In a remote region of the Amazon live the last 300 members of the Pirahã tribe. They have one of the strangest languages in the world: they have no words for colours and numbers, no concern for the past nor the future – making it one of the hottest debates ever among linguists!
In the 1970s, Daniel Everett first met the Pirahã as a Christian missionary exploring the Amazon basin. Having converted no one, Everett was soon much less interested in Jesus than the people with whom he was now living.
For 30 years, he attempted to understand the near indecipherable Pirahã language – once described by the New Yorker as ‘a profusion of songbirds’, ‘melodic chattering’, and ‘barely discernible as speech’ – and re-invented himself as a linguist, grabbing headlines by challenging Noam Chomsky’s theory of universal grammar.
In this documentary, we will follow Everett as he sets out to gather evidence to support his controversial theories.
Documentary: Pirahã: Language Mystery
Directed by: Randall Wood & Michael O’Neill
Production: Essential Media & Entertainment Production with ABC Australia, Smithsonian Networks & ARTE France
#PirahaTribe #Amazon #Linguistics #DanielEverett #UniversalGrammar #IndigenousCulture #AmazonRainforest #LanguageDebate #CulturalAnthropology #documentaryfilms
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msamba 
An interesting controversy. He claims that the Piraha do not think in past or future, but as soon as the fisherman says “my wife will be angry”, it is future. He is anticipating something to happen. It looks like it won’t be possible to verify David’s claims.
I wonder what the linguist who accused him of “racist research” meant by that, it is not explained.
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