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176 reviews for:
Das glücklichste Volk: sieben Jahre bei den Pirahã-Indianern am Amazonas
Daniel L. Everett
3.8 AVERAGE
176 reviews for:
Das glücklichste Volk: sieben Jahre bei den Pirahã-Indianern am Amazonas
Daniel L. Everett
3.8 AVERAGE
I enjoyed the first part (second part went over my head I'm afraid as I'm not a linguist), however this is seriously the most contradictory book I've ever read. One minute I'm reading about how the Pirahá are not violent then I'm reading about all the violent things they have done (including group rape and murder to name a few). Apparently they have no word for sorry yet they say sorry to him. It's rather mixed messages so I felt I unfortunately couldn't really take anything away from this.
Interesting book but just not one for me.
Interesting book but just not one for me.
informative
inspiring
medium-paced
Someone else was waiting for it, I had other books to read, and it was more a memoir than just about the language. Got about 25% in and he’d barely covered the language and hasn’t started talking about losing his faith yet, and I wasn’t really feeling it.
adventurous
challenging
informative
reflective
medium-paced
This was about 2/3 really interesting, and 1/3 designed for a more technical reader. I really enjoyed the anecdotes about missionary life in the jungle, but the technical discussions of grammar, culture, and language were a bit over my head for pleasure reading :) still - a fun book!
While reading this I found myself oscillating between being fascinated and being frustrated.
It was eye-opening reading Everett’s account and stories of his time with the Pirahá people. Their world view and language is genuinely intriguing and thought-provoking when compared to my own.
Some of the linguistic discussion did go over my head and at times very academic and wordy – not that it wasn’t accessible but just you kind of had to focus for all the talk about recursive and Chomsky universal grammar theory – although still all very interesting!
It was eye-opening reading Everett’s account and stories of his time with the Pirahá people. Their world view and language is genuinely intriguing and thought-provoking when compared to my own.
Some of the linguistic discussion did go over my head and at times very academic and wordy – not that it wasn’t accessible but just you kind of had to focus for all the talk about recursive and Chomsky universal grammar theory – although still all very interesting!
adventurous
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
On the whole this is an interesting and engaging book that is part ethnography, part linguistics, and part personal memoir and travelogue. The first part of the book concerns the author's life among the Pirahã, an Indigenous group living along the Maici River in the Brazilian Amazon, and presents various snapshots of their culture, lifeways, history, interactions with caboclos (a culturally distinct subset of Portuguese-speaking Brazilians living along the rivers of the Amazon), and the author's missionary work and family life. Frequently the author compares and contrasts his culturally determined values and assumptions with those of the Pirahã, who, as we learn throughout the text, constitute a unique culture in many ways. The second part of the text concerns the Pirahã language, the study of which occupied most of the author's time with them (approximately eight years collectively over a 30-year period). According to Everett, Pirahã lacks grammatical features that were once, and by some still are, seen as universal, namely recursion, the grammatical ability to fit a theoretically endless number of clauses within a single sentence. An extended grammatical discussion with a spattering of theory and the succinct distillation of competing theories (namely Chomsky's universal grammar) tie this section nicely together, though it is a denser read than the more narrative-driven first part. The short third part of the book concerns Everett's eventual loss of faith as a missionary among the Pirahã, which he attributes to their high standards as regards evidentiality, a cultural phenomenon he introduces early in the text as the "immediacy of experience principle," which is also key to the synthesis he effects between language and culture (again, to the chagrin of Chomskyans). This final section effectively brings together the ethnographic, linguistic, and personal.
While an enjoyable and informative read, my biggest gripe with the book relates to its organization. I feel it could have done with more careful editing, both between subsections and paragraphs within chapters, and between chapters within the overarching parts. Sometimes it feels that the text doesn't know what it wants to be, whether personal memoir, travelogue, ethnography, grammar, or theoretical expose. But, for better or worse, that is often the nature of popular ethnographic writing, and I think the book is not much the weaker for it. I still readily recommend this book, though more for pleasure than scholarly information (see its bibliography for the latter).
While an enjoyable and informative read, my biggest gripe with the book relates to its organization. I feel it could have done with more careful editing, both between subsections and paragraphs within chapters, and between chapters within the overarching parts. Sometimes it feels that the text doesn't know what it wants to be, whether personal memoir, travelogue, ethnography, grammar, or theoretical expose. But, for better or worse, that is often the nature of popular ethnographic writing, and I think the book is not much the weaker for it. I still readily recommend this book, though more for pleasure than scholarly information (see its bibliography for the latter).
The beginning of this book pulled me in fast but towards the end when the discussion turns mostly to lingustics I was bored.
I was initially drawn to this book because of my desire to understand how language can shape the way we think. Although I have almost zero linguistics knowledge, the most important lesson I got from this book is based on the Piraha's language principle which Dan proposes. The Immediacy of Experience principle. The Piraha's culture reflects their language, and vice-versa. Although our immediate thought might be to frown upon their culture and values, not assimilating to the rest of the global world, I see several things where we can take away and learn from them. The Pirahas are focused on the present, they don't worry about their past or future because the word "worry" doesn't exist in their language. They have a close, tight-knit community and kinship and treat children like adults. They laugh at everything, even at their own misfortunes. Walking away from this book, I also learned the importance of cultural diversity. From our different cultures and languages, we can learn so much from each other if we are open-minded and humbled.
This was fascinating, and had very little to do with the author's beliefs and deconversion, but rather was mostly about his interactions with the Pirahãs. There was quite a bit of technical linguistic discussion, which I loved. Daniel seems very intelligent and learned. He has a very gentle and non-judgemental way of discussing issues. I think his theories about culture and language make much more sense than Chomsky's.
At times it wasn't totally clear where a particular story was going. I think it could have benefiting from editing. The narration was ok but there were some glaring mistakes and stumblings.
At times it wasn't totally clear where a particular story was going. I think it could have benefiting from editing. The narration was ok but there were some glaring mistakes and stumblings.