Customer Reviews

Dakota Grammar: With Texts and Ethnography

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This book was written in the late 19th century by a Christian who saw the eradication of "Indian" culture and the "civilizing" of "Indians" as desirable and something that would soon be accomplished. Being "American" meant not being "Indian".

The book is divided into three parts: the grammar, which is outdated and phonetically inexact; the texts, which I found interesting, since they include some Dakota myths in their original language with English translation; and ethnographic texts, which reveal their author's Christian bias.
I would recommend buying instead the New Lakota Dictionary, which has an extensive section on grammar - although it is concerned with the Lakota dialect, Dakota is similar enough that the grammatical breakdown provided in this dictionary will allow you to learn Dakota as well. The principal differences are phonetic (Dakota /md/ for Lakota /bl/, for instance) and lexical.

Riggs's book is of interest mainly as a historical curio.

This is a great addition to my collection of sioux dictionaries. I am trying to learn to speak the Ihanktowan dialect and this book has been a tremendous help when used with the other sioux language dictionaries I have. This book is absolutly necessary if you are trying to learn to speak any of the sioux dialects.