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Zusammenfassung von Don’t Sleep, There Are Snakes

Name: Don’t Sleep, There Are Snakes
Rating: 4.5 (34 reviews)
Author: Daniel Everett

Daniel Everett

Life and Language in the Amazonian Jungle

4.5 (34 Bewertungen)

13 Min.

Kurz zusammengefasst

'Don't Sleep, There Are Snakes' by Daniel Everett is a captivating memoir of the author's life among the Pirahã people of the Amazon. It offers insights into the language, culture, and spiritual beliefs of this indigenous group and challenges our understanding of what it means to be human.

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What’s in it for me? Learn how to see and hear the world from an entirely new perspective.

Can you imagine what it would be like if you had no words to classify the colors you see? What if you didn’t have numbers? It would certainly alter the way you interpreted your surroundings.

If you saw six snow-white doves nestling in a dovecot, would you think of them as “six,” or even as “snow-white”? This might sound like a frivolous thought experiment, but for the Pirahã, a people in the Amazonian jungle, this is simply how things are.

The author, Daniel Everett, spent many years living with the Pirahã, isolated in the depths of the Amazonian jungle. This story isn’t a patronizing look at how these people are different from our Western norms; rather, it’s a fascinating account of their language, and how it is vastly different from anything we might be accustomed to. We will also see how their language shapes, and is shaped by, their perspectives on the world around them.

In these blinks, you’ll learn

why the phrase “don’t sleep, there are snakes” is indicative of the Pirahãn mentality;
how the Pirahã use word endings to indicate evidence behind their statements; and
why endangered languages like the Pirahã language should be preserved and studied.

The Pirahã live in the Amazonian jungle and speak a language unrelated to any other extant language.

We use language to conceptualize the world as we see it. Imagine not having a word for “worry” because no such notion exists. This is true of the Pirahã (pronounced pee-da-HAN). It’s not that their lives aren’t without hardships, they just conceive of the world differently.

The Pirahã are hunter-gatherers who live along the Maici River in the Amazonian jungle of northwestern Brazil. The Pirahã language is the last remaining dialect of the Mura language group.

The Pirahã are monolingual and probably moved to the area after their language developed. We’re confident of this because they use Portuguese loanwords, probably picked up from other tribes, to describe some of the native species of monkeys.

It’s not an easy life in the jungle – the Pirahã are a tough lot. But they also happen to be among the happiest people you’re likely to meet.

Anthropologists who have spent time with them were asked to assess them in terms of how much time they spent laughing and smiling compared to other cultures they had encountered. The carefree Pirahã reliably came out on top.

The worldview of the Pirahã is perhaps best summarized by how they wish each other “good night.”

They have several ways to say this and one of them is “don’t sleep, there are snakes.” While this is quite a peculiar way of wishing someone sweet dreams, it’s also quite matter-of-fact.

First of all, poisonous snakes do slither about in the Amazonian jungle, and the Pirahã’s bedtime advice is their way of saying that if you don’t keep your wits about you, you won’t last long. Second, it shows us how they treat sleep; they may not sleep the whole night through, but they certainly don’t lie awake paralyzed by fear, either.

Late-night conversations can be heard in the open huts, and the night air is regularly punctuated by laughter – a sign of the Pirahãn way of life.

The Pirahã don’t use numbers and have no form of counting as we know it.

While living with the Pirahã, the author, Daniel Everett, received his field supplies every eight weeks, but the Pirahã would constantly ask him when the supply plane would arrive. While this initially confused him, he eventually understood: they were astounded by his ability to know the exact day the plane would arrive.

This fascination was due to the fact that the Pirahã have no system for counting. Instead of numbers, they use comparative terms such as “bigger” or “smaller.” To them, two fish are “bigger” than one fish, just as one large fish is “bigger” than a minnow.

The Pirahã Language is as distinctive as those who speak it.

The Pirahã haven’t had much in the way of contact with other cultures. As a result, they value first-hand experience and knowledge above all else. This may be why missionary Christians have had such a tough time trying to bring the gospel to them!

Their matter-of-fact engagement with the world is echoed in the fundamentals of the Pirahã language. Let’s consider their use of suffixes, the particles added to the end of a word to modify its meaning. Take the English suffix “-ful.” This creates an adjective from a noun and gives the quality of “fullness” to it, as with “beautiful” or “colorful.”

The environment in which we grow up affects the way we see the world.

During one particular journey down the Amazon River, Everett steered his motorboat out of the way of a floating log, which can be dangerous for small boats. What he hadn’t expected, and simply hadn’t conceived of, was that the log could actually be a giant anaconda. It emerged from the water and nearly landed right in his boat.

Similarly, the Pirahã have trouble comprehending previously unencountered phenomena. To them, for example, two-dimensional images are meaningless.

Half of the world’s languages may be extinct by the end of the twenty-first century.

Have you ever wondered just how many languages there are in the world? Well, while there are a jaw-dropping 6,500 in total, about half of them are under threat and could potentially disappear within the next 50 to 100 years.

There are two ways language extinction occurs. First, languages can die out if the people who speak them are themselves at risk. This can happen through war or famine, or if foreigners start to threaten local ways of life.

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Worum geht es in Don’t Sleep, There Are Snakes?

Don’t Sleep There Are Snakes (2008) tell us about the unique culture and language of the Pirahã, an indigenous people of the Amazonian jungle who don’t use numbers, have names for colors or bother with small talk. They also laugh and smile more than most other cultures. These blinks explain what languages can tell us about the human experience and, moreover, why we shouldn’t forget how many other cultures and languages besides our own exist around the world.

Wer Don’t Sleep, There Are Snakes lesen sollte

Language enthusiasts looking to learn more
Anyone who thinks all languages are more or less the same
Citizens of the world looking to gain fresh perspectives on other cultures

Über den Autor

Daniel Everett is an American linguist and author who spent four decades living and working among the Pirahã. He is the Dean of Arts and Sciences at Bentley University in Massachusetts.

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