Languages like Cree present particular problems for making dictionaries because the words are exceptionally complex. Unlike languages like English - where dictionaries were largely developed - Cree does not have a simple ‘word’ to place in the dictionary. For example, the word ‘see’ in English corresponds to as many as 500+ ‘words’ in Cree (niwâpahtên, wâpamêw, wâpamâw, ê-wâpamaci, etc.).
Rather than put all 500+ words in the dictionary, Cree linguists have decided to follow the example of classical languages like Greek and Sanskrit (which also have huge numbers of verbs) and simply give you one form for each word.
Yet another reason that way that standard spelling helps: there's a lot more to using a Cree dictionary than meets the eye! Thanks, Jeff, for putting this together!