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Reading and Writing the Lakota Language Book on CD
vBulletin Book Store > vBulletin books beginning with R
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Reading and Writing the Lakota Language Book on CD |
Author: Albert White Hat Sr
Published: 2007-02-01 |
List price: $18.95
Our price: $14.21
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Usually ships in 24 hours
As of: October 11th, 2008 03:22:10 PM
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Customer comments on this selection.
 Three stars for effort
As wimpy as this sounds, I agree with both the five-star and one-star reviews. As a pronunciation guide and cultural primer, this book rocks. It's clear that the author holds his language in high regard and wants to keep it alive and "pure". This fight for purity (purging words that have become a type of reservation slang) is usually a losing battle - just talk to William Safire or the French Academy. Anyway, the book presents excellent explanations of the meaning of words and the Lakota way of life. What it lacks is completeness and a true under5sanding of language learning. White Hat and some reviewers here seem to think that Lakota is somehow unique and that learning it is different from other languages. Vine Deloria's introduction would have us believe that grammar is the invention of the white man, or some such nonsense. All languages have grammar, and there's precious little grammatical explanation in this book. Often, verbs are presented only in the third person (he, she, it), which means that you have no idea about how to say I X or you X correctly. He never gets to the level of a complete explanation of object pronouns, so I can see IT, but never YOU. I would recommend Buechel's grammar to complement this book. Buechel will never teach you to pronounce correctly, or the cultural significance behind certain words, but he'll give you all the nuts and bolts despite being a white man. This book (with the CD's) is the best guide to actually pronouncing the language correctly. If you're just curious about Lakota, get this book. If you want to learn it, get this book and Buechel's grammar, to get the full picture.
 Thank You, Albert White Hat
This is easily the best language text I've seen. As Vine Deloria says in the Foreword, "Traditionally, grammar textbooks are about as exciting as military memos... Reading them is laborious to such an extreme that the reader could conclude that the Prussians are responsible for all linguistic studies." Not this book! This is the first language textbook that has made me laugh, made me cry. The stories that illustrate Lakota usage bring the language to life and place the student among a great people. Not many pages into this book and you will realize that this was written by a truly good and wise man. Thanks to the perfectly clear CD and the excellent presentation, I am thrilled by the progress I am making in Lakota Iyapi. (If you are interested in doing your written exercises on the computer, you can find free computer input software for Lakota at http://www.languagegeek.com/siouan/keyboards/si_kbds.html )
Thank you, Albert White Hat, Sr. , for this wonderful book.
Not meant for self-study
Mr. White Hat should be commended for the outstanding job he did combing the inseparable concepts of language and culture. Unfortunately, many of the cultural tidbits were personal anecdotes, which detracted from the flow of language learning. There are hundreds of books on the market he could have studied to format the book in a more approachable manner. The pronunciation of Lakhota phonemes is scattered throughout the chapters, there is no glossary in alphabetical order in the back, the dialogs are barely useful and the list goes on and on. His own orthography is not in Unicode and is overly burdened with diacritical marks. Other books, all be they written for teaching children, such as the Ullrich texts, use a much simpler orthography and attain the same goal of teaching the correct pronunciation. The Ullrich books also use a very useful acute accent on every single word to indicate stress. One of the female voices on the White Hat cd is not a native speaker and her pronunciation is so horrible, I can't believe they used her.
Experienced language learners will be annoyed at the round-about way White Hat describes grammar. He sounds as if he's not really sure of himself and covers with making philosophical remarks.
Despite all I've said, it is of utmost importance that more people learn Native American languages. Lakhota is a real treat for those who are language enthusiasts, people interested in our country's diversity or a Lakhota. Lakhota is no more difficult than many European languages and has many fascinating grammatical concepts and ways of saying things, that will excite the arm-chair linguist. Buy the White Hat textbook, but don't expect to go happily from one lesson to another as one is typically able with, for instance, the British Teach Yourself books.
 Interesting language
This book provides cultural information in the choice of words and phrases taught, thereby giving greater feeling to the language than just the literal translation. However, the pronunciation guide is a bit difficult to understand to achieve the correct sounds. The casettes of the same title are needed for learning the sounds and intonation. It does procede a bit fast for anyone who has no experience learning other languages, but not unreasonably so. It is harder than Spanish or French, but easier than Russian or Japanese. I recommend getting the book and casettes together.
 Not worth the money
The book is partially a plagiarism of the Colorado University Lakota textbook by Rood&Taylor (published in early 1970s). But it is contains only a very limited size of vocabulary and grammar. The exercises are not contextual at all. No real methodology, minimal structure. A lot of "folk-etymology" (not proper recognition of word origin).
The worst feature of the book is certainly the orthography - it is extremely confusing and based on English sounds. Only few of the cultural sections are relevant, most are quasi-authentic.
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