for a newspaperâprogrammers were forced to include many more examples than they would have had to for a language such as English. Although I canât imagine that I would be able to figure out the rules of Navajo grammar under such conditions, I can freely admit that itâs more accessible than flipping through a book by Young and Morgan.
Luckily for me, I donât have to worry about midterms or final grades, so instead of being bogged down by complexity Iâm free to find in Navajo verb structure an intriguing emphasis on clarity and specificity. To be sure, an English-speaker can get across the same information communicated by a single Navajo verb thanks to our fine stock of adverbs. I canât help but wonder, though, if maybe precision is somehow more central to the Navajo language and if thatâs ultimately why I find the language so intimidating. Maybe Iâm just more comfortable with ambiguity.
I thought about this frequently during my time with the Navajo, because as I learned more about the Navajo language and Navajo history, I began to draw some very unambiguous conclusions and then, almost immediately, to pull back from them. I like to think my skepticism with regard to simple explanations is born of common sense, but the truth is that vacillation is a convenient crutch for an insecure mind. It took a trip to Navajo Nation for me to realize that it would be a disservice to everyone involved to shy away from the straightforwardâindeed, even obviousâanalyses.
And so it was in Navajo Nation that for the first time I began to form some genuinely strong opinions about the state of language in America.
Extending into four states and spanning an area that, at over 27,000 square miles, is approximately the size of West Virginia, Navajo Nation is the countryâs largest expanse of Native-controlled land and home to nearly 170,000 of the tribeâs 300,000-plus members. My home base on Navajo Nation was a town called Chinle, one of five agencies on the reservation. I stayed there for largely practical reasons: itâs relatively centrally located, itâs near a gas station, and itâs home to the only Holiday Inn on Navajo land. k But I also came to Chinle because I wanted to take a tour of the townâs lone attraction, Canyon de Chelly.
Inhabited for nearly 5,000 years, Canyon de Chellyâwhose name comes from the Navajo word for canyon ( tséyi ) and does not rhyme with jelly but instead is pronounced more like the French chez âis home to the longest continuous human settlement anywhere on the Colorado Plateau. Today about eighty or so families still live in the canyon.
Most of the tourists who visit come to gawk not at the canyonâs present inhabitants but at its past dwellings: the ruins of Anasazi settlements in the canyon date back nearly a thousand years. These pueblo dwellings were constructed along the walls of the canyon and, at times, seemingly into the walls of the canyon. The most famous are the White House ruins, a structure believed to have been built around 1060 CE and abandoned just over 200 years later. These ruins, two levels of tumbling adobe brick that were once covered with the white plaster that gave the ruins their name, probably once housed about twelve Anasazi families.
The White House ruins are located in the only part of the canyon that is open to the public. To see the rest of the canyon, as I did, you have to enlist the services of a Navajo guide. My guide, an easygoing Cowboys fan named Oscar, took me down to the canyon in a Jeep. As we drove over the canyon floor, he detailed the history of the canyon and the Anasazi and Navajo settlements in the area, pointing out ruins and petroglyphs by reflecting the sunlight with his rear-view mirror. Every so often we would spot in the distance one of the group tours run by another local hotel and would watch as red-faced tourists rumbled by in monstrous open-air buses that reminded me
Luckily for me, I donât have to worry about midterms or final grades, so instead of being bogged down by complexity Iâm free to find in Navajo verb structure an intriguing emphasis on clarity and specificity. To be sure, an English-speaker can get across the same information communicated by a single Navajo verb thanks to our fine stock of adverbs. I canât help but wonder, though, if maybe precision is somehow more central to the Navajo language and if thatâs ultimately why I find the language so intimidating. Maybe Iâm just more comfortable with ambiguity.
I thought about this frequently during my time with the Navajo, because as I learned more about the Navajo language and Navajo history, I began to draw some very unambiguous conclusions and then, almost immediately, to pull back from them. I like to think my skepticism with regard to simple explanations is born of common sense, but the truth is that vacillation is a convenient crutch for an insecure mind. It took a trip to Navajo Nation for me to realize that it would be a disservice to everyone involved to shy away from the straightforwardâindeed, even obviousâanalyses.
And so it was in Navajo Nation that for the first time I began to form some genuinely strong opinions about the state of language in America.
Extending into four states and spanning an area that, at over 27,000 square miles, is approximately the size of West Virginia, Navajo Nation is the countryâs largest expanse of Native-controlled land and home to nearly 170,000 of the tribeâs 300,000-plus members. My home base on Navajo Nation was a town called Chinle, one of five agencies on the reservation. I stayed there for largely practical reasons: itâs relatively centrally located, itâs near a gas station, and itâs home to the only Holiday Inn on Navajo land. k But I also came to Chinle because I wanted to take a tour of the townâs lone attraction, Canyon de Chelly.
Inhabited for nearly 5,000 years, Canyon de Chellyâwhose name comes from the Navajo word for canyon ( tséyi ) and does not rhyme with jelly but instead is pronounced more like the French chez âis home to the longest continuous human settlement anywhere on the Colorado Plateau. Today about eighty or so families still live in the canyon.
Most of the tourists who visit come to gawk not at the canyonâs present inhabitants but at its past dwellings: the ruins of Anasazi settlements in the canyon date back nearly a thousand years. These pueblo dwellings were constructed along the walls of the canyon and, at times, seemingly into the walls of the canyon. The most famous are the White House ruins, a structure believed to have been built around 1060 CE and abandoned just over 200 years later. These ruins, two levels of tumbling adobe brick that were once covered with the white plaster that gave the ruins their name, probably once housed about twelve Anasazi families.
The White House ruins are located in the only part of the canyon that is open to the public. To see the rest of the canyon, as I did, you have to enlist the services of a Navajo guide. My guide, an easygoing Cowboys fan named Oscar, took me down to the canyon in a Jeep. As we drove over the canyon floor, he detailed the history of the canyon and the Anasazi and Navajo settlements in the area, pointing out ruins and petroglyphs by reflecting the sunlight with his rear-view mirror. Every so often we would spot in the distance one of the group tours run by another local hotel and would watch as red-faced tourists rumbled by in monstrous open-air buses that reminded me
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