Professor Daniel Everett, whose book Don’t sleep, there are snakes was Radio 4’s book of the week in 2008, will give a public talk at the University of Manchester.
To book - click here: http://tinyurl.com/everettmanchester
Daniel Everett, now Dean of Arts and Sciences at Bentley University, was professor of Linguistics at the University of Manchester 2002-2006. Over a long period of time, he has carried out linguistic fieldwork in the Amazons. This work has led him to challenge some fundamental assumptions within linguistics and his academic publications have led to a heated debate. Don’t sleep, there are snakes has been translated into German, French and Mandarin. His work has received attention in newspapers, radio and other media in a wide range of countries. A documentary for television has been produced with the Australian channel ABC Arte France (http://www.essential-media.com/node/119).
Professor Everett has provided the following abstract of the talk:
A remote Amazonian tribe, the Pirahã (pee-da-HAN), have challenged our conceptions of human language and the relationship between culture, thinking, and happiness. Although their language has one of the smallest sets of vowels and consonants and one of the least complex grammars known among the world's 7000 languages, they can communicate by whistling, humming, and singing. They are the only group known to date that lacks number words or any concept of counting. They have no stories of the ancient past or distant future. They have resisted attempts by missionaries to convert them for over 250 years. All this because of certain values that they hold that are also associated with a lack of observable depression, absence of suicides, lack of fear of death, and an admirable stoicism and lack of violence. This talk will combine film, stories, and science in an effort to understand more about the Pirahas.