Navajo language

Navajo, also known as Diné Bizaad, is a Southern Athabaskan language. It is spoken primarily in the Southwestern United States, particularly within the Navajo Nation. As of 2011, nearly 170,000 people spoke Navajo at home. This makes it one of the most widely spoken Native American languages. It is also the most widely spoken Indigenous language north of the Mexico–United States border. The name "Navajo" is actually an exonym, which is a name given by outsiders. It comes from the Tewa word for "large field." The people themselves use the endonym Diné, which means "People."

The structure of the Navajo language is quite complex. It features a large phonemic inventory, meaning it has many distinct sounds. Some of these consonants do not exist in the English language. The language has four basic vowel qualities. These vowels are distinguished by their length, tone, or nasality. Navajo is both agglutinative and fusional. Agglutinative means it uses affixes, or word parts, to modify verbs. Fusional means that these morphemes, or units of meaning, fuse together in irregular ways. This makes the words difficult to pull apart easily. The basic word order is subject–object–verb, though this is flexible based on pragmatic factors.

Linguists classify Navajo within the Na-Dené family. It is part of the southernmost branch of the Athabaskan family. This branch includes the Apachean languages. Navajo is most closely related to Western Apache. These two languages share more than 92 percent of their vocabulary. They also share a similar tonal scheme. Navajo is also related to the Chiricahua-Mescalero Apache. It is believed that these Apachean groups became distinct societies between 1300 and 1525. Most other Athabaskan languages are located much further north in Alaska and Canada.

The history of the language reflects the movement of its people. The Apachean languages likely arrived in the Southwest by 1500. They probably traveled through Alberta and Wyoming. In 1936, linguist Edward Sapir studied how the language changed over time. He found that words changed meaning as the Navajo adapted to new environments. For example, a Proto-Athabaskan word for "horn" became the Navajo word for "gourd." The Navajo word for "corn" comes from roots meaning "enemy" and "food." This suggests the Navajo encountered corn-growing people when they arrived in the region.

During World War II, Navajo speakers played a vital role in military communications. The U.S. government employed them as "code talkers." They used the Navajo language to relay top-secret messages via radio and telephone. The language was ideal because its grammar differs greatly from German or Japanese. Additionally, no published Navajo dictionaries existed at that time. The code used Navajo words for every letter of the English alphabet. Some messages used a simple substitution cipher. Others were informal translations. For instance, they called a submarine an "iron fish" because there was no specific Navajo word. This code remained unbroken and helped win decisive battles.

Despite its importance, the language faced a period of decline due to colonization. In the late 19th century, boarding schools were established to acculturate Navajo children. These schools forced students to speak English and practice Christianity. Students were often punished with lye soap if they spoke Navajo. This caused many parents to stop teaching the language to their children to protect them. By the 1960s, the use of Indigenous languages in the United States began to decline rapidly. This was caused by the building of paved roads and the spread of English-language radio.

Today, there are many efforts to revitalize the Navajo language. In 1968, the Bilingual Education Act provided funds for linguistic minorities. While many programs struggled due to a lack of fluent teachers, some successes followed. In 1980, data showed that 85 percent of Navajo first-graders were bilingual. The Navajo Nation Council also decreed that the language be taught in all grade levels. Significant books, such as the works by Robert W. Young and William Morgan, helped document the language. Diné College now offers an associate degree in Navajo. This program produces many of the highest numbers of Navajo teachers in the country.