Spoken Pirahã with subtitles

[J00T00bRageCage]

If you're interested, read the book "Don't Sleep, There Are Snakes," about dan everetts time in the jungle. I just finished it and it was fantastic. Very entertaining, didn't want to put it down.

[uphamtimothy]

"Kauan" -- "Greetings" in Piraha. What makes this language so unique is that it is not related to any other language in world. That is the reason why Brazil must make every effort to preserve its indigenous languages. Both Peru and Paraguay have made indigenous languages their second official languages, after Spanish. Peru also passed a law requiring it to have all government documents in the countries 80 indigenous languages. Brazil should follow suit, not everybody speaks Portuguese.

[Xevorim]

A beautiful people

[magical11]

......Sounds a huge amount like a Cantonese Dialect.

[benningtonc7]

@magical11 Similar tone system, that makes sense.

[RedSoxForObama]

I hear Scottish English. 'Aye, aye'.

[censored6x]

i read that they can sing, whistle, and hum their language. it would be very interesting to hear that!

[ar4216]

@censored6x I agree. I was hoping to hear him whistle.

[trueflyingsheep]

amazing. he has no wringles apart from the laugh lines

[ElveeKaye]

@trueflyingsheep And great teeth, apart from a couple of gaps!

[DanielDouch]

Is there any way that I can see the translation for the subtitles? The link below the video to see the notes doesn't work.

[xepharnazos]

@DanielDouch Hm.. so it doesn't. Dr Everett's ISU page doesn't seem to exist anymore, probably because he recently moved jobs and universities. I can't find the transcription anywhere else at the moment, either, and he doesn't atm have a personal webpage at Bentley like he did at Illinois State.

[DanielDouch]

@xepharnazos That's ok, thanks anyway :)

[cumuluscloud1]

An amazing culture!

[Zetsumei91]

my hobby's leanrning languages... and now i want to learn this!

[bluesharpies14]

@Zetsumei91 i do too. but no one's ever done it perfectly before. maybe one guy. that's it.

[locoluis1978]

It seems he has trouble speaking his own language.

Or maybe it's just because he's too shy and nervous to talk in front of a foreigner... He'd rather not. (?)

[Serendip98]

He uses some Portuguese words : agora (now), passa bem (goes all right), para ca...

[neoninjajava]

8 consonants and 3 vowels, and the guy is probably happier than chaucer!

[jamesS0289]

Mesmerising. I've never heard Pirahã spoken before... I particularly like how initial 'g' is realised as [n] and how 'x' is the glottal stop. :D

Also, does anyone know what the ateral alveolar-linguolabial double flap sounds like? I read on Wikipedia that this is an allophonic variation of /g/, but no information is given for the phonological environment in which it is realised, and I don't know how to articulate it myself from Wikipedia's description!

Many thanks. :)

[maynrdjkeenan]

@jamesS0289

I actually think the g is being realized as a velar nasal.

[ididjaustralia]

keep up ur good work!

[deft1trickster]

Let's hear some of those rumored bilabial trilled affricates, yo!

[danielthomasslade]

@Accisma i believe he shunned his own faith when a book deal & lecture tour worth money were coming his way, but we will never know!!

[albatross1977]

You believe that's his reason for opening up to his family about his atheism?

[danielthomasslade]

if its an unknown language & all that, do they write? if not who decided on the spelling for the subtitles? it all stinks of bullshit to me.

[joshuaacrosby]

I’m an anthropologist, and when people are preliterate, meaning there is no writing associated with their language, we use something called the Internal Phonetic Alphabet. This is an agreed upon system of symbols (which is what all languages are) to express individual phonemes. Phonemes are the smallest part of a language. Dr. Everett used the IPA to document there language. Once it come time to do subtitles, you look how those phonemes are expressed in the language you are translateing it too

[shadywalker]

Wonder what they are talking about... Peanuts in general I suppose.. I would almost assume that the most frequent word used was either peanut, or something that equates roughly to the number one.. The words are actually quite easy to say.. I wonder about how it originated. It seems like a quiet language

[aap28]

It is interesting to see the integration of Portuguese words in his speech!

[KarthikSoun]

Tribals are mostly shy and modest people!! Its only people who are ambitious and posses a lot are confident which means blind and out of touch!

[suiseisekiryu]

the other voice in the video is a translator? how he learnt the language?? O_O

[goxdie000]

@suiseisekiryu

That's the voice of Doctor Daniel Everett. He and his family are the only ones outside of the tribe that have learnt the language... It must be very difficult!!

[liverleef]

Im glad someone posted this. I just read Dr Everetts book and was fascinated with these people. I was interested to finally hear what their language sounded like.

[brycelancer]

I guess it's really hard to learn this language... I did read an article about this.

[ghostdog7575]

@Accisma second, we cannot express ourselves and our ideas precisely on a youtube comment... in fact I was not speaking about "why borrowing between languages occur". it is obvious to me that "it may be because the man realises etc. etc. etc." But, obviously, it wasn't obvious to you that it was obvious to me... maybe it's my fault, since I have a MA in linguistics and anthropology and all you say sounds so pleonastic to me... My "can't express" was intended to summarize your "first....remains"

[gutenberg80]

There are portuguese words in the speech...

[GeologyRocks101]

This is fascinating. It is strange how annoying it is to the ears, I was surprised, but the continual repeating of the few sounds make it frustrating. As a native English speaker and only really familiar with European languages with rich linguistic history with lots of sounds I am so unaccustomed to a language like this. Glad I found this video, thanks for posting!

BTW, I was also amazed at how happy this man seemed, he smiled throughout the whole video!

[DaleDicks]

@GeologyRocks101 when I watch him speaking, what I see is that because his lips are in a smile all the time, the range of sounds is limited. For example, I don't see any lip rounding, etc. Anyway, just an idea. :)

[mortemdei]

@DaleDicks Piraha only has 8 consonants and 3 vowels, it has nothign to do with the smile

[qzchris]

What does "aibasiigi" mean? He says it quite a few times. Just curious!

[ghostdog7575]

he is mixing some portuguese words "morar" "mais para ca' " "quase" "muito" "passa bem" because he can't express all he want to say in his language...

[Master8laster]

All babies can communicate with him.

[thesmashmaster]

Is he a Pokemon?

[arpee9216]

This is so annoying to me. Probably my American ears are used to hearing many different sounds but this language is so simple and easy that the few sounds keep getting repeated and it gives me a headache. I do LOVE how easy this language is. At least they don't have crazy consonant clusters like us. =]

[GarrettBloodyIrish]

@arpee9216

Actually they have a ridiculously high allophone variation which makes i extremely difficult to pronounce close to a native speaker. They have less distinct phonemes but with the allophone variation and the tones it'd be very difficult for an English speaker to learn.

[GarrettBloodyIrish]

@arpee9216

Actually with the tones and high allophone variation it'd be fairly difficult to learn to pronounce even though they only have a few distinct phonemes. Not to mention one or two sounds that are extremely rare.

[Entwistle54]

@arpee9216 I think you should read the book "Don't Sleep, There Are Snakes" before making any judgments about how difficult or easy the language is.

[arpee9216]

@Entwistle54 Thank you, I will definitely look into it : )

[joelzavalatovar]

@Entwistle54 Dan just thinks in syntactic recursion, but recursion can be logic or semantic. He wants to oposse a hypothesis against a theory. I think he is confused and wrong.

[ocergnairb]

@arpee9216 lol, arpee, all the simple sounds in pula and punu wouldn't annoy you if actually spoken ? :D

[kmj2000]

@arpee9216 You probably sound the same to him. Think of an average English sentence. You might think it has a lot of sounds, but in fluent speech a lot of those sounds get lost, and schwa vowels tend to dominate. We even lose whole syllables for example "gonna" for "going to". 

[graphattic]

The only life I would swap for mine would be that of a Piraha. I would love being born among them. The silly thing is that my earthly goods, are not even enough to get me a ticket to their land.

[jhwheeler7]

ha muitas palavras portuguesas ! tipo "agora", "mais para ca", "passe bem" "quase" "saiu".

there are lots of portuguese borrowings (ex. above)

[FoxBatinaHat]

@jhwheeler7

One of the reasons we need to try and conserve these regional and very rare languages because they dissapear by assimilation including cultural concepts with them.

[pyreneeamour]

Fascinating. He has a permanent grin on his face - he must be a happy man.

[Ozarkeree]

@pyreneeamour He just looks nervous, to me XD

[wavryder6ft]

@pyreneeamour Of Course! He doesn't have to deal with the poison of religion!!

[RhunDraco]

@pyreneeamour Read the book Don't Sleep, There Are Snakes. You'll learn about that guy. Awesome book!

[MrGrayWulf]

@pyreneeamour Botox

[benningtonc7]

@pyreneeamour Piraha are extremely happy people. Living in the moment.

[Suprapersonality]

@pyreneeamour

Yeah, you can tell a lot about a person by observing them in one, limited situation for less than six minutes. Everyone who smiles is happy all the time. Thank you for your input. Try not to vote or raise children, please.

[djolalpan]

Increible !

[WALOKEINELUSTful]

Originally other amazonian languages as Guarani hasn't very definied the concept of numbers. Originally Guarani only a numeration system until 4.

[Redpilldown]

Is there an English translation....I am fascinated by these people

[Mogura87]

@Redpilldown yes follow the link on the description, there's a pdf document with both a transcription and English translation.

[Ibrahimmiragarri]

muito interesante a lingua piraha eu quero falar-a

[lyoizisi]

Definitely excellent .I wis I could speak this Native language greetings from Turkey.

[pokerslut530]

Eh.... english subtitles would probably be alot more helpful in general... heh

[TSBoncompte]

niceeeeee