4/9/13 – Dr. Daniel L. Everett: The Piraha On Tuesday April 9th from 3:30PM to (roughly) 5PM, Dr. Daniel Everett shared his experience with the Piraha people and their language. The Piraha live in the Brazilian Amazon where most of the language that is spoken is Portuguese. From his research, Dr. Everett concluded that the Piraha language is a language isolate – a language that has no relation to any other languages (such as Basque, Japanese, and Korean). On this day, Dr. Everett shared many interesting aspects about the Piraha culture and the language itself. To begin his presentation, Dr. Everett began with a brief history of the research that was done on the Piraha. From what he had shared, it could be seen that fully extensive research has not been done on the Piraha, but rather a small amount. Dr. Everett came into contact with the Piraha people when he was doing missionary work trying to spread the name of God in South America. What he discovered and learned from these people led to both small and large changes in his life. One such thing he believes is that theories are not always true and they cannot explain everything. He believes the existence of the Piraha language would be proof against Chomsky’s theory of universal grammar. Throughout his speech, he brought up many facts and interesting information about the Piraha. He started talking about various unusual sounds that don’t exist in many languages but do in Piraha (and other native languages). He shared the fact that the Piraha could speak in hums, whistle speech, and musical speech. Shockingly, it seems that humming could convey any sentence in their language. What could be spoken could also be hummed, and listeners would understand the message. Piraha like some other languages also include whistles in their speech and communication. However, it is highly uncommon for Piraha women to whistle in their speech. The different sounds, pitches, and durations of the whistles strongly affect the meaning of various words. Much of the Piraha language is considered “musical” and rhythmic. There are a total of 3 vowels in the Piraha language: [i], [a], and [u]. There are a total of 8 consonants for men and 7 consonants for women. Men and women pronounce words differently using different consonants. They both have different ways to say the same things. When it comes to verb forms, Piraha has about 65,000. Another interesting feature of the Piraha languages is that they do not count. There are no words that indicate numbers. In order to indicate quantity, there is a reliance on relativity. Such words that indicate this would be the equivalent of “some,” “more,” (than the previous amount) and “more.” Dr. Everett included the fact that the Piraha do not count their children, rather, they remember their names. He also joked that the Piraha would not miscount their children or mistake another child with their own if they were to leave on a trip somewhere (like people in more developed societies can do). In regards to numbers, Dr. Everett said that the existence of certain features in language exist mainly due to their necessity and relevance in the society that speaks it. The Piraha are a self-sufficient society that does not worry about food, rather they would eat only as much as they need and no more than that. To support the previous idea, the Piraha are aware of the many different kinds of plants and trees in their environment. Because their life is dependent on things like trees, rocks, water, and other natural entities, they have specific words to help them distinguish between them instead overgeneralizing like in societies that do not depend on such things. Unlike other native languages and cultures, the Piraha do not believe in any form of religion. To them, God does not exist nor does a “great creator.” To the Piraha, words contain power as the Piraha tend to believe things that they are told literally. They view events as “the here and now” so if a person were to tell them about Jesus, they would assume that they met him and know him personally! They believe that life is very important as well. Dr. Everett even shared a story of a person he’d known who committed suicide with them and they responded with laughter saying “you people do that?” as they would never consider it in their own culture (as they’re fighting to survive every day!). When people pass away in the Piraha culture, they are still mourned but they never wonder about where their “soul” or being went to. Again, jokingly, Dr. Everett asked a Piraha person where “so-and-so” went after death. Straightforwardly, they would respond saying “of course, in the ground over there” or something of the same magnitude. More interesting features of the Piraha language include the fact that there are no words for color. They still see the colors, but they do not have names for them. They would refer to colors as they would refer blue with “sky” or green with “leaves,” white with “clean” etc. There are also no words for family members as well. The only words that would refer to people in the society are the equivalent of “generation above,” “my generation,” “generation below,” and biological son or daughter. Despite this, Dr. Everett brought up the point that incest is not practiced in the Piraha. He also brings up the difference in societal views on things such as pain and toughness. The women in Piraha society are also seen as very strong. Everyone in the culture is brought up being tough and resistant to pains caused by the harshness of their environment. Dr. Everett also shared many different stories in which the Piraha would tolerate pains differently compared to people in developed societies. The Piraha are not easily fazed by pain or disgusted by things that most people are usually. Because of his findings and experiences with the Piraha, Dr. Everett shifted his previous, lifelong beliefs. He shared what he thought about religion, saying that there is no direct evidence of Heaven or any divine entity existing. He witnessed many aspects in the Piraha culture that made him think that religion was not needed to find true happiness. He saw that the Piraha were happy living their lives in the way they have always been. He saw that they were fearless and strong, not afraid of death and the many pains of nature. He saw how tolerant the Piraha were with him and other foreigners in the area and their cultures. From this and many other factors, Dr. Everett shifted his beliefs and began to think in a different way about life. Dr. Everett concluded his presentation talking about how the Piraha are today. He has been unable to go back to them since 2009 due to reasons that he did not disclose in his presentation. Previously, the lack of outside influences made it so the Piraha were self-sufficient and unaffected by modern society. Now, because of the modernized reconstruction of the Piraha homes, the introduction to cookies and sweets, and the introduction of modern technologies such as television, the Piraha began to gain weight, lose their original values, and began getting health problems such as cavities. Ultimately, as Dr. Everett noted, they began to know what it was like to be impoverished. They began to feel sadness for not having enough things; something they did not experience ever before. They were a society of once self-sufficient people who then became victims of modernization.