Hello peeps! @ailindigo here :)
For this 21th week of Untranslatable Words we're now moving to South America, specifically to Brazil, this week's word is a very interesting one that even though I find it hard to explain it still leaves me thinking on the many possibilities of meaning it could refer to.
This week's word is the Pirahã: Xibipíío.
Gif by Wordstuck
Xibipíío
Whenever I read what this word refers to I can't help but think of those moments I feel like leaving my sorroundings perception and entering an emotional-mental state where I'm looking for connecting or coming back to the source, and also think of the moment I come back from that state and become aware of my presence/existence again.
Xibipíío can be loosely understood as experiential liminality--flickering in an out of experience, like the flame of a lit match. *
However, it seems that what this unique word refers to is not as complex as I feel it is, and I found out a very interesting story that explains this concept in a better way. The story of a missionary who was deconverted by the indigenous tribe he was trying to convert, the Pirahã tribe; this is the story of a Christian man who lost his religion among the Pirahã tribe of Amazonian Brazil, and even published a book called Language: The Cultural Tool, where he explores his theory that language isn't innate but a tool developed by humans to solve problems.*
In the late 70s and early 80s, Daniel Everett –who is now a professor of linguistics– traveled to Brazil looking for a remote culture and to convert it to his religion. However the Pirahã tribe didn't respond to his missionary tactics, but on the contrary, they showed Everett that there’s more to human experience than can be represented in any single book of ideology. *
The usual strategy for missionaries to use is to live with them for a period of years, learning their language and then slowly translate the Bible into that language. This is what Daniel did, but thanks to the Pirahã he ended up abandoning his Christian scriptures for a less resolute life, exploring the subtle mysteries of words as a professor of linguistics. *
Photo by Chriss Lindhout
Daniel found out in the Pirahã's language very interesting ideas, which lead him to become a now avowed atheist. In a very intresting video, he says that the Pirahãs are the ultimate empiricists, something that's borne out through their language; some of these ideas are that they have no creation myths, their concept of time is not linear as they do not separate the ideas of future and past, they just have a word for "now" and a word for "some time away from now"– which could be both/any present and/or past; they have no counting words except "relatively big" amount and "relatively small" amount. *
The Pirahã also does not distinguish or validate that there is a "right way" to proceed, has no verbs to define intentions, and emphasizes only the immediacy of experience. Everett reports no Pirahã term that could refer to anything outside the immediate experience of the speaker; and he argues convincingly, with words like xibipíío, that they do not think or speak in abstractions. This word roughly translates as "out of experience", meaning everything that they cannot hear or see, or that someone alive does not hear or see. Daniel says: "When someone walks towards the bend of the river and is lost from sight, the Pirahã do not say that the person is simply gone but xibipíío–'out of experience'." *
And this is what Daniel Everett, in his dissertation on the Pirahã language, calls the "immediacy-of experience principle", this linguistic and cultural tie to empirical and present reality.* Thus, xibipíío could be a term that says the truth is not a solid or permanent certainty, it isn't a rock but a wave on the river. This concept expresses the sensation of something flickering in and out of existence, and when it isn't there it's like it simply never existed, implying we shouldn't waste time worrying about it maybe, especially if we take into account their perception of time and that they do not think or speak in abstractions. It seems the Pirahã just live literally in the present, or linguistically at least, because when things appear and they perceive it is when they name them.
What do you think? Is your interpretation of xibipíío close to what the concept refers to? Do you think we can apply this concept to our certainty-based lives? Please feel free to let me know what you think in the comments!
Thank you very much for passing by! And if you have an Untranslatable Word you'd like to suggest, please don't hesitate to do so! :)
Previous Untranslatable Words:
#1: Torschlusspanik
#2: Mono no aware
#3: Rasāsvāda
#4: Cavoli riscaldati
#5: Nefelibata
#6: Sturmfrei
#7: Jootha
#8: bilita mpash
#9: resfeber
#10: Vāde mēcum
#11: sankofa
#12: annus mirabilis
#13: voorpret
#14: pikit mata
#15: ranorànilac
#16: gagung
#17: gumusservi
#18: yaourter
#19: nunchi
#20: flâneur - the aesthetic experience of wandering through the city
This content is part of a new series to get more people interested on languages and how they, perception and culture are related!
Exclusively for the Hive Cross Culture Community, the community for language exchange and cross-cultural purposes.
If you'd like to be part of the discussion don't hesitate to hop into the Hive Language and Culture Exchange Discord server! As well as subscribing to the Hive Cross Culture Community so you don't miss any new word comming ;) We'll be sharing a new Untranslatable Word each week!
