Daniel Everett: Endangered Languages, Lost Knowledge and the Future

The Piraha, a remote Amazonian tribe with little outside contact, have attracted the attention of mainstream media, scientists, zen buddhists, professors of religion, mathematicians, philosophers and others because of their unusual confluence of values, language, and culture.

Now, after 20 years of high intellectual and physical adventure living among them, Dan Everett proposes a revolution in anthropology and linguistics: culture profoundly shapes language, even at the most fundamental level. What happens when a language-culture pairing like the Pirahas' is lost?

The Pirahas are not alone in their lessons and knowledge for all of us — there are hundreds of endangered languages in the world — but their example provides a remarkably clear example of alternative knowledge and ways of talking of importance to all of us as we ponder how we should try to build future lives.

Speakers: Daniel Everett
Director: Chris Baldwin, Shoulder High Productions
Producer: Stewart Brand and The Long Now Foundation
Studio: Whole Earth Films
DVD FORMAT: NTSC, Widescreen
Region: All Regions
Language: English
Number of discs: 1
Rating: Unrated
Release date: March 20, 2009
Duration: 91 minutes