Alabama

• Cora Sylestine, Heather K. Hardy, & Timothy Montler, Dictionary of the Alabama Language. Univ. of Texas Press, 1993. 768 pp. $35. --- This magnificent, "state-of-the art" analytical dictionary, made possible by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, includes over 8,000 entries for roots, stems, and compounds. Each entry contains precise definitions, full grammatical analyses, agreement and other part-of-speech classifications, variant pronunciations, example sentences, and extensive cross-references. An English-Alabama finder list functions as a full index to the definitions in the Alabama-English section. This is undoubtedly the fullest dictionary of any Muskogean language, and is a tribute to Cora Sylestine, Alabama tribal member and teacher, who began independently working on a dictionary of her native language long before teaming up with Hardy and Montler in the 1980s. (Sadly, Mrs. Sylestine died in a tragic accident before her dictionary was typeset. See SSILA Newsletter X:2, July 1991, p.3.) --- Order from: Sales Dept., Univ. of Texas Press, P.O. Box 7819, Austin, TX 78713-7819 (tel: 1-800-252-3206). Add $2 postage. [April 1993]