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Arguably, the best way to learn another language is by listening to native speakers. The problem with pronouncing written words is that one must understand the orthography, that is, the spelling system being used. Even with an orthography, pronunciation can be problematic in the absence of a native speaker for reference. Spelling is far from standardized for Lakota--after all, it was only in the late 1800's that Lakota became a written language--so it is difficult for readers who don't know the language. Before the advent of written language, Lakota history was recorded by the Winter Count, a pictorial interpretation of the year's events. Oral histories were passed from father to son and from grandfather to grandson. The Winter Count provided illustration for each story. The Smithsonian Institute has an excellent interactive Flash movie on the Winter Count. Born in the late 1800's, Fr. Eugene Buechel was an extraordinary missionary in his day. Rather than spend all of his time trying to force the Lakota people into a European mold, Buechel instead studied their existing culture, language and spirituality, three major components of any civilization. Buechel recognized that he was living amongst civilized and intelligent human beings with a rich history of their own that dated back thousands of years, a history that should be protected for the unborn generations. Accordingly, he preserved a collection of Winter Counts. Recognizing the limitations of the Winter Count, Buechel expanded upon an orthography previously developed by Stephen R. Riggs, so that each phoneme of Lakota would be represented by its own letter. Of course, this poses a problem because the Roman alphabet doesn't have enough letters to represent every sound used in Lakota. Buechel adapted the Roman alphabet by adding various diacritical marks to the closest English equivalents, giving each sound its own unique letter to represent it phonetically. For example, s is always unvoiced, as in snake, never as in was. An ś with the addition of a diacritic always has the sound heard in the word pressure. A c always has the sound heard in the word cello (represented by ch in English), never as in city or country. In one instance, Buechel used a letter with no Lakota equivalent. There are no Lakota words with the sound of j as heard in the word jump, so he used it to represent the sound of s as heard in the word pleasure. The addition of a special character resembling a letter n with a tail descending from the right side denotes the nasalization of vowels. For example, the letter combination aƞ indicates a nasalized a. Few Lakota words are terminated by a vowel followed by the letter n, so it's a pretty sure bet that the n is actually being used to denote nasalization of the preceding vowel. In addition to phonetic representation of vowels and consonants, accents indicate the syllable given the greatest emphasis when spoken. Most Lakota words have the accent on the second syllable but not all. Just as in English, some Lakota words change meaning if the accent is changed. An example of this can be found in the English words présent vs. presént. Buechel painstakingly took handwritten notes and compiled them into a dictionary of over 30,000 words and an accompanying grammar textbook. To this day they are regarded by many as the most comprehensive authority on the Lakota language. The books are peppered with examples of speech and cultural notes that provide an invaluable resource to the serious student. It is because of his attention to detail that my personal preference is for the Buechel orthography, besides the fact that it’s the one I am most familiar with.. Nevertheless there were and are, of course, others who have made similar contributions. One such contemporary is Albert White Hat Sr., author and professor of Lakota Studies at Sínte Gléśka University in Rosebud, South Dakota. You can see similarities and differences in a side-by-side comparison of various orthographies as seen in written texts. There is also a letter chart of orthographies. What are most important, however, are the language itself and the consistency with which it is rendered in text, not the promotion of a particular orthography over another. Another thing that must be kept in mind is that any dictionary or other reference is a snapshot of the language frozen in time, whereas Lakota is like any other living language; it evolves over time. Thus, Buechel’s books provide an invaluable window into the past, preserving the language as it was spoken at the beginning of the 20th century, but contemporary Lakota is best learned from a contemporary authority such as White Hat. Lakota fonts - The pages I have created include an embedded font that will download and install itself automatically if you are using Internet Explorer version 4 or higher, but the font will only work with these pages. To properly view external pages (or these, if you are using Firefox), I recommend downloading and installing the AbRoman font. It's free and it only takes a few minutes to install. Lakota pronunciation guide - a list of vowels and consonants and English descriptions of their sounds An external site with Lakota words and phrases - a mostly commercial site but still worth peeking at This external language site provides a large list of English words with Lakota translations. Unfortunately, it is also a prime example of the ambiguity that results from using only the Roman alphabet to spell Lakota words. Without knowing a specific word in advance, it is difficult if not impossible to know if a vowel should be nasalized, whether a consonant is hard or soft, whether an s is pronounced as in see or as in she, etc. This external language
site complements the previously mentioned site, providing a large list of Lakota words with their English
translations. Additional resources: Voice Your Opinion Without Fear -
a contemporary Lakota essay with interactive dictionary |
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