Discussion Details
| Title: | Discussion on Piraha |
| Submitter: | Dan Everett |
| Description: | Recent postings on Piraha from Chris and Vera Sinha and from Ian Goddard
have raised reasonable questions regarding some of my claims on Piraha. First, let me attempt to answer Ian's suggestion (see LINGUIST List issue http://linguistlist.org/issues/18/18-1184.html) that 'Monkeys go to the jungle' (from the New Yorker article) violates my contention that Piraha lacks quantification. This is not universal quantification, but a generic statement. Generics differ from universal quantification in allowing exceptions and thus not requiring a truth to hold beyond immediate experience. Another fact is that the absence of grammatical number in Piraha makes translation sometimes misleading. We would say in English 'Monkeys', but the Piraha do not have plurals, so it isn't clear whether it is best to translate what they say with a free English translation, using plural, or as a sort of mass noun 'Monkey goes to the jungle' as in 'Fish is good to eat' (where English treats 'fish' in this context like a mass noun). With regard to the posting by the Sinhas (see LINGUIST List issue http://linguistlist.org/issues/18/18-1234.html#1), I appreciate that they did make a very brief trip to the Pirahas. Pirahas are by and large happy to have visitors and are always, in my experience, extremely kind and thoughtful and go out of their way to help people. Moreover, as the Sinhas correctly state, cultures change. But in this case I don't think that what they say violates anything I have said or represents any recent change in the culture. Getting the Pirahas to sit and participate with you for a day or two is quite easy. They are happy to do this and since they are intelligent con-specifics, they will of course show good aptitude for numerous tasks. But my claim is that when the *prolonged* attempt to institute math or literacy, etc. classes of foreign culture is attempted, the Pirahas will see this as an invasion of their culture and in conflict with their values. Then I expect the results that I in fact report on in my Current Anthropology paper. I don't think anything has changed, nor that the Sinhas' brief experience is any contradiction to this. They suggest that perhaps I have missed Piraha creationmyths because I was a Christian and the Piraha didn't want to tell me theirmyths after they heard mine (I suppose that is how the reasoning would go). This is not the way things worked. Actually, the Pirahas and I have exchanged views on the world many times over the past thirty years. I tell them what some other cultures think, including the US Christian, and they tell me what they think, namely, that the world is the way it has always been, no creation. To some degree of course, this all depends on what we mean by 'myth'. If by myth we mean fiction and creation from nothing stories, then the Pirahas lack these. If we mean stories that bind us together (e.g. the Founding Myths of the USA, which are perhaps not factual but are accepted as such by the people who tell them - very similar to what I have in mind about some Piraha stories (see Ray Raphael's book on this topic)) then the Pirahas have these. Dan Everett |
| Date Posted: | 25-Apr-2007 |
| Linguistic Field(s): | Anthropological Linguistics |
| LL Issue: | 18.1252 |
| Posted: | 25-Apr-2007 |
