Dictionary of Louisiana Creole [Hardcover]

Albert Valdman (Editor), Thomas A. Klingler (Editor), Kevin J. Rottet (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 1998

This important reference work is compiled from existing written sources dating back to 1850 and from material collected in Bayou Teche, the German Coast, Pointe Coupee, and St. Tammany Parish. The dictionary features: a Detailed User's Guide including details on orthography and design of the dictionary articles; a grammatical sketch of the language; guide to variant pronunciations; English and French meaning equivalents; Creole contextual examples; identification of where examples were collected, with special notation for historical items (pre-1960); two indexes: A French-Creole index and an English-Creole index. With rich cultural information, many examples illustrate folklore, traditional medicine, religious beliefs, agricultural practices, and the like.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Remarkable. A unique record of Louisiana French Creole. The introduction itself is an important contribution to creolistics. This valuable dictionary should be of wide interest to Creole scholars, French and U. S. cultural historians, and students of the French language. There is nothing else like it." Glenn Gilbert "Valdman and his team of researchers have done what seemed an insurmountable task. Although few native speakers of Creole are left, this dictionary of Louisiana Creole will give renewed life to a language dangerously close to extinction." Choice

Language Notes

Text: English, Creole, French

Product Details

• Hardcover: 672 pages
• Publisher: Indiana University Press (November 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0253334519
• ISBN-13: 978-0253334510
• Product Dimensions: 10.3 x 7.3 x 1.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,556,974 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

33 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Impressive, May 17, 1999

By 

Sean Burke (Ketchikan, Alaska, United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Dictionary of Louisiana Creole (Hardcover)

This is by far the best dictionary of any of the French creoles I've seen to date. As such, it's a must-buy for people interested in Louisiana Creole or any of the other French Creoles, Cajun, general French dialects, or dialects of American English in general, and certainly in Southern US dialects or Black Vernacular English. (In fact, until someone puts this kind of work into a Haitian lexicon, the /Dictionary of Louisiana Creole/ might have to do if you need a nice big Haitian-English-Haitian lexicon.)

This lexicon uses a coherent phonemic orthography, has a wide base of sources, and has lots and lots of example sentences (something I always appreciate). The lexicon deals well with lexical variation, which is a problem area in any dictionary of Creole. The lexicon is well printed -- in organization of entries, choice of font faces and sizes, and in quality of reproduction. And, altho it's new and only time will tell, it seems well bound.

The notable parts of this edition are:

* An about 20 page grammar sketch of the language.

* About ten pages on using the dictionary, orthography, and bibliography.

* About 470 pages comprising the creole lexicon. Each entry here consists notably of the Creole headword (and alternate forms); translation into American English; translation into Modern French; and example sentences in Creole (each translated into American English, but not into French). Then if there are subentries, those are listed too, with their own translations and examples. There are abbreviations noting the source of the data.

* An English-to-Creole index. About 80 pages.

* A French-to-Creole index. About 80 pages.