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Atakapa-Ishak language book

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Yil tol, wi šokipen (Good day, my friends)

We are in the final stages of preparing our Atakapa-Ishak Grammar and Dictionary. I truly hope to have it published and available by fall of this year. But in the meantime, Justin and I would still like to ask for your help in getting us to the finish line. As you know, we are preparing this book for the benefit of the Atakapa-Ishak nation so that the Atakapa-Ishak people can relearn their heritage language. We, like I’m sure many of you, would like to hear the language spoken again. But the Atakapa-Ishak nation is not in a financial position to fund this work, and we have no grant funding, so Justin and I are preparing this book at our own expense in the limited amount of time we each have as we work on other jobs and projects to get our bills paid.

I will let Justin speak for the details of what he is still working on with the Grammar, but as for the Dictionary, my part of the book, I continue adding vocabulary items, some of which are well hidden in the forest of Swanton’s (1932) long, meandering entries. I’m also adding example sentences to various entries, adding cultural information where it is known, cross-referencing vocabulary items for ease of look-up, and, perhaps most importantly, undertaking the tedious task of inserting Swanton’s page number to each entry of my Dictionary so that one can easily find Swanton’s original entry in the original 1932 dictionary. Also, I will add appendices for numbers, plant and animal names, kinship terms, etc., that will allow you to easily look these up without searching the whole Dictionary. (These sections can also easily be copied for use in a classroom or for the individual learner.)

So, once again we ask you, our generous supporters who have helped us in the past, if you’d be willing to make another donation to us and this project so we can buy printer ink, paper, and other supplies to keep us going. We are asking for a total of $400, which, as usual, Justin and I will share, splitting donations in half evenly (thus $200 each, if we get the whole amount).

Thank you for your support, and please pass this along to anyone you think might be able to help us out!

Hiwew-cel (We thank you)!

David Kaufman and Justin Southworth

Organizer

David Kaufman
Organizer
Milwaukee, WI

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