Pirahã: no grammatical recursion and much more; whistled languages

[gusl]

Pirahã is quite a remarkable language
* no grammatical recursion
* one of the smallest known phonological system: between 10 and 13 phonemes
* the simplest known kinship system (the only family words are "parent" and "sibling")
* 3 numbers: "a few", "some", and "many", and an inability to distinguish 4 from 5, and apparent inability to learn numeracy skills.
* it can be whistled, hummed, or encoded in music
* it has grammatical "evidentiality" (indicates whether the speaker saw the event happening), which English lacks.
* their culture has no history beyond living memory

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whistled_language

As the expressivity of whistled speech is limited compared to spoken speech, whistled messages typically consist of stereotyped or otherwise standardized or set expressions, are elaborately descriptive, and often have to be repeated. However, in languages which are heavily tonal, and therefore convey much of their information through pitch even when spoken, such as Mazatec and Yoruba, extensive conversations may be whistled.

Comments

[xuande.livejournal.com]

At least a few linguists are skeptical, especially since I think Daniel Everett is the only one who has really spent that much time with them.

[xuande.livejournal.com]

Err, only linguist.

[xuande.livejournal.com]

Or maybe not the only one, now that I read the article more closely.

[brkvw.livejournal.com]

Yeah, there are a LOT of questions, but very interesting....

The last person you want teaching you to count is a linguist.

[gustavolacerda.livejournal.com]

The last person you want teaching you to count is a linguist

why?

[brkvw.livejournal.com]

That was a joke..

Sort of like the last person you want teaching you language is a mathematician. My point is that someone not qualified to teach is concluding it is the students, and not the teacher.