The Klallam dictionary is the first-ever dictionary of the language, which previously was only spoken!It weighs in at about six-pounds, contains more than 1,000 pages and took almost thirty years to complete.The language is native to the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State were about 5,000 Klallam live on three reservations.When University of North Texas linguist professor Timothy Montler started the project in 1978 about 100 people spoke Klallam as their first language, today there are two left."The language is a jawbreaker for English speakers, with some words containing back-to-back consonants that are true pronunciation gymnastics"and now it is available in...
