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A World Revealed by Language: A New Seri Dictionary and Unapologetic Speculations on Seri Indian Deep History
by David Yetman
Journal of the Southwest 49, 4 (Winter 2007)

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Comcáac quih Yaza quih Hant Ihíip hac: Diccionario Seri-Español-Ingles, compiled by Mary Beck Moser and Stephen A. Marlett. Illustrated by Cathy Moser Marlett. Published by Plaza y Valdés Editores, Mexico City. 947 pages. ISBN: 970–722–453–3.The philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein once mentioned that to imagine a language was to imagine a form of life (Wittgenstein 1953: 19).

A comprehensive dictionary of any language exemplifies Wittgenstein’s point, but none more than the trilingual dictionary of the Seri language compiled by Mary Beck Moser and Steven Marlett. The work represents more than fifty years of research and over thirty years of living with the Seris in El Desemboque, Sonora, Mexico, in connection with the Summer Institute of Linguistics of the Wycliffe Bible Translators. The entries are in Seri, Spanish, and English, making the work of value to speakers of all three languages.

The roughly six hundred Seris are already using the dictionary. Outsiders visiting them would be well advised to use it as well. The authors included Seri consultants at every step of the compilation. Seris reviewed the entries, suggesting changes and additions. Part of the dictionary’s usefulness lies in its incorporation not merely of single-word or phrase translations, but also of sentences or short paragraphs typically generated by Seris. This is critically important, since meanings are frequently so complex that a simple word-by-word translation simply will not do. As Moser and Marlett have realized, languages are vehicles by which cultural meanings are conveyed in text and context (Brown and Vibert 2003). Languages are not a neutral medium but remain fluid, ever changing, and holophrastic. In them, single words can connote different processes, allowing a speaker to compress a multitude of meanings into a single word (Sable 2006: 169). […]

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