Comanche Dictionary and Grammar, Second Edition

helpful

I got this for my boyfriend he is part Comanche and wanted to get to know his heritage he reads it everyday and learns a new word. He loves it so I’m very happy.

Amazing

It was good thorough and informative

I enjoyed this book. I kept me interested.

Well, the second edition has been out for a while, and (at the time of writing this) not a hint of a review.I've never seen the first edition, so cannot provide a comparison between the two, but the second edition is very good. Just to confirm, it is bilingual in that there is a separate section for Comanche to English and English to Comanche. These two main sections are separated by appendices on fauna, flora, body parts, months and personal names specific to the Comanche and their environment.The Comanche section is notably larger than the English, as numerous examples of usage are given in the former part of the dictionary. This is obviously extremely helpful to the student. There's just enough coverage to begin to explore comparative linguistics, but I'd dearly love to have more. There is coverage of the modern world, e.g. bank (financial); airplane. But the emphasis is definitely on vocabulary relevant to the Comanche world, e.g. a fair amount of coverage of words associated with the peyote tradition.Grammatical terms are used to help describe each entry. Many are more than just "verb", "adverb", etc, so a knowledge of basic linguistics is required to get the most out of this book. There is also a section on pronunciation - but it is always best to listen to native speakers (tragically fewer these days) and / or popping over to ye olde Youtube and searching for some video assistance there.What really adds to this dictionary is the inclusion of a grammar: pp307 to pp393. Not enough to learn the language from scratch on its own, but the REALLY useful thing is the extensive use of Canonge's Comanche Texts for examples. Indeed, the authors state that using the Dictionary and Grammar in conjunction with Canonge will serve to provide a decent introduction to Comanche... and Canonge's full text is available for download (legally, of course) from SIL.ORG in pdf format. This is rather good, as the paper version is usually unavailable, and when it becomes available, the price is usually WAY too expensive.The "Dictionary and Grammar" has had the additional benefit of making Jean Ormsbee Charney's "A Grammar of Comanche" really take off to the dizzying heights of being usable and even very useful.  A Grammar of Comanche (Studies in the Anthropology of North American Indians)  This has gladdened my heart, as the information in the Grammar (Charney) was previously locked away, for all intents and purposes.To sum up: in its own right, a splendid small to medium sized (vocabulary) dictionary with very helpful grammatic sketch. With Canonge's Texts - it is utterly delightful. The 5th star would be earned for a slightly larger vocabulary. I'm very pleased with it, and have no qualms about recommending it to anyone wishing to explore this beautiful member of the Uto-Aztecan family. A Grammar of Comanche (Studies in the Anthropology of North American Indians)

This is a really informative and helpful Book. Overwhelming actually. But really enjoying it