Many indigenous American languages face imminent extinction, and the dictionary, often the only written documentation of these languages, stands as a powerful tool in preserving them. These essays, written by leading scholars in Native American language studies, provide a comprehensive picture of the theory and practice of Native American lexicography. The contributors discuss the technical, social, and personal challenges involved with the complex task of creating a dictionary of a Native American language. The book is also the first of its kind to address both standard and new issues surrounding the challenging task of transforming oral languages in general into written dictionaries. Making Dictionaries will be an invaluable source for those involved with all aspects of documenting and understanding endangered languages and for the increasing number of native communities engaged in language reclamation and preservation efforts.CONTENTS:I. FORM AND MEANING IN THE DICTIONARY1. Theoretical and Universal Implications of Certain Verbal Entries in Dictionaries of the Misumalpa LanguagesKen Hale and Danilo Salamanca2. Morphology in Cherokee Lexicography: The Cherokee-English DictionaryWilliam Pulte and Durbin Feeling3. Lexical Fuctions as a Heuristic for HuicholJoseph E. Grimes4. Entries for Verbs in American Indian Language LexicographyPamela Munro5. Multiple Assertions, Grammatical Constructions, Lexical Pragmatics, and the Eastern Ojibwa-Chippewa-Ottowa DictionaryRichard A. RhodesII. ROLE OF THE DICTIONARY IN INDIGENOUS COMMUNITIES6. Issues of Standardization and Community in Aboriginal Language LexicographyKeren Rice and Leslie Saxon7. A Dictionary for Whom? Tensions between Academic and Nonacademic Functions of Bilingual DictionariesLeanne Hinton and William F. Weigel8. Language Renewal and the Technologies of Literacy and Postliteracy: Reflections from Western MonoPaul V. KroskrityIII. TECHNOLOGY AND DICTIONARY DESIGN9. An Interactive Dictionary and Text Corpus for Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century NahuatlUna Canger10. What's in a Word? The Whys and What Fors of a Nahuatl DictionaryJonathan D. Amith11. The Comparative Siouan DictionaryDavid S. Rood and John E. KoontzIV. SPECIFIC PROJECTS AND PERSONAL ACCOUNTS12. Writing a Nez Perce DictionaryHaruo Aoki13. On Publishing the Hopi DictionaryKenneth C. Hill14. Writing a User-Friendly DictionaryCatherine A. Callaghan15. The NAPUS (Native American Placenames of the United States) Project: Principles and ProblemsWilliam Bright16. Alonso de Molina as LexicographerMary L. Clayton and R. Joe CampbellBibliographyList of ContributorsIndex