Language: The Cultural Tool
Daniel Everett
Profile Books
Dh89
Language: The Cultural Tool Daniel Everett Profile Books Dh89

Language: The Cultural Tool, a book worth talking about



In July 1954, a British medical journal recorded the extraordinary case of a baby chimpanzee that had been raised like a human child for two years alongside the similarly aged son of an American psychologist.

Gua, reported The Family Doctor, had been "treated not as an animal pet, but as a member of the family - dressed exactly like the child, nursed and trained in the same way, rewarded, scolded or punished in the same way".

At the end of the first year, it was clear that the chimp was out front in the smart stakes; she had learnt to use cups and spoons ahead of her human rival, was walking upright and could recognise 20 commands, including "Open the door" and "Shake hands". The slow-learning chump of a child, meanwhile, was struggling to recognise even three.

What Gua could not do, however, was learn to speak.

By early in the second year, while the chimpanzee was pretty good at acrobatics and scaling stuff, it had become apparent which of the two would be climbing to the top of the food chain. The child "began to use words and phrases quite spontaneously, and to imitate the actions of its elders, in a way that the animal could never manage".

More useful data might be harvested by approaching the question from the opposite direction - would a child raised without human contact lack all speech? Pesky ethics, however, has always prevented such a fascinating experiment, though there are plenty of rural myths about children who have been raised by a varied menagerie of animals. In each case the child, usually discovered before the age of 10, has been reported as being unable to speak, or to learn, human language, while variously growling, hissing or chirping, according to the vocal preference of the adoptive parental species.

At the heart of these myths and a number of ultimately futile experiments with chimpanzees lies the question that has divided the field of linguistics and almost certainly always will do: is language learnt, or is the skill inherent and hard-wired in human beings - and only human beings - as maintained by Noam Chomsky, the pre-eminent linguist, and his legions of devotees?

Within that debate nestles the far more intriguing question of how language happened. Think about it. Did one particular ancient man simply wake up one morning and, instead of announcing his intention to go out hunting and gathering with the usual all-purpose "Ugg", stand up and, to his surprise and that of everyone else's in the cave, say "I'm just popping out to clobber a mammoth for dinner. Anyone fancy joining me?"

Probably not. After all, he would have drawn blank looks all round. Being the first to talk would be a bit like inventing the telephone: what's the point if there's no one to call?

Yet likewise, how could language have evolved as a collaborative, committee-driven Good Idea - and across the globe, more or less simultaneously?

For one thing, how would you get the members of any such committee to the table? Come to that, how would you express the very idea?

Even Chomsky has dodged this question. "It is perfectly safe to attribute this development to 'natural selection'," he once wrote, "so long as we realise that there is no substance to this assertion, that it amounts to nothing more than a belief that there is some naturalistic explanation for these phenomena."

The reality is that, while such speculation is a great deal of fun, the best linguistics brains in the world have never, and can never, come up with a scenario for the birth of language any more or less convincing than the Bible's Tower-of-Babel explanation for how and why our small planet has no fewer than 6,000 different languages confounding our attempts to all get along like one big happy family.

Which is not to say that an army of academics does not persist in this fruitless quest, which has a parallel in the search for an explanation of how the Earth and all its multitude of crawling, swimming, floating, flying, walking and, yes, talking, things came to be. Theories of how the planet and life itself began are no more than that - just theories, which can never be proved.

Likewise language and, in the same way that astrophysicists continue to argue among themselves (Big Bang, 13.75 billion years ago, almost certainly on a Thursday, or continual expansion and contraction, a neat theory of perpetual existence that dodges the impossible requirement for the spatially constrained human brain to envisage either infinity or a time before time?), so linguists continue to toss "what-if" grenades at one another.

One of the academic grenadiers lurking around the edges of the debate is Daniel Everett, something of an anomaly in the field in as much as he entered the discipline through the back door, when he set out in the 1970s as a born-again Christian missionary determined to convert the Pirahã tribe in Amazonia. Instead, they converted him and, in the throes of losing his religion and finding an alternative spiritual meaning in their simple way of life, while mastering their language he discovered a linguistic anomaly that appeared to undermine Chomsky's creed of hard-wiring. It was, as one Harvard cognitive scientist told The New Yorker in 2007, "a bomb thrown into the party".

In 2005, Everett had published his thinking in the journal Current Anthropology. In "Cultural constraints on grammar and cognition in Pirahã", he argued that the language of his indians lacked "recursion", a grammatical capacity that Chomsky and chums had declared to be the cornerstone of all language.

In an interview in 2007, Everett explained recursion thus: "Chomsky has claimed that the fundamental tool that underlies all ... creativity of human language is recursion: the ability for one phrase to reoccur inside another phrase of the same type. If I say 'John's brother's house', I have a noun, 'house', which occurs in a noun phrase, 'brother's house', and that noun phrase occurs in another noun phrase, 'John's brother's house'."

Everett, a former Chomsky disciple, conceded that recursion was "an interesting property of human language". But what if, as he had, one stumbled on a language that lacked such recursion? Did Chomsky's house of grammar fall down?

Such heretical thoughts have led Everett to Language: The Cultural Tool, a fascinating journey through the spoken word, written by a man who has made the equally impressive journey from single-minded missionary to theory-upending academic - a remarkable voyage of self-discovery rewarded first with his appointment to the chair of languages, literatures and cultures at Illinois State University, and latterly by his elevation to the position of Dean of Arts and Sciences at Bentley University, Massachusetts.

The book is, as the author has it, a first-ever "weaving together [of] the findings of modern linguistics, psychology, and anthropology to flesh out the meaning of the hypothesis that language is an artefact, a cultural tool".

It doesn't matter that the average reader will struggle with this concept of language as artefact - something of a conceptual conceit, given the clear impossibility of unearthing language alongside a pot shard on an archaeological dig. This is a book to enjoy, to learn from and to allow thoughts to spiral up and away from, like smoke curling up through the branches of the Amazon canopy.

Take, for instance, Everett's entertaining analogy of the invention of the bow and arrow. As well as his inability to communicate with his neighbours, ancient man had another problem: how to get enough protein to stay alive when most of the available protein was not only averse to being eaten but was also capable of moving far faster than he could.

The solutions were the spear, the slingshot and, finally, the bow and arrow (all of which, of course, also proved handy when it came to inter-human conflict resolution). But how did human beings manage to exist long enough on a low-protein diet to get around - singly, separately and more or less simultaneously - to inventing such vital tools?

The answer is "Who knows?". Today we can no more figure out the process by which such weapons came to be than we can solve the riddle of how the first language committee was called to order. One problem we face is that for millennia bows and arrows were made exclusively of biodegradable material - and artefactual developments such as metal or flint arrowheads tell us no more about the origins of this weapon system than the Rapier surface-to-air missiles the British government is planning to deploy around London to protect the Olympics. Likewise, language has left no fossil record.

Gestated in the soggy, isolated swamps of the Amazon, where he spent many years, Everett's paddle through the tributaries of language is a fascinating and thought-provoking adventure, part detective story, part history and part philosophy of life, and is never dry nor inaccessible.

It culminates in a convincing appeal for the preservation of the diversity of language - an issue of considerable concern here in the Arab world, where English has become the entrenched tool of business and education. Diversity of tongues on Earth, says Everett, "is one of the greatest survival tools that human beings have ... each language is a cognitive tool for its speakers and comes to encode their solutions to the environmental and other problems they face as a culture".

And the loss of any language, he says, is "a terrible human and scientific tragedy ... when a language is lost all of us lose the knowledge contained in that language's words and grammar".

Jonathan Gornall is a former staff writer for The National.

MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE – FINAL RECKONING

Director: Christopher McQuarrie

Starring: Tom Cruise, Hayley Atwell, Simon Pegg

Rating: 4/5

RACECARD
%3Cp%3E%0D%3Cstrong%3E6pm%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Abu%20Dhabi%20Land%20Forces%20-%20Maiden%20(TB)%20Dh82%2C500%20(Dirt)%201%2C200m%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3E6.35pm%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3EDubai%20Naval%20Forces%20-%20Maiden%20(TB)%20Dh82%2C500%20(D)%201%2C400m%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3E7.10pm%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Sharjah%20Air%20Force%20-%20Maiden%20(TB)%20Dh82%2C500%20(D)%201%2C200m%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3E7.45pm%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3EAjman%20Presidential%20Guard%20-%20Handicap%20(TB)%20Dh95%2C000%20(D)%201%2C200m%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3E8.20pm%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Dubai%20Creek%20Mile%20%E2%80%93%20Listed%20(TB)%20Dh132%2C500%20(D)%201%2C600m%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3E8.55pm%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3EUmm%20Al%20Quwain%20and%20Ras%20Al%20Khaimah%20Joint%20Aviation%20-%20Rated%20Conditions%20(TB)%20Dh95%2C000%20(D)%201%2C600m%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3E9.30pm%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Fujairah%20National%20Service%20and%20Reserve%20-%20Handicap%20(TB)%20Dh82%2C500%20(D)%201%2C400m%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
The specs

Engine: Four electric motors, one at each wheel

Power: 579hp

Torque: 859Nm

Transmission: Single-speed automatic

Price: From Dh825,900

On sale: Now

How to help

Send “thenational” to the following numbers or call the hotline on: 0502955999
2289 – Dh10
2252 – Dh 50
6025 – Dh20
6027 – Dh 100
6026 – Dh 200

UK's plans to cut net migration

Under the UK government’s proposals, migrants will have to spend 10 years in the UK before being able to apply for citizenship.

Skilled worker visas will require a university degree, and there will be tighter restrictions on recruitment for jobs with skills shortages.

But what are described as "high-contributing" individuals such as doctors and nurses could be fast-tracked through the system.

Language requirements will be increased for all immigration routes to ensure a higher level of English.

Rules will also be laid out for adult dependants, meaning they will have to demonstrate a basic understanding of the language.

The plans also call for stricter tests for colleges and universities offering places to foreign students and a reduction in the time graduates can remain in the UK after their studies from two years to 18 months.

DUBAI SEVENS 2018 DRAW

Gulf Men’s League
Pool A – Dubai Exiles, Dubai Hurricanes, Bahrain, Dubai Sports City Eagles
Pool B – Jebel Ali Dragons, Abu Dhabi Saracens, Abu Dhabi Harlequins, Al Ain Amblers

Gulf Men’s Open
Pool A – Bahrain Firbolgs, Arabian Knights, Yalla Rugby, Muscat
Pool B – Amman Citadel, APB Dubai Sharks, Jebel Ali Dragons 2, Saudi Rugby
Pool C – Abu Dhabi Harlequins 2, Roberts Construction, Dubai Exiles 2
Pool D – Dubai Tigers, UAE Shaheen, Sharjah Wanderers, Amman Citadel 2

Gulf U19 Boys
Pool A – Deira International School, Dubai Hurricanes, British School Al Khubairat, Jumeirah English Speaking School B
Pool B – Dubai English Speaking College 2, Jumeirah College, Dubai College A, Abu Dhabi Harlequins 2
Pool C – Bahrain Colts, Al Yasmina School, DESC, DC B
Pool D – Al Ain Amblers, Repton Royals, Dubai Exiles, Gems World Academy Dubai
Pool E – JESS A, Abu Dhabi Sharks, Abu Dhabi Harlequins 1, EC

Gulf Women
Pool A – Kuwait Scorpions, Black Ruggers, Dubai Sports City Eagles, Dubai Hurricanes 2
Pool B – Emirates Firebirds, Sharjah Wanderers, RAK Rides, Beirut Aconites
Pool C – Dubai Hurricanes, Emirates Firebirds 2, Abu Dhabi Saracens, Transforma Panthers
Pool D – AUC Wolves, Dubai Hawks, Abu Dhabi Harlequins, Al Ain Amblers

Gulf U19 Girls
Pool A – Dubai Exiles, BSAK, DESC, Al Maha
Pool B – Arabian Knights, Dubai Hurricanes, Al Ain Amblers, Abu Dhabi Harlequins

Key figures in the life of the fort

Sheikh Dhiyab bin Isa (ruled 1761-1793) Built Qasr Al Hosn as a watchtower to guard over the only freshwater well on Abu Dhabi island.

Sheikh Shakhbut bin Dhiyab (ruled 1793-1816) Expanded the tower into a small fort and transferred his ruling place of residence from Liwa Oasis to the fort on the island.

Sheikh Tahnoon bin Shakhbut (ruled 1818-1833) Expanded Qasr Al Hosn further as Abu Dhabi grew from a small village of palm huts to a town of more than 5,000 inhabitants.

Sheikh Khalifa bin Shakhbut (ruled 1833-1845) Repaired and fortified the fort.

Sheikh Saeed bin Tahnoon (ruled 1845-1855) Turned Qasr Al Hosn into a strong two-storied structure.

Sheikh Zayed bin Khalifa (ruled 1855-1909) Expanded Qasr Al Hosn further to reflect the emirate's increasing prominence.

Sheikh Shakhbut bin Sultan (ruled 1928-1966) Renovated and enlarged Qasr Al Hosn, adding a decorative arch and two new villas.

Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan (ruled 1966-2004) Moved the royal residence to Al Manhal palace and kept his diwan at Qasr Al Hosn.

Sources: Jayanti Maitra, www.adach.ae

How being social media savvy can improve your well being

Next time when procastinating online remember that you can save thousands on paying for a personal trainer and a gym membership simply by watching YouTube videos and keeping up with the latest health tips and trends.

As social media apps are becoming more and more consumed by health experts and nutritionists who are using it to awareness and encourage patients to engage in physical activity.

Elizabeth Watson, a personal trainer from Stay Fit gym in Abu Dhabi suggests that “individuals can use social media as a means of keeping fit, there are a lot of great exercises you can do and train from experts at home just by watching videos on YouTube”.

Norlyn Torrena, a clinical nutritionist from Burjeel Hospital advises her clients to be more technologically active “most of my clients are so engaged with their phones that I advise them to download applications that offer health related services”.

Torrena said that “most people believe that dieting and keeping fit is boring”.

However, by using social media apps keeping fit means that people are “modern and are kept up to date with the latest heath tips and trends”.

“It can be a guide to a healthy lifestyle and exercise if used in the correct way, so I really encourage my clients to download health applications” said Mrs Torrena.

People can also connect with each other and exchange “tips and notes, it’s extremely healthy and fun”.

Company profile

Date started: 2015

Founder: John Tsioris and Ioanna Angelidaki

Based: Dubai

Sector: Online grocery delivery

Staff: 200

Funding: Undisclosed, but investors include the Jabbar Internet Group and Venture Friends

Sustainable Development Goals

1. End poverty in all its forms everywhere

2. End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture

3. Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages

4. Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all

5. Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls

6. Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all

7. Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all

8. Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all

9. Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialisation and foster innovation

10. Reduce inequality  within and among countries

11. Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable

12. Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns

13. Take urgent action to combat climate change and its effects

14. Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development

15. Protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss

16. Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels

17. Strengthen the means of implementation and revitalise the global partnership for sustainable development

How has net migration to UK changed?

The figure was broadly flat immediately before the Covid-19 pandemic, standing at 216,000 in the year to June 2018 and 224,000 in the year to June 2019.

It then dropped to an estimated 111,000 in the year to June 2020 when restrictions introduced during the pandemic limited travel and movement.

The total rose to 254,000 in the year to June 2021, followed by steep jumps to 634,000 in the year to June 2022 and 906,000 in the year to June 2023.

The latest available figure of 728,000 for the 12 months to June 2024 suggests levels are starting to decrease.

Countries offering golden visas

UK
Innovator Founder Visa is aimed at those who can demonstrate relevant experience in business and sufficient investment funds to set up and scale up a new business in the UK. It offers permanent residence after three years.

Germany
Investing or establishing a business in Germany offers you a residence permit, which eventually leads to citizenship. The investment must meet an economic need and you have to have lived in Germany for five years to become a citizen.

Italy
The scheme is designed for foreign investors committed to making a significant contribution to the economy. Requires a minimum investment of €250,000 which can rise to €2 million.

Switzerland
Residence Programme offers residence to applicants and their families through economic contributions. The applicant must agree to pay an annual lump sum in tax.

Canada
Start-Up Visa Programme allows foreign entrepreneurs the opportunity to create a business in Canada and apply for permanent residence. 

The Energy Research Centre

Founded 50 years ago as a nuclear research institute, scientists at the centre believed nuclear would be the “solution for everything”.
Although they still do, they discovered in 1955 that the Netherlands had a lot of natural gas. “We still had the idea that, by 2000, it would all be nuclear,” said Harm Jeeninga, director of business and programme development at the centre.
"In the 1990s, we found out about global warming so we focused on energy savings and tackling the greenhouse gas effect.”
The energy centre’s research focuses on biomass, energy efficiency, the environment, wind and solar, as well as energy engineering and socio-economic research.

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The five pillars of Islam

1. Fasting

2. Prayer

3. Hajj

4. Shahada

5. Zakat 

Fixtures

Tuesday - 5.15pm: Team Lebanon v Alger Corsaires; 8.30pm: Abu Dhabi Storms v Pharaohs

Wednesday - 5.15pm: Pharaohs v Carthage Eagles; 8.30pm: Alger Corsaires v Abu Dhabi Storms

Thursday - 4.30pm: Team Lebanon v Pharaohs; 7.30pm: Abu Dhabi Storms v Carthage Eagles

Friday - 4.30pm: Pharaohs v Alger Corsaires; 7.30pm: Carthage Eagles v Team Lebanon

Saturday - 4.30pm: Carthage Eagles v Alger Corsaires; 7.30pm: Abu Dhabi Storms v Team Lebanon

Teri%20Baaton%20Mein%20Aisa%20Uljha%20Jiya
%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EDirectors%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Amit%20Joshi%20and%20Aradhana%20Sah%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3ECast%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Shahid%20Kapoor%2C%20Kriti%20Sanon%2C%20Dharmendra%2C%20Dimple%20Kapadia%2C%20Rakesh%20Bedi%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3ERating%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%204%2F5%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
The specs: 2018 Mercedes-Benz E 300 Cabriolet

Price, base / as tested: Dh275,250 / Dh328,465

Engine: 2.0-litre four-cylinder

Power: 245hp @ 5,500rpm

Torque: 370Nm @ 1,300rpm

Transmission: Nine-speed automatic

Fuel consumption, combined: 7.0L / 100km