Online Yurok-English and English-Yurok
dictionary: Acknowledgements, information, and help
This web page is under construction!
General acknowledgements
Programming and interface
design by Kevin Ryan; database organization and substantial data
entry by Lisa Conathan.
The online dictionary contains words from project fieldwork, older unpublished
sources, and words recorded in these two published sources:
• R.
H. Robins, The Yurok Language (1958)
• Howard Berman, "A Supplement
to Robin’s Yurok-English Lexicon", International Journal of American Linguistics 48 (1982) 197-241
Special characters you can use in searches
To use one of the characters below, just type it in a search. For example,
search for ek'$ to find all words that end with ek',
or search for
kvd to find all words that contain the sequence k followed
by a vowel followed by one of the following: p, p', t, t', k, k', kw, k'w. (There
are still glitches: for example, the search engine does not distinguish between
vowel r and
consonant r.)
@ stands for any phonological segment (for example, a, k'w, p', rr)
q stands for any consonant
v stands for any vowel (short or long)
d stands for any of the following: p, p', t, t', k, k', kw, k'w
j stands for any continuant consonant (g, h, l, hl, m, n, r, s, sh, x, w, y)
z stands for any nasal consonant
Technical notes by Kevin Ryan
Here's the code:
# @ refers to any segment
$queries[$temp] =~ s/@/([ptk'mnlsxghwryieaou]|ii|aa|uu|oo|rr|kw|k'|k'w|p'|t'|ch|ch'|hl|sh)/gi;
# Q refers to any consonant
$queries[$temp] =~ s/q/([ptk'mnlsxghwry]|kw|k'|k'w|p'|t'|ch|ch'|hl|sh)/gi;
# D refers to any plosive (not including glottal stop or orthographic "g")
$queries[$temp] =~ s/d/([ptk]|p'|t'|k'|k'w|kw)/gi;
# V refers to any vowel
$queries[$temp] =~ s/v/([ieaour]|ii|aa|uu|oo|rr)/gi;
# J refers to any continuant consonant (including h and g)...but not ch(')?
$queries[$temp] =~ s/j/([mnlsxghwry]|hl|sh)/gi;
# Z refers to any nasal
$queries[$temp] =~ s/z/([mn])/gi;
AND HERE ARE A HANDFUL OF USEFUL PERL NOTATIONS:
- ^ = left anchor, $ = right anchor (e.g., type d$ to get all entries that end with an oral stop)
- . = any (single, literal) character (does not stand for digraphs)
- * = 0 or more of the preceding expression (e.g., type ^d.*d$ to get all words that both begin and end with oral stops)
NB ^dd$ would only return 2-letter words, the .* indicates "any amount of intervening material (including nothing)"
- + = 1 or more of the preceding expression
- ? = 0 or 1 of the preceding expression
- () parentheses = used to group things before the above quantifiers and such
- (x|y|z|...) = disjunction between x, y, etc. (e.g., type (^z|z$) to get all words that begin with a nasal and/or end with a nasal)
- [xyz] = a shorthand for disjunction if x, y, etc. are all single characters (e.g., type ([aeiou]|^)sr[aeiou] to find any {V,#}srV combos where V's are nonrhotic)