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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
informative
reflective
slow-paced
This got me pumped to learn more about foreign cultures and dive into language learning again just when I was needing motivation.
Just about anyone can pick this up and run with it. It’s very accessible even if you don’t have any linguistic or anthropologic background knowledge. Dan’s writing style is pretty enjoyable, but if you don’t enjoy a more lax, freeform structure, this may frustrate you a bit.
Aside from the writing, learning about the Pirahã tribe is super fascinating. They come from such a unique tradition and it’s anything if not captivating to discover how they live their lives. Beyond that, the language they speak is absolutely remarkable. I do wish there had been more detail given considering the huge linguistic claims made here with Dan’s discoveries.
Everyone should give this a try. I hope that this is just the beginning to a better understanding of Pirahã culture and language.
Just about anyone can pick this up and run with it. It’s very accessible even if you don’t have any linguistic or anthropologic background knowledge. Dan’s writing style is pretty enjoyable, but if you don’t enjoy a more lax, freeform structure, this may frustrate you a bit.
Aside from the writing, learning about the Pirahã tribe is super fascinating. They come from such a unique tradition and it’s anything if not captivating to discover how they live their lives. Beyond that, the language they speak is absolutely remarkable. I do wish there had been more detail given considering the huge linguistic claims made here with Dan’s discoveries.
Everyone should give this a try. I hope that this is just the beginning to a better understanding of Pirahã culture and language.
informative
reflective
slow-paced
The subtitle pretty much sums this up: Life and language in the Amazonian Jungle. Everett chronicles his experiences over three decades living among and studying the Piraha, an indigenous tribe. He first went to their villages in 1977, as a Christian missionary and accompanied by his wife and three young children. His mission was to learn their language and translate the New Testament into their native tongue so as to bring Jesus to them. What he found was his life’s work.
Parts of this book are very enjoyable for even a lay person (and armchair traveler). There is plenty of danger in the Amazonian jungle – anacondas with a body thicker than a grown man’s, jaguars, caimans, piranhas, not to mention distrustful natives, malaria, typhoid fever and tarantulas the size of dinner plates. Everett and his family encountered all these and more. Stories of hunts, of a frantic trip upriver to take his critically ill wife and child to a hospital, or of altercations with unscrupulous merchants trying to buy natural resources with cheap liquor were told with flare and I found them fascinating and illuminating. But Everett is a linguistics professor/researcher, and there were chapters devoted to detailed study of the structure of language and the way it shapes (or is shaped by) a culture. I tended to lose interest in those sections of the book that read like a research paper, and sometimes got to the end of the page only to realize I’d understood what I read about as well as I might understand the Piraha language.
Parts of this book are very enjoyable for even a lay person (and armchair traveler). There is plenty of danger in the Amazonian jungle – anacondas with a body thicker than a grown man’s, jaguars, caimans, piranhas, not to mention distrustful natives, malaria, typhoid fever and tarantulas the size of dinner plates. Everett and his family encountered all these and more. Stories of hunts, of a frantic trip upriver to take his critically ill wife and child to a hospital, or of altercations with unscrupulous merchants trying to buy natural resources with cheap liquor were told with flare and I found them fascinating and illuminating. But Everett is a linguistics professor/researcher, and there were chapters devoted to detailed study of the structure of language and the way it shapes (or is shaped by) a culture. I tended to lose interest in those sections of the book that read like a research paper, and sometimes got to the end of the page only to realize I’d understood what I read about as well as I might understand the Piraha language.
adventurous
challenging
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
The Anth nerd in me found this an interesting. First half is great if you’re looking for adventure stories in the jungle, second half might not be for you if you don’t appreciate linguistics or linguistic anthropology. Worth sticking to the end.
I think this was one of the first books I ever added to Goodreads back in 2014 when I created my account. It's been one of those things where I see it and think "wow, that really is right up my alley, I should seriously grab it from the library sometime soon" and then promptly shift it down a few notches on my "to-read" list in favour of the next fiction book.
This year I am trying to read more non-fiction and it seemed like a great opportunity to cross this one off my list. I am glad I did.
This is a memoir written by a Christian missionary and linguist who lived with the Pirahã, a tribe living in the Brazilian jungle. This tribe's language is unlike any other living language in several respects and Everett proposes that it is shaped partially by their culture. With many real-life examples, he explains how the culture and the language are linked. He posits that study of this language may overhaul our understanding of the human capacity for language and Chomsky's "universal grammar" theory.
The book alternates between anecdotes of Everett and his family adapting to live in the Amazonian rainforest, studies of the Pirahã culture, and linguistic notes in a mostly chronological order. It really is fascinating stuff and although I felt a little lost towards the end when he started to get a bit more heavy-handed with the linguistic theory, I was mostly able to grasp the implications and explanations that he provided to detail the curiosities found in the Pirahã language. I think, though, that I would like to re-read it to solidify my understanding.
The cultural observations were also very interesting - a completely different way of life than what we as privileged Canadians are used to, and a completely different way of thinking as well.
In all - I enjoyed this very much.
This year I am trying to read more non-fiction and it seemed like a great opportunity to cross this one off my list. I am glad I did.
This is a memoir written by a Christian missionary and linguist who lived with the Pirahã, a tribe living in the Brazilian jungle. This tribe's language is unlike any other living language in several respects and Everett proposes that it is shaped partially by their culture. With many real-life examples, he explains how the culture and the language are linked. He posits that study of this language may overhaul our understanding of the human capacity for language and Chomsky's "universal grammar" theory.
The book alternates between anecdotes of Everett and his family adapting to live in the Amazonian rainforest, studies of the Pirahã culture, and linguistic notes in a mostly chronological order. It really is fascinating stuff and although I felt a little lost towards the end when he started to get a bit more heavy-handed with the linguistic theory, I was mostly able to grasp the implications and explanations that he provided to detail the curiosities found in the Pirahã language. I think, though, that I would like to re-read it to solidify my understanding.
The cultural observations were also very interesting - a completely different way of life than what we as privileged Canadians are used to, and a completely different way of thinking as well.
In all - I enjoyed this very much.
Wonderfully entertaining and educational book, learning about the Piraha, changed my life is so many ways. Things that I had never considered before because I had not thought there was any other way. I highly recommend this to all. Whether you are interested in linguistics, anthropology, travel or just simply love to learn. This book has something for everyone.
Meh? White missionary man goes to hang out with those primitive brown people in the jungle and learns a lesson and has wacky hijinks along the way! At least for part of the book... I guess if you are into linguistics, this book would be better. But I'm not.
The first part of the book was largely short stories about the author's life with the Piraha, their attitudes, customs, lives. And if it had ended there, I probably would have liked it a whole lot better.
The middle part of the book was all about linguistics, grammar and culture. I liked some of the discussion he had about the effect of culture on grammar (the easy part), but when he got more technical and was talking deeper about theories with grammar and linguistics, I think my eyes glazed over.
At the end, he briefly mentions his conversion to atheism (he originally went to the Piraha as a missionary, primarily to learn their language and translate the Bible), which might have been more interesting if he fleshed out descriptions or explanations of what led to his de-conversion and more about the fallout (both internal and external) that it had in his life.
The writing is not great (or just plain crap). On top of that, some of the descriptions are inconsistent (Everett repeatedly refers to how peaceful the Piraha are, and then mentions violent acts they commit, like a gang rape; he mentions that they don't have a word for "sorry" and then turns around and translates something as "sorry").
I don't know, the book was uneven at best and mind-numbingly boring at worst, but it wasn't terrible or anything. I'm not sure what the point the author was trying to make was. If he wanted to just tell a story, the entire linguistics section needed to be removed or pared down by quite a bit. If this was about the linguistics, maybe it needed a better title.
The first part of the book was largely short stories about the author's life with the Piraha, their attitudes, customs, lives. And if it had ended there, I probably would have liked it a whole lot better.
The middle part of the book was all about linguistics, grammar and culture. I liked some of the discussion he had about the effect of culture on grammar (the easy part), but when he got more technical and was talking deeper about theories with grammar and linguistics, I think my eyes glazed over.
At the end, he briefly mentions his conversion to atheism (he originally went to the Piraha as a missionary, primarily to learn their language and translate the Bible), which might have been more interesting if he fleshed out descriptions or explanations of what led to his de-conversion and more about the fallout (both internal and external) that it had in his life.
The writing is not great (or just plain crap). On top of that, some of the descriptions are inconsistent (Everett repeatedly refers to how peaceful the Piraha are, and then mentions violent acts they commit, like a gang rape; he mentions that they don't have a word for "sorry" and then turns around and translates something as "sorry").
I don't know, the book was uneven at best and mind-numbingly boring at worst, but it wasn't terrible or anything. I'm not sure what the point the author was trying to make was. If he wanted to just tell a story, the entire linguistics section needed to be removed or pared down by quite a bit. If this was about the linguistics, maybe it needed a better title.