Linguistics, Chomsky, Recursion, and the Pirahas

I read a very interesting article in the Sunday, June 10, 2007 Metro section of the Chicago Tribune.

MIT's Noam Chomsky is considered the Einstein of Linguistics. His work revolutionized the field, just as Einstein's Theory of Relativity transformed physics. One of his key theories is that all human language employ recursion, which allows humans to share complex thoughts. It is what separates human language from animal squawks and grunts.

For example, in the nursery rhyme "This is the cat that chased the rat that ate the malt that lay in the house that Jack built", the word "that" is a recursive device. It directs the listener to not just any cat, but specifically, the cat that chased the rat.

Recently, however, an unknown linguist from Illinois State University has contradicted Chomsky's theory, and stirred up the field.

This linguist, Dan Everett, has spent 30 years doing field work with the Piraha, a tiny tribe in the Amazon. He now speaks their obscure language fluently, and has found that they don't use recursives.

So, while Chomsky supporters discount his findings, people who support Everett now feel that recursion evolved in human language. It may not be, as Chomsky theorizes, hard-wired.