Beschreibung:
<jats:p>Having been in the first instance a classical scholar, Wilfred Whiteley well knew how important vernacular texts are for an understanding of a people's thought and values. He was also that rare combination of anthropologist and linguist and saw therefore in texts much more than phonetic, grammatical, lexicographical, and other purely linguistic problems, but also the semantic, which in effect means ethnographical, questions raised by them. He saw clearly that a people's whole way of life, and the way they see it, may be revealed in a single text. Consequently, and apart from their significance for the ethnographer who recorded vernacular texts among (generally) a pre-literate people, they can be, especially if presented in both vernacular and with a competent translation, of considerable pedagogic value, the student asking himself such questions as arise from their content.</jats:p>