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176 reviews for:
Das glücklichste Volk: sieben Jahre bei den Pirahã-Indianern am Amazonas
Daniel L. Everett
3.81 AVERAGE
176 reviews for:
Das glücklichste Volk: sieben Jahre bei den Pirahã-Indianern am Amazonas
Daniel L. Everett
3.81 AVERAGE
V interesting look at a different way of life. Some strange sangfroid from the author - such as the parenthetical mention of his wife witnessing a gang rape. I would have liked someore detail of how his relationships changed with his loss of faith.
Split into two sections; the first providing context and stories of living with the Piraha people of the Amazon, and the second being a technical primer on linguistic and language theory and how the Piraha seem to uniquely break that model, Don't Sleep, There Are Snakes is an interesting (if sometimes technical and dry) journey into the world of a remote and foreign culture. The Pirarha's experience of the world is dramatically different from ours, only what is directly known/experienced is discussed yet they experience group encounters with gods and spirits in the company of westerners who see nothing. Yet the Pirahas are of course human, and share love, joy, pain, and sorrow as do all humans. Daniel Everett does a commendable job weaving anecdotal experiences with the Piraha, providing contextual background to the sometimes difficult to understand, technical linguistic theory. Though the book is a little long it's recommended for those interested in anthropology, consciousness, language, and exotic travel.
The tales of life in the jungle were fascinating but it did go a bit too technical on the linguistics at points for me. I ended up skipping the odd page where he talks about language theory.
challenging
informative
medium-paced
informative
reflective
medium-paced
Daniel Everett's book is interesting, but too often completely on accident. Dan seems like a likable, okay guy with a whole lot of stories to tell about his time with the Pirahã -- just he's always two gasps away from saying what the audience actually wants to hear. (Hint: it's not about his beef with 80+ year old linguists).
It's easy to see why Dan was charmed by the Pirahã. They regularly use repetition as a rhetorical device, because they like it and often because it's hard to hear over all the damn noise in the Amazon. The women have a slightly different language than the men (this, sadly though, gets little discussion). And couples go off into the freaking jungle to get their freak on.
But Dan, uncomfortably, talks about the warts too. He acknowledges the Pirahã men nearly killed him and his family in a drunken stupor. Children are euthanized out of a form of Darwinian 'mercy.' And they aren't exactly well-behaved with some of their other neighbors along the river. Dan calling them 'peaceful' people feels a little weird and patronizing given evidence they're way more complex than that.
What really grinds the fun to a halt is when Everett puts on his "Rebel Linguist" hat and goes leaping at Noam Chomsky. Everett believes Pirahã is a unique language and gives Chomsky's theories of universal grammar a black eye. Real shame then that Everett does a bad job of really explaining what that means here, and a worse job defending it. It's not clear how Pirahã is really that unique except for the most hair-splitting of arguments. All he really accomplishes is coming off a little bit like a macho snob -- Chomsky never went down the Amazon like a REAL linguist/man, like me, did he?? Did he?!
The Pirahã people and language does seem really interesting -- hell, Dan's experience being a missionary and father in the middle of a people who share no common language with him is a neat journey too. But he couldn't help himself to get on his soapbox and air his grievances with Lingusitics Old Guard and organized religion (it doesn't take long to realize that little "translate the bible" project ain't gonna get done).
On the flip side though, I reckon it is kinda hard to put 3 decades of experience with an indigenous Amazonian people nearly into a single book.
It's easy to see why Dan was charmed by the Pirahã. They regularly use repetition as a rhetorical device, because they like it and often because it's hard to hear over all the damn noise in the Amazon. The women have a slightly different language than the men (this, sadly though, gets little discussion). And couples go off into the freaking jungle to get their freak on.
But Dan, uncomfortably, talks about the warts too. He acknowledges the Pirahã men nearly killed him and his family in a drunken stupor. Children are euthanized out of a form of Darwinian 'mercy.' And they aren't exactly well-behaved with some of their other neighbors along the river. Dan calling them 'peaceful' people feels a little weird and patronizing given evidence they're way more complex than that.
What really grinds the fun to a halt is when Everett puts on his "Rebel Linguist" hat and goes leaping at Noam Chomsky. Everett believes Pirahã is a unique language and gives Chomsky's theories of universal grammar a black eye. Real shame then that Everett does a bad job of really explaining what that means here, and a worse job defending it. It's not clear how Pirahã is really that unique except for the most hair-splitting of arguments. All he really accomplishes is coming off a little bit like a macho snob -- Chomsky never went down the Amazon like a REAL linguist/man, like me, did he?? Did he?!
The Pirahã people and language does seem really interesting -- hell, Dan's experience being a missionary and father in the middle of a people who share no common language with him is a neat journey too. But he couldn't help himself to get on his soapbox and air his grievances with Lingusitics Old Guard and organized religion (it doesn't take long to realize that little "translate the bible" project ain't gonna get done).
On the flip side though, I reckon it is kinda hard to put 3 decades of experience with an indigenous Amazonian people nearly into a single book.
There were some interesting ideas in this book regarding linguistics being tied to anthropology, but overall it just wasn't very engaging. It wasn't a bad book by any means, but it didn't compel me.
I did find it fascinating to see another culture that thinks and speaks in a completely foreign way, and the process the author went through to decipher it all.
I did find it fascinating to see another culture that thinks and speaks in a completely foreign way, and the process the author went through to decipher it all.
adventurous
challenging
funny
reflective
How do language, culture, and our perception of reality affect each other? If this question makes your mind wander then you'll enjoy this book. The chapter where the author discusses linguistic theory is a little dense, but the rest of the book is full of fascinating (and truly entertaining) stories of life in the remote areas of the amazon.
The lessons this missionary turned linguist learned by living among the Pirahã people hold great value in the matter of how to live our lives. I recommended the audio-book narrated by the author. You get to hear him speak Pirahã!
The lessons this missionary turned linguist learned by living among the Pirahã people hold great value in the matter of how to live our lives. I recommended the audio-book narrated by the author. You get to hear him speak Pirahã!
I really wanted to like this book; I really tried. The subjects, language and linguistics and Brazil and the Amazon, are of interest to me. But for some reason, I could not get interested in the book. The Pirahi language parts, even with the translations, were difficult to read and I usually just skipped over them. Perhaps an audio book would have been a better choice for me. (It is interesting that there does not seem to be an audio book for this title.) I was somewhat interested in the author's trips, particularly with his family, to the Pirahi villages, but there didn't seem to be enough of that. I thought that the telling was poorly organized. I skipped a lot of pages.
It seems the other book club readers had similar feelings. (I did not attend the discussion due to bad weather.) We "decided that our book this month was not our favorite. We agreed that the culture, Mission role and the author were worth a bit of discussion. The process of finding the ins and outs of a language was really difficult to understand for us poor mortals. We all seemed to agree that the author cheated the Mission group that bankrolled him."
"...But as I learned from the Pirahas, our expectations, our culture, and our experiences can render even perceptions of the environment nearly incommensurable cross-culturally." (xvii)
"Pirahas laugh about everything...This pervasive happiness in hard to explain, though I believe that the Pirahas are so confident and secure in their ability to handle anything that their environment throws at them that they can enjoy whatever comes their way. This is not at all because their lives are easy, but because they are good at what they do." (85)
It seems the other book club readers had similar feelings. (I did not attend the discussion due to bad weather.) We "decided that our book this month was not our favorite. We agreed that the culture, Mission role and the author were worth a bit of discussion. The process of finding the ins and outs of a language was really difficult to understand for us poor mortals. We all seemed to agree that the author cheated the Mission group that bankrolled him."
"...But as I learned from the Pirahas, our expectations, our culture, and our experiences can render even perceptions of the environment nearly incommensurable cross-culturally." (xvii)
"Pirahas laugh about everything...This pervasive happiness in hard to explain, though I believe that the Pirahas are so confident and secure in their ability to handle anything that their environment throws at them that they can enjoy whatever comes their way. This is not at all because their lives are easy, but because they are good at what they do." (85)