This first dictionary of the Alabama Indian language represents the collaborative efforts of a number of people. The originator of the project was Cora Sylestine, an educator who recognized nearly fifty years ago that the unwritten language of her people might be lost over the generations as fewer and fewer young people spoke it. She began the dictionary project on her own writing down words on file cards and many years later enlisted the help of professional linguists. Among her activities in

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... hurch and service organizations she continued her work on the dictionary, guiding and inspiring her linguist colleagues until 1991. A few months before this dictionary was ready for the printer, Cora was killed in an automobile accident on the highway in front of her home on the Alabama-Coushatta Reservation. We miss her lively spirit and kind humor very much. This dictionary is her monument. Royalties from the sale of this book go to a Cora Sylestine Scholarship Fund for Alabama-Coushatta students administered by the Indian Presbyterian Church on the Alabama-Coushatta Reservation. In 1980 Heather Hardy, a linguist at the University of North Texas interested in studying the grammar of the Alabama language, read of Sylestine's dictionary project in a Houston newspaper. She offered her assistance, and Sylestine and Hardy began their collaboration by developing a way of writing Alabama that would be consistent and as phonetically accurate as possible while being easy to read and write for those familiar with the English writing system.