Modern Maidu: Workbook

The Modern Maidu Workbook is for students of Mountain Maidu who want to bring back this almost-lost Native California language for everyday use. The Workbook tells how to recreate or invent missing words, with ten lessons on time-honored Maidu word-inventing techniques. The second half of the book consists of advanced practice dialogs (where we use the new words in sentences), translating popular songs into Maidu, texting in Maidu, using Maidu on social media, and a Modern Maidu dictionary of more than 7,000 new words that we invent or reclaim in the lessons. Appendices include preliminary comparisons of Mountain Maidu with Konkow and Nisenan (all Maiduan languages), a grammar review, and quotes from native speakers. It is assumed that the student has already completed the lessons in Mountain Maidu Grammar and has the Mountain Maidu Dictionary by the same author. These books were written to honor our late teacher, Farrell Cunningham, a Maidu whose dream it was to bring the language back.