QUALITATIVE RESEARCH METHODS - Essay Example

More effort needs to be plugged in this area of language. The Piraha people have a very different distinct language. Their language has no history, neither does it have any descriptive words or sub-ordinate clauses. This is what makes their language a strange affair and has attracted eyeballs of many linguists round the globe. Linguistics center around what most idioms round the world have in common. But Piraha language stands out from the other languages where it’s main features are concerned.

Their language is extremely spare and comprises of only 3 pronouns. There is no concept of tense in their language. There is barely any use of past tense verb conjugation and colors are not that important to Piranhas either. The biggest dilemma of their language is the fact that this is the only language in the world that does not use any subordinate clauses. For instance if they were to tell someone that they were done eating and can talk they would use the following statement “I finish eating, I speak with you.

” Pirahas are just as surprising in their daily lives. They don’t normally need numbers and make use of words like all, every, more all the time. It is said that they use a word called “hoi” and it comes close to the numeral 1. However it can also be referred to as something small or which is in a relatively less amount. For example it could be two small fish compared to one big fish. Another strange thing about their language and culture stems from their inability to count on fingers.

For instance they would not count on fingers to determine the number of pieces of meat that need to be grilled for villagers or how much they demand from Brazilian traders. Thus Pirahas use of language is very weird and perplexing. References: CORBETT, GREVILLE G. 2000. Number. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. CRAIN, S., AND D. LILLO-MARTIN. 1999. An introduction to linguistic theory and language acquisition. Oxford: DAVIDSON, DONALD. 2001 (1997). "The emergence of thought," in Subjective, intersubjective, objective.

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thesis, Universidade Estadual de Campinas,Campinas, Brazil. . 1983. A lingua piraha e a teoria da sintaxe. Sc.D. diss., Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Campinas, Brazil. . 1985. "Syllable weight, sloppy phonemes, and channels in Piraha discourse," in Proceedings of the Berkeley Linguistics Society 11. Edited by Mary Niepokuj et al., pp. 408 16.