Sublime
An inspiration engine for ideas
Apparently, I was words it could understand, unlike the anthropologist.
Jeff VanderMeer • Annihilation: A Novel (The Southern Reach Trilogy)
gradual demotion of the sacred language itself.
Benedict Anderson • Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism
alacrity.
John Hemming • The Conquest of the Incas
they stumbled upon a crucial detail—Indo-European
Carlo Rovelli • Anaximander: And the Birth of Science
The limits of language.
Laurence Endersen • Pebbles of Perception: How a Few Good Choices Make All The Difference
We know this from studies of children who arrive in a foreign country as migrants or adoptees: they may excel in their new language, but they often have a small foreign accent and occasional syntax errors that give away their true origin.
Stanislas Dehaene • How We Learn: Why Brains Learn Better Than Any Machine . . . for Now
In fact, it’s Douggie’s growing conviction that the greatest flaw of the species is its overwhelming tendency to mistake agreement for truth.
Richard Powers • The Overstory: A Novel
Pirahãs take naps (fifteen minutes to two hours at the extremes) during the day and night. There is loud talking in the village all night long. Consequently, it is often very difficult for outsiders to sleep well among the Pirahãs. I believe that the Pirahãs’ advice not to sleep because there are snakes is advice that they literally follow—sleeping
... See moreDaniel L. Everett • Don't Sleep, There Are Snakes: Life and Language in the Amazonian Jungle (Vintage Departures)
yarned with Elders and Percy Paul about these things (along with a bunch of old dead white guys),