“Another step in the right direction”: Lakota Language Consortium release third edition of the New Lakota Dictionary
Mackenzie Dahlberg | NewsCenter1 | December 15, 2022
RAPID CITY, S.D. – The Lakota Language Consortium (LLC) released the third edition of the New Lakota Dictionary Thursday at Prairie Edge.
With 21,000 previously undocumented words, this dictionary is the largest of its kind in North America.
More than 400 fluent native speakers were interview by LLC for the new dictionary.
“We are doing all that we can. All hands on deck to keep out language alive,” Alex FireThunder, Deputy Director of the Lakota Language Consortium, said. “Our fluent speakers are all getting older. A lot of them have sadly passed away in the last five to 10 years, especially in the last couple of years with the COVID pandemic.”
“We are doing all that we can. All hands on deck to keep out language alive,” Alex FireThunder, Deputy Director of the Lakota Language Consortium, said. “Our fluent speakers are all getting older. A lot of them have sadly passed away in the last five to 10 years, especially in the last couple of years with the COVID pandemic.”
“Due to a lot of other factors and reasons, the language hasn’t been transferred from generation to generation,” FireThunder said. “There’s a lot of purposeful efforts that have you know, though colonialism. It’s an ongoing fight to keep our language alive. So this dictionary and the addition of these previously undocumented words, it’s just another step in the right direction to ensuring their language continues to be passed on and to be spoke, to be learned, to be used.”
