false 4420281 5 A riveting account of the astonishing experiences and discoveries made by linguist Daniel Everett while he lived with the Pirahã, a small tribe of Amazonian Indians in central Brazil. <br><br>Everett, then a Christian missionary, arrived among the Pirahã in 1977&#8211;with his wife and three young children&#8211;intending to convert them. What he found was a language that defies all existing linguistic theories and reflects a way of life that evades contemporary understanding: The Pirahã have no counting system and no fixed terms for color. They have no concept of war or of personal property. They live entirely in the present. Everett became obsessed with their language and its cultural and linguistic implications, and with the remarkable contentment with which they live&#8211;so much so that he eventually lost his faith in the God he&#8217;d hoped to introduce to them. <br><br>Over three decades, Everett spent a total of seven years among the Pirahã, and his account of this lasting sojourn is an engrossing exploration of language that questions modern linguistic theory. It is also an anthropological investigation, an adventure story, and a riveting memoir of a life profoundly affected by exposure to a different culture. Written with extraordinary acuity, sensitivity, and openness, it is fascinating from first to last, rich with unparalleled insight into the nature of language, thought, and life itself. 4468447 book 11 11 2008 Don't Sleep, There Are Snakes: Life and Language in the Amazonian Jungle total:128|5:13|4:64|3:43|2:8|1:0| 128 466 395 56 3 1 false false Sun Aug 16 15:35:17 -0700 2009 Fri Sep 11 20:44:08 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 1 false true Fri May 01 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Fri May 01 10:20:37 -0700 2009 Fri May 01 10:31:55 -0700 2009 Don't Sleep just about successfully bridges the gap between professional ethnography and popular autobiography.

Everett was a linguist with the Summer Institute of Linguistics, an evangelical organization which sends linguist-missionaries to learn the languages of various cu...more...]]> 4 0 false true Fri Apr 24 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sat Apr 25 05:10:24 -0700 2009 Sat Apr 25 07:16:45 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Thu Nov 05 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Fri Nov 06 11:47:09 -0800 2009 Sat Nov 07 23:18:45 -0800 2009
-He says t...more...]]> 5 1 false false Thu Oct 29 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Mon Oct 26 13:12:21 -0700 2009 Thu Oct 29 08:12:18 -0700 2009 1
I bought this book because it was used at Bookshop Santa Cruz, and I was in the mood for travel. In a previous life ti...more...]]> 4 0 false true Mon Jun 22 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Mon Jun 22 12:37:14 -0700 2009 Mon Jun 22 12:45:44 -0700 2009 1
However, the parts I understood were fascinating, as were the anthropological parts. Everett went to live with the Pirahã as a missionary and a linguist. He wanted to convert them and learn their grammar. What ensued i...more...]]> 5 0 false false Tue Feb 10 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Tue Feb 03 00:15:14 -0800 2009 Tue Feb 10 00:36:00 -0800 2009
It's divided into unequal halves - the long half recounting the story of w...more...]]> 4 0 false false Fri Jan 02 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Wed Dec 31 08:24:14 -0800 2008 Sat Jan 10 12:43:33 -0800 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Sat Nov 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Sat Dec 13 13:09:18 -0800 2008 Sun Dec 28 11:10:16 -0800 2008 more...]]> 4 0 false false Fri Dec 12 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Thu Nov 27 17:50:49 -0800 2008 Fri Dec 12 09:26:34 -0800 2008 1 more...]]> 4 1 false false Fri Jun 26 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Tue Jun 09 11:28:48 -0700 2009 Fri Jun 26 17:43:50 -0700 2009 1 more...]]> 4 0 false false Fri Mar 20 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Mon Mar 02 23:02:01 -0800 2009 Sat Mar 21 18:27:50 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Wed Nov 04 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Tue Oct 13 17:41:05 -0700 2009 Fri Nov 06 17:19:41 -0800 2009 more...]]> 3 0 false false Mon May 18 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Fri Apr 17 12:09:34 -0700 2009 Mon May 18 07:24:42 -0700 2009 more...]]> 5 0 false false Sun Jun 07 20:40:38 -0700 2009 Thu Apr 30 12:02:14 -0700 2009 Sun Jun 07 20:40:38 -0700 2009 more...]]> 3 0 false false Thu Jul 30 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sun Jul 26 08:22:54 -0700 2009 Thu Jul 30 08:58:35 -0700 2009 http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/... It's not terribly well-written, but it's not bad and it goes by pretty quickly. The biggest problem is his discussion of his challenge to Chomsky's Universal Grammar. He comes off as very d...more...]]> 2 0 false false Sun Jul 12 08:08:02 -0700 2009 Sun May 31 07:36:02 -0700 2009 Sun Jul 12 08:08:02 -0700 2009 .5
...more...]]> 5 0 false false Sun May 10 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sun May 10 09:09:30 -0700 2009 Sun May 10 13:56:27 -0700 2009
Everett addresses his own reactions, his spiritual evolution from Evangelical to skeptic, the peculiarities of the language (few phonemes, supposedly ...more...]]> 4 0 false false Wed Jul 01 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Mon Jun 29 05:03:50 -0700 2009 Wed Jul 01 23:18:11 -0700 2009
They have to be one of the most interesting cultures in the modern world, and Daniel Everett spent 30 years livin...more...]]> 3 0 false false Mon Jul 06 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Fri Jul 03 20:45:24 -0700 2009 Mon Jul 06 17:10:54 -0700 2009 more...]]> http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=5879742