Re: Sapir-WhorFreakiness

Trebor Jung scripsit:

> Another possibility is that the Pirahã are colour-blind. That makes alot
> more sense, if peoples other than the Pirahã living in the Amazon region
> have colour terms.
That can be confidently ruled out, at least.  Full colorblindness
(achromatopsia) is extremely rare (about 1 in 100,000), and even on
Palau, where it has become concentrated by founder effect, the
rate is 1 in 4.  Achromats, in addition, have such poor visual
acuity that they are legally blind in most places, and some indeed
live a blind lifestyle (though at least one is actually a color vision
researcher).

Furthermore, the Pirahã can refer to color by analogy; it's *basic*
color terms, not reducible to other terms, that they lack.  It is as
if English used words like "blood-colored", "mud-colored", and so on.

> Or, if the Pirahã don't live near any other ethnic communities, maybe
> they're the only group living in that part of the rainforest, and it's
> particularly dense there? That is to say, maybe they're very isolated
> indeed, and all other native Amazon peoples reside elsewhere??
They live on the river and have regular contacts with river traders.

--
John Cowan   jcowan@reutershealth.com  http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
Most languages are dramatically underdescribed, and at least one is
dramatically overdescribed.  Still other languages are simultaneously
overdescribed and underdescribed.  Welsh pertains to the third category.
        --Alan King