首页
登录
职称英语
A World Without Time or Number The Piraha are an isolate
A World Without Time or Number The Piraha are an isolate
游客
2023-10-20
50
管理
问题
A World Without Time or Number
The Piraha are an isolated Amazonian tribe of hunter-gatherers who live deep in the Brazilian rainforest. The tribe has survived for centuries, although there are now only around 200 people left. The Piraha, who communicate mainly through hums and whistles, have fascinated ethnologists for years, mainly because they have almost no words for numbers. They use only three words to count: one, two, and many.
We know about the Piraha thanks to Dan Everett, a Professor of Phonetics, who spent seven years with the tribe in the 1970s and 1980s. Everett discovered a world without numbers, without time, without words for colours, without subordinate clauses and without a past tense. Their language, he found, was not just simple grammatically: it was restricted in its range of sounds and differed between the sexes. For the men, it has just eight consonants and three vowels: for the women, who have the smallest number of speech sounds in the world, to seven consonants and three vowels. To the untutored ear, the language sounds more like humming than speech. The Piraha can also whistle their language, which is how men communicate when hunting.
Their culture is similarly constrained. The Piraha can’t write, have little collective memory, and no concept of decorative art. In 1980 Everett tried to teach them to count: he explained basic arithmetic to an enthusiastic group keen to learn the skills needed to trade with other tribes. After eight months, not one could count to ten: even one plus one was beyond them. The experiment seemed to confirm Everett’s theory: the tribe just couldn’t conceive the concept of number.
The Piraha’s inability to count is important because it seems to disprove Noam Chomsky’s influential Theory of Universal Grammar, which holds that the human mind has a natural capacity for language, and that all languages share a basic rule structure, which enables children to understand abstract concepts such as number.
Questions 71 -75
Complete the summary with a maximum of three words from the passage.
The Piraha is a tribe who has lived in the Brazilian rainforest for hundreds of years. They communicate just with【R1】______. This has made many ethnologists interested in them. Their language is very special, not only because it is simple【R2】______, but also because it is different【R3】____the sexes. Men and women acquire different【R4】______. Although a professor of phonetics has tried to teach them【R5】______, he failed. This seems to disprove Noam Chomsky’s influential Theory of Universal Grammar. [br] 【R1】
选项
答案
hums and whistles
解析
(文章第一段第三句提到“The Piraha,who communicate mainly through hums and whistles…”,即Piraha人主要通过哼哼和吹口哨来交流。)
转载请注明原文地址:https://tihaiku.com/zcyy/3113036.html
相关试题推荐
Anincreasingproportionofourpopulation,unabletolivewithoutadvancedmedi
Hisdecisionismadetooquicklyandwithoutenoughthought,soitisa(n)_____
Wecannotformasoundopinionwithoutfacts,forweneedtohavefactualknowle
ThesentencethatexpressesOFFERis________.A、Doesshehaveyournumber?B、How
Iftheschemeis________carriedoutwithoutwasteoftimeorenergy,Ishallbe
Thedesegregationwasachievedthroughanumberofstruggles,________havebeenm
ThenumbersincolumnDarelinkedinsomewaytothoseinA,BandC.Whatnumbe
______herphonenumber,wehadsomedifficulty______her.A、Notknowing;contactin
Thenumbersinthemiddlesectionhavesomeconnectionwiththosedownthesides
Insertnumbersintothegrid,sothatallcalculationsarecorrectbothacrossa
随机试题
Drunkendriving—sometimescalledAmerican’ssociallyacceptedformofmurd
[originaltext]Mr.Wangisnotinnow.CanItakeamessageforhim?[/originalte
Morethan15millionAmericansundergosurgeryeachyear,butsomeelective
轴心抗压承载力相同的下列柱,截面积可做得最小的是( )。A.普通钢筋混凝土柱
高钾血症时血钾浓度应大于A.3.0mmol/L B.3.5mmol/L C.
张三投资某原油期权市场。当前价格是99$/桶。他购买了一种合约,该合约规定201
左边给定的是纸盒的外表面,下面哪一项能由它折叠而成? A.如上图所示 B.如
政府土地出让行为应计入政府财政收入。()
2013年7月19日10付息国债24(100024)净价为97.8685,应付利
根据《行政诉讼法》,当事人必须依法履行的发生法律效力的诉讼文书不包括( )。A.
最新回复
(
0
)