Does an obscure Amazonian language called Piraha disprove Noam Chomsky´s Universal Grammar? No idea, as I hardly understand the topic! Me not grok. Still, interesting after a fashion. Tie-in to the idea that the way we look at the world is (strongly) caused by our language.
Aside from lacking "recursion", Piraha seem to have other unique or unusual features. For instance, no numerals, verb tenses or color words. When anthropologist Daniel Everett and his wife tried to teach the Piraha basic arithmetic, the natives gave up after eight months of study. They simply couldn´t grasp the concept.
My wild guess is that the Piraha people are a relict population of a previously complex culture rather than true primitives, and that this somehow explains why their language is so impoverished. They are "devolving". But then, nobody seems to have made evolutionary claims about their lingo, so maybe this observation is irrelevant to the current conflict...
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