Cherokee-English Dictionary/ᏣᎳᎩ-ᏲᏁᎦ ᏗᏕᏠᏆᏍᏙᏗ/Tsalagi-Yonega Didehlogwasdohdi

Alternate Language Names

Tsalagi (ᏣᎳᎩ), ᏣᎳᎩ ᎦᏬᏂᎯᏍᏗ, Tsalagi Gawonihisdi, Giduwa.

Region

North Carolina, Alabama, Oklahoma, and California, United States.

Who

Durbin Feeling (Author of Dictionaries and Grammar); William Pulte (Author of Grammar).

Others Involved

William Pulte (Editor); Agnes Cowen (Dictionary Project Coordinator and Cherokee Bilingual Education Program Director); Charles Sanders (Chairman of The Dictionary Committee); Sam Hair, Annie Meigs, Anna Gritts Kilpatrick Smith (The Dictionary Committee); Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma (Supporter); Wesley Proctor, Dow Robinson, Loren Nussbaum, Shirley Owl, Willard Walker (Contributor); Eunice Pike, Bill Cook (Language Consultant); Martin Cochran (Cover and Lettering Designer); Faynell Mills (Cherokee Bilingual Education Program Director); Herbert Bacon (Former Cherokee Bilingual Education Program Director); Adalene Smith, Wilma Guess (Typists); Sequoyah (Syllabary Creator).

Publishing Information

This resource was published in 1975 by the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma.

How People are Cited

People are cited in the Acknowledgements section and in the Introduction to the grammar at the end of the dictionary.

How Information is Cited

This resource doesn’t cite information sources other than the people who are cited in the Acknowledgements.

Where is Information Coming from

Information seems to come primarily from people cited in the Acknowledgements section and the grammar. Further information comes from previous resources.

Tools and Framework used

This dictionary is available as a physical book.

Access

This dictionary is accessible through select libraries.

Included Languages and Directionality

Cherokee to English; English to Cherokee.

Dialects Included

This appears to be a dictionary of the Western (ie., Overhill, Otali, or ᎣᏔᎵ) dialect of Cherokee.

Type of Dictionary

This dictionary is a bilingual, bidirectional dictionary which includes a grammar at the end.

How are Entries Organised

The dictionary begins with a guide to pronunciation, going over how the English alphabet is used to write out Cherokee words, and pitch. Next is a section on how to use the dictionary, explaining how to locate entries and navigate them. It ends with a guide to symbols and abbreviations.

The next section in the dictionary is the Cherokee to English Dictionary. Entries in this section are organized in alphabetical order by Cherokee word written in the English alphabet. The Cherokee word is written first using the English alphabet, then in the Syllabary, a traditional form of Cherokee writing explained within the section on The Use of the Dictionary. This is followed by an abbreviation of what kind of word the entry is. All abbreviations and their meanings can be found in the Symbols and Abbreviations part of the dictionary. The English definition follows the abbreviation. If more than one definition exists in English, they are numbered and listed one after the other, each with their own abbreviation. English definitions are followed by example sentences which present the word in context. The example sentence is written in Cherokee using the English alphabet, in Cherokee using the Syllabary, and in English. If the word is cross-referenced to related forms, they are listed at the bottom of the entry. If the entry is a noun, it may have a plural form which will be included in the entry for the noun. The organization of verb entries begins the same way as for other words. It includes all of the components mentioned above, but also contains many sub-entries which provide different forms of the verb such as first person singular (first sub-entry), the third person singular non-progressive remote past tense (second sub-entry), the third person singular present habitual form (third sub-entry), the imperative form (fourth sub-entry), and the infinitive form (fifth sub-entry). More information about verb entries can be found in the section of the dictionary on Sub-Entries for Verbs. For adjective entries, “the form which would modify a noun in the third person singular is used as the main entry for each adjective,” and plural forms are sub-entries. If the adjective modifies both animate and inanimate nouns, the form that modifies animate nouns comes first.

The English to Cherokee Dictionary which follows is quite different from the Cherokee to English one. This section is a wordlist organised alphabetically by English word. The entry begins with the underlined English term first, then the Cherokee translation using the English alphabet and the syllabary. All number and day translations are listed at the end of the wordlist. This wordlist is intended to support the Cherokee to English dictionary which precedes it, not to be a stand-alone resource.

At the end of the resource is a grammar which is intended to be used alongside the Cherokee to English dictionary. The grammar is divided into several sections. The first section covers the verb and is further divided into Initial Prefixes. These are followed by Paradigm One: “to tie up” which uses the verb “to tie up” as an example to showcase all different forms of the verb in terms of direction, number of people, perspective, temporality, etc. This is followed by paradigms 2-7 which follow the same format. Paradigm Eight: “to hit,” past tense only covers the past tense of the verb “to hit”. This is followed by sub-sections on suffixes and verb tenses. Paradigms on different verbs and tenses follow. Section Two covers nouns, including paradigms on how nouns can be expressed in different scenarios and with different suffixes. The section also covers different forms of nouns such as compound nouns or nouns derived from infinitive verb forms. All sub-sections contain demonstrative paradigms. Section Three of the grammar covers parts of speech. The section is broken up into a part on pronouns, adjectives, prepositions, and interjections. All parts contain demonstrative paradigms. Section Four of the grammar contains some notes on Cherokee syntax. These include notes on negative sentences, questions, coordination, subordination, possession, and word order. The final part of this section includes a text written in Cherokee with the English alphabet, Cherokee with the Syllabary, and English.

Other Features

Other Notes

This dictionary was included in the Cherokee-English Dictionary Online Database created by the CED-Online Project Development Team.