The New Oxford Picture Dictionary: English-Navajo Editon (The New Oxford Picture Dictionary (1988 ed.)) [Paperback]

E. C. Parnwell (Author), Marvin Yellowhair (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0194343626 | ISBN-13: 978-0194343626 | Publication Date: March 1, 1990

Published in 1988, this dictionary continues to be a favorite of many teachers.

Product Details

• Paperback: 152 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA (March 1, 1990)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0194343626
• ISBN-13: 978-0194343626
• Product Dimensions: 9.9 x 7.8 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #769,886 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #5 in Books > Education & Reference > Dictionaries & Thesauruses > Foreign Language > Navajo
  • #31 in Books > Education & Reference > Dictionaries & Thesauruses > Geography

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Dubious and inappropriate., May 8, 2000

By 

Sean Burke (Ketchikan, Alaska, United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The New Oxford Picture Dictionary: English-Navajo Editon (The New Oxford Picture Dictionary (1988 ed.)) (Paperback)

I'm not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, esp. given the dearth of teaching materials for any Native languages. But being shown how to say "brandy snifter" or "Pluto" in Navajo does make one wonder about the cultural applicability of these endeavors.

(This reminds me of the Duden dictionaries that used the same illustration-templates for every edition -- based on the German -- so that in the English-Thai edition, we could all be shown how to say "serving pot for boiled potatoes" in languages whose cultures had no such concept.)

In short, I worry that this is very inappropriate for Navajo culture. It may have /some/ useful vocabulary in it, but on the whole it seems very unreliable.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent resource, January 15, 2011

By 

Katy Johnson - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The New Oxford Picture Dictionary: English-Navajo Editon (The New Oxford Picture Dictionary (1988 ed.)) (Paperback)

There aren't many references out there pertaining to the navajo language. Having a picture dictionary makes learning the words easier and more enjoyable. Yes it does look outdated due to the fact it was published in the late 80's but it is very thorough and makes memorization easier when you connect the word with the visual.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Useful for learning nouns in a visual way, September 10, 2010

By 

Almelle (Virginia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The New Oxford Picture Dictionary: English-Navajo Editon (The New Oxford Picture Dictionary (1988 ed.)) (Paperback)

As one of the other reviewers indicates, I at first thought this book would be mostly useless -- translations for sea creatures and English fighter planes don't seem to be of much use in rural Navajoland. However, I find this very useful as a complement to other dictionaries, and it's also the most engaging for children to page through.

While a standard set of words means that some that don't apply to Navajo lives, the English and Navajo indexes in the back are great, and make it easy to look up a majority of the object nouns that you might need in learning Navajo.

Also, one greatly needed improvement for the index would be to add a phonetic pronunciation guide for the Navajo words -- oddly, there are phonetic guides to English in the back, but not to Navajo!