Daniel Everett

Daniel Leonard Everett ( born July 26, 1951 in Holtville, California) is an American linguist specializing in phonetics and phonology.

Life

Dan Everett was primarily known for his controversial theories on the Pirahã language, which according to him, it differs in certain material respects from other languages ​​and thus deliver a rebuttal to Chomsky's assumption of a universal grammar.

Everett went to Brazil in 1977 to evangelize the people of the Pirahã. By his own admission with the following motivation: . " But when i first went to Brazil in 1977, my only degree what to undergraduate diploma in " Bible and Foreign Missions " from the Moody Bible Institute in Chicago Stunning flow through the concept of truth of Pirahãs he lost slowly his faith and he was from 1985 to atheists. " Everett was from 1989 to 1999 at the University of Pittsburgh operates; 2006 to 2010 he taught at Illinois State University. Since 2010 he has been Professor of Sociology at Bentley University in Waltham.

Works

• The happiest people. Seven years in the Pirahã Indians of the Amazon. Translated by Sebastian Vogel. German publishing house, Munich 2010, ISBN 978-3-421-04307-8.
• The greatest invention of mankind. What have taught me my years in the Amazon over the nature of language. Translated by Harald Stadler. German publishing house, Munich 2013, ISBN 978-3-421-04594-2.