Don't Sleep, There are Snakes: Life and Language in the Amazonian Jungle - Softcover

Everett, Daniel

3.96

5,238 ratings by Goodreads

9781846680304: Don't Sleep, There are Snakes: Life and Language in the Amazonian Jungle

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1846680301 ISBN 13: 9781846680304

Publisher: Profile Books, 2008

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Although Daniel Everett was a missionary, far from converting the Pirahas, they converted him. He shows the slow, meticulous steps by which he gradually mastered their language and his gradual realisation that its unusual nature closely reflected its speakers' startlingly original perceptions of the world. He describes how he began to realise that his discoveries about the Piraha language opened up a new way of understanding how language works in our minds and in our lives, and that this way was utterly at odds with Noam Chomsky's universally accepted linguistic theories. The perils of passionate academic opposition were then swiftly conjoined to those of the Amazon in a debate whose outcome has yet to be won.

Adventure, personal enlightenment and the makings of a scientific revolution proceed together in this vivid, funny and moving book.

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Review:

Dan Everett has written an excellent book. First, it is a very powerful autobiographical account of his stay with the Piraha in the jungles of the Amazon basin. Second, it is a brilliant piece of ethnographical description of life among the Piraha. And third, and perhaps most important in the long run, his data and his conclusions about the language of the Piraha run dead counter to the prevailing orthodoxy in linguistics. If he is right, he will permanently change our conception of human language (John Searle, Slusser Professor of Philosophy, University of California, Berkeley)

Dan Everett is the most interesting man I have ever met. This story about his life among the Pirahas is a fascinating read. His observations and claims about the culture and language of the Pirahas are astounding. Whether or not all of his hypotheses turn out to be correct, Everett has forced many researchers to re-evaluate basic assumptions about the relationship among culture, language and cognition. I strongly recommend the book (Edward Gibson, Professor of Cognitive Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology)

A remarkable and often painful story of anthropological endeavour (Caroline Sanderson Bookseller)

Astonishing... a warm tribute to this people's unique way of seeing the world... full of wonder while conveying the fragility of the Piraha way (Waterstone's Books Quarterly 2008-09-01)

Fascinating (Kirkus 2008-10-01)

Fascinating and candid (Publisher's Weekly 2008-09-29)

Unforgettable (Booklist 2008-11-01)

This is an astonishing book: a work of exploration, into the most distant place and language, but also a revelation of the way language is shaped by thought and circumstance (Ben Macintyre The Times 2008-10-25)

Rigorous (Stuart Kelly Scotland on Sunday 2008-11-09)

Destined to become a classic of popular enthnography (David Papineau Independent 2008-11-14)

Book Description:

Daniel Everett took his family to convert the Pirahas (pronounced pee-da-HAN), a remote people of the Amazonian jungle whose language no outsider had yet been able to understand. They encountered malaria, snakes, jaguars, spiders, insects, and a plot to kill them as they slept. But Everett gradually gained entry to this curious culture, and gave up trying to Christianise it. Along the way he discovered a language which disproved the most established tenets of linguistics.

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