Book 2 Post 1

For the Book 2 blog posts, I chose to read The Wayfinders: Why Ancient Wisdom Matters in the Modern World by Wade Davis. Out of the list of choices, this book intrigued me the most based on the description. I previously took an Intro to Anthropology course and found learning about ancient cultures to be super interesting. We studied the cultures of the Yanomamo, an indigenous group located along the border of Venezuela and Brazil, the Dobe Ju/'hoansi from the Kalahari Desert, and the Ancient Egyptians. However, since then I have not really looked into other cultures like these and reading this book gives me a great opportunity to do so. 

I'm still going through the first chapter but what has to stood out to me so far is the discussion around the death of ancient languages. Davis states that ancient languages are dying at an alarming rate of roughly every two weeks and will not be passed down. This means that in a generation or two, we will be witnessing the loss of "nearly half of the social, cultural, and intellectual legacy" according to Davis. Unlike Latin, which still exists in some form, these languages will never evolve and will be erased entirely. This realization evokes a sense of sadness and demonstrates how something as seemingly simple as language holds such a profound importance in capturing the essence of a culture.