This Online Talking Dictionary contains words from the Northern Pomo language. Most entries are spoken by fluent speakers Edna Campbell Guerrero, Elenor Stevenson Gonzales, and Annie Lake. Each dictionary entry contains a sound file of the word, and the speaker's initials beside the sound file. For more on the language, click here. There are currently 3519 entries in the dictionary.
How to use
There are two ways to look for words in the dictionary. You can select a letter (A-Z) category which shows all the English words that begin with that letter, or you can enter a word in the search bar and click submit. If this is your first time using the dictionary, you may want to select a letter category because that will give you some idea of the range of words currently in the dictionary.
Northern Pomo words differ from English in a number of ways. For example, the word pʰit̪’am means "flower" or "flowers", so if you are looking for the plural of a word, it is best to search for the singular. Tenses of verbs are also framed differently in Northern Pomo. Try searching for a basic form of the word you are interested in. For example, instead of typing in "went" or "gone" or "to go", simply type in the word "go."
If you enter a word in the search bar, and no results are found, you will see a button asking if you want to do an extended search. This extended search uses the Porter Stemmer. The stemmer takes in a word as its input and returns its stem. For example, stemming "flowers" will return "flower", and stemming "burning" will return "burn".
For some dictionary entries, you will see a link that says "Example phrases (phrasicon)". Clicking on this link will take you to the Phrasicon, where you can hear a phrase or sentence that contains the word you typed into the Dictionary search. To return to the Dictionary from the Phrasicon, just click on the link in the upper righthand corner.
About the material
These materials include voice recordings of the late Edna Campbell Guerrero and Elenor Stevenson Gonzales, both native speakers of Northern Pomo. These materials would not exist without their patience, dedication, and hard work. The recordings were made by Catherine O'Connor between 1979 and 2005. This phrasicon has been made possible by the diligence of Elodie Paquette, Ethan Rimdzius, and Edwin Ko.
The current project is supported in part by a grant from the NEH/NSF Documenting Endangered Languages program (FN-50107-12) to Catherine O'Connor, which is gratefully acknowledged. Views expressed in this material are the work of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the U.S. National Science Foundation or the National Endowment for the Humanities. This material may not be sold and no charges may be made for its use.
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