be useful
The Power of Not Talking
I read a book a few months ago, Words That Work: It’s Not What You Say, It’s What People Hear by Frank Luntz. Apart from the fact that he loves how much everyone hates him, it’s made me more aware of words and how important they are in communicating ideas, problems, concepts. Whatever.
Another excellent example would be the Tower of Babel. There are very many different versions of the story (my favorite is Jonathan Davis’ reading in the audio version of Neal Stephenson’s novel Snow Crash). I haven’t picked up much else (yet) from the book so please don’t take this as a recommendation.
In stark contrast to all that endless talking, there’s The Power of Words from the Guardian:
The Pirahã have no socially lubricating “hello” and “thank you” and “sorry”. They have no words for colours, no words for numbers and no way of expressing any history beyond that experienced in their lifetimes. And, in the late 70s, Everett was dispatched to the Amazon to learn their language, translate the Bible and convert them to Christianity.I had a feeling there were a lot of stories hidden in that short paragraph. And it turns out I was right.
For example:
Thirty years of living with the Pirahã has taught Everett that they exist almost completely in the present. Absorbed by the daily struggle to survive, they do not plan ahead, store food, build houses or canoes to last, maintain tools or talk of things beyond those that they, or people they know, have experienced. They are the “ultimate empiricists”, he argues, and this culture of living in the present has shaped their language.
And then there’s:
Yet Everett’s life with the Pirahã didn’t just cause a gradual disenchantment with the Chomskyan intellectual framework he had once cherished: it also triggered another, even more dramatic, de-conversion.All of that to say: I’m going to try to read this book before I die and you should’ve been reading that article a long time ago agreeing with me.
Text posted at 01:35
