Full Description
The Austrian naturalist and explorer Johann Natterer (1787-1843) earned his renown as one of the world's greatest collectors of indigenous artifacts and natural treasures—mainly expertly prepared specimens—which he dispatched to the Imperial Court in Vienna. Yet, a parallel endeavour, scarcely known beyond specialist circles, was no less ambitious. Over the course of eighteen years of travel through the Brazilian interior and neighbouring regions, Natterer undertook a meticulous documentation of the languages spoken by the indigenous nations he encountered. The results of this extraordinary enterprise are presented here for the first time.
In this volume you will find transcriptions with English translations of more than seventy annotated vocabularies, recorded by Natterer among a broad range of Amazonian peoples and preserved in the University Library of Basel (Switzerland). Remarkable for their authenticity and faithful representation, these materials provide an exceptional view of the linguistic and cultural diversity that existed in Amazonia when most of its languages were still unknown to the wider world.
