A Death in the Rainforest: How a Language and a Way of Life

A Death in the Rainforest: How a Language and a Way of Life Came to an End in Papua New Guinea

â€œPerhaps the finest and most profound account of ethnographic fieldwork and discovery that has ever entered the anthropological literature.â€
â€”The Wall Street Journal

â€œIf you want to experience a profoundly different culture without the exhausting travel (to say nothing of the cost), this is an excellent choice.â€
â€”The Washington PostÂ As a young anthropologist, Don KulickÂ went to the tiny village of Gapun in New Guinea to document the death ofÂ the nativeÂ language, Tayap. He arrived knowing that you canâ€™t study a language withoutÂ understanding the dailyÂ lives of the people who speak it: how they talk toÂ their children, how they argue, how they gossip, how they joke.Â Over the courseÂ of thirty years, he returned again and again to document Tayap before itÂ disappeared entirely, and heÂ found himself inexorably drawn into their world,Â and implicated in their destiny. Kulick wanted to tell the story ofÂ Gapunersâ€”oneÂ that went beyond the particulars and uses of their languageâ€”that took fullÂ stock of their vanishingÂ culture. This book takes us inside the village as he cameÂ to know it, revealing what it is like to live in a difficult-to-get-to villageÂ of two hundred people, carved out like a cleft in the middle of a tropicalÂ rainforest. ButÂ A Death in the RainforestÂ is also an illuminating look at the impact of Western culture onÂ the farthestÂ reaches of the globe and the story of why this anthropologist realized finallyÂ that he had to give up his study of this languageÂ and this village.

An engaging, deeply perceptive, and brilliant interrogationÂ of what it means to study a culture,Â A Death in theÂ RainforestÂ takesÂ readers into a world that endures in the face of massive changes, one that isÂ on the verge ofÂ disappearing forever.
Country USA
Manufacturer Algonquin Books
Binding Kindle Edition
ReleaseDate 2019-06-18
Format Kindle eBook

Country	USA
Manufacturer	Algonquin Books
Binding	Kindle Edition
ReleaseDate	2019-06-18
Format	Kindle eBook

A Death in the Rainforest: How a Language and a Way of Life Came to an End in Papua New Guinea

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