interesting article on Chomsky's Universal Grammar

[hc5duke]

The Interpreter - Has a remote Amazonian tribe upended our understanding of language? Dan Everett believes that Pirahã undermines Noam Chomsky’s idea of a universal grammar. Photographs by Martin Schoeller.

It's getting kinda late (3 am here) for me to write up a good summary (plus I haven't finished reading it) but it talks about a language and culture that seems almost Zen-like (in terms of the whole living in the present idea). Again, getting too late to talk about it much, but I figured I'd post this and go to sleep...

BTW it's a VERY long article.

[MarineTwinsDad]

It's always interesting to see names that one knows. In this case, Dan Everett worked for the same organization, the Summer Institute of Linguistics, as I did, he in Brazil and my wife and I in Papua New Guinea (the main language we did literacy for wasn't anywhere near as complex as the Pirahã, but we did have 110 different endings for verb forms, including up to six at a time, in a specific order). I didn't know that Everett had left his faith behind. Another article that you also might find interesting is here. The other language mentioned, Banawá, was worked on by former friends (in that I haven't heard from them for years).

What is interesting in languages such as these is when families from outside are raised within the culture of the group. The children of linguists such as Everett and my friends the Bullers often learn to speak the languages quite well. Unfortunately when they, the children, return to the U.S. they become Third Culture Kids, and often have difficulties fitting in. This is in part why I returned with my family to the U.S., and why I (a lifelong pacifist) accepted my twin sons becoming Marines.

[Windsor]

I am certainly not a linguist but I found that article fascinating...thanks for sharing it. I just finished it and am still mulling it over in the old brain...I'm sure questions will follow.

[hurleyfor3]

I wonder how many other programs' message boards have had threads on Chomsky's Universal Grammar. Maybe http://www.yalebasketballreport.com/ a few years back.