The Piraha are a people in Brazil with a unique language. They are said to be a tribe 'living without numbers or time' and have aroused much debate amongst the linguists, anthropologists, and other disciplines. Superstars Steven Pinker and Noam Chomsky have also debated the issue about subordinate clauses and the place of recursion. According to Daniel Everett, the missionary who wrote the book in the video above, they are fully submerged within the present, an "immediacy of experience," the entrance and exit from experience, Everett below mentions a technical term "Experiential Liminality." The Piraha also remain within an empirical framework of evidence, deduction, and statements/propositions about things that are happening or happened.
Daniel Everett speaks a bit more on the subject:
For the full length talk:
http://fora.tv/2009/03/20/Daniel_Everett_Endangered_Languages_and_Lost_Knowledge
There is much to ponder.
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