Hocak Teaching Materials, Volume 1 Elements of Grammar/Learner's Dictionary

Comprehensive bilingual dictionary of the Hocąk language. The most comprehensive dictionary of the Hocąk language (formerly known as Winnebago) to date, this bidirectional Hocąk-English/English-Hocąk dictionary contains approximately 4,000 entries. Hocąk is a highly endangered North American Indian language spoken by less than two hundred people in different parts of Wisconsin and Nebraska. This dictionary and volume 2 of the Hocąk Teaching Materials are the outcome of a large project on the documentation of the Hocąk language, which was carried out in close cooperation with the Hocąk Language Division, a tribal institution for the stabilization and revitalization of the Hocąk language in Mauston, Wisconsin. The volume contains a lengthy introduction to the basics of the phonology, orthography, and morphology of the Hocąk language, written in a learner-friendly, easy-to-access style, explaining linguistic terms so that it can be used by nonlinguists. The individual lexical entries of the words are organized according to the standards of modern lexicography, containing all necessary phonetic, grammatical, and semantic information for the use of the Hocąk words. In addition, every word is provided with about three Hocąk example sentences in order to demonstrate the typical use of the words in different contexts. Also of interest are a frequency list of all words in the dictionary counted on the basis of a large corpus of Hocąk texts, and a thesaurus of all Hocąk words in the dictionary. A valuable source of information on the Hocąk language and culture, this work will appeal to linguists in general, and specialists in Native American languages, as well as anthropologists and all learners of the Hocąk language. “Collaboration between the Ho-Chunk Nation and University of Erfurt linguists yielded this and a second volume intended to teach the nation’s language. The need is urgent: a people of 6,500 contains but 200 native speakers … This is an important acquisition for reference collections supporting Native American studies and linguistics study.” ― CHOICE