Photo: Xiabikabikabi (talk) / CC BY-SA 3.0 (source: Wikimedia Commons)
My Take
Daniel Everett is a fascinating figure to me because his story crosses so many worlds. He went into the Amazon as a missionary to study the Pirahã people, and ended up having his own faith and some core ideas about language overturned by what he found. His claims about Pirahã grammar sparked one of the biggest debates in modern linguistics, putting him at odds with Chomskyan theory. Whether or not you agree with him, I admire that he let decades of fieldwork actually change his mind. He's now a cognitive sciences professor, and I find that arc, missionary to skeptic to scholar, genuinely compelling.
Overview
Daniel Leonard Everett (born July 26, 1951) is an American linguist and author best known for his study of the Amazon basin's Pirahã people and their language. In 2025, Everett is Trustee Professor of Cognitive Sciences at Bentley University in Waltham, Massachusetts. From July 1, 2010, to June 30, 2018, Everett served as Dean of Arts and Sciences at Bentley.
Summary adapted from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.
1. Profile
- Name (English)
- Daniel Everett
- Name (Japanese)
- ダニエル・エヴェレット
- Reading
- だにえる・えゔぇれっと
- Born
- July 26, 1951 (age 74)
- Zodiac / Chinese zodiac
- Leo / Rabbit
- Origin
- Holtville, California, United States
- Blood type
- Private
- Height
- Private
- Agency
- Private
- Occupation
- linguist / university teacher / writer / missionary / anthropologist
2. Background
- Elementary school
- Private
- Junior high
- Private
- High school
- Private
- University
- University of Campinas
3. Relationships
- Spouse
- Private
- Children
- Private
- Parents
- Private
- Siblings
- Private
4. Personality
Motto
Private
6. Links
Linguist — see all → · University teacher — see all → · More people from United States →
7. About this entry
Tags
- Last updated
- 2026-06-02
Facts are limited to publicly available information up to 2024; non-public items are marked "Private / Unknown". English text is machine-assisted (facts translated by Sonnet, "My Take" written by Opus 4.8). The Japanese page is the source of record.