Bwe Karen Dictionary with Texts and English-Karen Word List

When Professor Eugenie Henderson died suddenly in 1989 she was working to complete a life-long research project that had first taken her to Burma in 1954, a grammar and dictionary, together with a selection of texts, of Bwe Karen, A Tibeto-Burman language spoken in Burma.

Volume I contains a short biographical study of Professor Henderson together with the author's own introduction, written in 1989, which tells of her involvement in the study of Bwe Karen, of her work inLondon with her informant and her brief visit to Toungoo in 1954.

It also states briefly the importance of Bwe Karen for the study of Tibeto-Burman languages.

The seventeen Bwe Karen texts which form the basis of the dictionary material were carefully selected to illustrate a variety of genres and styles of language.

Each text has an English translation on the facing page.

The texts themselves are discussed in an introductory essay especially written for this publication by Professor James Matisoff of the University of California, Berkley.In Volume II the dictionary is proceeded by an introduction which discusses briefly the relationship of Karen to the rest of the Tibeto-Burman languages and explains the transcription, order of entries and form classes used by Professor Henderson.

This has been written by Dr, David Solnit of Michigan University, with additional suggestions by Professor Matisoff.

The 400 pages of Bwe Karen dictionary are followed by a 35-page English-Bwe Karen word list.When Professor Henderson died she left the manuscript of the dictionary typed in camers-ready form.

However for some entries a gap had been left where the form-class label and the English gloss should come.

Professor Matisoff has undretaken the far from easy task of filling these gaps.