This is fascinating: universal grammar vs. an entire culture based on mindfulness. “The Pirahã are a unique people living without time or numbers, without colours or a shared past.” In additon to adding to the debate on Chomsky, some linguists say that, because the Pirahã can’t concieve of numeration, it is proof of the Whorf hypothesis. Others disagree.

“A people without terms for numbers doesn’t develop the ability to determine exact numbers,” Dr Gordon said in Science magazine. “The question is, is there any case where not having words for something doesn’t allow you to think about it? I think this is a case for just that.” But Professor Everett did not leave it there. “You could say these features of the language, these absences, are all coincidences. I tried to find a common thread to explain why the Pirahã were the way they were.”

That factor, he found, was all around and yet its significance had never been noticed: the culture and unique way of life of the Pirahã. In a paper published last year, Professor Everett says this, not their language, prevents the Pirahã from counting.

Because of their culture’s ingrained emphasis on referring only to immediate, personal experiences, the tribesmen do not have words for any abstract concept, from colour to memory and even to numbers. There is no past tense, he says, because everything exists for them in the present. When it can no longer be perceived, it ceases, to all intents, to exist. “In many ways, the Pirahã are the ultimate empiricists,” Professor Everett says. “They demand evidence for everything.”

Life, for the Pirahã, is about seizing the moment and taking pleasure here and now. “I suddenly noticed how excited they were whenever planes crossed the sky then disappeared. They just love sitting around watching people coming around the bend in the jungle. Whenever I came into the village then left, they were amazed.”

The linguistic limitations of this “carpe diem” culture explain why the Pirahã have no desire to remember where they come from and why they tell no stories.

The question at play here is “what is the causal relationship between language and culture?” Which “causes” the other? Or, are they so intertwined that they develop together, with neither “causing” the other….?

Imagine: they tell no stories. What would life be like without stories? My guess is that the Pirahã are so totally immersed in the here and now that they truly feel the stunning fact of existing and being conscious of that existence. The Pirahã don’t tell stories because the here and now is so amazing that they don’t need them.