Dena'ina Topical Dictionary

book cover showing a mountain and lake, with smaller inset images of people and historic artifacts

"Many special ecological niches contribute to the diverse Dena'ina lexicon. The set of more than eighty month names reflects the mixing of maritime and continentall climates. Bird distributions and names for birds are often restricted to one or two dialects. The fish inventories vary greatly in the dialect areas. The marine-oriented biota such as beluga, seal, sea otter, and marine fishes and shellfish are found in almost no other Athabascan languages." -James Kari, 2007


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Summary

This is a dictionary of the Dena'ina Athabascan language of Cook Intlet Basin and the southern Alaska Range. Vocabulary lists arranged by topic provide a panoramic view of the central cultural and ecological concepts of the Dena'ina. In terms of breadth of subjects, technical specificity, dialect coverage, and illustrations, this is the most refined topical lexicon in existence for an Alaska Native language and for any language in the Athabascan family.


Publication Details

Author: James Kari, Professor Emeritus of Linguistics, University of Alaska Fairbanks
Publisher: Alaska Native Language Center
1st Edition: 2007
2nd Edition: 2014

Last updated: September 20, 2016

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