A Practical Heiltsuk-English Dictionary with a Grammatical Introduction

Toby Rupert was a librarian living in Toronto.

This is a straightforward native peoples dictionary of extreme importance to the groups concerned. From the abstract which accompanies this 752-page opus, we learn that it “contains approximately 9500 Heiltsuk entries which feature grammatical derivates and/or examples of usage in addition to their English glosses. It is primarily a reference work for the teachers and students of Heiltsuk and the Heiltsuk practical orthography is therefore used. A grammatical introduction is included relating the orthography to the phonetics and the phonemics of the language and outlining the essentials of morphology and syntax.” Heiltsuk is spoken in the villages of Bella Bella and Klemtu, both situated on the British Columbia coastal islands. At the back of the second volume there is a short but effective bibliography for additional information and reading.