Documentaries, profiles, interviews and public talks — a selection of the appearances in which Daniel Everett’s work has been reported, filmed and discussed.
Since The New Yorker profiled Everett in 2007, his work has reached audiences far beyond linguistics through two feature documentaries, public talks, radio programs, and podcasts.
ABC Australia, Smithsonian Channel and ARTE France · 2012
A documentary following Daniel Everett back to the Pirahã community and exploring what their language may reveal about the relationship between language and culture.
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John Colapinto profiles Daniel Everett and examines the debate over whether the Pirahã language challenges Noam Chomsky’s theory of universal grammar.
A documentary examining missionary John Chau’s fatal attempt to contact the Sentinelese, with Daniel Everett drawing on his own experience to provide historical and personal context.
A 40-minute interview about Everett’s early work with the Pirahã and how learning their language transformed his religious outlook.
Drawing on his years among the Pirahã, Everett considers how sustained encounters with people unlike ourselves can challenge assumptions and create opportunities for learning.
A Harvard Science Book Talk based on How Language Began, in which Everett argues that the tools, travel, and settlements of Homo erectus are best explained by the invention of language.
The Pirahã work has been filmed on the Maici, argued over in the weekly press, and given a stage on four continents.
The research has been reported by the New York Times, The New Yorker, GEO Magazine, the BBC, and newspapers and television programmes around the world.
Two feature documentaries: The Grammar of Happiness, for ABC Australia, the Smithsonian Channel and ARTE France, and The Mission, for National Geographic Documentary Films.
Public lectures and talks, among them TEDxPenn and the Harvard Science Book Talks.
