I find it difficult to see how a language will lose numbers, through stress, death of adults, or anything.
Yet, I find the fact they modify their verbs to relate their source of information (and whether it is reliable) is fascinating. It is a language feature of great wisdom. Did it cause them to loose religion? In this and other supposed elements you could almost say they are Vulcan. But, again, why no numbers? Why do they insist it’s a “trifle” to count?
Maybe they were the offshoot of a cult, whose leader had very ‘evolved’ philosophical convictions.
Modifying verbs to indicate the source of information and its reliability is actually quite common amongs languages. Also, many of the world’s languages have very few speakers. Everett’s claim is that the Pirahã language has features that don’t exist in any other language, regardless of how few speakers they have. Also, I just re-read the OP. It’s not true that Pirahã is a “rudimentary language.” It’s a rather odd language, but it’s a full language. It’s simply not true that “they are barely human in terms of using language and abstract reasoning.” Their culture may be strange, but it’s not “barely human.” This is, once again, a case where the OP here misses the point of the controversy that’s actually going on. If you want to understand what’s being debated in academia about this matter, you might want to read the links given in this thread, the book that Everett has written, and the links given in the Wikipedia article about the Pirahã language.
Just a few days ago Language Log posted a video on Youtube of an interview Dan Everett had with a Pirahã man that included quantities (also found on his website).
I seem to remember a documentary years ago that described a primitive tribe somewhere (might have been the Amazon) whose number system consisted of 1, 2, and “more”, though my memory may be short-changing the range of “exact” quantities they recognized. Doubt it was Piraha people if they haven’t been well-known until recent years.
A lot of languages only count to “one, two, three, many” or something similar. The Siriona of Bolivia and the Yanoamo of Brazil are two examples. The Bacairi and Bororo of Brazil have a system that seems to be the next step: they went binary, counting by twos. “One, two, two and one, two and two, two and two and one, etc.” After a certain point when this method becomes too cumbersome, a language will probably develop words for higher numbers, and that’s when you get number systems based off fours and fives and so forth. Human beings like to count with body parts, and ten fingers and ten toes can easily provide the basis for a quinary, or base-10 number system. Sometimes you’ll see base-4 and base-8, which might have originated from counting the spaces between your fingers (the Bukiyip of Papau New Guinea use a base-4 system). The Sumerians used base-60, which is pretty bizarre.
Or could it be that maybe they never needed it? We tend to think of life and culture and humanity as one inevitable march of progress, but it could as easily exist in stasis for a very long time. Tribes in the Amazonian jungle exist in a place that is favorable to hunter-gatherer existence, hostile to agriculture and by extension larger-numbered tribes and the complexity that comes with them. What real good are large numbers if you never trade any significant amounts? What use are creation myths except as the foundation of religions to control large numbers of people? What good are feats of engineering and medicine when the jungle provides most everything your family needs?
Note, I’m not romanticizing the jungle life or saying it’s easy or preferable… just that a certain culture could remain stable in small numbers for very long periods of time if their environment is keeping it small yet providing enough for survival.
I agree with your broad point, but I have to quibble with this sentence. Creation myths are an important vector in the construction of a culture’s symbology. They also have inherent aesthetic and entertainment value, not to mention other social and psychological functions at the individual and group levels. Now, for this group, the argument seems to be that they cannot or don’t bother to think in the abstract, so they might not need cultural symbols, but it bothers me to see myths dismissed as “useless.”
And this is precisely what the nub of the issue is. How can an entire group of humans beings be …well… metaphysically incompetent? It beggars the imagination. These people don’t even draw. People were doing that 32,000 years ago.
It makes you wonder if there’s something else going on that we’re just not seeing. Possibly some kind of past “Lord of the Flies” scenario where all the elders were killed at a swoop and kids essentially raised themselves is at work as others have suggested. If nothing else it gives a leg up to the power of human culture in the nature-nurture debate.
I don’t see a “lord of the flies” scenario resulting in a society with no drawing. What, kids don’t draw? I’d expect a society like that to come out as “stereotypically human” as typical. You need elders to preserve perverse customs.
If anything, I’d suggest my “descendants of a cult” idea again.
But honestly, not having read the book but read the comments on this thread, it’s striking me as more sensationalism than anything. Apparently they do count, they do make toy boats, etc. I wouldn’t believe they don’t draw.
astro, it’s far from clear that they are metaphysically incompetent. First, we’re relying strictly on Everett’s description of the culture. He could well be wrong about basic facts about the culture. Second, the fact that apparently none of them draw or that apparently they have no stories of gods or mythology proves nothing about their nonhumanity. Lots of people are no good at drawing and/or have no interest in gods and mythology. (And, again, we have only Everett’s word on their lack of interest and ability.) There’s no reason to create a story about how all the adults were killed off or such. Anyway, if drawing or gods or mythology were universal human traits, they would be regenerated in the society after such an event.
astro, if you want to know more about the Pirahã, start by reading all the links in this thread. Then get a copy of Everett’s book Don’t Sleep, There Are Snakes: Life and Language in the Amazonian Jungle. You can learn far more about the Pirahã than you can learn just from our posts. I know you come to the SDMB with lots of questions that you want the answer to, but you can’t get those answers just from reading the board. You have to read other articles and books to truly understand what’s going on.
Consider this: Americans don’t sing. The vast majority of other cultures sing, and it’s a firm part of their traditions. Why don’t American sing? The reason is odd, and is not evidence of our non-humanity. Ironically, we are exposed to some very good singers, and it’s become a point of embarrassment and ridicule for anyone to attempt to sing on an unskilled level.
I’m asking honestly here… Is this some sort of whoosh? I’m American, I can sing, my whole family can sing (we’re not professionals or anything), and I know many Americans who can sing. I’d say probably 1 in 2 can carry a tune passably, 1 in 4 can do it well, and maybe 1 in 8 who have great talent, developed or otherwise. Are you suggesting other cultures have a greater frequency of people who can or do sing?
No, he’s saying that singing is more integrated as a daily phenomena - Americans don’t sing as much (under a more narrow set of circumstances) as say West Africans as far as I can tell. Cultural preference…
I get that some indigenous cultures sing in a very wide variety of circumstances, but as far as other cultures, I don’t think that Americans seem much different than Europeans, Arabs, Chinese, or Japanese in this context. It would seem more accurate to say that West Africans sing more than the vast majority of other cultures rather than Americans sing less than the vast majority of other cultures.
This culture developed where they live. All humans came to the Americas in three waves within about 20 000 years.
Isolation leads to these limited cultures. But if they survive hunting and gathering, they will still be there when you and I and our offspring are gone.