Reading and Writing the Lakota Language: Lakota Lyapi UN Wowapi

Rating:
Summary: Albert, lila tanyan ecannu welo.
Review: Excellent workbook for Lakota Language teachers.The book has very good cultural information in it. Ata co welo!

Rating:
Summary: An uncommon language lesson
Review: From the start, Albert White Hat makes it clear that learning Lakota is more than just a linguistic exercise. As he writes in his introduction: "When we teach a language to a student, we should develop in that student another heart and another mind." And indeed, these are lessons in Lakota culture from the ground up, introducing the Lakota heart and mind through their expression in basic grammatical relations. And from the very beginning, White Hat makes it a compelling journey.

Rating:
Summary: An uncommon language lesson
Review: From the start, Albert White Hat makes it clear that learning Lakota is more than just a linguistic exercise. As he writes in his introduction: "When we teach a language to a student, we should develop in that student another heart and another mind." And indeed, these are lessons in Lakota culture from the ground up, introducing the Lakota heart and mind through their expression in basic grammatical relations. And from the very beginning, White Hat makes it a compelling journey.

Rating:
Summary: An uncommon language lesson
Review: From the start, Albert White Hat makes it clear that learning Lakota is more than just a linguistic exercise. As he writes in his introduction: "When we teach a language to a student, we should develop in that student another heart and another mind." And indeed, these are lessons in Lakota culture from the ground up, introducing the Lakota heart and mind through their expression in basic grammatical relations. And from the very beginning, White Hat makes it a compelling journey.

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Summary: Extremely useful for the study of Lakota Language
Review: I have spent a great deal of time out west and studied the Lakota Language. As a teacher back east, I run a Native American club and I am interested in teaching people back east the richness of the Lakota language. This book is the best. A rare and wonderful insight into language, culture and spirituality. Pilamayeyelo!

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Summary: Surpasses any other text on Lakota Language! Excellent!
Review: I was involved in using this text from the very beginning. Mr. White Hat presented a workshop on how to teach Lakota Language, which I attended. He gave each of the Lakota Language Instructors present a copy of this text to use in their classes. If it were not for this text, I would not have stayed in the field of teaching this long (5 years). It is an excellent resource for teaching Lakota Language which I highly recommend. Pilamayaye ksto. (Thank you).

Rating:
Summary: :( pretty bad
Review: Since I found much repetition in this book, I copied all relevant info (except pronounciation examples) into a notebook. Well, page six was blank, there waas nothing more to write. This book will teach you forms of address, and its great for teaching pronunciation, but apart from that it just teaches conjugation and colors. Whatever it cost, you will get a Lakota phonetics course for that price.

Rating:
Summary: :( pretty bad
Review: Since I found much repetition in this book, I copied all relevant info (except pronounciation examples) into a notebook. Well, page six was blank, there waas nothing more to write. This book will teach you forms of address, and its great for teaching pronunciation, but apart from that it just teaches conjugation and colors. Whatever it cost, you will get a Lakota phonetics course for that price.

Rating:
Summary: Not worth the money
Review: 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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Summary: Learning from our Elders
Review: These lessons are the most "user-friendly" that I have seen for home study. The only real drawback that I found was that I had to wait the extra few days for the delivery of the accompanying cassettes, because the cassettes and the text are sold separately. These should be packaged together. Even if you only anticipate learning to read and write Lakota, knowing the sounds unique to the Lakota language are essential to grasping the meaning of the written word. The author tells us, "Lakota must be written based on sound." Make sure you order the cassettes and the book!