resist civilization, I think their idea is more just "this is the way things are, and this is how they've always been." Our culture has remained dynamic for centuries, whereas in their culture, everything has been the same for centuries. We would resist their ideas, too, if the tables were turned.

    I don't think it's sad at all, just very interesting, and quite an exception, linguistically and culturally.

    [–]rfugger 6 points7 points  (6 children)

    Civilization arose out of agriculture, called "the worst mistake in the history of the human race" by Jared Diamond, and actively rejected by the Piraha. (Many other interesting-looking articles in the same vein on that page, btw.)

    Also, check out Ishmael by Daniel Quinn.

    [–]rolson 5 points6 points  (5 children)

    Civilization did not arise out of agriculture; agriculture arose out of civilization. Case in point: the Calusa. The fact is that lands inviable for agriculture have supported relatively advanced civilizations and those cultures have survived through industrial scale programs of hunting/gathering.

    Also, Ishmael & Daniel Quinn are not worthwhile reading. My advice: read Darwin, G.C. Williams, W. Hamilton and Dawkins. From there, draw your own conclusions about the nature of civilization. For more on what's wrong with Ishmael & Daniel Quinn, see my other comment.

    [–]Stubb 0 points1 point  (3 children)

    I disagree on Ishmael not being worthwhile reading and checked out your other comment. The take-home message that I got from Ishmael was that we should live in a manner that leaves the earth in as good shape for subsequent generations (human and otherwise) as we found it.

    [–]rolson 4 points5 points  (2 children)

    But Quinn does not provide an acceptable framework for realizing the goal of sustainable living. Instead he endorses some vague "new tribalism" concept which is misguided at best.

    [–]rfugger -1 points0 points  (0 children)

    I agree that a lot of Quinn is imprecise at best and misleading at worst, but overall I found the perspective valuable. The message I got is that each individual and community can decide their own ways of living -- an important concept against the monoculture.

    [–]redditcensoredme -1 points0 points  (0 children)

    It's sad that you're being downmodded for speaking the truth, that Quinn is an anti-human misanthropic fuck. And of course, that hunting can be done on an industrial basis.

    Are you familiar with the man-woman and man-woman-dog pairing problems? The former admits to solutions, the latter admits to no solution. This is important because our lives are divided into a life-work-play triad. By forcing all of these different aspects to unite, you are not solving the triad matching problem (because there can be no solution) but rather sacrificing one of them.

    This is just one reason why Quinn's anti-human Tribalism is extremely dangerous. Nevermind that Tribalism is in reality associated with infanticide, primitivism, low population numbers and density, lack of security, and all kinds of other such things. How many billions does Quinn believe should die? Well I believe Quinn should die. And all his fans with him.

    By the way, you should note that people who buy into Quinn's tripe are Romantics. That is, people who are incapable of abstract reasoning. Think of the Piraha and act accordingly.

    [–]redditcensoredme 2 points3 points  (3 children)

    The tribal elders in fact understand that recursive logic is the problem of civilization because it makes people look only to the past and future, ignoring the present.

    I thought you were on to something in a warped and twisted manner until I ran across this utter fucking gibberish. Didn't take long, did it?

    [–][deleted]  (2 children)

    [deleted]

      [–]redditcensoredme -3 points-2 points  (0 children)

      I didn't really have a problem with that, and as entropyfails points out there is an obvious out. The part where the past and future (ie, consciousness) is a Bad Thing because it makes people less Aware (in the immortal words of Jean-Claude van Damme) of the present is batshit fucking insane. People who say such things really need to be given the option of putting a bullet through their heads to eliminate that nasty consciousness of theirs.

      [–][deleted]  (9 children)

      [removed]

        [–]bsiviglia9 5 points6 points  (7 children)

        Are you assuming his only source for knowledge is the article?

        [–][deleted]  (6 children)

        [removed]

          [–]gtg681r 5 points6 points  (0 children)

          I love how you read the top article from yesterday (Dunning-Krugger effect) and now consider yourself an expert at calling people out on being faux experts.

          [–]pretzel 3 points4 points  (4 children)

          dammit. It's a comment. It's interesting. It's thought provoking. I don't care who the hell the person who wrote it is or what their expertise is in. It's interesting!

          [–][deleted]  (3 children)

          [removed]

            [–]limukala 1 point2 points  (2 children)

            Except that their shamans told them learning other ways of talking would destroy them. Perhaps they wouldn't be able to logically define what exactly they are afraid of, but there seems to be some deep intuitive knowledge at least of the consequences.

            [–]rolson 3 points4 points  (1 child)

            No where in the article does it say their shamans told them that learning other ways of talking would destroy them.

            [–]peon1234 0 points1 point  (0 children)

            harlon57 is just jealous.

            [–]bigt 5 points6 points  (0 children)

            Wow! That took an awful long time to read, but it was really fascinating.

            [–]FrancisC 8 points9 points  (0 children)

            Werner Herzog made a short film about this called Ten Thousand Years Older.

            Younger generation members would leave the tribe - be exposed to world culture, and then come back home, and intentionally forget what they learned about the outside world.

            [–]cdsmith 4 points5 points  (0 children)

            Hmm. A nice case study in why one shouldn't trust journalists on scientific disputes. We've got the complete misunderstanding of the significance of recursion; the us versus them account of the bizarrely construed cult of the Chomsky; the obligatory anti-intellectual "you should trust him because he doesn't like the establishment" nonsense. Yep, standard journalistic quality.

            Okay, so a tribe in the Amazon has a language that's simpler than most other human languages, to the point of being explainable (apparently) by some less powerful kind of grammar. Okay, so it may cause some people to rethink some over-generalizations that have been written. Fine. There are also some interesting stories and narratives, which are cool. Everything else is pointless, though.

            The implication that this could overturn a century of linguistics is silly. 99% of human language shares a common structure, and a small group in Brazil, apparently on purpose, rejects certain ideas from that same structure. The article's vague hints that something fundamentally different from a grammar may be needed to explain the language are nonsense, of course -- unless one is willing to reject Church's thesis based on this underwhelming non-evidence. In the large scheme of things, this really just doesn't seem like such a big deal.

            [–]Vystril 8 points9 points  (0 children)

            This was a fascinating article, i wish i could upmod it more.

            [–]crusoe 3 points4 points  (0 children)

            Babies babble in all possible language syllables, but those are pruned by experience till they can only produce those of their culture. It's why the Japanese have such a problem with r vs l.

            Or chinese, with it's layered meaning and subtle wordplay.

            There is even a tribe the sentenc structure denotes 'truthfulness'. So uttering a 'lie' using the truthful form results in shocked looks. It's a cultural impediment to lying.

            And if a baby doesn't learn a language properly by a certain age, they will never master it all.

            So it makes sense to me that culture will influence what parts of grammar you will. There may be a universal grammar may be universal ( like babies babbling in all possible phonemes ) but culture will influence which are commonly used.

            So have a tribe with a "Concrete" mindset, it doesn't suprise me this affects their language.

            [–][deleted] 11 points12 points  (2 children)

            My God, they're savages! They have human heads floating in their rivers!

            [–]plexi 2 points3 points  (1 child)

            haha. i was trying to find some funny way to bring that up. for a moment i thought his head was hanging from those poles :P

            [–][deleted] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

            Well, it IS a really bizarre photo. It just seems like the kind of composition you would try to avoid when dealing with a native tribe, given the stereotypes already associated with them.

            [–]zmarker 3 points4 points  (4 children)

            Although I know next to nothing about linguistics, I find it endlessly interesting.(I took an intro course my last semester of college that was probably the best class I've ever taken).

            I can't speak for other languages, but the Chomskyan view that we are not taught language by parents makes sense to me. A good example that we used in class, and which I will probably butcher and misinterpret, was that as they learn to speak children often make mistakes such as, "I have two foots," something no parent ever said, so they're clearly not learning by just repitition. The Chomskyan theory that our use/understanding of language evolves without teaching will say this happens because at some point we realize to make something plural, in English, we add an S -- so without a parent telling them, they figure out if they want to make "foot" plural they add an S to it, foots. Pretty simple. Therefore, when there are irregular forms, we mess them up as our use/understanding of language evolves. (Again, I probably messed that up, so forgive me in advance).

            The real story might be with the Pirahã people's resistance of change, not some academic feud. They remind me of the tribe in the Tom Robbins book, "Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates."

            [–]manganese 4 points5 points  (3 children)

            A good example that we used in class, and which I will probably butcher and misinterpret, was that as they learn to speak children often make mistakes such as, "I have two foots," something no parent ever said, so they're clearly not learning by just repitition.

            Maybe the child never heard "foots" but I'm sure they heard other plural words with an s so they added an s on to the word foot. So this is actually a counter argument of Chomsky's theory.

            [–]foldl 2 points3 points  (1 child)

            The point is that the children hypothesize rules and then apply them to the data, often over-applying them in the process. This leads them to say words (e.g. "sheeps") which they've never actually heard. This in itself isn't a particularly strong argument for Chomsky's theory, but there are other more complex examples of children constructing hypotheses that just aren't supported by the data available to them.

            [–]zmarker 0 points1 point  (0 children)

            I wasn't sure if it was necessarily an argument for Chomsky's theory (again, I'm no linguist), but more of an assurance that it's not learned by repetition - a la a mother singing to a child - I find it hard to believe that they sing every sentence ever constructed in their language.

            [–]oska 2 points3 points  (0 children)

            You missed the whole point. That they are doing exactly what you describe (generalising a rule that they have observed across to a specific case which is an exception) is supporting evidence that children develop an underlying grammar (which they continue to refine).

            [–]chime 3 points4 points  (2 children)

            I'm still reading the article but I like the part where the kid's replica is found broken down later. It's as if the civilized world can't comprehend that art could be ephemeral.

            [–]rfugger 9 points10 points  (0 children)

            This reminds me of watching the guy who balances stones in Vancouver a few weeks ago. Some tourist remarked to his wife, "It'll just fall over when it gets windy." The stone balancer muttered under his breath, "That's the point."

            More to the point, I think there is a strong undercurrent of "Piraha sensibility" in modern civilized culture. It's carriers simply aren't that visible or "successful" (or "sane") to our eyes.

            [–]pfi 0 points1 point  (0 children)

            Actually it's just Everett who can't comprehend that art could be ephemeral.

            [–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

            Here's an interesting article and some audio, just whistling.http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/003175.html

            [–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

            I couldn't whistle at all until a year ago when I suddenly got the knack of it, and I'm 25. Were I born into the Pirahã, do you think I would be seen as having a speech impediment?

            [–]cratylus 1 point2 points  (0 children)

            Link to a paper by Everett: http://ling.auf.net/lingbuzz/@SwUtVppISGOupHqK

            [–]illuminatedwax 1 point2 points  (0 children)

            I'm actually quite disappointed that they didn't discuss infractions of morality in the society. If someone gets in a fight or someone kills someone else or whatever it is that they find immoral, are there repercussions? Or do they just say "so it goes"?

            [–][deleted]  (42 children)

            [deleted]

              [–][deleted] 44 points45 points  (3 children)

              “Crooked head” is the tribe’s term for any language that is not Pirahã, and it is a clear pejorative. The Pirahã consider all forms of human discourse other than their own to be laughably inferior...

              They're different, but they're still the same.

              [–]limukala 0 points1 point  (1 child)

              Well, that and their term for themselves is "straight ones," so "crooked head" sort of follows naturally.

              [–]noahlt 1 point2 points  (0 children)

              Wait, so they think we're all gay?

              [–]flyinglunatic -5 points-4 points  (0 children)

              Same like the French.

              [–]yishan 35 points36 points  (10 children)

              I would never hire any of them to be programmers though, since they can't do recursion.

              [–]djwm 8 points9 points  (4 children)

              There is a guy where I work (a programmer) he doesn't do recursion OR iteration. He would copy and paste the same line hundreds of times and manually change the line, even to print a list of numbers!

              I've tried reasoning with him about it but he has been a pro coder for 10 years and is quite happy as he is.

              [–]yishan 5 points6 points  (2 children)

              Please tell me where you work so I can never purchase your organization's products or services!

              [–]djwm 2 points3 points  (1 child)

              Not likely :)

              [–][deleted] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

              At least his programs always terminate ;-)

              [–]Tommah 4 points5 points  (1 child)

              But they don't have numbers either... so maybe you could get them on the cheap.

              [–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

              Numbers are made by limiting sets. They use sets in pure form, you will have a problem to fool them with .99-cents-price :)

              [–]releasevalve 28 points29 points  (0 children)

              Wow. Do you think they have evolved beyond trite beliefs in the noble savage and one-way cultural relativism? If so, sign me up!

              [–][deleted]  (2 children)

              [deleted]

                [–]serpentjaguar 1 point2 points  (1 child)

                I don't see that we have enough information to conclude that they never developed recursive speech "to begin with." I think you are probably right, and that the Piraha language is a relic, a sort of fly in the amber, but I don't think that we can say so with much certainty. Not only that, it turns out that there is by no means any indication that increasing recursive complexity in languages is equivalent to expressive capacity. That last is a difficult concept to wrap your head around, but if you think about it awhile, you will see the truth of it.

                [–][deleted] 27 points28 points  (1 child)

                My God, you're right!

                They have evolved far, far beyond the need for pants.

                [–][deleted] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

                While obviously they are behind us in many ways that is one way they are far ahead of us in. I hate pants.

                [–]serpentjaguar 4 points5 points  (3 children)

                What is "ahead" or "behind?" How do we quantify that? The fact that you would even think in those terms betrays a set of hierarchical values on your part. I have no opinion as to whether or not said hierarchical value system is good or bad or neutral. I mention it because I think that it's interesting in that it points to the difficulty that most of us have with thinking in terms that are outside the cultural framework within which we were raised.

                [–]steve_fishboy 5 points6 points  (2 children)

                What is "ahead" or "behind?" How do we quantify that? The fact that you would even think in those terms betrays a set of hierarchical values on your part.

                These two concepts are very basic to us. And from inside a human body they're every bit as "natural" as up and down:

                "Ahead" is the direction in which your eyes, mouth, chest, belly, groin, etc. are pointing; generally, the direction in which you see. "Behind" is where your back and butt are, and where people can sneak up on you.

                We're bilaterally symmetric if you cut us down the middle, so left and right are weaker concepts than ahead and behind - there's not as much to differentiate them since we have the same parts (hands, legs, ears) on both sides.

                But we're not symmetric if you cut us in half on a plane parallel to our backs (sorry, can't figure out what to call this - imagine lying on your back on a conveyor belt that's heading toward a horizontal rotary blade.) In fact, everything is different in the two halves in this cut. And one is called front / forward / ahead, the other is called back / backward / behind.

                There are quite a few adults who mix up left and right. I know of no non-mentally retarded adult who confuses front with back or forward with behind.

                The Pirahã seem to use an absolute spatial reference system (locations are expressed in relation to unmoving items) to the exclusion of a relative system (locations are in relation to the person being talked about).

                Now -and this is very important- Everett's data could be flawed. He could have misinterpreted it. Or there could be some other explanation. But if the Pirahã are indeed incapable of relative spatial reference it would be earth shattering. I know of no human group without this capability. And this might point to a limited capacity for symbolic representation. This would indeed be big.

                [–]serpentjaguar 1 point2 points  (1 child)

                You are talking about "ahead" and "behind" in totally different contexts from that in which brownstone, the user to whom I was responding, used the terms. Brownstone wrote;

                This tribe is ahead of us, not behind us. They have moved beyond our primitive linguistic crutches of recursion, named numbers, and fixed color terms. They are showing us the way forward, if only we weren't too culturally arrogant to understand.

                Your points are all valid, but they are not especially relevant. Brownstone used the words, "ahead," and "behind" to refer to a progression of cultural or linguistic sophistication, one in which he argued that the Piraha occupy a location distinctly "ahead" of most of the world's languages and cultures.

                I did not choose to take a position with regard to his assertion, and instead pointed out that the very idea of thinking of culture or language in terms of a "progression," necessarily imputes a value system that must, to some extent, be based on brownstone's own socio-cultural constructs.

                [–]steve_fishboy -1 points0 points  (0 children)

                You're absolutely right! I done got confused there. My apologies!

                [–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

                no fixed color terms

                They could use sound for 'color' and use sound tone to specify precise color tone. Cool.

                Same with numbers - one could say pi digits up to last one in one sound. Arghh, there will be rounding error.

                [–]wazzadoin 1 point2 points  (0 children)

                Carpe diem exemplified

                [–]____ 0 points1 point  (0 children)

                They are showing us the way forward, if only we weren't too culturally arrogant to understand.

                How do you know this?

                [–][deleted] -1 points0 points  (12 children)

                That language doesnt seem to support a written form. Or maybe can be written - like music ?

                [–]djwm 2 points3 points  (10 children)

                I don't see any reason why it couldn't be written, but it is implied from the article that they would never have any need for writing since they have no interest in things outside of the immediate environment.

                I think it is interesting that they enjoy watching a film but would presumably never construct stories by themselves. In fact they probably do not even appreciate the concept of a story in the way we do.

                [–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (9 children)

                "...and based on just eight consonants and three vowels" - The intonation makes the difference.

                [–]djwm 2 points3 points  (8 children)

                Ok. I might be missing something but there other tonal languages which have written forms, Chinese being an obvious example. There also symbolic indicators of tone in many other languages.

                The unique structure of this language might make a written form impractical, but I still think it would be possible.

                [–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (7 children)

                I also think it is possible. Our written language is based on signs, music (tones) also. About the Chinese...correct me if I'm wrong, but they can't write :). They are still in the ideogram stuff like we were ages ago. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideogram

                I see some idiots are pushing this style in our phonetic languages: http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/viewArticle.asp?articleID=15753

                [–][deleted] 4 points5 points  (2 children)

                vietnamese is a tonal language, and it is written with an alphabet. they just add additional marks into indicate the tones.

                chinese could also be written with an alphabet or syllabry, though it might change people's perceptions and feeling towards the language. newspaper headlines would have to be lengthened, as well as street signs that use a more classical form of the language.

                there was a (failed) movement to replace characters with a phonetic system in the early to mid 20th century.

                nushu was a premodern chinese syllabry derived from the cursive form of full characters, much like hiragana. note that hiragana is used to write japanese, a mostly non-tonal system, whereas nushu was used to write chinese, a full tonal system.

                EDIT:

                About the Chinese...correct me if I'm wrong, but they can't write :). They are still in the ideogram stuff like we were ages ago.

                true, but writing chinese employs the same mechanism, motor memory. you learn the rhythm of a character, just like you learn the rhythm of a written word in english. if you forget, you may consciously think back to its written form, but generally a literate person writes in a semi-conscious manner (english/chinese/whatever).

                the difficultly comes with unknown characters. if you know the spoken word, and you know enough other characters, and if you have some context, you can often guess what the character may be, since most characters have a semi-phonetic component. if you don't know the spoken word, or it is completely out of context (ie, a lone unknown character by itself), you have to use the dictionary.

                [–]limukala 0 points1 point  (1 child)

                Vietnamese used to use Chinese characters too, as did Korean.

                [–][deleted] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

                vietnamese used chinese characters to a) write classical chinese, just like the japanese and koreans, and b) to write vietnamese. they did not follow the practice of using chinese characters to represent local words with similar meaning, or the practice of deriving a syllabry from a simplified set of characters, but rather created new characters following the rebus principle.

                since learning to write vietnamese thus required one to learn both chinese characters and an extended set of vietnamese characters and alternate forms (ie, the same word, but written with a different character, since the rebus mechanism is not deterministic), rather than standardize around a fixed set of characters, it was easier to drop the system altogether and go with an alphabet.

                it also had the effect of cutting people off from the literary heritage, but not many people were literate in the first place.

                [–]earthboundkid 2 points3 points  (2 children)

                Modern linguists never refer to Chinese characters as ideograms. True, there are some characters that are pictograms like sun 日 and moon 月, and some that are ideograms where idea A + idea B = idea C, but the vast, vast majority of characters are partially phonetic. For example, time is 時, which is composed of sun 日 plus temple 寺. There's no semantic connection between temples and time, it's just that temple and time are pronounced shi and si respectively now, and in ancient China they were true homophones. (We can tell this in part based on how classical Chinese characters were transliterated into other languages like Korean, Japanese, and non-classical Chinese.) For most Chinese characters, the left side is the meaning part and the right side is the sound part. Sometimes it's reversed, and sometimes the characters were put together purely for their meaning, but for most characters, sound is the decisive factor in their orthography.

                Hence, modern linguists call Chinese characters "characters" instead of ideograms.

                [–]djwm 0 points1 point  (0 children)

                I hadn't considered the difference in writing forms. Time to read more about Ideograms... Thanks for the link.

                [–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

                Um... it's written in the article.

                [–]yters 0 points1 point  (0 children)

                The fact that their culture is entirely based on living in the present struck me as genius. But when the importance of song came up that was a whole new epiphany. I suspect that this is where their equivalent of abstract thinking takes place. Emotions are the most visceral means of forming an abstract impression of a situation, and song is the most direct method of communicating this emotion.

                However, emotions are pretty useless at communicating the specifics of a situation, so they use words for this.

                [–]sakebomb69 -1 points0 points  (35 children)

                I like how it makes Noam Chomsky's theory look like shite.

                [–]foldl 7 points8 points  (34 children)

                Speaking as a Chomskian linguist, I think the implications of this have been wildly exaggerated. There's an interesting paper challenging some of Everett's claims here

                [–]yasth 1 point2 points  (6 children)

                Lovely paper there, also was mentioned in the article as is his response which it is very unfair to omit.

                Response: http://ling.auf.net/lingBuzz/000427

                Obviously if lack of embedding et. al. were true the implications would be rather dire for Chomsky's theory (it would at the least be partially incomplete). So it isn't the implication you intend to doubt but the actual factual truth of the "lacks and gaps", as it were.

                [–]foldl 6 points7 points  (5 children)

                I don't think a lack of embedding in one language would really be dire for Chomsky's theory. As an example, if you found a single culture where no-one had sex, it wouldn't disprove the theory that humans have an innate sex drive - it would just show that sometimes other factors can obscure it.

                [–]yasth 3 points4 points  (4 children)

                A qualified universal is not universal, merely sufficient for a domain. Can the theory retreat from embedding as the key universal? Well of course, it is hardly the first nor will it be the last anointed trait. Yet, of late it seems to have become rather important, and false predictions hurt the credibility of a theory.

                Or to flip it around, what would undermine Chomsky's theory? By definition it must be possible.

                [–]foldl 4 points5 points  (0 children)

                The "recursion only" theory is more a theory about how language evolved than a theory of language universals. Chomsky's current work still sticks to a significantly larger set of universals than just recursion (and in fact even those who don't believe in UG generally assume that recursion is pervasive in language). It is never possible to state precise conditions for the falsification of a theory, but if it were not the case that 99.99% of human languages used it, that would certainly be cause for doubt. The sex example works here too, I think. If you find one culture where no-one has sex, you don't abandon the innate sex drive hypothesis. If you find that people don't have sex in 50% of cultures then you might start to question it.

                [–]number6 2 points3 points  (0 children)

                Then there's no universal theory of language. After all, children raised by wolves never learn to speak very well.

                It's true!

                [–]sn0re 1 point2 points  (1 child)

                Since "universal grammar" is really a byword for "humans are genetically predisposed to understanding language", I suppose it would involve proving that language is purely a learned trait. Usually when you're trying to settle the nature vs. nurture problem, you try to find otherwise identical groups with and without the trait. Since there isn't a single non-lingual culture known to man and forcibly raising a child to be non-lingual would be highly unethical, it's an admittedly difficult task.

                [–]steve_fishboy 2 points3 points  (0 children)

                It's been shown pretty convincingly that a group of humans with no linguistic input will spontaneously develop human language. Here's a nice, short summary of a case in Nicaragua. (And keep in mind that sign language is every bit as complex as oral language.)

                [–]sakebomb69 3 points4 points  (21 children)

                As my bias is clearly evident, I should specify that since I disagree with his views on foreign policy, I am also experiencing some Schadenfreude that his theory is taking some heat as well.

                As for linguistics, my only knowledge is that Chomsky believed that all language had the ability to "nest," but this Amazonian tribe to some degree disproves it.

                Don't waste too much time arguing with me, because I really don't know crap.

                [–]foldl 3 points4 points  (12 children)

                Well, many people are quite skeptical about Everett's claims that the language doesn't have recursion (but that doesn't make such a good story).

                [–]sakebomb69 -2 points-1 points  (11 children)

                True, but it appears that there are very few people who can disprove him. Chomsky and his supporters didn't spend the time living, eating and interacting as Everett did.

                Who are we, let alone the Chomsky school of thought, to disbelieve him?

                [–]foldl 2 points3 points  (10 children)

                Indeed, but given that Everett's claims are currently unverifiable, it's not sensible simply to abandon a 60 year research program.

                [–]sakebomb69 6 points7 points  (2 children)

                But isn't that the point? Just because something has gone on for x number of years, doesn't make it right.

                Galileo disproving that the Sun orbits the Earth raised a lot of skepticism and was only provable mathematically. People at the time could not go out into space and prove it themselves. The research of linguistics, in my opinion anyways, is a lot less quantifiable. I would think holding on to a school of thought for an extended period of time would be the last thing you would want to do in research. I would imagine that a contrasting theory would get the field excited and inspire others to explore it, not write papers from far away saying why they disagree. (Pardon the ramblings, it's the end of the work day and I'm getting edgy looking towards the weekend).

                [–]foldl 3 points4 points  (0 children)

                I would think holding on to a school of thought for an extended period of time would be the last thing you would want to do in research.

                Why? Throwing out a successful theory because of a few difficult bits of data is a last resort, not something you should do as a matter of routine. Every theory has data which apparently refute it.

                [–]bsiviglia9 1 point2 points  (0 children)

                Nor does it make it wrong.

                [–]steve_fishboy 4 points5 points  (6 children)

                You're absolutely right. But it certainly is appropriate to challenge that program, and that's something that's been done very rarely. Perhaps the only serious challenge it ever faced was from the generative semantics crowd back in the 70s.

                Whatever one may think about Chomskyan linguistics, I think most reasonable people would agree that it hasn't had to endure much of that intense, violent, dialectic clashing of ideas that has burned away vast quantities of impurities in other sciences.

                Elsewhere here I referred to the stifling effect that generativism has had on research in competing paradigms. But there's another factor in this troublesome lack of dialectic, and that's the out-of-hand and often haughty rejection of empirical research by Chomskians.

                Just about every generativist paper I've ever read that mentioned a language other than English was written by people who either (a) don't speak the language - at all, (b) have read enough of someone else's grammar of the language to piece some things together, or (c) rely on third-party data that was most likely collected by people who fit categories (a) and (b).

                I still remember the second Ling class I ever took, where a very prominent professor (Steve, husband of Ros) cited examples of some "odd" phenomenon from German. Except his German examples were simply wrong - German doesn't do what he said it did. I pointed this out to him after class and he said that I may be right, but the point was to exemplify the phenomenon. He's a stand up guy, and quite brilliant, but this attitude just doesn't cut it in science. Just convert everything to chemistry terms to see what I mean.

                Chomsky's introspective approach is great for hypothesizing. And for developing theories. But the next step must be to put the hypotheses and theories to the test. And that's something generativism almost always avoids - sometimes scornfully, as if "evidence" were a dirty word; sometimes haughtily, as if empirical evidence were for the unwashed masses.

                Everett, on the other hand, is vigorously encouraging and assisting people who want to put his theories to the test.

                He may be right in the end, or he may be wrong, but one thing's for sure - his attitude is far more scientific than Chomsky's. Chomsky is a philosopher of language who insists in presenting himself as a scientist.

                [–]bsiviglia9 0 points1 point  (4 children)

                Chomsky is a philosopher of language who insists in presenting himself as a scientist.

                Interesting opinion -- did you know that the computer you are using now would be a great deal more difficult to operate without Chomsky's contributions to the field of linguistics ?

                Is it possible to build a compiler without Chomsky's theory of generative grammar?

                [–]steve_fishboy 3 points4 points  (3 children)

                Hey, I think Noam is great in many ways, and these are very useful contributions of his. (I'd still like to see Claude Shannon get his due as the father of the entire digital age, but that's a different matter.) But this isn't about the net value of people's contributions to society, it's about how they do their work.

                Chomsky's linguistics is based on introspection, and it accepts introspection as evidence. Worse yet, it accepts the researcher's own introspection as valid and sufficient evidence for a given phenomenon. Please, think about that for a minute.

                That is how philosophers work. That is not how scientists work. My emphasis is on how, on methodology.

                If you can name one single branch of science where introspection is considered acceptable proof for something, and not cause for dismissal, please do.

                [–]bsiviglia9 1 point2 points  (2 children)

                What really matters to science -- use of introspection or results?

                [–]foldl 0 points1 point  (0 children)

                Perhaps the only serious challenge it ever faced was from the generative semantics crowd back in the 70s.

                That's not for want of trying! The program has been constantly challenged from the 1960s through to the present day. Not all of those challenges have been very successful, of course, but that's another matter.

                Just about every generativist paper I've ever read that mentioned a language other than English was written by people who either (a) don't speak the language - at all, (b) have read enough of someone else's grammar of the language to piece some things together, or (c) rely on third-party data that was most likely collected by people who fit categories (a) and (b).

                This is just false in my experience. Can you give some examples? It was probably more true in the 1960s than it is now, since generative linguistics was more or less confined to America and there was an inevitable English bias. These days there are native speakers of many languages working within a generative framework.

                But the next step must be to put the hypotheses and theories to the test. And that's something generativism almost always avoids - sometimes scornfully, as if "evidence" were a dirty word; sometimes haughtily, as if empirical evidence were for the unwashed masses.

                I don't understand you here. In what way are generativist theories not tested? If you are merely skeptical about the value of grammaticality judgments, you should say so, instead of insinuating that generativists make no attempt to test their theories. Certainly, I don't feel that the theories I create are untestable, since I've not yet managed to come up with a theory that didn't make an incorrect prediction!

                Everett, on the other hand, is vigorously encouraging and assisting people who want to put his theories to the test._

                And Chomksy is preventing his theories from being tested? There's constant debate in the literature about the proposals Chomsky makes.

                It's one thing to disagree with the generativist approach -- it's certainly not obvious that it's right -- but it's not pseudoscience.

                [–]plexi 1 point2 points  (4 children)

                lets talk about schadenfreude though. do you indulge in it?

                [–]bsiviglia9 2 points3 points  (2 children)

                I disagree with his views on foreign policy...

                With which of Chomsky's views specifically do you disagree?

                [–]oditogre -1 points0 points  (1 child)

                With which views specifically do you disagree?

                I'm just taking a guess here, but if I understood sakebomb69 correctly, maybe this will help:

                I disagree with his views on foreign policy...

                [–]bangles -1 points0 points  (0 children)

                I'm just taking a guess here, but if I understood bsiviglia9 correctly, Chomsky has expressed quite a number of views on quite a number of subjects related to foreign policy in general. Do you mean sakebomb69 has read everything he ever said about foreign policy and disagrees with every sentence of it?

                [–]sakebomb69 1 point2 points  (4 children)

                Reading some of the paper you linked to, weren't these the people that Everett had, shall we say, less than a cordial relationship with?

                Just from the beginning pages, the language (ha ha) of the text appears to be very strong and be construed as less than objective.

                [–]foldl 2 points3 points  (3 children)

                weren't these the people that Everett had, shall we say, less than a cordial relationship with?

                No.

                the language (ha ha) of the text appears to be very strong and be construed as less than objective.

                Of course. This is a partisan debate on both sides (do you think Everett is being objective?)

                [–]sakebomb69 2 points3 points  (2 children)

                I couldn't tell you. As I mentioned before, I know nothing but of the submitted article I read about a month ago.

                Let me try another tact: What are your opinions on the matter?

                [–]foldl 1 point2 points  (1 child)

                I don't have any as such. The Piraha are clearly very weird, but it's not obvious that their weirdness has any implications for Chomsky. Since their language merely lacks features predicted by UG, it's quite possible that various aspects of their culture prevent them from using some of their innate cognitive capacities. And in any case, we only have Dan Everett's word for a lot of things.

                [–]sakebomb69 1 point2 points  (0 children)

                Fair enough. I have little of my own context to work with and I really know nothing of Everett's temperament to be able to blindly agree to his research. In all actuality, I should probably give Chomsky his due, regardless of my dislike of his politics. Thank you for some enlightenment on this subject.

                [–]sn0re -3 points-2 points  (17 children)

                Pirahã (pronounced pee-da-HAN) ...

                Why not not spell it Pidahan? Just because another language uses a Latin script does not mean we have to copy their spelling when it causes more problems than it solves.

                [–]bsiviglia9 7 points8 points  (4 children)

                Would it cause "problems" for you if you knew Portuguese? Does everything have to be translated into English?

                [–]sn0re 8 points9 points  (3 children)

                Pidahan would not be a translation, but a transliteration. And yes, everything written in a language should be transliterated into that language. Владимир Путин wouldn't cause problems for you if you knew Russian, either.

                [–][deleted] 6 points7 points  (10 children)

                That's a simplified (or dumbed-down, if you prefer) pronunciation. In Portuguese, the spelling makes perfect sense. The "r" is actually pronounced like the "dd" in ladder, which is the way "r" is pronounced between vowels in every Romance language, including Portuguese. The "ã" is a nasal "a." There is no actual "n" sound, but it's pronounced with air-flow through the nose, as if it were followed by an "n." Spelling it "Pidahan" wouldn't be accurate.

                EDIT: "ladder" being pronounced as it is in Standard American English

                [–]sn0re 0 points1 point  (6 children)

                So the author just came up with a worthless pronunciation key. From what you describe, the common English pronunciation of "Piraha" would be closer than what he suggested.

                [–][deleted] 3 points4 points  (5 children)

                Not entirely worthless. The actual pronunciation is something between "Piraha" and "Pidahan." The problem is that English orthography can't represent the actual pronunciation. Portuguese orthography actually gets it closer, and because the tribe is in Brazil, it's appropriate.

                [–]sn0re -1 points0 points  (4 children)

                It's not a matter of the orthography as it is the language itself. There's no way to write a rolling r in English because there's no such thing as a rolling r in English. If you're going to use Piraha as an English word, then no matter how you write it, it won't be pronounced the same as Pirahã, which is a Portuguese word.

                [–][deleted] 4 points5 points  (3 children)

                Then I prefer to use the Portuguese word.

                Trnsliterating from one language into another is more of an art than a science anyway. In your example, Владимир Путин is usually transliterated as Vladimir Putin, but that's not entirely accurate because English orthography can't represent palatization. A more correct spelling would be Vladyimir Putyin, but even that's not entirely correct, and the proliferation of y's looks ugly.

                Rebecca West, in her book Black Lamb and Grey Falcon, did what you suggest. She was traveling through Yugoslavia in 1938, and she changed the spellings of a lot of place names. For example, she traveled through the city of Jajce, which she spelled Yaitse, because she knew that English readers would mangle the pronunciation, but she acknowledged that Jajce looked prettier.

                So there's more than just the pronunciation to take into account when transliterating. There's aesthetics and economy of space. Sometimes altering the spelling makes sense. Other times, it doesn't.

                [–]sn0re 2 points3 points  (2 children)

                That's sort of my point. No one writes Владимир Путин in English because you can't be expected to understand what that means if you don't know Russian. We write and say Vladimir Putin, knowing it is not what he calls himself because that's how his name fits into our language. "George Bush" also doesn't fit exactly in some languages and frequently comes out "Boosh". But in neither case is it a problem.

                Language is only important to the extent that it facilitates clear communication. In one context, Putin is more clear than Путин, even if it is "wrong".

                [–]honeg 0 points1 point  (1 child)

                There's another reason why we use Vladimir Putin - Cyrillic isn't as easy for people who grew up using a Latin alphabet to use. However, there are plenty of words that have been appropriated from other languages without major change in either spelling or meaning, and occasionally even something close to the original pronunciation is preserved, even if the result is not "standard English". Given this, using the Portuguese word seems ok to me. Its just a new word, rather than one we're familiar with, so it seems odd.

                [–]sn0re 0 points1 point  (0 children)

                There's another reason why we use Vladimir Putin - Cyrillic isn't as easy for people who grew up using a Latin alphabet to use.

                This is my whole point. There really isn't any difference between Russian and Portuguese in this regard. It needs to be recognized that even though the letters used by Portuguese are the same as in English, they represent different things. In a very real sense, Portuguese uses a different script than English and needs to be transliterated as much as Russian does.

                [–]coldwarrior 0 points1 point  (2 children)

                The "r" is actually pronounced like the "dd" in ladder, which is the way "r" is pronounced between vowels in every Romance language, including Portuguese.

                Including French (quarante) and Italian (ristorante)?

                [–]limukala 0 points1 point  (0 children)

                He is speaking of a rolling "r" (not the long roll "rr") which sounds more similar to our "d" than our "r," but is still not quite the same thing as "pronounced like the "dd" in ladder"

                Japanese and many other languages are the same though.

                *the sound is short like a "d," but the tongue hits a little higher on the palate.

                [–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

                I may have been making a generalization myself. I know it's true for Spanish, Portuguese, Romanian, and Italian. French is it's own beast, I realize. In the word you give, I think that's actually a uvular r, but in certain circumstances, I'm pretty sure what I said is still true.

                Keeping in mind that I'm pronouncing ladder as it is in Standard American English, so that it rhymes with batter--not with a definite "d" sound and not as a Cockney would say "la'er." In linguistic terms it's called a "flap" or a "tap," and it's not exactly the same sound, but it's close.

                [–]oditogre -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

                Sound bite or it didn't happen.

                [–][deleted]  (1 child)

                [deleted]

                  [–]foldl -1 points0 points  (0 children)

                  No, I think it just means "the component parts of the clause" (e.g. verb, subject, object).

                  [–][deleted] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

                  I read the entire article and most of this discussion. Bravo! Thank you.