Lakota dictionary (fwd)

Koontz John E John.Koontz at colorado.edu
Fri Nov 3 03:17:52 UTC 2006


The interesting part, perhaps, is the description of the actual ms at the
bottom.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Sat, 28 Oct 2006 18:21:18 -0500
From: Carl Masthay <cmasthay at juno.com>
To: azurebreeze at yahoo.com
Subject: Lakota dictionary

Wenona,
If you want to post this.
Carl
----- Forwarded Message -----
From: Carl Masthay <CMASTHAY at juno.com>
28 Oct 2006
Subject: Lakota dictionary

Mary Lynn Hall:
You may have been the one who mentioned this back in January along with
your recent follow-up telephone call to me. The Antiques Roadshow
estimate of the 1866 work was an exorbitant "$100,000 to $150,000." This
is another example where they have no darned clue about the value of some
things and simply overvalue them to drive prices up. I would have put its
value at about $40,000 to $60,000 based on other rare manuscripts and
rare books that I've gained a gleaning about, but what drives its price
down is that a masterly work in Lakota was already compiled and published
at 852 pages in 1970 by Fr. Buechel /BEE-kl/ (of which I own a copy);
thus the Lahcotah dictionary is already obsolete, tho perhaps containing
some words and phrases unrecorded in Buechel.
Notice the price given below.
Carl
>
>>From the Society for the Study of the Indigenous Languages of  the
Americas (golla at ssila.org),
SSILA Bulletin 246.4  In the Media
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
--

* Rare Lakota dictionary turns up on PBS antiques program
  ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
In the Tampa, Florida, "Antiques Roadshow" that was rebroadcast on
October 23 (it was filmed during the summer of 2005 and first broadcast
last January), appraiser Thomas Lecky was handed a book in near-perfect
condition called "Lahcotah: Dictionary of the Sioux Language."  The book,
bound with staples, was written in December 1866 by army officers and
Indian guides at Fort Laramie, an important stop on the Oregon Trail.

"This is the first book printed in Wyoming," Thomas, a rare manuscript
specialist at Christie's in New York, told the owner, who is the
great-great-nephew of William Sylvanus Starring, one of the book's
authors....Thomas put the dictionary's value between sixty and eighty
thousand dollars.


-- For the complete story, visit the Antiques Roadshow website:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/roadshow/series/highlights/2006/tampa/fts_h
our2_2.html



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