WIA LANGUAGES PROJECT

[Day 12/221]

Diné bizaad

Navajo Language | 나바호어

“The Unbroken Code, The Unsilenced Soul”

We are not saving languages. We are saving humanity.

The Language That Refused to Be Silent

Every 14 days, one language falls silent on Earth. Amid predictions that half of the world’s 7,000 languages will disappear this century, Navajo has walked a unique path. Once a secret weapon that determined the outcome of war, this language now fights a different battle—against time, against forgetting, against the vast darkness of extinction.

Today, WIA Languages encounters Diné bizaad (dee-neh biz-ahd) on Day 12 of our 221-day journey— “the language of the Diné people.” With approximately 170,000 speakers, it is the most widely spoken Native American language north of the Mexico-US border. Yet those numbers decline each year. The language use rate among Navajo people plummeted from 93% in 1980 to 51% in 2010. The younger the generation, the lower the rate— among kindergartners, it’s nearly impossible to find speakers.

600 Years of Journey, An Unbroken Code

The Navajo people migrated south from Canada and Alaska approximately 600 years ago. Navajo, a Southern Athabaskan language, took root in the Four Corners region where Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, and Colorado meet. Called “Apachu de Nabajo” by the Spanish, these people cultivated a unique language and culture between harsh deserts and red canyons.

In 1942, after Pearl Harbor, as the Pacific War raged, the Japanese military was breaking every American code. In this desperate situation, Philip Johnston, the son of missionaries, made a proposal to the Marines: “Use Navajo.” With extremely complex grammar, a tonal system, and fewer than 30 people outside the Navajo Reservation who could understand it at the time, it was perfect.

The first 29 Navajo Marines created a unique code at Camp Pendleton. When military terms didn’t exist, they improvised creatively. Submarine became “besh-lo” (iron fish), bomb became “a-ye-shi” (egg), and America became “ne-he-mah” (our mother). This code could encrypt, transmit, and decode an English message in 20 seconds. Machines of that era took 30 minutes.

Guadalcanal, Tarawa, Peleliu, Iwo Jima. Navajo Code Talkers participated in every major Pacific battle. During the first two days of Iwo Jima, six code talkers transmitted over 800 messages without a single error. Major Howard Connor, the signal officer at Iwo Jima, said: “Were it not for the Navajos, the Marines would never have taken Iwo Jima.”

The irony lies here: These young men grew up in government and religious boarding schools where speaking Navajo was forbidden and punished. The language that survived assimilation policies designed to erase their identity became the secret weapon that saved America. The code was never broken throughout the war.

Between Silence and Revival

The war heroes were long forgotten. Because the code had to remain classified, their contributions remained secret until 1968. Only in 1992 was a commemorative exhibit opened at the Pentagon, and in 2001, President George W. Bush awarded Congressional Gold Medals to the original 29 Code Talkers— but by then, only four survived. Today, fewer than 12 are believed to be alive.

On December 30, 2024, history was made. Navajo Nation President Buu Nygren signed legislation designating Navajo as the official language of the Navajo Nation. “One of my priorities coming in as President has always been to make sure that we make Navajo cool again,” he said.

Tséhootsooí Diné Bi’ólta’ school in Fort Defiance, Arizona, provides Navajo language immersion education from kindergarten through 8th grade. Research shows that Navajo immersion students excel on standardized tests. In 2018, a Navajo course was launched on the popular language-learning app Duolingo, and in 2013, Star Wars became the first film dubbed in Navajo.

Yet the crisis persists. According to 2021 US Census Bureau data, about 161,000 people speak Navajo, down from 166,000 in 2013. More concerning is the generational gap: while the decline is gradual among those over 40, it’s precipitous among those 39 and under. Some researchers warn that Navajo speakers could drop to 10% by 2030.

Verbs That Contain the Universe

Navajo boasts a complexity that fascinates linguists. As a tonal language, identical spellings have entirely different meanings depending on pitch. Following a Subject-Object-Verb word order, a single verb incorporates subject, object, tense, aspect, and manner all at once.

For example, the verb “to run” changes completely based on context. Áshdlééh (ahsh-dleeh) means “one person running on flat ground,” while ádááshdlééh (ah-dah-ahsh-dleeh) means “two people running uphill.” This precision reveals how meticulously the Navajo people observe the world.

Digital Archive, Eternal Voices

WIA Languages preserves Navajo voices in digital form permanently. We do not “revive” languages or “create” new sentences. Instead, we systematize decades of accumulated linguistic materials, recorded voices, and documented grammar into digital archives.

We consolidate the work of Rosetta Stone Navajo, the Navajo Language Academy, and the Diné Language Teachers Association into a unified digital preservation repository. Over 11,000 Navajo dictionary entries, recordings of traditional songs and ceremonies, and oral records of the Blessing Way ritual are placed in a digital time capsule for future generations.

We build platforms accessible anytime, anywhere, to linguists, learners, and Navajo youth worldwide. This is the moment when technology meets the soul. Not algorithms but human dignity, not data but generational wisdom, not efficiency but cultural preservation.

A Worldview That Must Not Disappear

Navajo is not merely a communication tool. It is a way of understanding the cosmos, a philosophy defining the relationship between earth, sky, and humanity. The Blessing Way ceremony is not just a religious rite but a practice to restore cosmic balance and realize hózhǫ́.

Stories of Changing Woman and the Holy People form the Navajo creation mythology. In a culture where corn symbolizes life, four sacred mountains mark the world’s boundaries, and the hooghan (traditional dwelling) represents a microcosm of the universe, losing the language means losing the very way of being.

Code Talker Keith Little said: “They had the real strong disciplinary rule that we don’t talk our native language, to be converted to Christianity, and to take us away from our cultural religions and our beliefs.” Yet Navajo survived, saved America in war, and still sings songs of hózhǫ́ through 170,000 voices today.

After 221 Days, All Voices Forever

After 221 days, when 221 languages are complete in digital record, we will possess humanity’s complete linguistic map. Navajo is the 12th milestone. From unbroken code to unsilenced soul, from wartime secret to peacetime message, this language teaches us an important lesson.

Languages do not die. They merely fall silent. And when we record, preserve, and transmit, that silence becomes song again. When Navajo youth learn their ancestral language through Duolingo, when children at Fort Defiance school study mathematics in Navajo, when digital archives open worldwide—that is the quiet revolution.

This is not just one language’s story. It is about how humanity preserves diversity, how technology serves the soul, and how we can restore voices to languages that fall silent every 14 days.

WIA Languages Project

Connecting the world through 221 languages
A quiet revolution, humanity’s digital archive

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Day 12/221: Navajo
“Quietly, unwaveringly, one step at a time”

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