In this dictionary of the Nez Perce language, linguist Haruo Aoki illustrates how each word is used by citing examples from published Nez Perce oral literature. In addition, Aoki retranscribes and incorporates words from earlier publications that are recognized by today's Nez Perce speakers. The dictionary includes an English-Nez Perce index, appendixes listing phonosymbolic words and Nez Perce animal and plant names, and illustrations from Nez Perce life. Originally published in 1994, the Nez Perce Dictionary continues to be a reference and resource for new generations of speakers and scholars.

A collection of essays about the theory and practice of Native American lexicography, and more specifically the making of dictionaries, by some of the top scholars working in Native American language studies.

This book provides an authoritative survey of the several hundred languages indigenous to North America. These languages show tremendous genetic and typological diversity, and offer numerous challenges to current linguistic theory. Part I of the book provides an overview of structural features of particular interest, concentrating on those that are cross-linguistically unusual or unusually well developed. These include syllable structure, vowel and consonant harmony, tone, and sound symbolism; polysynthesis, the nature of roots and affixes, incorporation, and morpheme order; case; grammatical distinctions of number, gender, shape, control, location, means, manner, time, empathy, and evidence; and distinctions between nouns and verbs, predicates and arguments, and simple and complex sentences; and special speech styles. Part II catalogues the languages by family, listing the location of each language, its genetic affiliation, number of speakers, major published literature, and structural highlights. Finally, there is a catalogue of languages that have evolved in contact situations.

This book represents a new vista, looking past the days when there were two distinct groups-those who were studied and those who studied them. This history of the Umatilla, Cayuse, and Walla Walla people had its beginnings in October 2000, when elders sat side by side with native students and native and non-native scholars to compare notes on tribal history and culture. Through this collaborative process, tribal members of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation have taken on their own historical retellings, drawing on the scholarship of non-Indians as a useful tool and external resource. Primary to this history are native voices telling their own story. Beginning with ancient teachings and traditions, moving to the period of first contact with Euro-Americans, the Treaty council, war, and the reservation period, and then to today's modern tribal governance and the era of self-determination, the tribal perspective takes center stage. Throughout, readers will see continuity in the culture and in ways of life that have been present from the earliest times, all on the same landscape. Wiyaxayxt (Columbia River Sahaptin) and Wiyaakaa'awn (Nez Perce) can be interpreted to mean "as the days go by," "day by day," or "daily living." They represent the meaning of the English term "history" in two of the common languages still spoken on the Umatilla Indian Reservation.