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Language: The Cultural Tool
A bold and provocative study that presents language not as an innate component of the brain—as most linguists do—but as an essential tool unique to each culture worldwide.ÌýFor years, the prevailing opinion among academics has been that language is embedded in our genes, existing as an innate and instinctual part of us. But linguist Daniel Everett argues that, like other tools, language was invented by humans and can be reinvented or lost. He shows how the evolution of different language forms—that is, different grammar—reflects how language is influenced by human societies and experiences, and how it expresses their great variety. ÌýFor example, the Amazonian Pirahã put words together in ways that violate our long-held under-standing of how language works, and Pirahã grammar expresses complex ideas very differently than English grammar does. Drawing on the Wariâ€� language of Brazil, Everett explains that speakers of all languages, in constructing their stories, omit things that all members of the culture understand. In addition, Everett discusses how some cultures can get by without words for numbers or counting, without verbs for “to sayâ€� or “to give,â€� illustrating how the very nature of what’s important in a language is culturally determined.ÌýCombining anthropology, primatology, computer science, philosophy, linguistics, psychology, and his own pioneering—and adventurous—research with the Amazonian Pirahã, and using insights from many different languages and cultures, Everett gives us an unprecedented elucidation of this society-defined nature of language. In doing so, he also gives us a new understanding of how we think and who we are.
364 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2012
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About the author
Daniel L. Everett
11Ìýbooks172ÌýfollowersDaniel L. Everett is dean of arts and sciences at Bentley University. He has held appointments in linguistics and/or anthropology at the University of Campinas, the University of Pittsburgh, the University of Manchester, and Illinois State University.
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February 6, 2017
Dan Everett is the linguist responsible for probably the most famous fieldwork in the discipline's recent history. The 2005 paper he wrote subsequently then set off the most acrimonious in-fighting among linguists in years.
Why? Well, it's all to do with the origin of language � a problem so notoriously intractable that the Linguistic Society of Paris banned all debates on the subject back in 1866. For a long time the best theory to explain it has been the one put forward in the 1960s by a group of ‘generative� linguists in the US, led by a young Noam Chomsky, who came up with the idea that the capacity for language was in some sense ‘pre-programmed� in the human brain. This, they said, accounted for the fact that children apparently learn grammatical rules far more quickly than they ‘should� be able to, given their exposure.
But if everyone has the same hardwired language structure, how come individual languages seem so different from each other? Well, say the Chomskyans, they only look different on the surface � subconsciously, they all follow the same ‘universal grammar�, and it is therefore possible to identify grammatical concepts which are shared innately by all human languages, even Welsh. Working out the rules of this universal grammar then became the project for whole university departments, and many professorships and research grants were built on such efforts.
Not all linguists were happy about it. Many grumbled that new graduates, who in the past would have grabbed a tape recorder and disappeared to a Lao village for a few months, now all seemed to be sitting in computer labs modelling abstract rules. So Chomsky changed the field really beyond recognition.
He and his followers did make progress of a sort, though, in the face of apparent diversity. The number of supposed unique features of all human languages had been whittled down and whittled down until just one remained � recursion. Recursion refers to the way we can take one sentence and embed it inside another one. For instance, I can say ‘Miley twerked�. But I can also say, ‘You said that Miley twerked.� Or even, ‘John dreamed that his sister thought that she knew that I told her that you said that Miley twerked.� The ability to form constructions like this is what makes language infinite, despite having finite components, and consequently Chomsky believed that it was an innate part of all human languages.
Meanwhile, four thousand miles due south, Dan Everett was in Brazil. He originally went there as a missionary, with plans to learn the language of a remote Amazonian people called the Pirahã and convert them to Christianity. In the event, living with them caused him to lose his faith in god, and learning their language caused him to lose his faith in Chomsky. The Pirahã language turns out to be hands-down the weirdest language we know of, as least as Everett describes it. Some facts about Pirahã: it has no numbers, not even one or two. (‘Do you mean to say Pirahã mothers don't know how many children they have?�, as Dan is often asked � and yes, that is exactly what he means, although, as he explains, Pirahã mothers can tell you all their children's names, where they are, what condition they're in, and everything else about them.) The language can be whistled or hummed if necessary, rather than spoken with vowels and consonants. It has no colour terms except for ‘light� and ‘dark� (so red would be described as ‘like blood�, or ‘like the urucum plant�). And crucially, it has no recursion at all.
In Pirahã you cannot say, ‘John said that Miley twerked.� You have to use separate clauses: ‘John spoke. Miley twerked.� This may sound only mildly interesting, but the world of linguistics went ballistic. Some linguists close to Chomsky were so enraged that they embarked on what amounts to a smear campaign; Chomsky himself referred to Everett in print as ‘a charlatan�; one supporter wrote to the Brazilian authorities to accuse Everett of racism and his authorisation was duly revoked, cutting him off from the people he had lived with intermittently for twenty-five years of his life.
When things calmed down, Chomsky settled on a suitably imperial response: he said that, in fact, languages without recursion were perfectly compatible with his theory after all. All languages have the capacity to use recursion, but not all necessarily avail themselves of this capacity. (More than a few observers have concluded from exchanges like this that universal grammar is now edging towards being unfalsifiable.)
Everett's experiences in Brazil have been covered in his earlier book, the surprisingly bestselling (which I haven't read). In this one, he wades into the debate about what he has concluded about language more generally. The key thing is that he believes Pirahã culture imposes specific limitations on how the grammar of its language can work: language for Everett, therefore, responds directly to human society and is not something that pops out of cerebral pre-programming (except inasmuch as everything ultimately does). He does not believe that there is any kind of ‘universal grammar�, but rather that language is � as the book's title suggests � a tool, comparable to a bow and arrow. Humans learn how to talk the same way they learn how to hunt, or ride a bicycle (depending on the culture concerned); we feel no need to invoke a ‘cycling instinct�, and we should feel no need to invoke a language instinct either. He goes into a little (not enough) technical detail, but the root of his argument is very simple:
Everett's exploration of these issues is wide-ranging and the principle he's getting at is an important one. Unfortunately his prose style is a bit basic, and he seems to be pitching all this a bit below the level of his audience, with too many unnecessary references to pop music and not enough academic scaffolding. There are, for instance, no footnotes! This leaves him writing things like, ‘There are many books and scientific papers demonstrating my points above…� with nothing to back him up. Given how much flack he's drawn from sceptics, this seems rather cavalier, and honestly the way he writes this book does not really do his ideas or his research full justice. Someone interested in the background and who can take the technicalities is still better off just reading .
Nevertheless, this is a fascinating book for all its flaws and Everett's modesty and joy in language shines through on every page. Someone who read this and Pinker's would have a pretty good understanding of the two sides of the debate which linguistics finds itself confronting. It'll be very interesting to see where it goes next.
(Oct 2014)
Incidentally, for those who found my paragraphs above confusing or insufficient, there is an excellent summary of the growing arguments against Universal Grammar (where Everett is mentioned in passing).
(Jul 2015)
…and Everett himself has written a good summary of the whole furore for Aeon magazine .
(Jan 2017)
Why? Well, it's all to do with the origin of language � a problem so notoriously intractable that the Linguistic Society of Paris banned all debates on the subject back in 1866. For a long time the best theory to explain it has been the one put forward in the 1960s by a group of ‘generative� linguists in the US, led by a young Noam Chomsky, who came up with the idea that the capacity for language was in some sense ‘pre-programmed� in the human brain. This, they said, accounted for the fact that children apparently learn grammatical rules far more quickly than they ‘should� be able to, given their exposure.
But if everyone has the same hardwired language structure, how come individual languages seem so different from each other? Well, say the Chomskyans, they only look different on the surface � subconsciously, they all follow the same ‘universal grammar�, and it is therefore possible to identify grammatical concepts which are shared innately by all human languages, even Welsh. Working out the rules of this universal grammar then became the project for whole university departments, and many professorships and research grants were built on such efforts.
Not all linguists were happy about it. Many grumbled that new graduates, who in the past would have grabbed a tape recorder and disappeared to a Lao village for a few months, now all seemed to be sitting in computer labs modelling abstract rules. So Chomsky changed the field really beyond recognition.
He and his followers did make progress of a sort, though, in the face of apparent diversity. The number of supposed unique features of all human languages had been whittled down and whittled down until just one remained � recursion. Recursion refers to the way we can take one sentence and embed it inside another one. For instance, I can say ‘Miley twerked�. But I can also say, ‘You said that Miley twerked.� Or even, ‘John dreamed that his sister thought that she knew that I told her that you said that Miley twerked.� The ability to form constructions like this is what makes language infinite, despite having finite components, and consequently Chomsky believed that it was an innate part of all human languages.
Meanwhile, four thousand miles due south, Dan Everett was in Brazil. He originally went there as a missionary, with plans to learn the language of a remote Amazonian people called the Pirahã and convert them to Christianity. In the event, living with them caused him to lose his faith in god, and learning their language caused him to lose his faith in Chomsky. The Pirahã language turns out to be hands-down the weirdest language we know of, as least as Everett describes it. Some facts about Pirahã: it has no numbers, not even one or two. (‘Do you mean to say Pirahã mothers don't know how many children they have?�, as Dan is often asked � and yes, that is exactly what he means, although, as he explains, Pirahã mothers can tell you all their children's names, where they are, what condition they're in, and everything else about them.) The language can be whistled or hummed if necessary, rather than spoken with vowels and consonants. It has no colour terms except for ‘light� and ‘dark� (so red would be described as ‘like blood�, or ‘like the urucum plant�). And crucially, it has no recursion at all.
In Pirahã you cannot say, ‘John said that Miley twerked.� You have to use separate clauses: ‘John spoke. Miley twerked.� This may sound only mildly interesting, but the world of linguistics went ballistic. Some linguists close to Chomsky were so enraged that they embarked on what amounts to a smear campaign; Chomsky himself referred to Everett in print as ‘a charlatan�; one supporter wrote to the Brazilian authorities to accuse Everett of racism and his authorisation was duly revoked, cutting him off from the people he had lived with intermittently for twenty-five years of his life.
When things calmed down, Chomsky settled on a suitably imperial response: he said that, in fact, languages without recursion were perfectly compatible with his theory after all. All languages have the capacity to use recursion, but not all necessarily avail themselves of this capacity. (More than a few observers have concluded from exchanges like this that universal grammar is now edging towards being unfalsifiable.)
Everett's experiences in Brazil have been covered in his earlier book, the surprisingly bestselling (which I haven't read). In this one, he wades into the debate about what he has concluded about language more generally. The key thing is that he believes Pirahã culture imposes specific limitations on how the grammar of its language can work: language for Everett, therefore, responds directly to human society and is not something that pops out of cerebral pre-programming (except inasmuch as everything ultimately does). He does not believe that there is any kind of ‘universal grammar�, but rather that language is � as the book's title suggests � a tool, comparable to a bow and arrow. Humans learn how to talk the same way they learn how to hunt, or ride a bicycle (depending on the culture concerned); we feel no need to invoke a ‘cycling instinct�, and we should feel no need to invoke a language instinct either. He goes into a little (not enough) technical detail, but the root of his argument is very simple:
Language in every society requires years of experience and exposure to data for any child to reach adult levels of fluency. These are hallmarks of learning, not genetic determinism.
Everett's exploration of these issues is wide-ranging and the principle he's getting at is an important one. Unfortunately his prose style is a bit basic, and he seems to be pitching all this a bit below the level of his audience, with too many unnecessary references to pop music and not enough academic scaffolding. There are, for instance, no footnotes! This leaves him writing things like, ‘There are many books and scientific papers demonstrating my points above…� with nothing to back him up. Given how much flack he's drawn from sceptics, this seems rather cavalier, and honestly the way he writes this book does not really do his ideas or his research full justice. Someone interested in the background and who can take the technicalities is still better off just reading .
Nevertheless, this is a fascinating book for all its flaws and Everett's modesty and joy in language shines through on every page. Someone who read this and Pinker's would have a pretty good understanding of the two sides of the debate which linguistics finds itself confronting. It'll be very interesting to see where it goes next.
(Oct 2014)
Incidentally, for those who found my paragraphs above confusing or insufficient, there is an excellent summary of the growing arguments against Universal Grammar (where Everett is mentioned in passing).
(Jul 2015)
…and Everett himself has written a good summary of the whole furore for Aeon magazine .
(Jan 2017)
September 30, 2012
After reading and reviewing Don’t Sleep There Are Snakes, I emailed Dan Everett to ask him for answers to the questions I raised in my review. His response was that I should read his newest book, Language The Cultural Tool. And so I have. I would advise at least glossing over that review as this one is in part a commentary on my previous thoughts.
Everett’s style is very approachable and the book is a clean read, good for the novice. In fact, I think my biggest complaint is that Everett glosses too much and doesn’t always give detailed support for his arguments. He is focused on disproving the nativist (Chomskyian) theory much more than proposing any theory of his own. One of my complaints with DSTAS was that his argument was too extreme (focused more on language as environmentally determined at the expense of admitting that there may be any biological component). I was satisfied here to see that he acknowledges that biology does (in part) affect language development.
One of my biggest complaints with DSTAS is that Everett appears to argue that the Pirahas do not have recursion. He emphasizes this point in the book because recursion is so important for Chomsky’s theory. However, I was not convinced that they don’t show evidence of recursive thoughts in their storytelling (even if they don’t have recursion in a single sentence). Again, in LTCT, Everett loves to point out the lack of recursion in Piraha language. However, eventually he gives examples of Piraha's recursive thinking. Piraha are not able to give complex recursive sentences (his example is ‘John believes that Peter believes that Bill believes that the president believes that the moon is green cheese� as having too many levels to accurately be presented in Piraha), but they can give a short recursion (the equivalent of, but again not contained in one sentence and without the use of “thought�: Koxoi said that Kohoi thought the foreign woman is pretty.). I was very excited to see that Everett modified his position to allow that there is recursion in Piraha language (and by extension their thinking).
I was disappointed, though, because I think he should have brought the Piraha’s temporal restrictions into the discussion on recursion. Pirahas do not use past tense and will not accept stories that are not verified. Based on my (very limited) understanding of the Pirahas it seems obvious to me that if the purpose of recursion in language is to (in part) express complex ideas about hearsay then OF COURSE Piraha would not have recursion in their language because it is not necessary to them. I thought this would have been a good example for Everett to use to support his theory that language develops as a cultural tool; the absence of recursion is simply a reflection of it being unnecessary for them.
I brought up several questions about Piraha life and culture in my DSTAS review that I had hoped Everett would answer when I sent him an email. Unfortunately, none of these were addressed in LTCT (certainly they are not topical to this book and my expectations were not high that I would find the the answers, and I did not).
I also did not find any sociological (or ethnomethodological) references in LTCT. This, was once again surprising as sociology (the study of societies) is highly relevant when thinking about both culture and language. Specifically, his example when he discusses meaning (defined as evolving within each language “over time through the history of interactions of a group of people in a specific culture�) using an Amazonian’s interpretation of the thump of a Brazil nut falling to the ground as meaning that the nuts are ripe is ethnomethodological, yet he does not appear to be aware of the existence of ethnomethodology.
Of course, in reading LTCT, I had more questions and thoughts that were completely separate from my reading of DSTAS.
First, I was amused at Everett’s shying away from any attempt at suggesting a reason for the Wari’s use of “our hole� as a term for “wife�. Certainly I agree that one would want to spend a significant amount of time with these people before projecting any kind of answer to the question (and I agree that we could argue that it is derogatory or that it is highly respectful, depending on the intent of the user). However, I thought his refusal to comment was a cop-out given that he has spent quite a bit of time with these people AND two pages later he is willing to give quite an interpretation of not only the content of ‘The Origin of Corn' but also it’s cultural position and language choice. Certainly it seems like he is deciding to pick and choose where to make his interpretations, based on what is likely or not likely to cause offense to his readers.
Similarly, I found him stepping lightly in his interpretation of the Banawas practice of imprisoning young girls in a hut prior to menstruation and then releasing them to a public beating. I get that we should not put our Western interpretations on such scenes and that these people have their own values/beliefs/cultures by which they have lived for years. However, after having described this practice, he (only 3 pages later in a footnote) decries the uproar over Paiacan’s rape and concludes with “No culture values rape. No culture values violence. But all have them.� Certainly, I am not condoning rape, but I do agree that the loss of Paiacan as a representative was great and that the ensuing uproar in which blame was placed on the various groups in a racist manner was unnecessary and unproductive. HOWEVER, Everett cannot make the claim that violence is not a part of some (maybe all) cultures after just having described such a horrific ritual. I felt like Everett was at times pandering to his Western audience rather than engaging in real cultural analysis.
Everett makes a compelling argument using the Greyfriars Bobby example that categorization is a precursor to language. He emphasizes that “we have evolved to create and store concepts through signs and to recognize relationships between the signs so formed.� I do not disagree and I am convinced the generalization is a requirement for language. However, in his emphasis of this as an evolutionary trait that marks humans as distinctly different from other animals he comes off sounding quite a bit like he is making an argument for a “categorization gene�.
I was not convinced by his argument that Pirahas do not have color words. I get that they don’t have a word for “red�, but instead use “it is like blood�, but certainly the fact that EVERYONE uses this same phrase indicates that it is a color word? Isn’t it just a compound word? Could we say that in English we don’t have a word for the place where I go to rid myself of bodily waste because I call it a “bathroom� and in British English they call it a “water closet�, both of which are compound phrases which we (as a CULTURE) have agreed mean the place in my house that I can find a toilet? Interestingly enough, in his discussion on time of day, Everett describes Pirahas� words for (to use one example) noon as “in sun big be�, but he calls these words. He does not go on to suggest that Pirahans don’t have time words. What is the real difference here? The use of a phrase seems okay to me if it is universally accepted by the culture and Everett is not consistent within the book.
My last nit-picky comment has to do with his choice of examples to compare the written word with the spoken word. Everett uses a story from Piraha about a man’s son almost having been bit by a snake and a published English newspaper article to highlight the difference in redundancy between languages in a society with written word and one without. WTF? This is not a fair comparison. If he wants to compare the resultant language between these two societies we should look at two oral stories from speakers describing either a mundane or an emotional event. I would expect that a literate American English speaker describing a story in which their adrenaline was raised and the health/safety of their child was threatened would use a hell of a lot more redundancy than a newspaper article about cash crops. We might see that Piraha uses more redundancy, but maybe not. Certainly the most scientific way to analyze this would be to see the oral representations of similar (again either emotional or mundane) events and then also a later written account (I understand the written version would only be in English) and compare the change in language, redundancy, and other parts of the narrative.
Overall it was certainly an interesting book. I completely agree with his premise (that language develops evolutionarily as a response to each society’s needs) and the book is very approachable. I would have liked to see a bit more in-depth analysis and I would also love to hear more about the fabulous Piraha.
Everett’s style is very approachable and the book is a clean read, good for the novice. In fact, I think my biggest complaint is that Everett glosses too much and doesn’t always give detailed support for his arguments. He is focused on disproving the nativist (Chomskyian) theory much more than proposing any theory of his own. One of my complaints with DSTAS was that his argument was too extreme (focused more on language as environmentally determined at the expense of admitting that there may be any biological component). I was satisfied here to see that he acknowledges that biology does (in part) affect language development.
One of my biggest complaints with DSTAS is that Everett appears to argue that the Pirahas do not have recursion. He emphasizes this point in the book because recursion is so important for Chomsky’s theory. However, I was not convinced that they don’t show evidence of recursive thoughts in their storytelling (even if they don’t have recursion in a single sentence). Again, in LTCT, Everett loves to point out the lack of recursion in Piraha language. However, eventually he gives examples of Piraha's recursive thinking. Piraha are not able to give complex recursive sentences (his example is ‘John believes that Peter believes that Bill believes that the president believes that the moon is green cheese� as having too many levels to accurately be presented in Piraha), but they can give a short recursion (the equivalent of, but again not contained in one sentence and without the use of “thought�: Koxoi said that Kohoi thought the foreign woman is pretty.). I was very excited to see that Everett modified his position to allow that there is recursion in Piraha language (and by extension their thinking).
I was disappointed, though, because I think he should have brought the Piraha’s temporal restrictions into the discussion on recursion. Pirahas do not use past tense and will not accept stories that are not verified. Based on my (very limited) understanding of the Pirahas it seems obvious to me that if the purpose of recursion in language is to (in part) express complex ideas about hearsay then OF COURSE Piraha would not have recursion in their language because it is not necessary to them. I thought this would have been a good example for Everett to use to support his theory that language develops as a cultural tool; the absence of recursion is simply a reflection of it being unnecessary for them.
I brought up several questions about Piraha life and culture in my DSTAS review that I had hoped Everett would answer when I sent him an email. Unfortunately, none of these were addressed in LTCT (certainly they are not topical to this book and my expectations were not high that I would find the the answers, and I did not).
I also did not find any sociological (or ethnomethodological) references in LTCT. This, was once again surprising as sociology (the study of societies) is highly relevant when thinking about both culture and language. Specifically, his example when he discusses meaning (defined as evolving within each language “over time through the history of interactions of a group of people in a specific culture�) using an Amazonian’s interpretation of the thump of a Brazil nut falling to the ground as meaning that the nuts are ripe is ethnomethodological, yet he does not appear to be aware of the existence of ethnomethodology.
Of course, in reading LTCT, I had more questions and thoughts that were completely separate from my reading of DSTAS.
First, I was amused at Everett’s shying away from any attempt at suggesting a reason for the Wari’s use of “our hole� as a term for “wife�. Certainly I agree that one would want to spend a significant amount of time with these people before projecting any kind of answer to the question (and I agree that we could argue that it is derogatory or that it is highly respectful, depending on the intent of the user). However, I thought his refusal to comment was a cop-out given that he has spent quite a bit of time with these people AND two pages later he is willing to give quite an interpretation of not only the content of ‘The Origin of Corn' but also it’s cultural position and language choice. Certainly it seems like he is deciding to pick and choose where to make his interpretations, based on what is likely or not likely to cause offense to his readers.
Similarly, I found him stepping lightly in his interpretation of the Banawas practice of imprisoning young girls in a hut prior to menstruation and then releasing them to a public beating. I get that we should not put our Western interpretations on such scenes and that these people have their own values/beliefs/cultures by which they have lived for years. However, after having described this practice, he (only 3 pages later in a footnote) decries the uproar over Paiacan’s rape and concludes with “No culture values rape. No culture values violence. But all have them.� Certainly, I am not condoning rape, but I do agree that the loss of Paiacan as a representative was great and that the ensuing uproar in which blame was placed on the various groups in a racist manner was unnecessary and unproductive. HOWEVER, Everett cannot make the claim that violence is not a part of some (maybe all) cultures after just having described such a horrific ritual. I felt like Everett was at times pandering to his Western audience rather than engaging in real cultural analysis.
Everett makes a compelling argument using the Greyfriars Bobby example that categorization is a precursor to language. He emphasizes that “we have evolved to create and store concepts through signs and to recognize relationships between the signs so formed.� I do not disagree and I am convinced the generalization is a requirement for language. However, in his emphasis of this as an evolutionary trait that marks humans as distinctly different from other animals he comes off sounding quite a bit like he is making an argument for a “categorization gene�.
I was not convinced by his argument that Pirahas do not have color words. I get that they don’t have a word for “red�, but instead use “it is like blood�, but certainly the fact that EVERYONE uses this same phrase indicates that it is a color word? Isn’t it just a compound word? Could we say that in English we don’t have a word for the place where I go to rid myself of bodily waste because I call it a “bathroom� and in British English they call it a “water closet�, both of which are compound phrases which we (as a CULTURE) have agreed mean the place in my house that I can find a toilet? Interestingly enough, in his discussion on time of day, Everett describes Pirahas� words for (to use one example) noon as “in sun big be�, but he calls these words. He does not go on to suggest that Pirahans don’t have time words. What is the real difference here? The use of a phrase seems okay to me if it is universally accepted by the culture and Everett is not consistent within the book.
My last nit-picky comment has to do with his choice of examples to compare the written word with the spoken word. Everett uses a story from Piraha about a man’s son almost having been bit by a snake and a published English newspaper article to highlight the difference in redundancy between languages in a society with written word and one without. WTF? This is not a fair comparison. If he wants to compare the resultant language between these two societies we should look at two oral stories from speakers describing either a mundane or an emotional event. I would expect that a literate American English speaker describing a story in which their adrenaline was raised and the health/safety of their child was threatened would use a hell of a lot more redundancy than a newspaper article about cash crops. We might see that Piraha uses more redundancy, but maybe not. Certainly the most scientific way to analyze this would be to see the oral representations of similar (again either emotional or mundane) events and then also a later written account (I understand the written version would only be in English) and compare the change in language, redundancy, and other parts of the narrative.
Overall it was certainly an interesting book. I completely agree with his premise (that language develops evolutionarily as a response to each society’s needs) and the book is very approachable. I would have liked to see a bit more in-depth analysis and I would also love to hear more about the fabulous Piraha.
March 29, 2016
A very informative book about language. Is it genetic or a tool? Everett says tool. He talks a lot about Amazonian tribes. I can tell he doesn't like fat people. I also slightly question his attitude toward women.
August 10, 2012
Ever since the times of Wilhelm von Humboldt, linguists have known that each language has its own unique set of grammatical rules. What can these rules be? In the 1950s a German linguist said, "Languages can differ from each other without limit and in unpredictable ways." Noam Chomsky disagrees; he believes that the grammar of each human language is a variation of the same universal grammar, which would be apparent to a Martian linguist, just as it would be apparent to a Martian biologist that all life on Earth uses the same genetic code with small variations. Chomsky spent his scientific career coming up with the rules of this universal grammar; with each decade, these rules have been becoming ever more ornate. An erstwhile Chomskyan and an erstwhile Christian, Everett became neither.
As he tells in his book Don't Sleep, there are Snakes, Everett spent 30 years among the Pirahã, a tribe of Amazonian jungle-dwellers, and among other Amazonian tribes. As a missionary, he despaired of bringing the Good News of Jesus Christ to the Pirahã: he translated the Gospel of Mark into their language, only to discover that their culture has no use for stories about someone the speaker and the listeners do not know, which took place in a time the speaker and the listeners do not remember. Everett spends many pages telling, how remarkably different Pirahã is from all the other languages, but I remain unconvinced. For example, the Pirahã word for red comes from its word for blood, and the word for green means "unripe"; Everett concludes that Pirahã has no proper color words. Well, the English word for orange the color comes from the word for orange the fruit; does this mean that "orange" is not an English color word? He also spends many pages arguing that language is not an instinct, as the Chomskyan Steven Pinker claims, but a cultural adaptation, like the bow and arrow. Well, when first contacted by the Europeans, Australian Aborigines had boomerangs instead of bows and arrows, and since the invention of firearms the bow and arrow went out of vogue: making bows and arrows is not an instinct. Yet every human community known to science has had language. Everett contemptuously dismisses instincts as something like a newborn's sucking reflex, far simpler than language. Well, sexuality is a better comparison point for language: it has both a cultural component and a biological component, which are expressed at characteristic ages; if we call the former an instinct, then we should also call the latter.
Culture obviously influences the vocabulary of a language through technical terms; Everett mentions several subtle ways in which it also influences the grammar. He cites a linguist who claims that a language spoken by a more individualistic community will have more grammatical constructions having to do with desires and permissions than one spoken by collectivists. When a language is written down, its sentences become longer, more complicated and less repetitive; compare the Jewish Publication Society translation of the Bible "And it came to pass, as they journeyed east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar; and they dwelt there", which is closer to the original, with the New International Version, "As people moved eastward, they found a plain in Shinar and settled there" for a glimpse into a culture than had become literate not long before this was written. However, I think that this is negligible compared to the way culture doesn't influence grammar. From the point of view of Amazonian Indians, modern Western Europeans have roughly the same culture; yet English, Icelandic, Finnish and Basque have very different grammars.
As he tells in his book Don't Sleep, there are Snakes, Everett spent 30 years among the Pirahã, a tribe of Amazonian jungle-dwellers, and among other Amazonian tribes. As a missionary, he despaired of bringing the Good News of Jesus Christ to the Pirahã: he translated the Gospel of Mark into their language, only to discover that their culture has no use for stories about someone the speaker and the listeners do not know, which took place in a time the speaker and the listeners do not remember. Everett spends many pages telling, how remarkably different Pirahã is from all the other languages, but I remain unconvinced. For example, the Pirahã word for red comes from its word for blood, and the word for green means "unripe"; Everett concludes that Pirahã has no proper color words. Well, the English word for orange the color comes from the word for orange the fruit; does this mean that "orange" is not an English color word? He also spends many pages arguing that language is not an instinct, as the Chomskyan Steven Pinker claims, but a cultural adaptation, like the bow and arrow. Well, when first contacted by the Europeans, Australian Aborigines had boomerangs instead of bows and arrows, and since the invention of firearms the bow and arrow went out of vogue: making bows and arrows is not an instinct. Yet every human community known to science has had language. Everett contemptuously dismisses instincts as something like a newborn's sucking reflex, far simpler than language. Well, sexuality is a better comparison point for language: it has both a cultural component and a biological component, which are expressed at characteristic ages; if we call the former an instinct, then we should also call the latter.
Culture obviously influences the vocabulary of a language through technical terms; Everett mentions several subtle ways in which it also influences the grammar. He cites a linguist who claims that a language spoken by a more individualistic community will have more grammatical constructions having to do with desires and permissions than one spoken by collectivists. When a language is written down, its sentences become longer, more complicated and less repetitive; compare the Jewish Publication Society translation of the Bible "And it came to pass, as they journeyed east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar; and they dwelt there", which is closer to the original, with the New International Version, "As people moved eastward, they found a plain in Shinar and settled there" for a glimpse into a culture than had become literate not long before this was written. However, I think that this is negligible compared to the way culture doesn't influence grammar. From the point of view of Amazonian Indians, modern Western Europeans have roughly the same culture; yet English, Icelandic, Finnish and Basque have very different grammars.
July 5, 2013
Did not like this, seemed to be a biased rambling argument, long on obvious generalities about the importance of culture and short in facts about how the universality of language might emerge anew in the human cognitive system.
May 1, 2016
(Three and a half stars, rounded up for the author's enthusiasm for the subject.) There is often something dense and ponderous about books about linguistics -- maybe it's the meta project of using language to discuss language, maybe linguists just like to talk -- and this book is no exception. This book in part seems to have been written as an answer to 's , to argue against a 'built-in', genetic ability language and for language being a cultural invention. It does a much better of job when arguing for than against, and it does its best when discussing how language and culture intertwine.
January 18, 2015
A decent, readable book on the nature of language that succeeds in exploring a lot of interesting ideas about how language is acquired and used. Unfortunately, though, Everett's argumentation is often unfocussed and discursive, and I often found myself wondering what point he was really trying to make in this book. His main target throughout seems to be "nativism" - the idea that language, or the cognitive capacities that lead to language, is somehow innate - but the target of his invective is largely a strawman, and not representative of any position that I've ever encountered in any linguistic theory.
Take, for example, this quote from page 70:
We must note at the beginning that there is not a single, scientifically informed nativist on the planet who would accede to the claim that there is a "gene for language". No-one expects there to be, and no nativist would posit this as a reasonable expectation. That's simply not how genes work, as Everett kind of points out here. Genes - particularly those involved with the development of the brain, for some reason - tend to be pleiotropic; that is, they are expressed in the development of more than one "phenotype", or bodily feature. As Everett suggests later, it may well be the case that genes identified as being integral to the development of language (such as the FOXP2 example given here) are also integral to other areas of ontogenic development, and cannot therefore be naively classified as "language genes". However, this rather misses the point somewhat.
The first issue here is that no gene is, strictly, a gene for anything. All genes do is produce certain proteins at certain stages of ontogenic development, and whatever the effect this protein has is only discernible as part of a longer, cumulative process. That is, it only finds phenotypical expression through interaction with other genes, which are themselves doing nothing other than producing proteins. On the other hand, there are clearly some genes that are necessary for the emergence of particular phenotypes. Eye colour would be a fairly obvious example here. My eyes are blue because I happen to possess a particular recessive allele that people with brown eyes do not have. In that respect, it wouldn't be wildly incorrect to say that this particular gene is a gene for blue eyes. Strictly speaking this isn't true, of course (this gene doesn't create "blue eyes" it merely supplies a protein, which may also be expressed in phenotypes other than that of eye-colour) but in another, less pedantic sense we can say that this gene is apparently necessary for the development of blue eyes, and - to that extent - it is most certainly a gene for blue eyes. If nativists slip and call genes such as FOXP2 "genes for language", then that is all they really mean: namely, that such genes are necessary for the development of language, regardless of their precise role in the ontogeny of neural development, or what other role they may have in any other kind of phenotypical development.
The second issue concerns why a particular gene is present in our genome. This is a controversial area in evolutionary biology, but generally if we find a gene that is preserved with almost universal fidelity in a particular gene-pool, then we are probably justified in presuming that there have been positive selection pressures in the evolutionary history of the organism, leading to its preservation in the gene pool. (This idea is controversial because neutral selection patterns - such as "genetic drift" - can also have a large effect on the genome, leading some biologists to denounce the search for past positive selection pressures as little more than teleological sophistry. Such arguments are a little beside the point here, though.) If we ask why a gene such as FOXP2 has come to be so universally present in the human genome in such a small space of time, then we are probably justified in asking what positive benefit it accrued to our ancestors that led to its ubiquity. Given the importance of language to our species - and the negative costs that must have been associated with its absence - I think we would probably be correct in asserting that the prevalence of the FOXP2 gene in the human genome is linked primarily to the very strong selection pressures that relate to language use, rather than whatever other functions the gene may serve. In other words, regardless of its precise role or function in the human organism, the rapidity with which it became ubiquitous in the human genome can most probably be attributed to positive selection relating to its importance to the development of language. Again, to that extent, it is a "gene for language".
From such claims, Everett proceeds to denounce more biologically reductive theories of language acquisition, in favour of more plastic, cultural explanations. Again, I found such claims somewhat wanting. Plainly there must be some biological basis for language (as Steven Pinker points out, this is why a child raised in a certain household will acquire language, whereas a dog living in the same household will not) and the fact that there is a large cultural component to language doesn't change this. (Furthermore, I would ask whether or not we might be able to claim that culture itself has a biological basis!) He largely succeeds in showing that some of the more excessive nativist claims concerning grammar are misguided by demonstrating the sheer plurality of different forms that grammar can take, but I don't think that the more restrained claims of nativism - for example, the universality of recursion in language - are necessarily challenged by this. Again, Everett might have been a little more successful in my eyes if he had narrowed the scope of his argument a little, rather than trying to take down the entire edifice of nativist linguistics in one go.
But if we take out the needless and slightly confused swipes at scientific theories of language acquisition, there's little else in the book that strikes me as particularly controversial. Everett runs through the peculiarities of different languages (as a riposte to Chomskyan theories of "universalist" grammar) and theories of language acquisition stretching from Plato to the current day. His main idea, such as I could tell, was that language is a "tool", and like all other tools its specific manifestation among specific groups of people depends largely on the function it is required to fulfil. In other words, language is a highly pliable tool that has not arisen as a consequence of biological determinism, but rather as a consequence of "fitness for purpose" that finds its expression in a number of ways. I didn't find his arguments convincing all the time, but I will concede that he raised a number of interesting points throughout the book, and as such it would still be worth reading even if you don't feel you're likely to agree with what he has to say. It would have been a more successful book, though, had it retained a more clear focus.
Take, for example, this quote from page 70:
It has not been established that there are any genes specific to language. What we do know from genetic studies so far is that there are genes � the best example, widely discussed in the literature, being FOXP2 � that are important to language. Yet finding a gene that is important to language is not the same as identifying a gene for language.
We must note at the beginning that there is not a single, scientifically informed nativist on the planet who would accede to the claim that there is a "gene for language". No-one expects there to be, and no nativist would posit this as a reasonable expectation. That's simply not how genes work, as Everett kind of points out here. Genes - particularly those involved with the development of the brain, for some reason - tend to be pleiotropic; that is, they are expressed in the development of more than one "phenotype", or bodily feature. As Everett suggests later, it may well be the case that genes identified as being integral to the development of language (such as the FOXP2 example given here) are also integral to other areas of ontogenic development, and cannot therefore be naively classified as "language genes". However, this rather misses the point somewhat.
The first issue here is that no gene is, strictly, a gene for anything. All genes do is produce certain proteins at certain stages of ontogenic development, and whatever the effect this protein has is only discernible as part of a longer, cumulative process. That is, it only finds phenotypical expression through interaction with other genes, which are themselves doing nothing other than producing proteins. On the other hand, there are clearly some genes that are necessary for the emergence of particular phenotypes. Eye colour would be a fairly obvious example here. My eyes are blue because I happen to possess a particular recessive allele that people with brown eyes do not have. In that respect, it wouldn't be wildly incorrect to say that this particular gene is a gene for blue eyes. Strictly speaking this isn't true, of course (this gene doesn't create "blue eyes" it merely supplies a protein, which may also be expressed in phenotypes other than that of eye-colour) but in another, less pedantic sense we can say that this gene is apparently necessary for the development of blue eyes, and - to that extent - it is most certainly a gene for blue eyes. If nativists slip and call genes such as FOXP2 "genes for language", then that is all they really mean: namely, that such genes are necessary for the development of language, regardless of their precise role in the ontogeny of neural development, or what other role they may have in any other kind of phenotypical development.
The second issue concerns why a particular gene is present in our genome. This is a controversial area in evolutionary biology, but generally if we find a gene that is preserved with almost universal fidelity in a particular gene-pool, then we are probably justified in presuming that there have been positive selection pressures in the evolutionary history of the organism, leading to its preservation in the gene pool. (This idea is controversial because neutral selection patterns - such as "genetic drift" - can also have a large effect on the genome, leading some biologists to denounce the search for past positive selection pressures as little more than teleological sophistry. Such arguments are a little beside the point here, though.) If we ask why a gene such as FOXP2 has come to be so universally present in the human genome in such a small space of time, then we are probably justified in asking what positive benefit it accrued to our ancestors that led to its ubiquity. Given the importance of language to our species - and the negative costs that must have been associated with its absence - I think we would probably be correct in asserting that the prevalence of the FOXP2 gene in the human genome is linked primarily to the very strong selection pressures that relate to language use, rather than whatever other functions the gene may serve. In other words, regardless of its precise role or function in the human organism, the rapidity with which it became ubiquitous in the human genome can most probably be attributed to positive selection relating to its importance to the development of language. Again, to that extent, it is a "gene for language".
From such claims, Everett proceeds to denounce more biologically reductive theories of language acquisition, in favour of more plastic, cultural explanations. Again, I found such claims somewhat wanting. Plainly there must be some biological basis for language (as Steven Pinker points out, this is why a child raised in a certain household will acquire language, whereas a dog living in the same household will not) and the fact that there is a large cultural component to language doesn't change this. (Furthermore, I would ask whether or not we might be able to claim that culture itself has a biological basis!) He largely succeeds in showing that some of the more excessive nativist claims concerning grammar are misguided by demonstrating the sheer plurality of different forms that grammar can take, but I don't think that the more restrained claims of nativism - for example, the universality of recursion in language - are necessarily challenged by this. Again, Everett might have been a little more successful in my eyes if he had narrowed the scope of his argument a little, rather than trying to take down the entire edifice of nativist linguistics in one go.
But if we take out the needless and slightly confused swipes at scientific theories of language acquisition, there's little else in the book that strikes me as particularly controversial. Everett runs through the peculiarities of different languages (as a riposte to Chomskyan theories of "universalist" grammar) and theories of language acquisition stretching from Plato to the current day. His main idea, such as I could tell, was that language is a "tool", and like all other tools its specific manifestation among specific groups of people depends largely on the function it is required to fulfil. In other words, language is a highly pliable tool that has not arisen as a consequence of biological determinism, but rather as a consequence of "fitness for purpose" that finds its expression in a number of ways. I didn't find his arguments convincing all the time, but I will concede that he raised a number of interesting points throughout the book, and as such it would still be worth reading even if you don't feel you're likely to agree with what he has to say. It would have been a more successful book, though, had it retained a more clear focus.
April 22, 2018
This book makes the opposite point of The Language Instinct. Here, the differences between languages are pointed out as evidence that language is just something we make up and share with each other as an invented tool, rather than something instinctive.
The author lived for years among the Piraha Indians (originally as a missionary) and so is speaking from personal knowledge when he says that the Piraha lack any number words, color words, or recursive grammatical constructions. On the other hand, they can all speak a sign language, a whistle language, and a hum language that are all distinct forms of communication.
Apparently when English speakers have to communicate with gestures, we tend to use a subject/object/verb order.
The Piraha, as a tiny group in a sea of other people, have the idea that their customs are right for them, but that other people have their own ways of doing things that aren't worse, just different. I guess I implicitly had an idea that every primitive tribe believed that they were the only real people and everyone else was doing everything wrong.
Anyway, lots of interesting facts about unique features of language, and to read a critique of Chomsky's Universal Grammar by someone who really knows what he is talking about.
The author lived for years among the Piraha Indians (originally as a missionary) and so is speaking from personal knowledge when he says that the Piraha lack any number words, color words, or recursive grammatical constructions. On the other hand, they can all speak a sign language, a whistle language, and a hum language that are all distinct forms of communication.
Apparently when English speakers have to communicate with gestures, we tend to use a subject/object/verb order.
The Piraha, as a tiny group in a sea of other people, have the idea that their customs are right for them, but that other people have their own ways of doing things that aren't worse, just different. I guess I implicitly had an idea that every primitive tribe believed that they were the only real people and everyone else was doing everything wrong.
Anyway, lots of interesting facts about unique features of language, and to read a critique of Chomsky's Universal Grammar by someone who really knows what he is talking about.
Read
January 18, 2021Finished book one of 2021. Pittig leesvoer! Hele academische verhandeling over taal, grammatica, over linguistics, phonetics, antropologie, over hersengebieden en anatomie die taal denken en spreken mogelijk maken, de symbiotische relatie tussen cultuur en taal, effect van schrift op de grammatica van taal, over recursief denken en praten. En het hele boek vol bijzonderheden over volken en talen. De wetenschappelijke ‘veteâ€� tussen Everett en Chomsky (‘kom niet aan Chomsky!â€�) is wel zichtbaar en voelbaar in het boek, zowel expliciet als impliciet, maar als je dat een beetje weet te plaatsen is ‘Language. the Cultural Toolâ€� een ontzettend boeiende en leerzame verhandeling. 📚ðŸ§
January 5, 2025
i’m sure he had to say all that because he was feuding with noam chomsky but i just feel like he could’ve gotten his point across better if we was explaining more about his ideas and research than criticizing other theories. not my fav but his pirahã research is interesting and he shoved in lots of good anecdotes. a pretty good overview of major linguistic theories and the state of linguistic nativism v. empiricism debate
April 30, 2021
Sometimes delving too much in specialized terminology, it manages to deliver many valuable concepts and lessons. Among the best ones is this irrefutable idea that culture is shaped by language and viceversa, meaning that they are two sides of the same coin. To understand language one has to understand culture, and the diversity of culture and language around the world is the greatest treasure we have.
September 14, 2023
(Evil Chomsky)
August 22, 2023
liked the writing style, would’ve liked to see more references & serious scientific study. seemed a bit anecdotal & not rigorous enough at parts, perhaps for the book format/popular audience?
July 8, 2012
There is interesting information in the book, and about every 75 pages or so, the author makes an observation that is thrillingly cool. He studied Brazilian jungle tribes for their culture and language, and Everett includes some of the results which are naturally fascinating. The Piraha, for example, do not have words for colors or numbers. He makes a case that despite not having the words, the tribe can think, to some degree, using concepts involving counting or colors. The author also makes the point that we cannot judge a culture for inferiority or superiority. He briefly covers every major idea about language, but primarily those which he disagrees with.
The first half of the book refutes the various arguments and theories on the acquisition of language that other linguists have posited since the 1950's, particularly the theories about human instincts for language possibly existing in brain structures, or genes. If I read it right, the author believes culture defines language acquisition, not a brain structure or genes, but he thinks we have an instinct to desire communication, not necessarily by sounds, and to make sounds (the design of the human head being a major clue). In the second half he discusses his theory and some of the literature on the subject that helped Everett in his thinking. He spends some time discussing Aristotle's (yes, THAT Aristotle!) ideas on cultural interaction. Too briefly, he goes over the cognitive platforms for language such as the theory of mind, intentionality, contingency (causality or correlation), and cultural understanding about the world. Quote, "So, culture is both a product and a producer of language. Likewise, language is a product and a producer of culture." He also discusses perception, "...perception of [sounds] is based on our expectations." There is a chapter on how to build a language. He briefly mentions how the structure of a sentence affects perception and understanding, so that how the French language describes an action and how English describes an action can shape how the brain thinks about the action.
It's all fascinating stuff. Everett, in my layman's opinion, adds to the conversation on linguistics. However, I hated how this book is written. It is written in the language of a smart person talking down to a five year old. Perhaps, it simply is Everett was advised to write to the proverbial 8th grade reading level that all of the reading public supposedly attained after 12 years of study. It's audience is the general public, and I'm a general public member. However, the book's style annoyed the crap out of me. Also, it wanders a bit too conversationally for me into byways and alleys of nearby thoughts. I would have been happier with a more tightly constructed book.
The first half of the book refutes the various arguments and theories on the acquisition of language that other linguists have posited since the 1950's, particularly the theories about human instincts for language possibly existing in brain structures, or genes. If I read it right, the author believes culture defines language acquisition, not a brain structure or genes, but he thinks we have an instinct to desire communication, not necessarily by sounds, and to make sounds (the design of the human head being a major clue). In the second half he discusses his theory and some of the literature on the subject that helped Everett in his thinking. He spends some time discussing Aristotle's (yes, THAT Aristotle!) ideas on cultural interaction. Too briefly, he goes over the cognitive platforms for language such as the theory of mind, intentionality, contingency (causality or correlation), and cultural understanding about the world. Quote, "So, culture is both a product and a producer of language. Likewise, language is a product and a producer of culture." He also discusses perception, "...perception of [sounds] is based on our expectations." There is a chapter on how to build a language. He briefly mentions how the structure of a sentence affects perception and understanding, so that how the French language describes an action and how English describes an action can shape how the brain thinks about the action.
It's all fascinating stuff. Everett, in my layman's opinion, adds to the conversation on linguistics. However, I hated how this book is written. It is written in the language of a smart person talking down to a five year old. Perhaps, it simply is Everett was advised to write to the proverbial 8th grade reading level that all of the reading public supposedly attained after 12 years of study. It's audience is the general public, and I'm a general public member. However, the book's style annoyed the crap out of me. Also, it wanders a bit too conversationally for me into byways and alleys of nearby thoughts. I would have been happier with a more tightly constructed book.
December 18, 2019
This was excellent � I'm trying to build something at work which looks at how we can recreate a new business lexicon which, by simply naming a new behaviour that doesn’t currently exist, is able to help manifest those non existent behaviours. Not satisufficed (Herbert Simon) with the way things are in the business world I'm looking to go crazative and recreate a brutifully honest language that can help shape a new world in the future 😊 � a lexical reloveution so to speak .. . Let’s see how that slowgoes shall we 😊. Anyway. This book looks at a study of language around the world but there is a strong focus on a tribe in Brazil called the Piraha (like Piranha). Some of the things that i learnt about that tribe and the other examples in the book are amazing. Here are the best bits:
- The American Indian value of tolerating monsters and diversity became a foundational concept in the origination of the single most important contribution of American thinking to world philosophy � pragmatism. The Wampanoag influenced James, who influenced, Thomas Jefferson, who indirectly influenced William James and other founders of the school of American pragmatism. Pragmatism is based partially on the idea that there is no one intellectual “ring to bind them all� (reference to the LOTR) 😊. Pragmatism denies that there is a Truth with a capital T. It denies that science philosophy, religion, or any other form of inquiry should seek truth as the holy grail of human study.
- Do languages agree about what the world consists of because the world consists of those things or because humans share limitations that lead them to perceive the world in similar ways?
- Linguists say that the total number of actual languages spoken in the world at a given moment of human history is but a small fragment of a much larger number of possible human languages.
- This book is about the development of this great linguistic tool of our brains and communities, the cognitive fire that illuminates that lonely space between us far more brightly then the light of flames every could (referencing Prometheus stealing fire from the gods � was that fire an analogy for language?)
- “Why not create a word, only one, for the converging perception of the cowbells announcing day’s end and the sunset in the distance� � Jose Luis Borges
- (On Aristotle) � so influential were his teachings that they were in part responsible, paradoxically, for the dark ages because so many believed that Aristotle had already mastered all knowledge � why should anyone else try to advance it? The Lyceum, also known as the peripatetic or walkabout school because Aristotle liked to engage his students while walking and talking. Most of what we have as his writings are in fact notes and memories of his lectures at the Lyceum made by his successors and students.
- When we say something like Johnny wants to run, run is a verb but it has no associated temporal meaning. Therefore, we call “to run� the infinitive form of the word.
- For example, when we hear a story about a single farm animal such as a sheep, psychologists have discovered that several other words for farm animals (horse, cow, pig) are simultaneously activated in our minds, depending on our cultural concepts of farms and the animals normally found in them. We can refer to this part of our long-term memory as our mental dictionary of lexicon. And no one should be surprised to learn that our lexicon is partially structured by our culture, because words come from cultures.
- Researchers claim that there is no verb “to give� in Amele for cultural reasons. They argue that because giving is so basic to Amele culture, the language manifests a tendency to allow the experiential basicness of giving to correspond to a more basic kind of linguistic form � that is zero. Nothing can be simpler than nothing after all. No word is needed for this fundamental concept of Amele culture. (Do fish have a word for water?)
- Once again the background of culture is most clearly seen in what people do not say.
- In Banawa the feminine is the default gender. In fact the feminine is not only the default gender for new words and mixed groups, it is also the gender that all Banawa speakers use for the first and second person. That means that regardless of whether a man or woman is speaking, they will refer to themselves as feminine.
- It isn’t walking that fails the clumsy toddler or the drunken lush, but they who fail at walking.
- And the things we talk about and don’t talk about can affect the way we think. Different languages and different cultures can therefore produce different thoughts.
- The fair assessment is that the way that we talk sometimes effect the way that we think. But also the way that we live culturally affects the way we think too. We can usually think independently of language and culture if we take our time, though it can be very difficult to do so. And always our thinking is limited by our biology.
- English used to be a dialect of German, spoken by the Saxons that left Germany to settle in the cold, wet land of Britain in the fifth century AD. For the first years subsequent to the Saxons settled in England, their language was identical to the langue of their relatives in Saxony. But now English and German are distinct mutually unintelligible languages.
- The formula that summarizes my own concept of language is: cognition + culture + communication = language.
- Thinking is possible without language: my dog does it but non-linguistic thinking does not get us very far.
- Speech act: the act of one person speaking to another in order to change their knowledge or behaviour.
- Over a period of time an evolutionary solution will improve or disappear as a culture's environment favours or disfavours it. A solution will be just as good as it needs to be to ensure survival of the most offspring. No better no worse in most cases. The term suggested by Nobel prize winning economist Herbert Simon for this characteristic, whether it is found in biology or economics, is “satisficing�.
- Whereas an icon is at some level a representation of what it stands for, an index is not. Rather an index is a physical correlate of something in focus. Dark clouds index rain. Smoke indexes fire. (Man indexes God?) A red contorted face indexes anger. The most complex sign however is a symbol. A symbol associates an arbitrary form with a culturally defined understanding or meaning.
- Piraha women use the same vowels as men, but with a couple of exceptions, use only the consonants p,t,k,x,h,b and g. women do not usually use the “s� sound, so where men use “s� most Piraha women use the “h� sound instead.
- Herbert Simon made the case that Hierarchy is a natural expectation both in nature and society. He argued that hierarchy emerges from evolutionary process because hierarchical structures are inherently more efficient and stable than most other ways of organizing the universe. It is found in atomic structures, the organisation of societies, in the way that we process information, in the organisation of galaxies, in management and in business production processes.
- 19th century German explorer and polymath Wilhelm von Humboldt referred to language as the “infinite use of infinite means�.
- The American Indian value of tolerating monsters and diversity became a foundational concept in the origination of the single most important contribution of American thinking to world philosophy � pragmatism. The Wampanoag influenced James, who influenced, Thomas Jefferson, who indirectly influenced William James and other founders of the school of American pragmatism. Pragmatism is based partially on the idea that there is no one intellectual “ring to bind them all� (reference to the LOTR) 😊. Pragmatism denies that there is a Truth with a capital T. It denies that science philosophy, religion, or any other form of inquiry should seek truth as the holy grail of human study.
- Do languages agree about what the world consists of because the world consists of those things or because humans share limitations that lead them to perceive the world in similar ways?
- Linguists say that the total number of actual languages spoken in the world at a given moment of human history is but a small fragment of a much larger number of possible human languages.
- This book is about the development of this great linguistic tool of our brains and communities, the cognitive fire that illuminates that lonely space between us far more brightly then the light of flames every could (referencing Prometheus stealing fire from the gods � was that fire an analogy for language?)
- “Why not create a word, only one, for the converging perception of the cowbells announcing day’s end and the sunset in the distance� � Jose Luis Borges
- (On Aristotle) � so influential were his teachings that they were in part responsible, paradoxically, for the dark ages because so many believed that Aristotle had already mastered all knowledge � why should anyone else try to advance it? The Lyceum, also known as the peripatetic or walkabout school because Aristotle liked to engage his students while walking and talking. Most of what we have as his writings are in fact notes and memories of his lectures at the Lyceum made by his successors and students.
- When we say something like Johnny wants to run, run is a verb but it has no associated temporal meaning. Therefore, we call “to run� the infinitive form of the word.
- For example, when we hear a story about a single farm animal such as a sheep, psychologists have discovered that several other words for farm animals (horse, cow, pig) are simultaneously activated in our minds, depending on our cultural concepts of farms and the animals normally found in them. We can refer to this part of our long-term memory as our mental dictionary of lexicon. And no one should be surprised to learn that our lexicon is partially structured by our culture, because words come from cultures.
- Researchers claim that there is no verb “to give� in Amele for cultural reasons. They argue that because giving is so basic to Amele culture, the language manifests a tendency to allow the experiential basicness of giving to correspond to a more basic kind of linguistic form � that is zero. Nothing can be simpler than nothing after all. No word is needed for this fundamental concept of Amele culture. (Do fish have a word for water?)
- Once again the background of culture is most clearly seen in what people do not say.
- In Banawa the feminine is the default gender. In fact the feminine is not only the default gender for new words and mixed groups, it is also the gender that all Banawa speakers use for the first and second person. That means that regardless of whether a man or woman is speaking, they will refer to themselves as feminine.
- It isn’t walking that fails the clumsy toddler or the drunken lush, but they who fail at walking.
- And the things we talk about and don’t talk about can affect the way we think. Different languages and different cultures can therefore produce different thoughts.
- The fair assessment is that the way that we talk sometimes effect the way that we think. But also the way that we live culturally affects the way we think too. We can usually think independently of language and culture if we take our time, though it can be very difficult to do so. And always our thinking is limited by our biology.
- English used to be a dialect of German, spoken by the Saxons that left Germany to settle in the cold, wet land of Britain in the fifth century AD. For the first years subsequent to the Saxons settled in England, their language was identical to the langue of their relatives in Saxony. But now English and German are distinct mutually unintelligible languages.
- The formula that summarizes my own concept of language is: cognition + culture + communication = language.
- Thinking is possible without language: my dog does it but non-linguistic thinking does not get us very far.
- Speech act: the act of one person speaking to another in order to change their knowledge or behaviour.
- Over a period of time an evolutionary solution will improve or disappear as a culture's environment favours or disfavours it. A solution will be just as good as it needs to be to ensure survival of the most offspring. No better no worse in most cases. The term suggested by Nobel prize winning economist Herbert Simon for this characteristic, whether it is found in biology or economics, is “satisficing�.
- Whereas an icon is at some level a representation of what it stands for, an index is not. Rather an index is a physical correlate of something in focus. Dark clouds index rain. Smoke indexes fire. (Man indexes God?) A red contorted face indexes anger. The most complex sign however is a symbol. A symbol associates an arbitrary form with a culturally defined understanding or meaning.
- Piraha women use the same vowels as men, but with a couple of exceptions, use only the consonants p,t,k,x,h,b and g. women do not usually use the “s� sound, so where men use “s� most Piraha women use the “h� sound instead.
- Herbert Simon made the case that Hierarchy is a natural expectation both in nature and society. He argued that hierarchy emerges from evolutionary process because hierarchical structures are inherently more efficient and stable than most other ways of organizing the universe. It is found in atomic structures, the organisation of societies, in the way that we process information, in the organisation of galaxies, in management and in business production processes.
- 19th century German explorer and polymath Wilhelm von Humboldt referred to language as the “infinite use of infinite means�.
March 11, 2017
Everett gibt in dem Buch ein paar interessante Einblicke in die Kultur und Sprachen einiger Amazonas-Indianerstämme. Dies ist allerdings nur ein Nebeneffekt. Eigentlich ist das Ziel des Buches, die wechselseitige Beeinflussung von Sprache und Kultur aufzuzeigen. Hierbei geht es ihm insbesondere darum, die nativistischen Linguisten um Chomsky und seine Universalgrammatik zu widerlegen. Auch geht er auf die Sapir-Whorf-Theorie eun, nach der die Sprache unser Denken bestimmt.
Gelingt ihm sein Vorhaben? Das würde ich mit einem klaren Jein beantworten. Er, zeigt auf jeden Fall die Schwächen und Schwierigkeiten auf, die dem Konzept einer angeborenen Grammatik innewohnt, und er macht ziemlich klar, weshalb man Sprache als erlerntes Werkzeug betrachten sollte.
Auf der anderen Seite ist er aber auch nicht immer überzeugend. Teilweise tischt er "Erkenntnisse" auf, die man mit schlichtem logischem Denken auch findet, ohne dazu ausgefeilte Theorien zu benötigen. Manche seiner Aussagen sind auch nur Plattitüden, und manchmal versäumt er es, seine Überlegungen zu belegen, oder bringt Beispiele, die nicht passen.
Aber im Großen und Ganzen bringt er durchaus einige interessante Denkansätze, und wie gesagt einige spannende Informationen zu ungewöhnlichen Sprachen.
Ärgerlich sind die Patzer, die hin und wieder vorkommen, seien es schlichte Falschaussagen wie die, dass das, Japanische eine SVO-Struktur habe, oder unglücklich formulierte Sätze, die den gewünschten Inhalt nicht herüberbringen. Allerdings kann es auch durchaus sein, dass letzteres eher dem Übersetzer geschuldet ist, es gibt Anzeichen dafür, dass dieser mit dem Thema etwas überfordert war.
Gelingt ihm sein Vorhaben? Das würde ich mit einem klaren Jein beantworten. Er, zeigt auf jeden Fall die Schwächen und Schwierigkeiten auf, die dem Konzept einer angeborenen Grammatik innewohnt, und er macht ziemlich klar, weshalb man Sprache als erlerntes Werkzeug betrachten sollte.
Auf der anderen Seite ist er aber auch nicht immer überzeugend. Teilweise tischt er "Erkenntnisse" auf, die man mit schlichtem logischem Denken auch findet, ohne dazu ausgefeilte Theorien zu benötigen. Manche seiner Aussagen sind auch nur Plattitüden, und manchmal versäumt er es, seine Überlegungen zu belegen, oder bringt Beispiele, die nicht passen.
Aber im Großen und Ganzen bringt er durchaus einige interessante Denkansätze, und wie gesagt einige spannende Informationen zu ungewöhnlichen Sprachen.
Ärgerlich sind die Patzer, die hin und wieder vorkommen, seien es schlichte Falschaussagen wie die, dass das, Japanische eine SVO-Struktur habe, oder unglücklich formulierte Sätze, die den gewünschten Inhalt nicht herüberbringen. Allerdings kann es auch durchaus sein, dass letzteres eher dem Übersetzer geschuldet ist, es gibt Anzeichen dafür, dass dieser mit dem Thema etwas überfordert war.
April 30, 2014
Very interesting, though I found it rather oddly structured as I read through it. Then again, language has such broad and fascinating connections that structure in this book is hardly what one would read it for. The ideas offered within are a lovely balance to Noam Chomsky's over-used explanations of grammar and linguistics. I enjoyed the detailed descriptions of the Amazonian languages which are so far removed from those of Europe and East Asia, they serve to broaden the reader's conceptualisation of what some cultures need and what they do not need, and in turn, how those needs are expressed in their linguistic apparatus.
February 2, 2016
Heel interessant boek over waarom Chomsky het mis heeft volgens de auteur. Erg toegankelijk geschreven!
October 15, 2018
Language: The Cultural Tool by Daniel Everett
The main premise of Language: The Cultural Tool by Daniel Everett is that language, contrary to Noam Chomsky’s revolutionary ideas earlier this century, is not innate. It is an invention and tool of culture. He convincingly refutes the idea that children could not possibly learn the necessary complexities of language, although he credits a more general learning device, not one that is specialized for language only. He also gives a brief overview of the many items infants and toddlers learn from the culture around them, including attitudes toward hygiene, food, manners, and people.
There is no language organ, Everett states, and the areas of the brain that are strongly involved in language production and understanding, including Broca’s and Wernicke’s respectively, did not evolve for that purpose but for others, such as different sequencing problems and motor control, and were later co-opted for language. No part of the brain has yet been discovered that evolved primarily to produce or understand language. There is no language organ.
Everett gives many convincing reasons for the idea that the primary purposes in language are communication and social cohesion. He emphasizes the role that culture plays in determining meaning. He does believe, however, that improvement in our thinking was an ancillary benefit, as struggling to produce and understand speech to communicate brought more order, organization, and precision to our thinking.
Everett outlines Saussure’s concept of sign, and describes exactly what signs are. He takes a brief tour through Charles Peirce’s further analysis of sign into icon, index, and symbol. This is important because it takes us from basic thought processes to symbolic thought.
Again, (see my review of How Language Began) I believe an expanded sense of iconicity better serves us; one that includes the resemblance one instance of a category often has to another. This is how we think: We see an instance of a category, search our memory for the most similar instance, and categorize in that manner. Concepts (distinctions in the environment) are the first building blocks of thought, and their categorization is often based on similarity. This extended sense of icon allows icons, indexes, and symbols to cover a more complete range of thought: distinguishing concepts and categorizing, making associations, and finally utilizing true symbolic thought. It also gives our thought continuity with that of the rest of the mammals and most other organisms. Categorization is the basis of thought for them as well, the making of distinctions in their environment key to survival.
Everett talks about languages not being equally complex. Languages, like organisms, evolved to fill specific niches and purposes. While much evidence shows that language does not determine thought, it, and culture as well, certainly influence it. The relationship is complex. The context, or background, of the culture is necessary to truly understand language.
Language: The Cultural Tool is a splendid, convincing, and accessible source of knowledge about language, culture, and thought.
The main premise of Language: The Cultural Tool by Daniel Everett is that language, contrary to Noam Chomsky’s revolutionary ideas earlier this century, is not innate. It is an invention and tool of culture. He convincingly refutes the idea that children could not possibly learn the necessary complexities of language, although he credits a more general learning device, not one that is specialized for language only. He also gives a brief overview of the many items infants and toddlers learn from the culture around them, including attitudes toward hygiene, food, manners, and people.
There is no language organ, Everett states, and the areas of the brain that are strongly involved in language production and understanding, including Broca’s and Wernicke’s respectively, did not evolve for that purpose but for others, such as different sequencing problems and motor control, and were later co-opted for language. No part of the brain has yet been discovered that evolved primarily to produce or understand language. There is no language organ.
Everett gives many convincing reasons for the idea that the primary purposes in language are communication and social cohesion. He emphasizes the role that culture plays in determining meaning. He does believe, however, that improvement in our thinking was an ancillary benefit, as struggling to produce and understand speech to communicate brought more order, organization, and precision to our thinking.
Everett outlines Saussure’s concept of sign, and describes exactly what signs are. He takes a brief tour through Charles Peirce’s further analysis of sign into icon, index, and symbol. This is important because it takes us from basic thought processes to symbolic thought.
Again, (see my review of How Language Began) I believe an expanded sense of iconicity better serves us; one that includes the resemblance one instance of a category often has to another. This is how we think: We see an instance of a category, search our memory for the most similar instance, and categorize in that manner. Concepts (distinctions in the environment) are the first building blocks of thought, and their categorization is often based on similarity. This extended sense of icon allows icons, indexes, and symbols to cover a more complete range of thought: distinguishing concepts and categorizing, making associations, and finally utilizing true symbolic thought. It also gives our thought continuity with that of the rest of the mammals and most other organisms. Categorization is the basis of thought for them as well, the making of distinctions in their environment key to survival.
Everett talks about languages not being equally complex. Languages, like organisms, evolved to fill specific niches and purposes. While much evidence shows that language does not determine thought, it, and culture as well, certainly influence it. The relationship is complex. The context, or background, of the culture is necessary to truly understand language.
Language: The Cultural Tool is a splendid, convincing, and accessible source of knowledge about language, culture, and thought.
April 2, 2023
To jest klasyczny przykład książki nie przystosowanej do zwyczajnego czytelnika. Wiadomym jest, że po pewną literaturę sięga się przypadkiem, po inną z premedytacją, a zwykle wybór lektury cechuje większa lub mniejsza losowość związana z poleceniem, ochotą lub jeszcze innym jakimś czynnikiem, który skłania nas do wybrania tej a nie innej pozycji z bogatej mam nadzieję dla nas wszystkich listy lektur jaką macie i jaka na was czeka. Otóż posiadanie tej na owej liście odradzam. To jest po prostu naukowy bełkot, który interesującym mogą znaleźć jedynie czytelnicy, których autentycznie ten temat wciąga i zajmuje. To nawet nie jest książka popularnonaukowa, a wręcz czysto naukowa, przez którą przebrnięcie jest nie lada wyzwaniem. Do tego temat jest jednak średnio interesujący. Niby jest to coś co obecne jest w naszym życiu na codzień, ale z tej książki nie wynika aby było to coś fascynującego dla kogoś poza autorem.
Z każdym kolejnym rozdziałem odczuwasz nadzieję, że będzie ciekawszy niż wszystkie poprzednie i z każdym ta nadzieja okazuje się płonna.
Na palcach jednej ręki mogę wymienić zdania i są to zdania a nie nawet fragmenty czy akapity, który wzbudziły chociaż cień mojej ciekawości. Ta książka jest tak nudna jak tylko można to sobie wyobrazić czytając jej tytuł. Po prostu flaki z olejem i zawarta w niej wiedza są tak nie przydatne zupełnie do niczego, że nie jestem w stanie wyobrazić sobie nawet człowieka, dla którego byłaby ona ciekawa i zajmująca.
Z każdym kolejnym rozdziałem odczuwasz nadzieję, że będzie ciekawszy niż wszystkie poprzednie i z każdym ta nadzieja okazuje się płonna.
Na palcach jednej ręki mogę wymienić zdania i są to zdania a nie nawet fragmenty czy akapity, który wzbudziły chociaż cień mojej ciekawości. Ta książka jest tak nudna jak tylko można to sobie wyobrazić czytając jej tytuł. Po prostu flaki z olejem i zawarta w niej wiedza są tak nie przydatne zupełnie do niczego, że nie jestem w stanie wyobrazić sobie nawet człowieka, dla którego byłaby ona ciekawa i zajmująca.
January 7, 2019
I debated whether to give this book two or three stars - its faults are many, but the last 1/4th was actually interesting.
Most of the 450 pages that "Language" has in a Polish version are a repetitive polemic with Chomsky's universal grammar theory. The author has a tendency to digress all the time and use long metaphors and anecdotes that often have literally nothing to do with the subject matter. There is also a lot of information in the book that is completely irrelevant - sometimes it feels like the Everett just now remembered a fun-and-useless fact and really wanted to share it with the readers. He also has a tendency to not only make his explanations long and needlessly complicated, but to repeat the same information and metaphors in different chapters.
Other than the last 3-4 chapters of the book, I learned nothing new and was frustrated and disappointed by the amount of paragraphs that I had to skip because they either had no connection to subject matter or repeated things Everett already wrote about.
You might look at this book entirely differently if you're not a linguist - I have a feeling it was written with complete laypeople in mind rather than people who already know something about how languages work.
Most of the 450 pages that "Language" has in a Polish version are a repetitive polemic with Chomsky's universal grammar theory. The author has a tendency to digress all the time and use long metaphors and anecdotes that often have literally nothing to do with the subject matter. There is also a lot of information in the book that is completely irrelevant - sometimes it feels like the Everett just now remembered a fun-and-useless fact and really wanted to share it with the readers. He also has a tendency to not only make his explanations long and needlessly complicated, but to repeat the same information and metaphors in different chapters.
Other than the last 3-4 chapters of the book, I learned nothing new and was frustrated and disappointed by the amount of paragraphs that I had to skip because they either had no connection to subject matter or repeated things Everett already wrote about.
You might look at this book entirely differently if you're not a linguist - I have a feeling it was written with complete laypeople in mind rather than people who already know something about how languages work.
May 9, 2023
Daniel Everett makes a strong case for the concept that language is a tool, a communication tool that all people use in ways similar to other tools like fire and other technologies. Language advances culture, helps shape culture and is shaped by culture. Each language varies from others. The variations are reflections of what is important to the people of that culture.
Languages of all peoples of the world have a significant level of sophistication. The variations are a reflection of the needs and concerns of the culture in which it exists.
Everett is not clear on the role of evolution in language. At times he seems to say that it has no role, that language simply exists because people need to communicate. But he does not make this clear and it is a significant flaw in the foundation of his argument. He needs to clarify this.
Languages of all peoples of the world have a significant level of sophistication. The variations are a reflection of the needs and concerns of the culture in which it exists.
Everett is not clear on the role of evolution in language. At times he seems to say that it has no role, that language simply exists because people need to communicate. But he does not make this clear and it is a significant flaw in the foundation of his argument. He needs to clarify this.
January 30, 2018
A bit redundant, a bit elliptical... I suppose this is in line with the sociolinguistics it seeks to establish. If Chomsky’s UG wasn’t already in its death throes, Everett has set the coffin. It doubtless leaves in its wake much to question, but the unseating of the complacent and tidy linguistic theory was well earned. What we can assert from this work: language is not localized - Not in the brain, nor a certain gene; language is not the internalization of a set of rules, but rather the apprehension of similar structures; language is a tool we have evolved to use.
September 16, 2023
A very interesting read, even though too long at times. It made me curious about Pirahã language - the sole fact that it doesn't cover numbers and colours is very intriguing. What made me smile was the divagation on recursiveness and saying that people also can be recursive (pregnant women). What is more - the author claims that we can look positively on Sisyphus because he achieved his goal every day which is a good thing. This specific outlook on different matters is something else. Definitely not my last book about languages.
April 12, 2025
The must read book about language as a cultural tool
I really enjoyed reading the case Dan makes for a language to be a cool of culture. Languages are tools we use to solve our local cultural problems. The book helps you to zoom out of your language and take a bird-view on what it actually is.
It’s fascinating to realize that partly kudos for this book should be attributed to Piraha themselves, as they helped Dan to build his own point of view for what a language is and how it forms.
I really enjoyed reading the case Dan makes for a language to be a cool of culture. Languages are tools we use to solve our local cultural problems. The book helps you to zoom out of your language and take a bird-view on what it actually is.
It’s fascinating to realize that partly kudos for this book should be attributed to Piraha themselves, as they helped Dan to build his own point of view for what a language is and how it forms.
Shelved as 'never-finished'
July 3, 2020God, this book is irritating. The author is smug and seems only intent on bashing people he disagrees with. It's fine to disagree, but please, for the love of language, set up a coherent argument. Please.
I might pick up this book again at some later point, as I made the mistake of buying it, but also because his view is probably interesting and complementary (if not complimentary) to other language theories I've read about.
I might pick up this book again at some later point, as I made the mistake of buying it, but also because his view is probably interesting and complementary (if not complimentary) to other language theories I've read about.
July 27, 2018
Interessant als Reisebericht. Aber wo es um Sprachen geht, ignoriert Everett geflissentlich seine eigenen Beobachtungen und verbiegt eine recht normale Sprache, bis sie in seine Theorien passt.
Ausführliche Rezension auf meinem Blog:
Ausführliche Rezension auf meinem Blog:
May 31, 2021
Although I don't agree with Everett on some elements of his book, I cannot deny the joy I found in reading this book. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone interested in language regardless of their linguistic background (generativists or otherwise).
September 13, 2023
forced to read this for my linguistics paper and while largely interesting i think it would have been significantly better to be fed with more scientific case studies and more focus in what he wanted to bring forth
January 3, 2024
an inauspicious start to 2024 :( a rare dnf
protracted beef with Noam Chomsky put into 400 pages of rambling and appeal to nature fallacies
if 'I want to talk about... madeleine....ashton 😠' was a book
keep weaponizing that BFA honey
protracted beef with Noam Chomsky put into 400 pages of rambling and appeal to nature fallacies
if 'I want to talk about... madeleine....ashton 😠' was a book
keep weaponizing that BFA honey
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