Tuesday 6 February 2007

Alfred Carrada Dictionary of the Taíno Language


Okay you polyglots -- ready to learn a new language? My dear friend, Taíno Artifact Collector and Historian Alfred Carrada has released his on-line dictionary of the pre-Columbian, Caribbean Basin, Taíno Language. http://www.alfredcarrada.org/

Alfredo's passion for the Taíno culture is contagious:

"I started collecting Island-Arawak (Taino) artifacts more that twenty years ago. Although I grew up in the West Indies I did not become fully acquainted with this culture until I made a holiday trip to Santo Domingo in the late Seventies. I became fascinated and bewitched by the beautiful and intriguing objects made by the Taino artisans, and collecting these objects became a passion that took a life of its own."

This beautiful website was designed by Italian artist Mauro Philip Conti [http://www.mauroconti.com/menu.html].

Alfredo is responsible for introducing me to the scholarship of Barry Cunliffe, which figures large in my conceptualizations of pan-Celtic cultural tropes. [Facing the Ocean: the Atlantic and Its Peoples 8000 BC-AD 1500 - By Barry Cunliffe, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2001. viii plus 600 pp. $45/25 pounds sterling]

For an intersting discussion of Cunliffe and the Celts see:
http://www.oup.co.uk/academic/humanities/classical_studies/viewpoint/barry_cunliffe/

1 comment:

Priv� Tours said...

I am very intrigued by the original Taino language spoken by my ancestors. Thank you for this article I will check the website mentioned.
Ricky