Re: VMs: Welsh/Cornish

[Koontz John E <John.Koontz@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Thu, 27 Jan 2005, Jacques Guy wrote:
> I just did a Google search and found far too many hits (Piraha, from
> unknown just a few months ago, is now quite popular, isn't it?) ...
>
> I must say that I am starting to be a bit skeptical. ...
>
> Oh, granted, "nui" in the language of Easter Island means both "big" and
> "many", but I am starting to smell a hoax of Tasaday size ...

I can't attest to Piraha personally, but Daniel Everett has certainly been
been getting away with it since 1979.

His original U of Pittsburgh web site:

http://web.archive.org/web/20001206044500/amazonling.linguist.pitt.edu/

His current academic site:

http://lings.ln.man.ac.uk/info/staff/DE/DEHome.html

The region in which Piraha is found is famous for languages that seem to
exist to prove that some supposed linguistic universal or another is at
best a statistical tendency.  Another example is Hixkaryana, a Carib
language which (debatably) has OVS (object verb subject) word order.
Whether or not OVS per se it is definitely a bit unusual.  There are
several other similar (OVS) languages in the area as well as languages
with other rare word orders.

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