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Home > Challenging Chomsky Universal grammar is the most important theory in linguistics. Has the language of one tribe now disproved it?
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Challenging Chomsky Universal grammar is the most important theory in linguistics. Has the language of one tribe now disproved it?

[5.31.07]

In 2005, the American anthropologist Daniel Everett published an article in Current Anthropology in which he presented his insights into Pirahã life, acquired over years spent living with the tribe. Pirahã culture, Everett claimed, was unique: it was totally focused on immediate experience and it lacked basic number skills, a vocabulary for colours, a past perfect tense and a creation myth....

Challenging Chomsky Universal grammar is the most important theory in linguistics. Has the language of one tribe now disproved it? [1]

[2]

Related Content: 

RECURSION AND HUMAN THOUGHT [3]

News From: 

PROSPECT MAGAZINE [4]
Philip Oltermann
Read the full article → [4]
[ Thu. May. 31. 2007 ]

In 2005, the American anthropologist Daniel Everett published an article in Current Anthropology in which he presented his insights into Pirahã life, acquired over years spent living with the tribe. Pirahã culture, Everett claimed, was unique: it was totally focused on immediate experience and it lacked basic number skills, a vocabulary for colours, a past perfect tense and a creation myth....

Links:
[1] https://www.edge.org/news/challenging-chomsky-universal-grammar-is-the-most-important-theory-in-linguistics-has-the
[2] http://is.gd/3fxTbq
[3] https://www.edge.org/conversation/daniel_l_everett-recursion-and-human-thought
[4] http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/article_details.php?id=9606