Last weekend, I was amazed by a documentary on the Smithsonian Channel entitled “The Grammar of Happiness.” It told the story of Dan Everett’s and his initial missionary and subsequent research work on a tribe deep within the Brazilian Amazon rainforest called the Piraha (pronounced Pita-Hah).
This was more than just another documentary as it focused specifically on their language:
- There are no words for colors
- There are no words for numbers – only general quantities (a few, a lot)
- They have no future or past tense words – only present tense
- They have no conjunctions – no recursion – that allows complex sentences
- Each verb they use has a suffix that describes how they confirmed what they are saying (they saw it, heard about it, inferred it, etc).
What Everett discovered, as seen in the rules above, is that the Piraha have no concept of past and future. They have no worries about either and thus none of their actions are ever dictated based on future or past knowledge. They live in the moment – truly in the now – since their language can only describe what they are currently experiencing.
As an example, they can only describe when someone is entering their experience (their presence) or when someone exits. A 4 minute clip of Dan Everett on YouTube describes this in detail. Take a moment and think about this…
What would life be like for all of us if we were “limited” in this way? How would we speak differently? Act differently? What could this view of life give us?
Intertwined in the story is Everett’s original purpose for visiting the Piraha – as a Christian missionary. He admits to “losing his religion” in an hour and a half lecture where he discusses the challenges of communicating an unseen, non-physical god to a people whose language is based entirely on the (physical) here and now. Just as they wanted no contact with outsiders (other than befriended Everett), they wanted no part in somebody else’s ideals – nor did they want those ideals forced upon them.
However, within the past year, Brazil has essentially forced modern culture onto the tribe. The government brought electricity, water pumps, bathrooms, medical facilities, and even television into the tribe. Not only that, but the tribe is now being taught portuguese (and yes – that includes numbers and colors). For a tribe that had none of these amenities or concepts (and no need for them whatsoever), the changes occurring begs the question – is it really for the best? Think about not only that, but how this concept can relate at a personal level…
Upon what are you ideals built? Are you open to new ideas and new ways of thinking? Or are you simply holding on to something because that’s what you’ve been told or that’s just how it is?
New to me was the world of linguistics – led by the father of “modern linguistics” Noam Chomsky – and its major tenant Universal Grammar (promoted by Chomsky himself). This idea proposes that any language in the world is genetically determined rather than determined by the culture. Because Everett discovered the lack of recursion in their language, he disputed the claim of genetic-based language by Chomsky and a heated political ensued. This conflict is highlighted in the Smithsonian documentary as well as articles in the New Yorker and the New York Times. Ironically, this argument is similar to modern day religious-based conflicts on a variety of topics and most prominently on being gay. So much angst and pride in one’s own view begs the question…
How can opposing sides jointly drive out an answer or solution? Why must there always be one right way and everyone else is wrong? Furthermore, where does one draw the line between genetics and experience?
For more information about the Piraha, visit Wikipedia.
Exquisite. Thank you, Bruce.