NOTE BY THE DIRECTOR. Vil 
With the hope that it may be the means of interesting some in behalf of the 
Dakotas, of perpetuating memorials of their language, and affording, to some extent, 
the means of arriving at correct conclusions in regard to their origin, this work, the 
result of years of toil, is submitted to the kind regards of its generous patrons. 
STEPHEN Kt. RIGGs. 
NEw York Crry, 1852. 
While the work of Mr. Riggs referred to in the preface quoted was 
styled a grammar and dictionary of the Dakota language, most of the en- 
tries in the dictionary were in the Santee dialect, as that was the dialect of 
those Dakota who had been reached by Mr. Riggs and his associates. Only 
here and there were a few words in the Sisseton, Yankton, and Mdewakan- 
tonwan, though A. L. Riggs now shows that the Mdewakantonwan were the 
original Santee. As the years rolled by Mr. Riggs and his two sons were 
enabled to add many Santee words, which are given in the present volume 
Numerous Teton words have been inserted, furnished chiefly by W. J. 
Cleveland, who became ‘a missionary to some of the Teton tribes in 1873. 
There will also be found more Yankton words, introduced by J. P. William- 
son, a missionary to the Yanktons, though another Yankton missionary, 
J. W. Cook, has already gained thousands of Yankton words (not in this 
volume) which differ materially from their Santee equivalents. As the entire 
Bible and most of the books and newspapers printed in the Dakota have 
been published in Santee, that dialect has become the standard or literary 
dialect of the language. From a comparison of the Teton in this dictionary 
with that in the texts now in the possession of the Bureau of Ethnology, 
Mr. Dorsey has been led to suspect that there are provincial differences in 
the Teton—subdialects, if I may so term them. 
It is still difficult to say whether the speech of the Assiniboin should 
be considered a dialect of the Dakota or a distinct language of the Siouan 
stock, though it is known that this people is an offshoot of the Yanktonnai 
Dakota, who speak the Yankton dialect. Whether there ever was a dialect 
known as the Sisseton is considered by Mr. Dorsey an open question, though 
Mr. Riggs gave several Sisseton examples in the introduction to his grammar. 
By request of the Director, Mr. Riggs submitted his enlarged dictionary 
for examination, and its publication was ordered. Owing to the inability of 
the author to remain in Washington, the work of editing the new volume 
