Aleut

• Knut Bergsland, Aleut Dictionary/Unangam Tunudgusii. Alaska Native Language Center, Univ. of Alaska, 1994. 739 pp. $37.50. --- An "unabridged lexicon of the Aleutian, Pribilof, and Commander Islands Aleut language," this magnificent dictionary documents all Aleut lexical forms recorded since first contact over 200 years ago, from the Orthodox missionary priests Veniaminov and Netsvetov, to early linguists like Waldemar Jochelson, to Bergsland himself, who has been working on Aleut since 1950. In addition to some 14,000 words and affixes, B. includes more than 1,600 Aleut place names (plotted on 33 maps) and more than 600 traditional men's names. Other appendices cover such topics as directions of the wind (an important topic on the Aleutians), Aleut calendars, kinship terms, and loanwords. A general introduction has information on Aleut phonology and orthography, dialect differences and developments, and even Eskimo-Aleut phonological correspondences (Eskimo cognates, where known, are given in the word entries). An English index provides quick reference. The book has the professional typographical quality, as well as the heft, of a standard dictionary of a European language, and is altogether an excellent lexicographic job. --- Order from: ANLC, Univ. of Alaska Fairbanks, P.O. Box 757680, Fairbanks, AK 99775-7680 (tel: 907/474-7874; fax: 907-474-6586). [Oct. 1994]
  
• Waldemar Jochelson (collector), Unangam Ungiikangin Kayux Tunusangin · Unangam Uniikangis Ama Tunuzangis: Aleut Tales and Narratives. Edited by Knut Bergsland & Moses Dirks. Alaska Native Language Center, 1990. 720 pp. $25. --- Jochelson's valuable collection of Aleut folklore was recorded on wax cylinders in 1909-10. Bergsland and Dirks (an Atkan Aleut) have carefully edited the 87 stories, with Aleut and English translation on facing pages. The illustrations are by the late Aleut artist Alfred Stepetin, and nearly 60 photographs are also included, many recently acquired from archives in the USSR. --- Order from ANLC at the address above. [July 1991]
  
• Alice Taff (a grad student in linguistics at the University of Washington) has developed a computer language learning program for conversational Aleut, Unangan Tunuxtakun: Aleuts are Talking, that allows the user to hear some 300 frequently used phrases and self-record for pronunciation practice. Each utterance is also written in Aleut with an English translation. To show how words are structured, each word is divided up into its meaning components. There is a section on the sounds of Aleut with practice on the sounds that are new to English speakers. Alice can send this to interested people. Contact her at: Department of Lingustics, Box 354340, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195 (tel: 206/524-3637; e-mail: taff@u.washington.edu).
  
• In 1996 the UCLA Phonetics Archives made recordings of 24 speakers of both Eastern and Western Aleut. Each person recorded a list of words to show phonemic contrasts, a list of sentences, and a short text of their own choosing. These recordings are available for the use of scholars and learners. Contact: ian@humnet.ucla.edu