Customer Reviews

Languages of the Pre-Columbian Antilles

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It's a great book in an effort to preserve a almost dead language that is slowly fading into history. We must do our part in preserving what little we do have. This book is a start.

It's easy to say something is "one of the best" when there are (lamentably) so few comparable works with which to compare it -- but I think this book would still be one of the best even were the field much larger. For Granberry is a master of this topic, and any minor questionable issues (e.g. for comparative purposes, treating English as a creole, which indeed some have argued it is, but it is probably fair to say the consensus view is less certain that Granberry treats it) are far more than made up for the the vast experience which Granberry brings to the topics treated. The book is essentially a series of revised articles or essays written by Granberry and/or his co-author, the late Gary Vescelius, treating different aspect of Caribbean prehistory with a focus on the speakers of Taíno, the region's dominant Maipurean language at the time of the European conquest/colonization. Granberry builds of a picture of the ethnolinguistic situation in the region and puts forward a model of migration and cultural change over a long period of Caribbean prehistory -- a model which, one imagines, might well be questioned in certain aspects, but Granberry's stated purpose is more to put forward testable hypotheses based on our current (and lamentably incomplete) state of linguistic and archaeological knowledge, rather than to set a particular vision in stone. And the models and explanations Granberry puts forward are sufficiently detailed and technical to appeal to the specialist in linguistics and/or archaeology, yet still accessible enough (IMO!) to appeal to the seriously interested amateur. Some small background in historical linguistics or archaeology, such as might be had from any undergraduate course or even textbook of independent study would be helpful, but no special knowledge of the region or its cultures is necessary. This book itself serves as an ample -- and fascinating -- introduction to a rich and undeservedly neglected area of study.