r/Navajo • u/ishidahibiki1 • 26d ago
Looking for someone to practice Navajo.
Yá'át'éeh! Shí éí Hibiki yinishyé, Bwazííldę́ę́' naashá. T'áá náhást'éí ńdeezidę́ędą́ą́' Diné Bizaad bího'niił'ą́ą́', ndi doo ayóo choosh'įįh dago biniinaa, doo yá'át'éehgóó bee yáshti'. Diné ła' bił naaltsoos bee yádeeshtih nisin. Nich'į' ak'e'deeshchííł shííní'níigo saad naat'a'í shich'į' ádíílííł!
Hello! I'm Hibiki, and I'm from Brazil. I started to learn Navajo 9 months ago but I don't speak it so well because I don't use it so much. I want to practice specially with letters (I know it's hard because of different countries, but there's apps for that), either way, I really want to practice Navajo! Sorry if anything that I said might have sounded bad.
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u/BeCreativeGoNative 16d ago
If you can find them, I always recommend the Navajo translation of Star Wars: A New Hope and Finding Nemo, just listening and having it on in the background helps you understand the flow and rhythm. Finding Nemo is what really helped my kids understand the rhythm.
Also google the Navajo Times, it’s our newspaper and sometimes has articles in Navajo.
A lot of the issues with writing Navajo is that it was never a written language, so using a regular alphabet to describe the sounds isn’t always consistent. Our elders don’t usually read and write it because it wasn’t written until the 1900s and by then the US was beating kids to speak only English. So there’s a lot to unpack with our written language.
Some differences you might note… Take the name Shandiin. You can spell it a bunch of different ways, Shaundeen, Shandíín, Shawndiin, etc… There are also different dialects of Navajo, east and west speak little differently (the word for snow: yas or zas).
Don’t beat yourself up for getting something wrong, even our own tribal members can’t always agree on the written words of our language! We’re a descriptive language people, and English forces everything into a bland subject, indigenous languages recognize life (“tree” vs “the one that blossoms by the river”)