ABSTRACT
Primordial consciousness and its language reflects the collective, socio-centric nature of the relationship between person and society that has roots in ancient eastern cultures based on Hinduism and Buddhism, and is found also in tribal cultures. The mental activity and language of the Piraha tribe of the Amazon basin is examined in detail, using the studies of linguist-anthropologist Daniel Everett, as data. Basic differences in the modal mentation of individual-centric and socio-centric cultures can be accounted for by the hypothesis of cultural domination by one or the other of the qualitatively different forms of consciousness. The existence of cultures whose language lacks recursion is evidence for the hypothesis about the dual nature of mind and language, and against the universal grammar hypothesis of Chomsky that all languages must conform to the principle of recursion. While the existence of such cultures suggests that social factors play an important role in language formation it does not disprove Chomsky’s contention that language has a strong underlying neurological template as well.
