The Grammar of Happiness, A Linguistic Commentary

     

The Grammar of Happiness, A Linguistic Commentary

By Delphie Levy Jones 

The Grammar of Happiness (2015) is a documentary exploring linguist Daniel Everett’s experience with the Amazonian Piraha Tribe, and their unique systems of communication which break the fundamental rules of human language as we know them. The film’s intended audience varies from those involved in public and academic discourse, gratifying a range of interests from society and culture to linguistics, travel, religion and philosophy. There are many key messages to take from the documentary, from the value indigenous cultures can bring to westernised fields of academia, to the notion that missionary work is an inherently colonialist activity. However, the assertion that the complexity of human language cannot be confined to a prescriptive explanation, is arguably the documentary’s most fundamental message. The critical reaction to Everett’s transformative findings reaffirms the controversiality of redefining the proposed bases of human language, with the film stating Everett  “picked a fight with the father of modern linguistics”, Noam Chomsky.

The Concept of Recursion, and its Simplification

The documentary introduces the linguistic concept of ‘recursion’, claimed to be absent in the grammatical anomaly of Piraha language. The complex notion of recursive language is oversimplified within the film, described concisely as the “ability to combine an endless number of ideas in a simple sentence” (The Grammar of Happiness 2015). To a linguistic Generative, the infinity of human language is arguably much more fundamental (Trask 2013: 230). The critical need for recursion is in fact proposed in Science (Chomsky et al 2002), to be not only the basis of all human language, but an underlying key component of universal grammar; grammatical principles innately found in the human genome (Everett 2007: 297). The absence of evidence for recursion in Piraha severely undermines Chomskian theory, which according to the documentary, has dominated linguistics for over fifty years. This absence supports the notion that the role of culture can determine the shape of grammar, again falsifying hypotheses for languages sharing universal deep-structure (Everett 2007: 298).

However, due to the film’s target audience of public participants not involved in such academic discourse, the simplicity of terminology is crucial. The presentation of academic information in plain language, or “clear, straightforward expression” (Eagleson 1990: 4), benefits less knowledgeable viewers who seek to engage with educational content, with readability, accessibility and enjoyment. The documentary does this undisputedly, introducing scientific debates and methodology comprehensively. Whilst simplicity is often crucial to broadcasts on mainstream media, it could also be argued that the lack of detail when discussing academic theories results in misinterpretation. The documentary suggests that due to the Piraha tribe’s lack of recursion, this automatically equates to a grammatical deviation, or cultural agent. Not only are these hypotheses contested (Christiansen and Charter 2008: Chomsky et al 2002), but also imply ‘recursion’ is the only linguistic feature comprising the basis of human language and all its complexity. What else constitutes language, and the vast array of theories, is still disputed within the linguistic and scientific community, to which the documentary does not discuss.

The Exclusive Attention on Recursion: Paralanguage and Culture

The film’s focus on recursion as the Piraha’s most unique distinction is understandable due to the backlash Everett’s research received within the linguistic field. However, there were many remarkable features reflective of their inimitable language and culture. From its vast use of intonation to its ability of being not only spoken and sung, but whistled and hummed. The particular phenomenon of linguistic meaning conveyed through whistling has been described as a direct correlation of language and culture, a means of communication making “a person one with nature”, and telling “the story of the people, of their lands and human language” (Meyer 2015: 5). Piraha also lacks both future and past tense. Whilst the absence of relative tenses is disputed to be a “cultural constraint” (Nevins et al 2009: 357), the documentary implied it allowed the Piraha people to never live in regret or apprehension, but always the moment. However, exploring Everett’s linguistic analysis further, it is useful to distinguish that the documentary’s claim of the Piraha’s lack of relative tense, is explained unclearly and is open to misinterpretation. The film describes a complete lack of both future and past tense, implying the tribe live only and happily in the present, to which I initially thought explained its title as being ‘The Grammar of Happiness’. Much like the English language however, it is only lacking in grammatical verb conjugations and not verbal and spoken expressions of time. Rather, it is claimed that temporal relations are expressed and “derived semantically or pragmatically”, via “context and real-world knowledge” (Everett 1986: 18).

Highlighting the diverse features of Piraha language draws attention to the prevalent debate within the linguistics community, discussing cultural impacts on language, and linguistic impacts on culture (Gordon 2004). The documentary is highly representative of such academic disputes, with Pinker stating Everett’s is a “radical claim”, and that “variations across languages doesn’t have a whole lot to do with variations across cultures of the people who speak the languages” (The Grammar of Happiness 2015). In contrast, linguists investigating the concept of ‘ethnosyntax’ have uncovered various ways in which “values of cultural importance may be reflected in the grammatical and lexical properties of a language” (Nevins et al 2009: 358). By acknowledging this discourse, the film gently introduces scholarly debates and discussions on the impact of culture on language, and therefore of language on culture, to public consumers.

For Further Reading...

Christiansen, M. H. and Chater, N. (2008) ‘Language as Shaped by The Brain’, Behav Brain Sci, 31(5), Available at: Language as shaped by the brain - UCL Discovery (Accessed on 19 March 2021) pp. 489-509.

Eagleson, R.D. (1990) Writing in Plain English. Canberra, Australia: Australian Government. Publication Service. Pp. 4

Everett, D. (1986) ‘Pirahã’, Handbook of Amazonian languages, Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, Available at: Sapir-Reichenbach-and-the-syntax-of-tense-in-Piraha.pdf (researchgate.net) (Accessed on 23 March 2021) pp. 18

Everett, D. (2005) ‘Cultural Constraints on Grammar and Cognition in Pirahã: Another Look at the Design Features of Human Language’, Current Anthropology, 76, pp. 621–646

Everett, D. (2007) ‘Challenging Chomskyan Linguistics’, Human Development, Available at: Challenging Chomskyan Linguistics (jstor.org) (Accessed on 4 March 2021) pp. 297-299

Gordon, P. (2004) ‘Numerical Cognition Without Words: Evidence from Amazonia’, Science, pp. 306, 496– 499.

Hauser, M. Chomsky, N. and Fitch, W. (2002) ‘The Faculty of Language: What Is It, Who Has It, and How Did It Evolve?’, Science, 298, pp. 1569-1579

Meyer, J. (2015) ‘Whistled languages’, A Worldwide Inquiry on Human Whistled Speech, Springer: Heidelberg, Germany

Nevins, A. Pesetsky, D. and Rodrigues, C. (2009) ‘Pirahã Exceptionality: A Reassessment’, Language, Available at: Pirahã Exceptionality: A Reassessment (jstor.org) (Accessed on 4 March 2021) pp. 355-404.

The Grammar of Happiness (2015). [Film]. Directed by Michael O’Neill, M. and Wood, R. Available at: Green Planet Films: The Grammar of Happiness | Kanopy (Accessed 26 February 2021)

Trask, R. L. (2013) A Dictionary of Grammatical Terms in Linguistics, Oxfordshire: Routledge, Available at: A Dictionary of Grammatical Terms in Linguistics - R.L. Trask - Google Books (Accessed 4 March 2021).