Folder: mail-procmail-2008-11-18/2007-02-20-160800-voynich
From owner-vms-list@voynich.net  Sat Jul 15 10:08:47 2006
Date: Sat, 15 Jul 2006 23:56:01 +1100
To: vms-list@voynich.net
Subject: Re: VMs: Kircher, Piraha
References: <200607150209.AA382927470@mail.asus.net>
From: "Jacques Guy" <jbmguy@aapt.net.au>
Message-ID: <op.tcqd7nuutyp5yo@system>
In-Reply-To: <001301c6a7fc$20d0a660$0e698848@D674ZD61>

On Sat, 15 Jul 2006 21:47:54 +1100, mjmurphy <4mjmu@rogers.com> wrote:


> Just very briefly, Everett is considered competent in his field and he  
> is not the only linguist to have noted the peculiarities of the Piraha  
> language.  The features he ascribes to the Piraha language and culture  
> have, in ones or twos (the primitive number system, the extreme  
> concentration on concrete experience), been noted in other "primitive"  
> languages.  The notion of a hoax in this case is not particularly  
> plausible.

I have Everett's book (Jorge Stolfi sent me a copy he found going for
two dollars). Of course, I cannot find it when I need it. I know it's
here in my study upstairs because I have come across it by chance the
other day and said to myself "I must return it to Jorge Stolfi". So
this has to be from memory. Until I find that damn book again.

Everett claims that the Piraha are fiercely monolingual. Refuse
to speak anything but Piraha.

Yet, in his introduction, he tells how, when he started
studying Piraha, his wife (who seems to be an Amazonian native)
warned him that his informants were talking to him in a dialect of ...
I forgot the name of the language (I seem to remember it started with
"M"... when I find that book again...). So much for monolingual
Piraha. And he does not say how he got them to switch to "real Piraha".

To me, it's clear. The gringo doesn't want us to teach him our language?
(A dialect of M...). He insists on something else? Never mind, we'll make
something up for him. A bit of this, a bit of that, keep him happy.

I went through something similar 30 years ago in the Solomon Islands,
but it didn't take me long to realise I was being bullshitted.

In his book he also tells how the Piraha see spirits which he cannot see.
He describes an episode when the whole tribe was on the river bank,
jumping, shouting and gesturing at the opposite bank. He inquired what
it was about. "Can't you see the devils on the other side?" No, he couldn't
(of course). His conclusion? They see things we cannot see. Yeah, sure, one
born every minute.