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Pirahã

Pirahã is a language isolate spoken in Brazil, by about 389 people. Glottolog rates it threatened.

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Pirahã · 6.8°S 61.8°W

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Pirahã, spoken along the Maici River in the Amazon, has around ten phonemes and can be hummed or whistled. Daniel Everett’s claim that it lacks number words and recursion set off one of linguistics’ fiercest debates.

Pirahã (also spelled Pirahá, Pirahán), or Múra-Pirahã, is the indigenous language of the Pirahã people of Amazonas, Brazil. The Pirahã live along the Maici River, a tributary of the Amazon River. Pirahã is estimated to have between 250 and 380 speakers. It is not in immediate danger of extinction, as its use is vigorous and the Pirahã community is mostly monolingual.

The Pirahã language is the subject of various controversial claims: for example, that it provides evidence against linguistic relativity. The controversy is compounded by the difficulty of learning the language; the number of linguists with field experience in Pirahã is very small. Consequently, many claims which identify Pirahã as exhibiting features contradictory to the most normative understanding of human language cognition have not as of yet engendered considerable confidence.

From Wikipedia · Pirahã language · CC BY-SA 4.0

Words in Pirahã

MeaningWordRomanization
motherbaíxi
fatherbaíxi
childtiobáhai
womanxipóihií
waterpi
stonexaxái
doggiopaí
fishitii'isi
milkxíbogi
housekaiíi

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Vocabulary

Vocabulary compares 40 basic words (ASJP); grammar compares 195 features (Grambank). Similar is not always related.

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Glottolog · pira1253 · Wikipedia (English) · Ethnologue · myp