NAVAJO PRESENTATION

navajo

Fortunate & Lya's museum project

The story of the Navajo tribe and their language

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INDEX

Basic facts

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• About 170 000 speakers
• Spoken in southwest of US, especially in Navajo nation
• Most widespread Native American language above the US-Mexican-Border
• Part of the Apalachean group of languages
• Navajo people call it "Diné bizaad" (people's language)
• Navajo is the Spanish adaptation of the Tewa Pueblo word "Navahu'u", which originally described a large area of cultivated land

origin

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Around 6-4000 BC the ancestors of the Navajo people migrated from Eurasia to North America through the Bering Land Bridge, which existed at that time. They travelled all the way down to an area that is now the part of Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and Utah.

The Bering land bridge

Because the Navajo ancestors originally migrated from Eurasia, there are still some languages in Russia that have some similarities to the Navajo language, or to be more precise the Na-Dene language family (group of native North American languages). One example for this is the Yeniseian language family, which is a small, isolated group of languages. There are very few speakers left.

According to Navao Mythology, their homeland lies between 4 sacred mountains, representing four cardinal points and four colours. They called it "Dinétah" (among the people).

The sacred mountains

Influence of the Westward Expansion

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Because of the need of the American government to expand its territory, in 1864 they drove out the Navajo people from their homeland and relocated them to the area of Fort Sumner, New Mexico. The Navajo called this the "Long Walk".

The long walk

A soldier stands guard over Navajo people during the "Long

Walk"

In 1868, both parties finally signed a Peace Treaty, which granted the Navajo people a protected Reservation on their old homeland, but was significantly smaller than their old terriory. Following this, the Navajos travelled back.

The Peace treaty

How did the english language respond to the contact?

In contrast to the inclusion of words to the English language, Navajo didn't include English words or terms. Instead, the Navajo people invented new words to describe new objects and later even countries and states.

How did the Navajo Language respond to the contact?

This is a map of the States of the United States of America with their Navajo names.

This is a map of the European countries with their Navajo names.

Basic Navajo

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Navajo phrases

Navajo puts nouns in differet categories according to which, their place in a sentence is determined.

Grammar Fun-facts

Video

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Translated Lyrics:

A song in navajo

Game

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Diné bizaadísh dinitsʼaʼ?

Ahéhee'!