DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR
Douglas McKay, Secretary

BUREAU OF INDIAN AFFAIRS
Glenn L. Emmons, Commissioner

BRANCH OF EDUCATION
Hildegard Thompson, Chief

Single Copy Price 20 cents

Phoenix Indian School Print Shop
Phoenix, Arizona
Third Edition 5,000 copies—September 1953

Little Man's family

diné yázhí ba'áłchíní

pre-primer

by

J. B. Enochs

illustrated by

Gerald Nailor

BUREAU OF INDIAN AFFAIRS

FOREWORD

This pre-primer is one of three little books based on material prepared by J. B. Enochs, who once taught in the sanitarium school at Kayenta. It deals entirely with typical life experiences among the Navaho, the largest Indian tribe in the United States, numbering approximately 65,000. Nine out of ten Navahos do not speak English, and the tribe has never had a written language.

Missionaries and scientists for many years have had alphabets with which to record this difficult language. But these alphabets have usually included letters not found in English, and have been peppered with diacritical marks to indicate inflection, tonal change and nasalization. Thus they proved too complicated for popular use. Space does not permit mention of many who have worked with the Navaho language. Finally Dr. John Harrington, of the Smithsonian Institution, and Mr. Oliver LaFarge, author and linguist, collaborated to produce a simplified alphabet which might be written with an ordinary typewriter. Mr. Robert W. Young, associate of Dr. Harrington, experimentally recorded a great deal of material in this new alphabet. The Navaho portions of later pamphlets in this bi-lingual series are the joint work of Harrington and Young. Little Man's Family has been expressed in Navaho, using the Harrington-LaFarge alphabet, by Willetto Antonio, a Navaho teacher on the reservation, and Dr. Edward Kennard, formerly a specialist in Indian languages for the Indian Service. Both the recordings and the interpretation in these books have been checked by Chic Sandoval, Howard Gorman, and Adolph Bitanny, Navaho interpreters, and by Robert W. Young. Back pages contain an explanation of the sound values represented by the alphabet, and the indications of tonal change and nasalization which are used.

These bi-lingual texts are an attempt to speed up Indian understanding of modern life. Use of native languages to speed up acquisition of English in Federal schools is a new departure in Indian policy, which has proved very successful.

The type used for these books has been selected because of its similarity in design to the alphabet used for manuscript writing. In the primers, only proper names and the pronoun I have to be capitalized, so as to further minimize the new learnings often encountered by the primary child when faced with several different alphabets at once.

Willard W. Beatty

Revised February 1950[Pg 3]

I am a Navaho boy.

diné 'ashkii nishłį́.[Pg 4]

---

my mother

shimá[Pg 5]

---

my father

shizhé'é[Pg 6]

---

my baby brother

'awéé' sitsilí[Pg 7]

---

our baby's cradle

nihe'awéé' bits'áál[Pg 8]

---

my big sister

shádí[Pg 9]

---

my little sister

shideezhí[Pg 10]

---

our hogan

nihighan[Pg 11]

---

my father made our hogan

shizhé'é nihighan 'áyiilaa.[Pg 12]

---

our sweathouse

nihitáchééh[Pg 13]

---

the soapweed plant

tsá'ászi'[Pg 14]

---

we wash our hair

nihitsii' tanínádeiigis[Pg 15]

---

our sheep

nihidibé[Pg 16]

---

our goats

nihitł'ízí[Pg 17]

---

our corral

nihidibé bighan[Pg 18]

---

our horses

nihilį́į́'[Pg 19]

---

our wagon

nihitsinaabąąs[Pg 20]

---

my mother's saddle

shimá bilį́į́' biyéél[Pg 21]

---

my father's saddle

shizhé'é bilį́į́' biyéél[Pg 22]

---

my little spotted pony

shilé'éyázhí łikizh[Pg 23]

---

my black dog

shilééchąąshzhiin[Pg 24]

---

my mother's loom

shimá bidah'iistł'ǫ́[Pg 25]

---

my mother cleans the wool.

shimá 'aghaa' hasht'eilééh[Pg 26]

---

my mother cards the wool.

shimá 'aghaa' hanéiniłcha'.[Pg 27]

---

my mother spins the wool

shimá 'aghaa' hanéiniłdis.[Pg 28]

---

my mother weaves a rug.

shimá diyogí yitł'ó.[Pg 29]

---

my sisters help my mother.

shádí dóó shideezhí shimá yíká 'anáhi'nilchééh.[Pg 30]

---

we sell the rug.

diyogí ninádahiilnih.[Pg 31]

THE NAVAHO ALPHABET

The following information with regard to the Navaho alphabet and its use should prove helpful to one familiar with the English language.

VOWELS

The vowels have continental values. They are as follows, the first example being a Navaho word, the second the closest approximation to the sound in an English word:

Vowels may be either long or short in duration, the long vowel being indicated by a doubling of the letter. This never affects the quality of the vowel, except that long i is always pronounced as in pique.

Vowels with a hook beneath the letter are nasalized. That is, some of the breath passes through the nose in their production. After n, all vowels are nasalized and are not marked.

DIPHTHONGS

The diphthongs are as follows:

The diphthongs oi (as in Joey) will frequently be heard as ui (as in dewy) in certain sections of the reservation. However, since the related word ayóó is always of one value, this spelling has been standardized.

In a similar way, the diphthongs ei and ai are not universally distinguished. For example, the word for sand, séí will be pronounced sáí by some Navahos.[Pg 32]

CONSONANTS

The consonants are as follows:

These sounds are not truly voiced as are the sounds represented by these letters in English, but are like the wholly unaspirated p, t, and k in the English words given as examples.

The t and k in Navaho are much more heavily aspirated than in the English words given in the examples, so that the aspiration has a harsh fricative quality.

In the American colloquial negative unh unh, and in the exclamatory expression oh oh, the glottal stop precedes the u and the o respectively. Or, in actual speech, the difference between Johnny earns and Johnny yearns, is that the former has a glottal closure between the two words.

This letter represents the sound produced by the almost simultaneous release of the breath from the closure formed by the tip of the tongue and the teeth and the glottal closure described previously.

This sound is produced in the same way as the t', except that the k closure is formed by the back of the tongue and the soft palate.

[Pg 33] This sound is made with the tongue in exactly the same position as in the ordinary l, but the voice box or larynx does not function. The difference between these two l's is the same as the difference between the b and p, d and t, or s and z. If one attempts to pronounce th as in thin followed by l without an intervening vowel a ł is produced. Thus athłete.

In Navaho there are two sounds represented by the letter h. The difference is in the intensity or fricativeness. Where h is the first letter in a syllable it is by some pronounced like the ch of German. This harsh pronunciation is the older, but the younger generation of Navahos tends to pronounce the sound much as in English.

This is the voiced equivalent of the harshly pronounced variety of h, the functioning of the voice being the only difference between the two sounds.

This sound is an unaspirated ch, just as d and g represent unaspirated t and k.

This sound is produced in a fashion similar to the t' and k', but with the release of the breath from the ch position and from the glottal closure.

ts occurs in the beginning and middle of Navaho words, but only in final position in English.

This sound is similar to ch', except for the tongue position, and involves the release of the breath from the glottal closure in the same way as the other glottalized sounds.[Pg 34]

The dl is produced as one sound, as gl is in the word glow.

This sound is pronounced as unvoiced dl.

This sound involves the release of the breath from the t position of the tongue tip and teeth, from the contact of the sides of the tongue inside the back teeth (normal l position), and the glottal closure. It has a marked explosive quality. The sound is produced as a unit, as in the gl of glow, cited above.

PALATALIZATION AND LABIALIZATION

It is to be noted that the sounds represented by g, t, k, h, gh, and ch, ts (when heavily aspirated) are palatalized before e, i, and labialized before o. By this it is meant that such a word as ké (shoe) is pronounced as though it were written kyé, and tó (water) as though written twó.

Due to the nature of the gh sound, it practically resolves itself into a w when followed by o. Thus tálághosh (soap) could be written táláwosh, yishghoł (I'm running) as yishwoł etc.

k and h can also be pronounced as kw and hw before e, i, in which case the combination is a distinct phoneme. In such cases the w must be written. Thus kwe'é (here), kwii (here), hwii (satisfaction) etc.

TONE

The present system of writing Navaho employs only one diacritical to express four tonal variations. This is the acute accent mark (´). If a short vowel or n, both elements of a long vowel or a diphthong are marked thus the tone indicated is high. If only the first element of a long vowel or diphthong is marked the tone is falling from high, and if only the last element is marked the tone is rising from low. When a vowel, diphthong or n is unmarked the tone is low. The difference between low and high tone in Navaho is similar to the difference in tone of "are you" and "going" in the English question "are you going?"[Pg 35]

WORD AND SENTENCE STRUCTURE

Teachers will note that the possessive pronouns of Navaho are always prefixed to the noun. Thus, we have shimá (my mother), nimá (your mother), bimá (his mother), but never má. The stem -má has no independent form and never occurs without a prefix.

The structure of the Navaho verb has similar characteristics, but is more complex. The subject of the sentence is always incorporated in the verb with a pronominal form, and other verbal elements. Ideas of time and mode are likewise incorporated in the verb, and auxiliary verbs such as will, did, have, might, etc. do not occur in Navaho. The ideas conveyed by these independent words in English are expressed by different forms of the verb itself in Navaho.

Another point in which Navaho sentence structure differs from English is that English prepositions are postpositions in Navaho.

whereas normal word order in English is subject, verb, and object, Navaho has subject, object, and verb.[Pg 37][Pg 36]

PUBLICATIONS OF THE BUREAU OF INDIAN AFFAIRS

INDIAN LIFE READERS

NAVAJO SERIES (bilingual in English and Navajo)

by J. B. Enochs, illustrated by Gerald Nailor

Little Man's family. preprimer, primer and reader

by Hildegard Thompson, illustrated by Van Tsihnahjinnie

Preprimer, Primer
Coyote Tales (reader)

by Ann Clark, illustrated by Hoke Denetsosie

Who Wants to be a Prairie Dog? (A Navajo fairy tale)

by Ann Clark, illustrated by Van Tsihnahjinnie

Little Herder in Autumn, in Winter (single volume)
Little Herder in Spring, in Summer (single volume)
In English only:
Little Navajo Herder (Autumn, Winter, Spring, Summer)

by Cecil S. King, Navajo New World Readers:

1. Away to School. Illustrated by Franklin Kahn
2. The Flag of My Country. Illustrated by Henry Bahe
(Material of mature concept and simple vocabulary for use by recently non-English-speaking adolescents.)

SIOUX SERIES (in English and Dakota)

by Ann Clark, illustrated by Andrew Standing Soldier

Sioux Cowboy (preprimer)
The Pine Ridge Porcupine
The Grass Mountain Mouse
There Still are Buffalo
Bringer of the Mystery Dog (illustrated by Oscar Howe)
Brave Against the Enemy (photographic illustrations by Helen Post)
Singing Sioux Cowboy (Primer)
The Slim Butte Raccoon
The Hen of Wahpeton

PUEBLO SERIES

by Ann Clark (in English and Spanish)

Little Boy With Three Names (illustrated by Tonita Lujan) Taos
Young Hunter of Picuris (illustrated by Velino Herrera)
Sun Journey (illustrated by Percy Sandy) Zuni

by Edward A. Kennard (in English and Hopi)

Field Mouse Goes to War (illustrated by Fred Kabotie)
Little Hopi (illustrated by Charles Loloma)

ALASKA STORIES

by Edward A. Keithahn, illustrated by George A. Ahgapuk

Igloo Tales

Also pamphlets on Indian Life and Customs, and Indian Handcrafts
for catalog and price list write to
HASKELL INSTITUTE