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Don't sleep, there are snakes : life and language in the Amazonian jungle Cover Image

Don't sleep, there are snakes : life and language in the Amazonian jungle / Daniel L. Everett.

Everett, Daniel L. (Daniel Leonard) (Author).

Summary:

A linguist offers a thought-provoking account of his experiences and discoveries while living with the Pirahã, a small tribe of Amazonian Indians living in central Brazil and a people possessing a language that defies accepted linguistic theories and reflects a culture that has no counting system, concept of war, or personal property, and lives entirely in the present.

Record details

ISBN: 9780375425028
Physical Description: xviii, 283 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations (some color) ; 25 cm
Edition: First edition.
Publisher: New York : Pantheon Books, [2008]
Copyright: ©2008

Content descriptions

Formatted Contents Note:

Discovering the world of the Pirahãs -- The Amazon -- The cost of discipleship -- Sometimes you make mistakes -- Material culture and the absence of ritual -- Families and community -- Nature and the immediacy of experience -- A teenager named Túkaaga : murder and society -- Land to live free -- Caboclos : vignettes of Amazonian Brazilian life -- Changing channels with Pirahã sounds -- Pirahã words -- How much grammar do people need? -- Values and talking : the partnership between language and culture -- Recursion : language as a matrioshka doll -- Crooked heads and straight heads : perspectives on language and truth -- Converting the missionary.