Yá'át'ééh!
Welcome!
The name "Navajo" comes from the late 18th century from the Spanish (Apaches de) Navajo "(Apaches of) Navajo," which came from the Tewa navahu meaning, fields adjoining a ravine." The Navajo call themselves the Dine', which means "The people." Most Navajo speak English as well as their language, Diné bizaad (meaning People's Language). The Navajo language has between 120,000 and 170,700 speakers, more than any other Native American language in the country. A factor that separates them and suggests their affinity to east Asia languages is that they are tonal. When they speak words with different tones, even with the same phonemes, they have different meanings. This difference makes learning the language for outsiders extremely different.
Welcome!
The name "Navajo" comes from the late 18th century from the Spanish (Apaches de) Navajo "(Apaches of) Navajo," which came from the Tewa navahu meaning, fields adjoining a ravine." The Navajo call themselves the Dine', which means "The people." Most Navajo speak English as well as their language, Diné bizaad (meaning People's Language). The Navajo language has between 120,000 and 170,700 speakers, more than any other Native American language in the country. A factor that separates them and suggests their affinity to east Asia languages is that they are tonal. When they speak words with different tones, even with the same phonemes, they have different meanings. This difference makes learning the language for outsiders extremely different.
The Navajo language is famous for it's influence on World War II. At first, the Navajo started working with the army, but their efforts weren't completely utilized until they started working with the marines. The Indian recruits were given basic training and training in advanced infantry before given their task. They had to create a code to transfer military terms and phrases into the Navajo language. They made them as straightforward as possible so they could prove useful under combat conditions that required rapid receiving and translating. Words that with directly associated with nature or their common life were picked for simplicity. Navajos could encode, transmit, and decode a three-line English message in 20 seconds. Machines from that time took 30 minutes to do the same job. In all, about 400 Navajo people were trained as code talkers. The Navajo's codes proved vital to our success in winning the war. The Japanese never once broke their code.
Navajo People
2011[1994] Navajo Language. Electronic document, http://navajopeople.org/navajo-language.htm, accessed March 23, 2014.
Navajo Nation Department of Information Technology
2011 Navajo Nation. Electronic document, http://www.navajo-nsn.gov, accessed February 21, 2014.
I found it interesting that the Navajo, like many other cultures we've been introduced to in class, called themselves "the people." It's different from our culture where we give ourselves names that identify ourselves, such as American. But Native Americans and other Indian groups, such as the Awajun in Peru, all refer to themselves as "the people," and get their identifying names from other people.
ReplyDeleteUnlike the movie we watched in class where a lot of hard work was going into restoring a lost language, the Navajo have a lot of people who keep it alive today. I did find out through my research that the percentage of children who speak Navajo as their first language has declined, but overall the number of speakers is strong.
In my opinion, I don't think we would have won the war without the Navajo. Their code creation was such a huge benefit to us and their service went unpraised for a long time. They were finally recognized in the 1990s. I find it heart warming that they proudly served for us. They had suffered greatly from our government as we took away their land and murdered them, but when we needed them they were there.
You are awesome Bonnie. Great work! I have a comment about aesthetic aspects of the blog. I am still reading content here from your classmates, and I like your font here, but one of your references is not in that font, and your group mates are using different fonts too? Is there a way to make it consistent? Just one for everybody? You will all need to look at your refs together and see who is not using the AAA style. This is important for the final eval, but so far, you are doing awesome. Thanks for the responsible work :-)
ReplyDeleteYou still rock Bonnie! You will do a magnificent job tomorrow in class. Thank you for the very responsible work this semester!
ReplyDelete