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Navajo Indians
One of the largest of the Native American Tribes, they lived in the Southwest of the United States and Northern Mexico.
1,124 Questions
How do you say black wolf in Navajo?
Mąʼiitsoh (muh 'ee tsoh) .
the a is nasalized the same way the o is nasal in the French word "bon". The mark befor the ts is a glottal stop as in uh'oh. the ts as in "bliTZ", oh as in "whOa"
One word for you're welcome in Navajo is aooʼ (long o like boat but cut the end off short. This is the word for "yes" in Navajo and can be used when we use "you're welcome".
Also used is: hágoshį́į́. in response to thank you. Means well, all right, fine, okay, too.
Also: t'áá áko
Also: lą́'ąą
Thank you is: ahéheeʼ(aa-heya hea)
How do you say my name is Victoria in Navajo?
To say "what is your name " in Navajo you say: daash yinílyé
To answer you say: (Name) yinishyé."
And you?: nishą'?
The marks over vowels make them high tone. They are as important in Navajo as changing the vowel is in English like "bit" and "bet".
The mark under the "a" makes it nasalized.
Two vowels together make it held longer not change the sound very much as it would in English.
What does the word Navajo mean?
'enemies with the cultivated lands in arroyos'
The word Navajo is derived from Spanish hearing of a Tewa Indian word "navahu'u" or "na-ba-hu-u " meaning wide or river bottom fields. The Spanish were trying to tell apart the different Apache related groups.
"Apache " is thought to come from Zuni for "enemy". The Tewa were saying that the people over towards where Farmington NM is now were the Apache group who grew corn in river bottom land. The others ate Mescal- Mescalero Apache, or made little baskets- Jicarilla Apache. They were "Navajo de Apache".
The idea that it means knife or thief has been thoroughly debunked.
Do Navajo Indians live in the plains?
Yes! There are many mountains and mesas within the Navajo Nation. Some are: Navajo Mountain, The Chuska, The Lukachukai, parts of Black Mesa and many others. In some ares there are tall trees and a lot of snow in the winter. Other areas are lower and hotter and drier with very little vegetation. The four sacred mountains are even higher and are important to many of the Native groups in the area. For example, the San Francisco Peaks outside of Flagstaff are the western, abalone mountains to the Navajo and the are also important or sacred to the Hopi who say the Kachina live there and to the Havasupai and Yavapai and many others.
The four sacred mountains define the borders of Navajo territory and to leave them for any length of time is to endanger ones well being. There are also two sacred central mountains.
The four mountains in there Navajo order are:
Mt Blanca in Colorado --east mountain
MT Taylor in New Mexico --south mountain
San Francisco Peaks in Arizona--- west mountain
Mt Hesperus in Colorado --north mountain.
The center ones are Huerfano Mesa and Governador Knob .
Refer to:
http://www.answers.com/Navajos?gwp=11&ver=2.3.0.609&method=3
How do you say hand in Navajo?
yah 'iishááh-- (1 person) ( into a room, house, corral)
yah 'iit'aash -- (2 people)
yah ''iikááh - (3+ people)
You have to conjugate the verb to be in 1st, 2nd, dual, 3rd and 4th.
You say different words if you enter walking, running crawling, on horseback, a car, flying, if air enters, a quadruped, one after another, start school, to enter and stay inside (a cage or box), to enter mud, to enter swinging on a rope, and on and on
The marks over vowels are high tone marks, not accent or stress. Navajo is tonal.
Two ii make a sound like in "bee"
Say a as in father. Two "a"s you hold longer.
The final h sounds are pronounced.
The t' is a glottalized consonant, It is different than T. You say it sort of holding your breath in you throat.
Who was in the long walk of the long Navajos?
More than 3000 people died in the battles, walk and internment in the years between 1863 and 1868. The exact number can't be known.
There were about 8,500 Navajos who were forced to move to Bosque Redondo (Round Woods in Spanish, Hwéeldi in Navajo- "place of suffering" ) . Kit Carson led, at the direction of General Carleton, a scorched earth campaign to starve the Diné out and force them into internment camps. The march was about 300-400 miles for most people. They traveled in 53 different forced marches between August 1864 and the end of 1866. They traveled on seven different routes. They were forced to walk as much as 13 miles a day. It is not known exactly how many people died on the trips. It is thought to be about 200-400 died over the 18 day trip.
It is not known how many died of starvation and disease and gunshot while fighting Kit Carson and his men. Some Navajos evaded them. They fled to Navajo Mountain, the Grand Canyon, the lands of the Chiricahua Apache, and to parts of Utah. The most famous group was led by Hoskininni. He and his people later settled in the Monument Valley and Kayenta areas.
Once at Bosque Redondo, the conditions were horrible. There were disease epidemics, starvation, crops failed, there were floods, army worms, 500 Mesquelero Apache who were enemies were there, Comanche attacked over and over, the army men stole the food and money. In all about 2700 died during the time there. The Diné were allowed to return home in 1868.
What is the Navajo translation for whisper?
There are many Native American languages. You would need to specify which one.
How do you say older brother in Navajo?
ánaaí --someone's older brother
shinaaí -- my older brother
ninaaí -- your older brother
hánaaí-- older brother in fourth person (one's older brother)
áłánaaí -- each other's older brother
nihánaaí -- our older brother
and many more versions. This is a type of word that in Navajo must always be in the possesive.
What made the Navajo language so perfect for the basis of a code?
Navajo made a good basis for a code for several reasons. Any unknown language is very hard to figure out if it is not related to a known one. There were very few non Navajos who spoke the language at the time. Some estimates put that number at 30-40 people. Dictionaries and grammars had not been published internationally. Although it is very similar to Apache it is not understandable to others (in Canada and Alaska) in the larger language family, the Na-Dene. It was very hard for mainly non native speakers because the consonants are difficult, the vowels can be tonal and nasalized and the grammar is complex. It the guy whose idea it was, Philip Johntson, had grown up on the Navajo reservation, the son of a missionary and spoke the language and had been in the Army in WWI. There were also a large enough group of young Navajos who were fluent in Navajo. This was not the case for many other native languages. This was because Navajo are one of the largest tribes, and it was very remote area in the 1940's so most still spoke Navajo. many young men in their 20's had learned English in boarding schools.
The man who taught a Navajo class that I took in Kayenta, AZ had been punished for speaking Navajo and not knowing English when he entered boarding school in Chinle at age 7.
The code was not just spoken Navajo so to native speakers it would sound like a strange string of words. Basically it was a alphabet substitution code. So if you wanted to spell an english word that started with c, you would have cat stand for "c" and use the navajo word for cat, "mósí". Sometimes to mix it up you could use the would cow, Navajo for cow is "béégashii"
Note: in these examples the marks over the vowels means those vowels are high tone, those without marks are low tone.
Code talkers were Navajo Indians used in WWII. What the Navajo did was they developed a special code inside of the Navajo language to disguise what items they were talking about. Only trained code talkers could understand what they were saying. The language and codes that they made up were so complex that not even other Navajos' could understand. They did this mainly because instead of sending long coded messages that took up to an hour to decode, the Navajo's could send a message in 40 seconds via radio. This way it was more quicker and reliable to send messages.
How did the Pueblo the peoples way of life differ from the way of the Navajo and the Apache peoples?
They had different religions, languages, types of government, and food.
When was the Navajo colony founded?
The Navajo are not a colony. They are an indigenous people who have lived in the general Four Corners area for about 1100 years. At that date they had all the characteristics of the Navajo, corn planting hogans etc. They speak a language in the Southern Athabascan family related to other languages in northern Canada. It is thought they separated from them about 2000 - 3000 years ago. When exactly before 900 AD and by which route they arrived in the southwest in a matter of conjecture. That is the time which they differentiated from other Apachean people. Navajo and Hopi oral history and archeology all approximately agree on these dates. The earlier idea that Navajo arrived in the area around 1500 AD has been debunked. At that time they did get sheep and horses (around 1540) and that changed them to being centered on raising sheep as well as corn, beans and squash and added to their range of possible raiding.
In any case the Navajo have been there before the Spanish (1540s) before the Americans (1848) but not probably before the Hopi or the early Anasazi whom they got corn growing and weaving from.
There are over 300,000 enrolled members of the Navajo tribe today. The largest in the US and more Navajo than have ever been before.
How when and where did the Navajo codetalkers participate in World War 2?
This is one of my favorite subjects. Thanks! The U.S. had their codes cracked quite easily so they had to come up with a more effective code. In 1942 Philip Johnston thought of a code that was unbreakable to the enemy. A code based on the Navajo language. Johnston headed to Camp Elliot (near San Diego) and presented his idea for a code to Lt. Col. James E. Jones, the Area Signal Officer. 29 Navajos were trained, 2 remained behind to become instructors for future code talkers and the other 27 were sent to Guadalcanal to use the new code in combat. The program was of great success. There were 50,000 in the entire Navajo nation and 420 men worked as code takers. The initial code consisted of translations for 211 English word most frequently used in military conversations (ie: officers/airplanes/months.) The code was explanded by cryptographer Captain Stillwell and 200 words were added and often used letters (A/D/E/I/H/L/N/O/R/S/T/U) were added. Now completed it consisted of 411 terms. The code was never written down, only spoken. The Navajos had to send and receive the code ASAP. The Navajos were met with skeptisism and not treated all that well, but once they proved their worth they were more widely accepted. From 1942-1945 Navajo code talkers participated in numerous battles in the Pacific, including Guadalcanal and Iwo Jima (to mention a few.) It is also of interest that these Navajo talkers realized that if captured by the enemy they were to die to keep the code secret, even if it meant being killed by one of their own. Hope this has helped. Marcy B. McBrain
Environmental probabilism provides cues as to the probability of certain outcome. The environment is a predictor for certain human outcomes.
What do women do in their spare time?
Some women would like to do some shopping. Some might watch t.v or go swimming.
But they might like going out with friends some might even like computer games. Like I said it all depends on the woman.
How do you say handsome in Navajo?
To be handsome:
bÃiyis,
baaà dzólnÃ,
nizhónÃ,
'ayóà 'áneeshłin
The marks over vowels are to mark high tone, not accent or stress. Navajo is tonal and tone can completely change the meaning of a word.
The L with a line is not in English. There is a similar sound in Welsh. It is an aspirated unvoiced L sound. Put the tongue in L position and blow out around the tongue.
Two ii is like in "bee"
One i is like in "bit"
A is like in "father". Two aa is held longer.
e is like in "met". Two ee is held longer.
How did a person from the group of Navajo became a chief?
It is dependent on the tribe. Few tribes had hereditary chiefs. Most leaders (chiefs) were selected by their peers as having leadership skills or other attributes that could serve the tribe - in peace or in war. Many tribes have several chiefs that act as a council.
Recently one my friends has been proposed as a chief. He has been observed for many years by the elders and his peer group. There will be an election, but it is more of an acclamation for a position that he has demonstrated that he should hold.
How did the Navajo Indians adapt to desert life?
they lived near a river for water and they made their houses out of clay,sticks,straw
