Status Updates From Das glücklichste Volk: Sieb...

“if there is a way to understand sentences without displacement at any level, abstract or otherwise, then perhaps grammar is less important than we imagined.”

“Although Pirahã nouns are simple, Pirahã verbs are much more complicated. Each verb can have as many as sixteen suffixes—that is, up to sixteen suffixes in a row. Not all suffixes are always required, however. Since a suffix can be present or absent, this gives us two possibilities for each of the sixteen suffixes—2^16, or 65,536, possible forms for any Pirahã verb.”

“Their culture was subtle but powerful in its conservative values and in the way that it shaped their language… On many days, the men didn’t do anything I could see but sit around the graying embers of a fire, talking, laughing, farting, and pulling baked sweet potatoes out of the coals. Occasionally, they supplemented this routine by pulling one another’s genitals and laughing…”

I’m absolutely loving this book so far. Every insight feels genuinely new, which makes it especially interesting and rewarding to read. I keep telling myself I’ll just read one more page, and then somehow an hour goes by. No complaints at all—highly recommended.