author

Charles A. Lee

Known today for a rare 1896 Aleutian language dictionary, this little-documented writer left behind a work that still stands out for its effort to record Indigenous vocabulary from the Alaska Peninsula.

1 Audiobook

Aleutian Indian and English Dictionary Common Words in the Dialects of the Aleutian Indian Language as Spoken by the Oogashik, Egashik, Anangashuk and Misremie Tribes Around Sulima River and Neighboring Parts of the Alaska Peninsula

Aleutian Indian and English Dictionary Common Words in the Dialects of the Aleutian Indian Language as Spoken by the Oogashik, Egashik, Anangashuk and Misremie Tribes Around Sulima River and Neighboring Parts of the Alaska Peninsula

by Charles A. Lee

About the author

Charles A. Lee is a sparsely documented author whose surviving reputation rests mainly on Aleutian Indian and English Dictionary, first published in 1896. Library and public-domain records identify the book as a compilation of common words from several Aleutian dialects spoken around the Alaska Peninsula.

Because reliable biographical information about this Charles A. Lee is limited, most available sources say more about the book than about the person. That makes him one of those historical authors known chiefly through a single specialized work rather than a well-preserved life story.

For listeners interested in language, regional history, or older reference books, Lee's work offers a glimpse of nineteenth-century efforts to document Indigenous speech in Alaska.