Searching for Lost City: On the Trail of America's Native Languages

By Elizabeth Seay

Book Overview

First Prize Multicultural Non-Fiction, The Independent Publishers Book Awards Choctaw, Creek, Sioux, Cherokee, and Ponca are just a few of the Native American tribal languages that are quickly moving... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1592281958
• ISBN13: 9781592281954
• Release Date: January 2003
• Publisher: Lyons Pr
• Length: 272 Pages
• Weight: 0.89 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 1.0" x 6.0"

Customer Reviews

Good read.

A good read. If you've an interest in Native American culture, Oklahoma, linguistics or language, this is the book for you.

Searching for Lost City

This book was a joy to read. It felt like I was reading Seay's journal of her adventures in seeking Native American speakers in Oklahoma. I never would have thought I'd be interested in the subject matter, but the book, given as a gift, was truly fascinating. It was written beautifully, with detailed descriptions of the people,the landscapes and the her feelings of seeing it all. I learned a great deal from a serious book that read like a novel. She made it all come alive. I highly recommend this book!

An important subject, a wonderful read

This could easily have been one of those dull-but-important books but it's not. Elizabeth Seay is a skilled writer and a knowing and compassionate observer who takes readers on an interesting and informative journey through a world little explored and all too neglected. Though ostensibly about the struggle of Native American languages to survive, the book at heart is about the universal and essential role that languages play in defining not just cultures but unique ways of seeing and expressing the world. Thus their loss is a loss for us all. Seay captures this through keen storytelling and a sympathetic but never patronizing rendering of her characters and their struggles, against poor odds, to keep these languages alive.

Original thinking, beautiful writing, excellent reporting

This book is a rare combination of excellent, original reporting and beautiful, heartfelt writing. Seay has taken on a topic we hardly ever think about: What is the price of losing a language? She also introduces readers to a subject we may know very little about: the lives of Native Americans. Some of the most interesting parts of the book are her descriptions of unique characteristics of each language: in one Indian language, for example, she says there are various words for each variety of tree at different hours of the day. Those examples help you understand why it is such a loss when a language disappears--because these languages contain not just words that are alien to us, but whole concepts that represents another approach to life. Seay's tone and style is a real pleasure: she's not academic nor self-righteous, as a lot of authors can be when they feel like they're speaking for an oppressed group. Instead, she puts her energy into looking for the big picture and the details, the facts, backup for her ideas, all the while keeping her eyes open for those bits of humanity and humor. Some passages on characters she meets bring you so close to the people that you feel sad when the chapter ends and you move on to another part of the journey. Highly recommended.