Would the average American teenager share many cultural similarities with an Amazonian teen? Probably not. The dissimilarities begin with communication.
Daniel Everett, a missionary and linguist who lived with the Pirahã tribe describes the idiosyncrasies of one of the most isolated cultures in the world in his book Don’t Sleep, There Are Snakes.
Everett started work with the Pirahã in 1977, hoping to convert the tribe to Christianity. Over time, he developed an attachment to their unique customs and language. In Don’t Sleep, Everett documents the ways in which the Pirahã language is fundamentally different from other languages.
Pirahã, despite being a language isolate, a language with no demonstrable relationship to other languages, shares many characteristics with other languages. It is a tonal language, meaning that pitch is used to distinguish words or grammar, with a subject-object-verb sentence structure. Its speakers number in the hundreds, and they live in a village in the rainforest with minimal outside contact.
Linguists are interested in Pirahã because of its unusual features. Math has been purported to be the universal language. Scientists even use math to try to contact intelligent extraterrestrial life with radio signals. Yet Pirahã lacks basic numbers. When asked to count, they use ambiguous phrases such as “a few” or “many” to describe a quantity. Pirahã also do not express multiple thoughts in a single sentence. Single phrases, such as, “the big fish ate the bait” would be expressed as two separate phrases in Pirahã: “the fish ate the bait” and “the fish was big.”
Mysteriously, Pirahã does not express complex ideas within a single sentence. Different ideas are broken into several sentences. Phrases of phatic communication, speech used to share feelings or establish sociability, do not exist. “Thank you” or “goodbye” has no meaning to the Pirahã people. When presented with such a question, a Pirahã speaker may ask what is good about the day, or why they should thank someone when they would have done a favor in much the same way.
Everett’s discoveries have been challenged by one of the greatest authorities in the linguistic field, Noam Chomsky. Chomsky asserts that humans have an inborn knowledge of basic language rules, while Everett’s observations suggest that Pirahã break several of these supposed universal rules. Everett’s ideas have not gained acceptance, and most linguists subscribe to Chomsky’s theories. Mainstream linguists criticize the way Everett has changed his analysis of the linguistic structure of the Pirahã language, accentuating its unique features in recent work, and Chomsky himself has even gone so far as to call Everett a charlatan.
Does our language define who we are? The title of Everett’s book is one instance of the cultural understanding required to convey meaning. When translated to English, the phrase, “don’t sleep, there are snakes,” means something completely different than in Pirahã. Everett explains that the phrase, in the context of their environment and habits, can mean “good night.” The phrase is meant to be taken at face value, and understood for what it is: a simple, well-intentioned, cautionary piece of advice. The tribe lives in the central Amazon rainforest, where snakes are a serious threat, and where warning about snakes makes more sense than simply wishing a good night. Pirahãs also believe they are physically hardened by sleeping less. Therefore, the literal translation of the phrase is far different than its actual significance. To understand the phrase, one must understand the culture.
Everett came to the Pirahã village to try to teach the people about his god and his culture. Soon, however, he realized that the Pirahã had no need to change and he gave up trying to convert them. At first he thought their simplicity was culture shock from early contact with the Europeans. Indeed, the Pirahã had been in contact with the Portuguese since the 1700s. They, as well as other tribes, had suffered disease and conflict from the hands of the foreigners. Everett wondered whether the Pirahãs had tried to eliminate the source of bad — Europeans and their culture — and remained true to their roots as a reaction. Instead, he discovered that they were perfectly content to live how they had for generations. They were satisfied, so continued their lives of subsistence fishing and hunting in the rainforest.
Of course, he may be exaggerating his findings to a certain extent. I agree with Noam Chomsky and the other linguists who say that Everett is capitalizing on the story of the Pirahãs. The profundity of some of his discoveries may be overestimated. For one, it does not take an Amazonian tribal culture to call into question the structures of language. I believe Everett conveniently ignored some cultural differences had been discovered elsewhere. Their inability to count could be attributed to a simple misunderstood question. Everett’s book is similar to accounts of wayward Western explorers in the nineteenth century who misunderstood indigenous cultures rather than making significant findings.
Don’t Sleep, There Are Snakes opens with Everett’s journey to the Pirahã village, followed by an in-depth study of their language. The main theme of the book is culture’s influence on language. The book may be worth reading for someone interested in anthropological linguistic theories, so the average teen may not find Don’t Sleep very engaging. I gave the book a 2.5-star rating because it is simply too long. Everett packs his book with experience upon experience, without any story development. I would recommend it to someone interested in linguistics, anthropology, or controversial theories and theorists. This book is best suited for a mature and patient reader.
These days, Everett works as the Dean of Arts and Sciences at Bentley University in Massachusetts. A couple of decades after encountering the Pirahãs, he discontinued his missionary activity. After being influenced by the nonreligious Pirahãs, Everett became an atheist in the 1990s. In some ways, the Pirahã tribe affected Everett more than he affected them. He has written several other books, mostly on the subject of language and linguistics.
Language is a great part of our culture. Our perceptions of the world have much to do with the expressions and phrases that we use every day. Everett’s experiences teach us that we must broaden our perspectives in order to fully comprehend situations from different points of view, and to understand the essence and truth of our humanity.