A topic discussed during the course 'linguistics' that I found really interesting, was about the Piraha language. The Piraha are a tribe consisting of about 420 members who live in the Amazon in Brasil. They provided the perfect example of how much a language can differ from most known languages. It's in the Piraha's culture to always remain in their old habbits; unlike other amazonian tribes, they've hardy let the outside world influence their way of life.
This state of mind has led to some interesting differences in the Piraha language compared to all other languages. To start with, the Piraha language is rather simple and is the only language known to have no relative clauses or grammatical recursion. For example they can not say: "Johns' son has a dog", instead they have to say: "John has a son. The son has a dog". This video will illustrate this:
The Piraha language also has only three vowels and eight consonants. The words consist of many syllables and the verb structure is very complex. For example, the structure of the verb can indicate whether it was witnessed, it is certain or desired or not.
Furthermore do the Piraha not count, they have no numeracy at all. The only thing they can distinguish are a small or a larger amount. They also have no word for colors.
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