Karen Lahaie Anderson

Mountain Maidu Dictionary Karen Lahaie Anderson

This dictionary of the Mountain Maidu (Native California) language includes more than twice as many entries as the only other Maidu dictionary, William Shipley's 1963 Maidu Texts and Dictionary. Words and place names were gathered from more than 20 sources and compiled into one volume with one orthography. The orthography used is the easy-to-read "fish-head" writing, invented by Maidu Farrell Cunningham. This dictionary consists of a detailed Maidu-English section, providing many examples of the words used in sentences, and each word's source is listed. This is followed by an extensive English-Maidu section and five appendices. The appendices include "Building Blocks of Maidu Words," and "Maps," a section of 5 maps of Plumas and Lassen Counties with Maidu place names. This dictionary is compatible with the fish-head version of Mountain Maidu Grammar, by the same author. The latest book in this series is Modern Maidu, with about 8,000 additional words invented in 10 lessons.