From Wai Wong
As a child’s brain develops, there are short periods during which the ability to process certain information, be it vision, sound or language, can be acquired. If the relevant window of opportunity is missed, the child’s ability to process that information will be lost or significantly hampered. Since the Pirahã children were not exposed to concepts such as numbers, colours or time when growing up, they have difficulties grasping such concepts later in life (18 March, p 44). It is a matter of exposure, not language or culture. Give me a Pirahã child, and I can use objects to train him to understand those concepts without altering his language or culture.
I stand by Chomsky’s theory of universal grammar, which is akin to our (almost) universal ability to understand the visual language of red, green, blue and white (but not infrared or ultraviolet). What we need is the right environment for inborn ability to develop to its potential. If our eyes were covered during the first couple of months after birth, we would never be able to read this sentence.
From Niki Edwards
The linguist Dan Everett suggests that the Pirahã are not given to “fretting about the future” and that they “live for the moment”. However, when they ask an absent Everett, via a tape recorder, to bring matches and bananas when he next visits them, are they not living beyond the moment?
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Main Beach, Queensland, Australia
Mitcham, Victoria, Australia
