Customer Reviews

The Amazonian Languages (Cambridge Language Surveys)

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The book is great if you already have a sound notion of linguistics. Even then, the languages described are so bizarre that some of the grammatical terms and phenomena will be hard to grasp from such a technical, dry work.
But it's a great book anyway. Just to see a cohesive explanation on such little known languages and ever their reconstructed proto-language is quite a trip.

The World Atlas of Language Structures shows Amazonia as an area of great linguistic interest with many very unusual features and arguably the most unusual individual languages anywhere amongst its remote (and dying) tribes. It was only natural that I should look closely for a guide to the many languages of Amazonia in an effort to understand them and explain the origin of some of their unsual characteristics.

Whilst "The Amazonian Languages" does not fail in any of its most basic tasks such as overviewing the languages of Amazonia and explaining the typical characteristics of most languages in the area, I expected more from this book. Although one does learn all the essential basics of the languages of this region, as well as what leads linguists to see Amazonia (including the Orinoco basin and eastern South America as well) as a linguistic area, there is rather too little detail about grammar beyond the basics. The unusual characteristics whose analysis I expected to find in the book were barely discussed and this is what makes the book disappointing.

On the positive side, there is quite a good discussion of the cultural role of languages and their relationship to the peoples of Amazonia. This adds to one's sense of loss that almost all of these languages are critically endangered.

I expected so much from this book that even though it offers a solid level of basics about the languages of the Amazon Basin and surrounding regions that those who can afford it should buy it, I am still a little disappointed.