Keren Madora
 | This article needs more citations. (February 2026) |
Keren Everett | |
|---|---|
| Born | Keren Madora Graham |
| Known for | Pirahã language proficiency |
| Spouse | Daniel Everett |
| Children | Caleb Everett |
Keren Madora Everett (née Graham) is an American linguist and Christian missionary. Everett has spent years in the Amazon studying the Pirahã tribe and their language.
Career
[edit]The Pirahã language is of interest to linguists, but only a few people apart from the Pirahã are fluent in it. Everett's ex-husband Daniel is the best-known authority on the language. Everett herself made breakthroughs with the prosody of Pirahã.[1]
They discovered that Pirahã does not have a traditional concept of numbers or mathematics.[1][2]
They lived among the Pirahã from 1978 to 1983 and from 1999 to 2002. Following their separation in 2005, Keren returned to Brazil where she continued her missionary work among the Pirahã.[1]
Personal life
[edit]In 2005, after Daniel Everett informed Keren of his atheism, the two divorced. They had three children together, including Caleb Everett.[3]
Publications
[edit]- Keren M. Everett, "The acoustic correlates of stress in Piraha". Journal of Amazonian Languages vol.1 no.2, pp. 104–162. March 1998.
- Daniel L. Everett and Keren M. Everett, "On the relevance of Syllable Onsets to Stress Placement." Linguistic Inquiry vol. 15, pp. 705–711. 1984.
References
[edit]- 1 2 3 Colapinto, John (9 April 2007). "The Interpreter: Has a remote Amazonian tribe upended our understanding of language?". The New Yorker. Retrieved 29 April 2009.
- ↑ "Why Amazon natives flunk math tests: A study of the Piraha tribespeople of Brazil opens questions into how language may affect thinking, researchers report in the journal Science". Reuters, via NBC News. 19 August 2004. Retrieved 1 February 2026.
- ↑ Middleton, Liz Else,Lucy. "Interview: Out on a limb over language". New Scientist. Archived from the original on 13 April 2016. Retrieved 10 May 2026.
{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
Additional sources
[edit]- Bower, Bruce (4 December 2005). "The Pirahã Challenge: An Amazonian tribe takes grammar to a strange place". Retrieved 1 February 2026.
- Gibson, Ted (1 January 2016). "The relationship between culture and cognition / language". TED Lab at MIT. Retrieved 1 February 2026.
- Zwart, Andrew (1 October 2016). "The Kingdom of Speech: Fly-catching with Tom Wolfe". Books & Culture. Retrieved 1 February 2026.
  | This biography of a United States linguist is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by adding missing information. |