More on the Pirahã. For readers intrigued by Philip Oltermann’s article on the Brazilian tribe whose language appears to refute Chomsky’s theory of a universal grammar, there’s more on the subject on the Edge website, including a talk by Daniel Everett.
Novelist David Mitchell interviewed. The Literary Saloon, the weblog of the Complete Review, has found three recent articles on Mitchell, in which he talks about his latest book, or at least talks about why he doesn’t want to talk about his latest book.
Philately for aliens. I don’t imagine that we’ll be linking to the Fortean Times very often, but I’ll make an exception for this feature on UFO-themed stamps.
Current Anthropology - Volume 46, Number 4, August-October 2005, contains a paper from Everett, titled ‘Cultural Constraints on Grammar and Cognition in Pirahã’ - I’m no linguist, but I imagine anyone with a passing interest would find the paper a worthwhile read, although if it’s true that no-one else has a knowledge of Pirahã, it would be difficult to draw any hard and fast conclusions- btw, the paper itself is behind a paywall.