The Piraha

The Piraha tribe are said to provide evidence against Noam Chomsky's theory of a universal grammar. Amongst the unique features of their language are:

• No numbers beyond two
• Lack of recursion in sentences
• No colour words except light and dark
• Entire set of personal pronouns borrowed from another language.

If the Piraha do not use the same conventions as every other known language doubt is cast on the innateness of our language ability. Debate over the Piraha language continues to rage. You can find out in detail about the Piraha tribe here. There is a detailed article on the Piraha language here.