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08 NOVEMBER 2008
John McCarthy explores travel and mental health and meets the missionary who went to Brazil to convert an Amazonian tribe and ended up being converted himself.
TRIBAL LINGUISTIC
Daniel Everett a linguist in the Departmental Chair of Languages, Literatures and Cultures at Illinois State University, has spent much of the past three decades living in the remote and little understood Amazonian tribe of the Pirahas. He shares his experiences of living with the Piraha’s and learning about their language, previously un-translated.
MENTAL HEALTH and TRAVEL
“Don’t Wait for Me” is the story of ‘Zach’ whose bi-polar disorder and his desire to travel to far flung countries led to great emotional stress for his parents.
Ros Morris, Zach’s mother and the author of “Don’t Wait for Me” and Sophie Corlett, from the mental health charity MIND, talk about the difficulties and taboos facing people with mental health illness. Should mental health issues exclude travelling? And, what kind of preparations should be considered when travelling abroad?
Presented by John McCarthy
Photo: Piraha (photographer: Martin Schoeller ©)
This week's guests:
Daniel L. (Dan) Everett
is Chair of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures at Illinois State University, USA. He used his time with the Piraha to learn their language and how it relates to their way of life. No one had translated them before Daniel. Later, he wrote a paper challenging linguist like Noam Chomsky by suggesting that the Piraha’s Language lacks what Chomsky and many linguists accept as an essential ingredient in human language – recursion (the ability to collect a series of thoughts together into a sentence with more than one clause). Dan thinks that the tribe lives almost entirely in the present and describes how they aren’t interested in the outside world at all.
Don't Sleep There are Snakes: A Life in the Amazon
Publisher: Profile Books Ltd
ISBN-10: 1846680301
ISBN-13: 978-1846680304
BBC Radio 4 Book of The Week: Don’t Sleep There are Snakes
From Monday 17th November 2008
Weekdays 9.45am-10.00am, repeated 00.30-00.45am
Ros Morris’s book is a harrowing account of her son’s battle with bi polar disorder and her own journey to help him. Ros wrote to book to help others in a similar situation and explains the situations that faced her son on his varied trips around the World.
Don't Wait for Me: How a Mother Lost her Son to Bipolar Disorder and Drug Abuse
Publisher: Mainstream Publishing
ISBN-10: 1845963423
ISBN-13: 978-1845963422
Sophie Corlett
Director of External Relations for MIND
“ is responsible for the strategy and coordination of the policy work in Mind. This includes Mind's small policy team that works on campaigning for improvements to health and care services and for better social inclusion for those with mental distress…”
MIND
15-19 Broadway, London E15 4BQ
T: 020 8519 2122, F: 020 8522 1725
e-mail: [email protected]
MindinfoLine
Monday to Friday - 9.00am to 5.00pm - 0845 766 0163
Radio 4 Action line: 0800 044 044
The BBC cannot be held responsible for
the content of external sites | | | | | | PRESENTER BIOGRAPHIES | | | | |
 John McCarthy is a widely travelled journalist and presenter with a particular interest in the Middle East. | |
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