Semper Fi ...
Posted on 08/25/2010 10:20:03 AM PDT by CedarDave
Rosetta Stone, creator of the renowned language-learning software, on Tuesday released its Navajo version, the first large-scale language revitalization project for the native dialect ...
Navajo, traditionally an oral language, is spoken by more than 100,000 people, making it the most common American Indian language north of Mexico, but use and fluency is on the decline with about 50 percent of Navajos age 17 and younger unable to speak their native language, according to data from the 2000 U.S. Census.
(Excerpt) Read more at abqjournal.com ...
The Japanese in WW-II found that out. Only a few codetalkers are still around, sad to say.
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There goes our advantage if/when it comes down to using code talkers again.
I met a guy (non-Navajo) once that had spent many years on one of the reservations, think he was a teacher. He had learned the Navajo language, even though it was not required of him, and he spoke it fluently. I just remember thinking that it was a such a powerful, yet beautiful sounding language.
This could come in handy if FCC and Odumbler get their way.
Really?
A guy I grew up with recently told me his goal in life was to translate The Bible into Navajo.
At that time, he was trying to figure out how to learn Navajo.
A real idiot this guy is.
Check out this link to listen to live broadcasting in Navajo:
http://www.ktnnonline.com/showdj.asp?DJID=26720
INDEED.
See post #9.
With 12-16 tones . . . it’s a VERY difficult one to learn.
And then there’s male/female stuff.
Hazards aplenty.
Hmmm. Won’t play on my Firefox; works o.k. with IE.
Rosetta Stone is so awesome. I have the Spanish Rosetta Stone and use it. I even go into McDonald’s and order in Spanish...it is quite fun especially when the person at the register is spanish and does not expect it from a White Guy.
listening now .... interesting ... cowboy country music and tribal ...
I see the ads all the time. Is it really worth the money? About 1/3 those I work with speak Spanish. I’m challenged enough with English sometimes (I have a slight non-hearing related disability that makes understanding English rough sometimes [I have to ask folks to repeat themselves often so I can understand — will frequently run TV movies with captions on]. My hearing of “tones” in a hearing test is normal, but sometimes I have to ask speakers frequently to repeat.)
If you are serious about learning another language take a look at Pimsleur as well. That’s how I learned Russian.
It’s a powerful station with 50,000 watts of power. They play good country music and out in the western boonies before satellite music it was the station to listen to.
The USMC risked a very tiny chance that there was any linguistics professor in Imperial Japan who might have some dim working documentation of Navajo in the one dusty library book on Navajo ever published, but they would have had to be a Navajo on the reservation to understand their familiar banter, and then decipher the code they were speaking. Layers of complexity kept this valuable military resource safe from the enemy.
A Navajo US Army soldier was even captured and identified by the Japanese at Bataan then tortured into attempting to decipher Navajo Code Talker messages that he couldn't understand because it was in code. There's just no flippin' way that anyone would have had a hope of cracking the Navajo Code Talker's language. Just forget it.
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