However, it's very difficult to accept that argument from someone who doesn't even really know if he speaks the language correctly. The demands of the money world were highly corrosive to their traditional culture, to the vitality of their ecosystem, and to their mental health. Over three decades, Everett spent a total of seven years among the Pirahã, and his account of this lasting sojourn is an engrossing exploration of language that questions modern linguistic theory. They were less secure, and had real reasons to worry about tomorrow, because their survival depended on an ever-changing external system that was beyond their control.

It was still around seventy- two degrees, though humid, far below the hundred- degree- plus heat of midday. Languages have a vocabulary that goes with their culture, and as an American he doesn’t really “grok” some of the big ideas. It is certainly easy to list of the things they don’t have: they don’t have advanced tools, they don’t have many material possessions, they don’t have the internet, they don’t have big houses, and the list goes on. They seem to very very friendly, very peaceful, very happy, they dance, smile and laugh a lot, and like the way they do things.

However their different culture, stresses/tones, and singing in conversation makes their language one of the hardest to learn. It creeps me out when over-educated/churched white people go to live in jungles with non-white/non-educated/underprivileged people to "learn" their way and then promote their way of life as some kind of idyllic vision. Pirahã has only 3 vowels and 8 consonants, one of which is a glottal stop, and amongst many other unusual features it does not contain cardinal or ordinal numbers (which Everett suggests is because numbers and counting are generally abstractions outwith the IEP).

For example, he characterized them as "peaceful" right before mentioning the rape of a young woman by "most" of the men in the village. Over the more than two decades since that summer morning, I have tried to come to grips with the significance of how two cultures, my European-based culture and the Pirahas' culture, could see reality so differently. They had no use for the knowledge of the whites, because their way of life worked just fine without it.The Pirahã only concern themselves with directly experienced events, or at least those within living memory. Most of the study seems to have been conducted on male pirahã even though he alludes to the fact women speak differently. Second, only by taking a thoroughly male participant observer perspective on the culture and language is he able to maintain his romantic view of the peaceful and harmonious, nearly Edenic nature of their life. For example they might say, “Blood is dirty” when referring to black or “it is transparent” when referring to white. But frequently they use an expression that, though surprising at first, has come to be one of my favorite ways of saying good night: "Don't sleep, there are snakes.

It's very much a book for anyone who has ever struggled to learn a language (particularly a minority language), as Everett labours with translating the Bible into Piraha – until he realises it is futile. BUT - the issue was Everett has never been open to sharing his data (as he seemed to claim in this book).

The defining value of their culture is that the Piraha rarely, if ever speak of, think about, or make plans beyond a couple days out, and they don't reference the past outside of the living memory of their tribe, usually preferring to speak of much more immediate events. If there is one thing I know with certainty it is that machismo culture favors the men at the expense of women. Everyone was streaked from ashes and dust accumulated by sleeping and sitting on the ground near the fire.

One wonders, however, about the parts glossed over, his break with the Church, his divorce, his remarriage at a late age.At one point, when his wife is sick with malaria, and they are living in the city while she recuperates, he brings two Pirahas to the city so that he can continue to study their language. But the bulk of the text is devoted to really trying to understand their culture, which he does through the “immediacy of experience” principle. He reports that women are not allowed to speak about certain matters but never explores how such linguistic prohibitions might reflect sex roles in the culture. So be prepared for that, but I think it's all worth it for the profound commentary on human nature, and to get glimpses of how the Pirahã influenced Everett more than he ever influenced them. Although the members of this culture were eager at first they soon found the concept too difficult and abandoned the idea of ever mastering how to count.