Talk:Navajo language/Archive 1

Archive 1

noun class for "long, stiff object" is a joke?

That noun class for "long, stiff object" is a joke, isn't it?

While I understand how you might think that, this is no joke. As I understand it, this noun class refers to things like sticks, rifles and planks, whereas long and non-stiff (i.e. flexible) things, like ropes, fall under a different noun class. Navajo has a large number of noun classes, and these correspond to physically observable characteristics of the noun in question. The assignment into noun class is not so arbitrary as in Latin or Greek. Here are some examples of a verb which varies according to noun class:

• ch'í-n-lhtí~ carry an animate entity out horizontally
• ch'í-n-lá carry a slender flexible object out horizontally
• ch'í-n-tá~ carry a slender stiff object out horizontally
• ch'í-n-jaa' carry many objects out horizontally
• ch'í-ni-'á~ carry a solid compact entity out horizontally
• ch'í-n-lhjool carry non-compact matter out horizontally
• ch'í-n-yí carry a burden or pack out horizontally
• ch'í-n-lhtsooz carry a flat flexible object out horizontally
• ch'í-n-ka~ carry something in a container out horizontally

thefamouseccles 10:08, 6 Sep 2004 (UTC)

That's right, this is no joke. Welcome to linguistics! I added a section about this. Check it out. - Ish ishwar 11:14, 2005 Jan 10 (UTC)

Polysynthetic??

For this reason, some call it a polysynthetic language.

I thought polysynthesis was the extreme use of affixes, not the contraction of affixes into one another: that's inflection.

Navajo uses up to 7 prefixes on its verb. I don't know what your definition of extreme is, but to me that's a lot. Also, the affixes don't just contract, sometimes their form changes depending on the segments around it (e.g. d-effect).

Of course this is all very subjective. I'll try to do some research into this and pull out some references from published papers, when I get some time. Until then I'll leave it out. - wulong 08:14, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Some more thoughts.

1) Inflection is not contraction of affixes, but something quite different. I have put forth some effect to correct the inflection entry, but it still needs work. Check out the explanation there (or better yet consult an introductory linguistic textbook!). But at any rate, Navajo has quite a bit of inflectional processes going on.

2) Most Athabaskanists (i.e. linguists who work on Athabaskan languages like Navajo & Tlingit, etc.) consider Athabaskan languages to be polysynthetic.

But, if you check out what polysynthesis means you will see that what is being talked about here is the degree of synthesis or the word-to-morpheme ratio (i.e. how many morphemes are present in each word on average). So if we look at a bunch of langs we see that there is a continuum from langs that words with only 1 morphemes to ones that have 2-4 morphemes per word to langs that have quite a high number of morphemes per word.

Another thing to think about is "Do different word classes have different degrees of synthesis?". The answer is "yes". Take Japanese: the verbs generally have a greater degree of synthesis than nouns. Things are getting more & more complicated...

So where is Navajo? Well, it definitely has more morphemes in verbs than in nouns (the non-deverbal nouns) or other word classes. So maybe the verbs are polysynthetic but the nouns are just synthetic. But if we compare Navajo to some really polysynthetic languages like Chukchi or Central Siberian Yupik (a.k.a. Eskimo), we see that Navajo is not as extreme. So it depends on your definition of polysynthesis which is what Wulong stated above.

The other thing to mention is that these categories of isolating, synthetic, and polysynthetic are simplified notions of ideal languages. They are commonly used in introductory linguistic textbooks and the like. But, they do not necessarily accurately describe the situation. To be more rigorous about this you could establish a numerical value of the word-to-morpheme ratio and then make your comparisons.

3) What you are alluding to above when you say "contraction of affixes" is the degree of segmentability. Easily segmentable languages are called agglutinating, not so easily segmentable are called fusional. Young & Morgan (1987) say of Navajo verb: [it] "consists of a stem preceded by two or more prefixes, ... agglutinated together in a fixed relative sequential order...". It is easy to take issue with this. Some affixes (esp. suffixes & enclitics) are agglutinatively combined to other morphemes, but a lot of prefixes are rather fused together. It is quite complicated. Most of early Navajo linguistics was trying to figure all these "contractions" and permutations and other weird things (like changing tones).

Anyway, it's a interesting language. Maybe when Wulong has time s/he will give us some more things. Cheers! - Ish ishwar 20:50, 2005 Jan 5 (UTC)

{{ConvertIPA}}

The following has been added to this article which I removed:

This language or phonology-related article needs to be fully converted to IPA. See IPA in Unicode for information about the correct codes for IPA characters. When converting the article, please ensure that all IPA coding is surrounded by the {{IPA}} or {{IPA2}} templates. Once you've converted the article, it may be appropriate to add the {{IPA notice}} template.

I removed this for a few reasons.

1. Not everyone is a linguist. Not everyone cares about IPA.
2. Not everyone knows how to read IPA. Why learn both IPA & the Navajo writing system when Navajo writing is sufficient to describe the sound system? I used the practical orthography because it teaches how to read the orthography and it works to give a decent description of Navajo sounds.
3. If you look at most pedagogical works on specific languages they dont use IPA. Nor do general-use encyclopedias.
4. The Navajo writing system is cool because it combines English character usage with the Americanist phonetic transcription system. Many linguists favor the Americanist system over IPA, which has many annoying things about it. It is nice to give beginning wiki-phoneticians a taste of alternate systems currently in use by linguists.
5. I understand that you want to standardize. I will put a link to Southern Athabaskan languages for people who want a very linguisticy description. (actually I am torn on what to do here. how much should this be geared toward people who know a little about linguistics, how much should it be pedagogical, how hard, how much to put here vs. how much to put in Apachean languages article.....)

I think IPA should be used for the orthography and the phoneme chart, for those who are interested in linguistics and comparison (and for the fact that IPA is supposed to be just that: international. Not every Wikipedia user is American). Plus it explains the orthography: for instance, the fact that Navajo dz isn't actually voiced (AFAIK), but unaspirated, isn't clear in the Americanised system. However, beyond the orthography and the phoneme chart, I see no reason why the Navajo orthography shouldn't be used. It's standardised and current, after all, and the French article doesn't use IPA for its example sentences, right? :) thefamouseccles 02:54, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Hi.

1. I am worried about readers who might be scared away from the weird symbols. But, if they are intrigued & sucked into linguistics because of the weird symbols, I dont want to deprive them of this opportunity. Anyway, I have used IPA in the Apachean languages article (although I am describing Western Apache mostly).

2. If this community of wikilanguagers wants to go IPA, thats cool with me. There are benefits of standardization esp. when making comparisons between langs.

3. Americanist transcription system is not used by only Americans. It is used by linguists who work on languages indigenous to the Americas. This is a legacy of the early anthroplogical linguists who created it. This system is as old as IPA, historically more stable, and also very similar to IPA. IPA wants to be international, but I think that it is not. IPA is a European creation so it already has that bias in its choice of symbols (there are sounds in Chinese languages that still dont have IPA symbols). The main issue, though, is that linguists working in specific language families often have transcription systems unique to that family. From what I can tell, this situation really hasnt changed, except in work on phonetics where IPA is consisently used in journals. And if someone wants to look into Apachean linguistics, they will have to learn 4 different systems: (1) IPA, (2) current Americanist, (3) system used from around 1935, (4) system used before 1935. I guess this is the same most everywhere. So the point: IPA is not as international as it wants to be and therefore a claim that it is international does not convince me of it being the choice for international use. (here I'm talking about linguistics, but in other language areas like dictionaries, pedagogical materials, etc. I havent seen that much standardization either. others know more about this than me, though.)

4. The Navajo orthography is different from the Americanist phonetic transcription. So, the voiceless affricate you mention would be written as [c] in this system. But, you are right about the Navajo orthography being purposely similar to English spelling practices. The symbols <b>, <d>, <g>, <dz>, etc. are used for voiceless stops because that's the way the symbols are pronounced in English. (likewise Chinese romanization was changed for English speakers' benefit much to the annoyance of non-English speakers like French who really do have voiced stops!)

Simply put, the issue is either

(a) use IPA and provide standardized unambiguous phonetic information to linguistically minded readers but complicate the presentation for more casual readers, or

(b) use only the orthography and simplify the presentation but make those interested in phonetic detail have to work harder to determine the precise phonetic values.

If phonetic precision is desired by the community then I will have to resort to phonetic transcription to accomplish this. But so far I havent seen the English or French language articles reach a very precise description of phonetics.

Your further thoughts are welcome. Thanks. - Ish ishwar 10:17, 2005 Jan 16 (UTC)

Believe me, I know the issues you're talking about. :) I work fairly intensively with the Northwest Caucasian family, in which most linguists still use a Roman-based system not too dissimilar from the Americanist system in some aspects. (And in Ubykh, my speciality, there are many phonemes that do not have specific IPA equivalents – like the Chinese languages you suggest. Even the Czech ř still has no IPA equivalent.) But I think you're oversimplifying the issue – it's not just about "IPA" XOR "Americanist". I merely suggest that in the phoneme chart, both IPA and Navajo orthography equivalents are given, and that the rest of the article can then be in the normal Navajo orthography. That way there isn't a preponderance of IPA in the article, but those who do know IPA can puzzle out how to pronounce Navajo text that doesn't have an IPA transcription. IPA isn't as international as it wants to be, but a lot of that is because so many linguists simply do not use it, choosing established orthographies instead, as you mention. (This is still a problem in the Northwest Caucasian community. It took me two years of digging and research to pin down how the phonemes of Ubykh are pronounced. If IPA had been used instead, things would have been a lot simpler.) And the reason IPA is not so stable is because it does change to incorporate sounds that are newly agreed to be phonemic or phonetic. That's the idea behind it.

And if you'll forgive my being blunt, I don't think a specimen phoneme set for a language family, even for subfamilies, is the right way to go. As an example, in the Abkhaz-Abaza subfamily of Northwest Caucasian, no dialect of Abkhaz shares more than 85% of its consonants with any other, and Abaza is different again. There's plenty of room on Wikipedia for individual phoneme sets for each language – after all, while this may be an encyclopaedia, we're looking to collect as much knowledge as possible, even for the linguists. (But I do agree with you that French and English are very poorly done; I think that this might be because linguists who regularly use IPA are less likely to concentrate on English and French, perhaps? I think many linguists of English are still using macrons to indicate long vowels... ;) (Oh, and English *does* have voiced stops; unaspirated voiceless ones are what it lacks.)

Glad to have this discussion with you though – a clash of viewpoints can often be productive. Let me know what you think.thefamouseccles 12:41, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Nice talking to you too. I have thought about this and I guess you are right. Since most language articles attempt to include IPA transcription, it is probably best that my contributions follow suit. So, I will make the changes. I want to consult some phonetic studies by Peter Ladefoged and Joyce McDonough before doing so, however.

Some minor quibbles & thoughts:

• IPA works on a phonemic contrastivity principle. It provides a way to symbolize all phonemically contrastive sound (theoretically at least). But, it does not, generally, provide notation for every possible sound. Example: a pharyngeal trill. This sound occurs in some dialects of Haida. Others dialects have a pharyngeal fricative instead. These two sounds dont contrast phonemically, so no IPA. But they are important in a description of Haida dialects, so a non-IPA way to transcribe this must be invented. So, it is a not universal phonetic alphabet, but rather a selective phonetic alphabet — not "phonemic or phonetic", but just phonemic. There is a nice discussion of this in Daniels & Bright (1996:823-824) if you are interested.
• I retract my earlier statement about the instability of IPA. I think both European & Americanist phonetic transcription have changed a fair amount since their inceptions.
• So as far using Western Apache to exemplify the Apachean group, I think that it works pretty well. Not as much variation as in Caucasian language groups. There are historical sound changes, but these have not changed the overal phonemic inventory. One exception: Western Apache has borrowed aspirated bilabial stops from English. I dont know if Navajo has this phoneme (my work so far has been on Western Apache & Chiricahua Apache). Chiricahua has one word with this sound, but is onomatopoeic. But, I admit that I dont know about Plains Apache. I could be wrong. So the article is tentative & perpetually "in progress". But at any rate, the article before was called "Apache language" and the authors considered all "Apache" peoples and languages to be the same, so it at least it is somewhat more accurate now.
• About English stops: Most varieties of American & British English dont have voiced stops. I know that is the way they described in introductory linguistics textbooks, but this is a simplification of the phonetic reality. You will have to consult a more detailed phonetics manual to find this. The stops orthographically written as <b>, <d>, <g> are usually voiceless even within a word and surrounded by vowels (the vocal fold vibration stops soon after oral closure and starts again when the closure is released into the vowel). So, you can say that English has phonemically voiced stops that are phonetically manifested as voiceless. As usual this applies most varieties, but perhaps doesnt apply to more divergent varieties, such as Irish English, subcontinent Indian English, etc.

Again thanks for your thoughts. Cheers! - Ish ishwar 18:47, 2005 Jan 20 (UTC)

Reference:

Daniels, Peter T.; & Bright, William. (1996). The world's writing systems. New York: Oxford University Press.

Are you calling me divergent? :P Australian English (my dialect) manifests clearly voiced stops in almost every position, and that's what I was basing it on... maybe I was wrong. But it's in the nature of stops to have a very short period of flowing air. If the situation you describe is correct, then there would be no such thing as phonetically voiced stops in any language (unless they were kept very short).

Anyway, that's fairly tangential. :) I find it interesting that Western Apache has [p]... Navajo does lack that phoneme (in native vocab, at least). From what I've seen, the Athabaskan languages as a whole are poor in bilabial consonants. And I didn't think Navajo had prenasalised stops (although I am working from a 1951 grammar); I'd thought that [n] was moraic word-initially before [d], at least, and could carry contrastive tone in that position. But Navajo phonetics is fairly well treated compared to a lot of other languages, so I don't think you should have too much trouble finding material. Since Apachean linguistics is your speciality, I'll bow to your findings. :)

And I must agree; the IPA is still very defective in terms of actual phonetics. If there's a space on the IPA grid for a pharyngeal trill, and it exists in any language, why not use that empty space? But it's about as universal a system as we'll get... in the short term, at least. thefamouseccles 00:47, 21 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I once heard an Australian speak her native English for hours. It was a mind-boggling experience. As described above, her intervocalic /b d g/ were devoiced in the middle: the voicing stopped after the stop began, and resumed before the release. I find myself unable to imitate that.

I guess the IPA will get a symbol for an epiglottal trill (which is what the Haida phenomenon is – not pharyngeal) in its next revision. All over Wikipedia it's mentioned that the symbol я is occasionally used in the literature.

What is really annoying about the IPA is the tradition of writing one-contact alveolar trills the same way as flaps – but that's not strictly speaking a failure of the IPA itself.

David Marjanović | david.marjanovic_at_gmx.at | 22:26 CEST | 2006/5/7

(I guess we are getting a little off topic Navajo-wise. Oh well.)

Yes just about all Athabaskan have few labials. In fact Tlingit does not have any labials (stops, fricatives, etc.) — it only has a labio-velar glide & labialization as a secondary place of articulation. So, Tlingit has disproved the claim that labials are universal. Nice! It is interesting to note that a Salishan language, Tillamook (spoken in Oregon, USA), does not have labials either and it is surrounded by Athabaskan languages (other Salishan languages do have labials). Additionally, there are probably not many words that contain labials, esp. [m]. For instance, in my data on Chiricahua Apache there are 3 stems in native words that have the [m] phoneme and 3 other words borrowed from Spanish. Not many words with [m] (more words have [b]). But, to make up for the lack of labials, Athabaskan languages are coronal-heavy.

One other Athabaskan language, Hupa, surprisingly lacks velar stops!

I wouldnt guess that your variety is very divergent. Usually, the consonants are fairly similar in most Englishes. You are right that keeping voiced stops short in duration would be physically easier, and because of their greater physiological effort they are less common than voiceless stops cross-linguistically. But I do believe that there are some languages with geminate voiced stops (I dont know which). Stops can be voiced in several ways, two examples are (1) allowing expansion of the cheeks & throat, or (2) lowering the larynx to accommodate the increasing air pressure during vocal fold vibration. As I mentioned above, French is a language with true fully voiced stops. It is quite common that stops that are phonemically voiced (i.e. they pattern like the other voiced consonants) are realized as phonetically voiceless. I'll look up some references & put them on your talk page.

Different languages & dialects have different things for the /nd/: [nd], [d], [n], [n^d], and [ⁿd] are all possibilities. Simplified, Navajo has [n], Chiricahua has [n^d], Mescalero has [nd], Western Apache has [nd], [d], [n], [n^d], & [ⁿd], Jicarilla & Lipan have [ⁿd], Plains Apache has [d]. Additionally, some languages/dialects have a similar situation with /m/ I going to put some things about this in the Apachean article one day.

Peace. - 07:26, 2005 Jan 22 (UTC)

łéé'íí'nííł 'cemetery' ?

I dont find łéé'íí'nííł in Young & Morgan's (1987) dictionary or Young et al.'s (1992) lexicon. I do find for both łeeh hwii'níłí 'cemetery, graveyard (lit. 'the place where they are buried one after another')' [łeeh 'into ground' < leezh 'dirt, ground, soil' + -iih 'into'; hwii'nííł 'they are put one after another' < -nííł 'to handle PLO1'; -í (relative enclitic)] and łeeh ho'dii'nííł 'graveyard, cemetery, burial ground'. (There is also jishcháá' = 'grave, graveyard, cemetery'.) However, there is a form łee' 'inside/within the ground' [ < leezh + -ii' 'inside']. Can the person who provided this form please state the source? I am interested.

Since I dont find this form, I am removing it and replacing it with other words which I hope are equally interesting.

Thanks. - Ish ishwar 18:31, 2005 Jan 12 (UTC)

I provided this form, which can be found in Gladys Reichard's Navaho Grammar (1951; Publications of the American Ethnological Society) as an example form for the prefix łéé' in the ground. This may be an idiolectic usage, and I have no issue with you replacing it, but it is (or, perhaps, was) real Navajo. thefamouseccles 02:34, Jan 16 2005 (UTC)

Cool. Thanks for the note. I havent gotten my hands on this one yet. I have been told her grammar is good but sadly neglected. Also heard that there are many words missing from Young & Morgan's work — not hard to get a word from a native speaker that isnt there.

Young & Morgan also list a prefix łe'- that means the same. Peace – Ish ishwar 08:48, 2005 Jan 16 (UTC)

No worries. I've come across this in Wichita too, where foreign nouns are often construed with verbs – very similar to Navajo, and just as hard to write a definitive dictionary for. ;) Reichard's grammar is good, but being from 1951 probably not the best for modern Navajo usage. The transcription is good though – I recommend it if you can find it.thefamouseccles 13:22, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Grammar: Nouns

OK, two issues here, so I'm going ahead and dividing this again:

POV or General Comprehensibility?

The following was added by Barfooz at 20:40 on 24 April 2005:

Many concepts that exist as nouns in other languages exist as verbs in Navajo. Noun phrases exist in Navajo outside of syntactic space: that is, they are not necessary for forming a grammatical sentence and exist purely for semantical reasons. Noun phrases are unique in Navajo because they lie in the adjunction domain, rather than in A or A’ positions, and do not receive overt case marking.

As I pointed out nearly a year ago, this explanation unnecessarily relies on knowledge of Chomskian syntactic theory to be comprehensible (if even then). I propose rewriting it thus:

Many concepts expressed using nouns in other languages appear as verbs in Navajo. The majority of true nouns are not inflected for number, and there is no case marking.

Noun phrases are often not needed to form grammatical sentences due to the informational content of the verb.

I believe this is clearer and will be more easily understood by a general reader. If there are no dissenting opinions, I will change the article within a few days. RJCraig 04:58, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

There being no dissenting opinions in the ensuing weeks, I have made the change proposed above. RJCraig 15:12, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

Nouns section in general

Surely there is more to say about nouns than this? Discussion of the personal possessive prefixes, for example.

RJCraig 12:09, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

yes, there is more. I thought that I wouldnt update this article until I update the general article, where you can find a start of a discussion of nouns: Southern Athabascan languages#Nouns. There is much missing here such as the stem alternations of possessed nouns, and the difference between inherently possessed and non-inherently possessed noun stems.

Thanks for the feedback; some mention of the limited inflection for number on nouns dealing with humans might be in order as well; I'm thinking of the -ké suffix here. (BTW, the similarities between Navajo and Japanese nouns are very interesting.) Any thoughts as to my change proposed above? RJCraig 04:58, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

??help

i am trying to figure out the correct pronunciation for "mosi/mósí", navajo name meaning cat. anyone able to help me??

Hi. mósí is the word for cat. mosi probably isnt a Navajo word. The consonants m and s are pronounced the same as in English (which i assume is your native language). ó is pronounced similar to the vowel in go or mode but with a high tone. í is pronounced like the vowel in see or tea but with a high tone. So both vowels are pronounced with high tones — the accent mark ( ´ ) represents a high tone. If you dont know, Navajo is a tonal language (like Chinese, Thai, or many Bantu languages). High tones are pronounced with a higher vocal pitch than low tones. There is another similar word that means cat which is másí and an unrelated word that also means cat: gídí (which is borrowed from English kitty). Also you can specifiy a male cat by adding something to the word, giving you mósíką’. happy languaging — ishwar  (SPEAK) 05:41, 2005 Jun 6 (UTC)

howdy! i agree with ishwar with the above pronunciation and definitions. Mósí also has a lax variant as well, mʊsɪ (with high tones) --Daghaalsuii 21:31, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Fortis and lenis

In the consonants table b, d, g, dz and j are explained as [p], [t], [k] and so on. This is clearly good enough for a phonemic transcription. But the audio samples from Ladefoged (link at the bottom of the article) show that these sounds are voiceless lenes: [b̥], [d̥], [g̊] etc.. Voiceless lenes occur elsewhere, such as in Mandarin (Pinyin b, d, g) and at least some kinds of Spanish (p, t, c/qu). Unlike these examples, there is a phonemic difference between voiceless lenes (b, d, g) and unaspirated fortes (p, t, k) in most southeastern kinds of German, including the Austrian version of Standard German (and my dialect).

Which nits should I pick? Should I replace [] with // in the consonants table? Or should I put the correct voiceless lenes into the brackets that are there?

While I am at it, should I replace "unaspirated" with "plain"?

Oh, and is there a rule when h is pronounced [h] and when it's [x]? The Ladefoged example has a short [x] like that of Mandarin, but it's just one example...

David Marjanović | david.marjanovic_at_gmx.at | 01:50 CET | 2006/2/14

hi. What's your definition of fortis/lenis? I find this terminology to be more of a phonological opposition if you are speaking in terms of different VOTs.

h/x is [x] when stem initial and [h] when prefixal or stem/word final. Other things happen at the stem boundary, like increased closure duration of stops. Related Western Apache /t/ (orthographic d) flaps between vowels except when stem initial.

– ishwar  (speak) 00:09, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the prompt feedback!

Definition?

1. I know it when I hear it. (Yeah, OK, they are extremes in a continuum... but they seem to be more common than the middle. Perhaps Romance /k/ is in the middle.)

2. Intensity, air pressure, is different, as the names suggest.

3. The easiest and therefore most common method for increasing air pressure is to prolong the hold of a stop. Indeed fortes are almost always longer than voiceless lenes.

Examples: All plain stops and affricates here are voiceless lenes. I would say that the word-initial plain stops here are voiceless lenes while the word-internal ones are fortes, but I'm not quite sure about all of them (no surprise because that's not a phonemic contrast in Lakhota). The over-aspirated stops sound like voiceless lenes followed by [x]. Quechua has only fortes, even though it has the same plain/aspirated/ejective phonemic contrasts as Navajo and Lakhota.

Bullshit! Was I even more tired than I am now, or what? The word-initial /k/ which occurs in one of these examples is a fortis. All other plain stops there are lenes, including the word-initial /q/. I guess I had forgotten all except that one initial /k/. grmpf The one /tʃ/ (word-initial) is also a fortis.

David Marjanović | david.marjanovic_at_gmx.at | 23:39 CEST | 2006/4/3

Thai, on the other hand, has an interesting phonemic contrast between voiced and voiceless lenes (and aspirated fortes), as has Spanish (according to my very limited experience with it) but not French.

Voice onset time is identical in voiceless lenes and in plain fortes: both are tenues.

Thanks for the explanation of h. However, in the audio samples word-final /h/ is [ɦ̥], assuming I'm really hearing and not just imagining it.

"Increased closure duration of stops" should usually produce fortes, so I gather Navajo has plain fortes at stem boundaries. But of course all spoken Navajo I've ever heard are the 13 words at the link above!

David Marjanović | david.marjanovic_at_gmx.at | 00:10 CET | 2006/2/18

hi again. long time, no answer. But here is a short answer.

Basically, the fortis/lenis contrast is a phonological contrast. These terms mean different things phonetically depending upon the language you are discussing. They were originally used in by German dialectologists and are becoming somewhat outdated within much phonetic literature, but are still commonly encountered in general stuff.

The contrast is variously between

1. voiced – voiceless
2. unaspirated – aspirated
3. less expiratory/articulatory energy – more expiratory/articulatory energy (i.e. intra-oral pressure and/or muscular tension)
4. shorter closure duration – longer closure duration (in stops)
5. shorter first formant (F1) transition time – longer F1 transition

I am talking about the third. However, southeastern German is the only, mmm, part of a language I know of where this alone is phonemic, so everyone tends to overlook it.

Found another: Click on the examples for j and ch in Haida. Both are voiceless and unaspirated. After some initial surprise I've found out I can distinguish them – j is a lenis and ch a fortis.

David Marjanović | david.marjanovic_at_gmx.at | 21:50 CET-summertime | 2006/5/7

All other languages that have fortes and lenes in the first place seem to use additional features (voicing and/or aspiration). Not all combinations are possible – for example I can't manage to pronounce a voiced fortis stop.

Spanish (or at least the kinds I've heard), by this definition, lacks fortes – it has voiced and voiceless lenes, thus voicing alone is phonemic there. Quechua (in the audio sample mentioned above, anyway) lacks lenes – it has plain, aspirated and ejective fortes. (Aspirated voiceless lenes are most probably impossible; ejective lenes seem to occur in the Caucasus – there's a slightly weird audio sample of Abkhaz out there; I'll try to find it – but not in America.)

Obviously this is a difference of degree rather than kind. In languages where neither this difference alone nor another (such as voicing) that requires lenes or fortes is phonemic, we can thus expect free variation throughout the spectrum. This explains why some of the Lakhota samples confuse me and why in these Tlingit samples I find that one speaker makes unmistakable fortes most of the time while the other prefers lenes for the same phonemes.

The simplest way to generate a fortis stop (not a fricative, of course) according to this definition is to prolong the hold, so that more pressure builds up. Indeed southeastern German fortes are almost always longer than lenes. However, long lenes are possible, and IMHO occur in some of the Navajo samples.

And in Lakhota. Well, I can't tell if the "long" or the "half-long" IPA symbols would be more appropriate, but… :o)

David Marjanović | david.marjanovic_at_gmx.at | 21:50 CEST | 2006/5/7

I can't comment the 5^th because I don't know what the formants are.

Correction: Formant says formants only occur in sonorants, so I guess it can't matter here.

David Marjanović | david.marjanovic_at_gmx.at | 14:30 CET-summertime | 2006/4/1

The voiced-voiceless and aspirated/unaspirated contrasts can be described acoustically as having different average measurements of voice onset time (VOT), which is the time of the periodic vocal fold vibration with respect to the release of a stop. Closure duration is the amount of time that the mouth is closed during the articulation of stops. The F1 transition time is the measurement of time that it takes for the first vowel formant to reach a steady frequency. The muscular tension/articulatory energy contrast is also called a tense/lax contrast and is practically impossible to measure consistently & therefore not very useful.

Voice onset time doesn't seem to be a very precise criterion for aspiration. My /k/, as that of Quechua, is a bit exaggerated, resulting in slightly delayed VOT, but apparently not in any aspiration whatsoever. On the other hand, strongly aspirated consonants can be pronounced so fast that, for what that's worth, I can't hear a VOT delay. (Sample: the first Harry Potter film. "Scared, Potter?" – "Yyyyyou wwwish.")

The tense-lax contrast in consonants seems to be nothing but length, but the Wikipedia page on this is my only information...

Because the exact meaning of terms such as fortis and lenis are vague and have different meanings in different contexts, they are dispreferred in phonetic description. However, they are often useful in phonological description since you may want to have a cover term that will cover things that are different phonetically but similar phonologically.

So, basically I find these terms objectional in a precise description of Navajo.

I have nothing else for how to call the third of the differences you mention above. On the other hand, this difference is quite obviously not phonemic in Navajo, so entirely superfluous in a phonological description of that language.

I still havent listened to the sounds files that you mention, but I'll do so some time in the future.

Please do.

– ishwar  (speak) 18:19, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

David Marjanović | david.marjanovic_at_gmx.at | 23:28 CET | 2006/2/29

fortis, lenis: part 2

So. I've done it. I wasn't able to stand the sight of [p], [t], [k], [ʦ] etc. (phonetic transcription!) for such soft sounds any longer. ;-)

David Marjanović | david.marjanovic_at_gmx.at | 17:11 CET | 2006/11/9

Hi. I dont believe that anyone has taken measurements of air pressure demonstrating lenis stops. No acoustic description of Navajo has described the stops this way (to my knowledge). Furthermore, as stated above, articulatory strength as a means for contrasting phonological categories is not widely accepted. Fortis & lenis are misleading terms that are better abandoned.

Hi! Thanks for the prompt reaction!

If fortis & lenis "are misleading terms that are better abandoned", then how should I call the contrast in my native southeastern German? /b d g/ are never voiced, and /p t k/ are never aspirated (AFAIK nobody disputes this), so both are tenues, yet a phonemic contrast remains, and it's not length (at least not audible length). IMHO to say "is not widely accepted" completely misses the point – a pure fortis-lenis contrast, unassisted by a voice and/or aspiration contrast, is simply rare.

Still, it occurs sporadically all over the world. Or how do you call the contrast between English code-share (voiceless /d/, whether by assimilation or not) and co-chair (/t͡ʃ/ being very weakly aspirated, if at all)? How do you call the (identical) contrast between j and ch in these audio files of Haida? How would you call the difference between the two ?idiolects in these audio files of Tlingit?

Different question: Behind /s/ the English fortes are unaspirated, and in many Englishes word-initial lenes are voiceless. In your English, does a difference stay between these unaspirated fortes and unvoiced lenes, or not? (Assuming you have completely voiceless lenes.) Do gill and skill differ only in the /s/ for you? Having learned RP in school and not living among native English speakers, I was quite surprised when I recently heard several Americans merge these (into the voicedless lenes, so I hear "sgill" and have to guess for half a second what that word is).

Citable sources (from the first 5 pages found by Google) that use these terms: the article on German phonology#Fortis-lenis pairs, [1] (an explanation of the difference between voice onset time and fortis/lenis), [2] (part of a university lecture that explains all ways to make plosives), [3] (abstract of a book that argues for the recognition of a fortis-lenis contrast, from which voicing etc. are predictable but not the other way around, in Germanic in general and English in particular), [4] (pdf on western central German dialects), [5] (information on how to order a book from 1988 on a central German dialect), [6] (explanation on how to read sonagrams, explaining that the "proposed" fortis-lenis distinction "is noticeable at most in minimal intensity differences in the release" in a sonagram), [7] (a CV that mentions a M.A. thesis on the F-L contrast in Standard German and the Thurgau dialect of Switzerland), [8] (pdf; a work on comparative phonetics of German dialects; mentions on p. 4 that devoicing is usually marked with the under-ring as I have done, that the "standard" German (that is, standard of Germany, or of northern & central Germany) "voiced" plosives "are usually only intervocalically realized as fully voiced", and that "the fortis-lenis opposition is not additionally taken into account" in that paper because voice is easier to measure, but in fact it is taken into account on the next page), [9] (a citation), [10] (interesting abstract), [11] (pdf of a paper I can't get, but Google finds the following quote inside: "I prefer the fortis/lenis dichotomy to voiceless/voiced, as it is perfectly possible to have a voiceless lenis consonant (See Gimson: An Introduction to…"), [12] (pdf; a collection of exam questions, one of which is about how VOT differs from F-L), [13] (MS Word; a somewhat desperate phonological analysis of the Upper Bavarian dialect) and finally this Linguislist post just to reintroduce some confusion about English. :-)

Page 5 of this paper (page contains link to pdf) offers the following:

"As noted by […] the fortis/lenis distinction has been used in at least three different senses. Some researchers have used the fortis/lenis distinction to describe the distinction between voiceless aspirated and voiced unaspirated consonants in languages like English […]. However, this type of distinction is much better characterized in terms of voice onset time […]. Another type of system which has been characterized in terms of a fortis/lenis distinction is found in languages like Javanese and Korean, but these contrasts have been better explained in terms of laryngeal tension: ‘tense’ versus ‘lax’ voice […]. A third type of language to which the term fortis/lenis has been applied has contrasts which are not explainable in terms of either voice onset time or laryngeal tension. It is this sense of the term fortis/lenis which appears to be most relevant to the distinction between voiceless and semi-voiced fricatives in Tanacross."

This third type is what I'm talking about.

The paper continues: "Studies of the fortis/lenis distinction in these languages have revealed several articulatory and acoustic factors which may potentially disambiguate fortis and lenis consonants. Lenis consonants tend to be articulated with less force and have more gradual onsets of following vowels. When compared with their fortis counterparts, lenis consonants also tend to be erratically voiced, be of shorter duration, and employ an [sic] lower pressure airstream with lower intensity frication" (the paper is about fricatives).

I'm sure no description of Navajo has ever used the terms fortis & lenis. After all, this contrast alone is not phonemic in Navajo, so p t k are fully adequate in a phonological description of that language. Because a pure fortis-lenis contrast is so rare, the terms are seldom used and may not have been familiar to anyone who has published on Navajo. But because the consonant table uses brackets instead of slashes, because it already contains two allophones of the phoneme /h/, and because more readers are presumably interested in how to pronounce Navajo than in how best to represent its phonemes, I figured I'd make the table consistently phonetic rather than consistently phonemic. And in a phonetic transcription of what little Navajo I've heard, unless it's very "broad phonetic", [p t k] are simply inaccurate. French and Russian, for example, have real [p] and [t] (the French /k/ is not quite velar, but it is an unaspirated fortis, too). The plain plosives of Navajo (and, at least, dz and j) just don't sound the same.

Personally, I think languages with 3 (or more) rows of plosives and an aspiration contrast usually realize the unvoiced unaspirated row as lenes, but all data I have are online audio files, and I don't know if there's any literature on that…

I have one pdf on Navajo phonetics that I could email use if you want. – ishwar  (speak) 20:57, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Yes, please, that would be nice!

David Marjanović | david.marjanovic_at_gmx.at | 18:50 CET | 2006/11/11

Hi. I dont know what variety of German you speak, but I would guess that the difference is consonant length and when preceded by a vowel it would the ratio of durations of the preceding vowel and following stop. This is what is found in Thurgovian, Zürich Swiss German, and Bavarian (in Swabian I have read of conflicting descriptions between consonant length and voice onset time among 3 different authors).

It is a widespread opinion that the terms fortis and lenis are ambiguous when used for phonological contrasts because the precise phonetic correlates that lead to the perception of the phonological contrast is obscured. This is because these terms are defined differently by different authors and thus lose their usefulness in describing phonetics. However, some phonologists find the terms useful precisely because they are ambiguous and thus they do not need to be concerned with how the contrast is realized phonetically. Some authors suggest that the terms fortis/lenis be used only to indicate the amount of respiratory energy or articulatory energy. Measurements of these two energies is not as well known as other phonetic measurements.

As established long ago by Leigh Lisker and Arthur Abramson, the measurement of voice onset time (VOT) is a powerful indication of how speakers of many languages (e.g. English, Standard German, Japanese, Spanish, etc.) differentiate between stop contrasts that have been traditionally called "fortis" and "lenis". In Navajo, this has also shown to be the case. And, in fact, the difference in VOT between Navajo g [k] and k [kh] is rather large comparatively speaking. Thus, it is probably the most salient acoustic cue used by Navajos to distinguish between these stops. Of course, there would really need to be a perception experiment to conclusively demonstrate this (I dont know if anyone has done one).

I'm not sure what you mean by code-share and co-chair. My d is voiced in this position and the following sh is longer than the fricative component of ch. The amplitude of the fricative also differs: ch is greater than sh. In Haida, it seems that ch has a longer VOT than j; both sounds have a positive VOT (i.e. voiceless). It would be better to compare them with the same vowel following.

Regarding gill and skill, there is never a contrast between g and k following s in syllable onsets — the phonological opposition is neutralized, so there will never be a difference. Regarding their phonetics, I do not have any equipment that can measure the respiratory energy. Both are voiceless, for sure. g probably varies in voicing word-initially assuming that I am like other American English speakers that have been studied.

I do not dispute that the people use the terms fortis/lenis. I am following the opinions of some authors that these terms should not be used to describe phonetic parameters of aspiration and voicing, as they often are when describing German and English. Furthermore, since the definitions of phonetic fortis vs. lenis stops are not conclusively established, whenever the terms are used, they must be defined explicitly (e.g. measurement of peak intraoral air pressure). Since these measurements havent been done for Navajo to my knowledge, then these terms shouldnt be used. Measurements have been taken for Navajo VOT that clearly are statistically significant leading to a description of unaspirated vs. aspirated.

Using the devoicing diacritic is not necessary in Navajo, d is never devoiced. It is consistently voiceless in all enviroments.

The Tanacross paper discusses fricatives, not stops. Holton says the contrast in stem-initial position is between fricatives with high-intensity frication and fricatives with low-intensity frication accompanied by sporadic voicing at the fricative edges. This is not transferable to unaspirated stops. Stops that have supposedly stronger respiratory pressure are measured according to peak intraoral pressure (in which you have to stick a small device into your mouth, this isnt found in spectrograms).

The authors, Joyce McDonough & Peter Ladefoged, of a study on Navajo stops are undoubtably very aware of the terms fortis and lenis. In other work Ladefoged has explicitly warned against using these terms carelessly and against assuming that the contrasts referred to by these terms is distinguished by "strong" articulation.

You shouldnt transcribe Navajo in Wikipedia according to your auditory impressions. You should use the transcription most generally found in sources. It is especially important to do this here because the nature of articulatory "strength" is widely debated.

I'll send you the paper on Navajo and a few other things that contain summaries of previous research discussing the nature of fortis-lenis oppositions. Also, you may find it interesting to read this from Ladefoged & Maddieson's treatise on segments throughout the world: 3.5 Strength: Fortis vs Lenis Stops. You can only view to page 98, so I'll type here the last two sentences of that section: "But we agree with Catford (1977a: 203) who says "the terms tense/lax, strong/weak, fortis/lenis, and so on, should never be loosely and careless used without precise phonetic specification." We have tried to provide such a precise specification for some cases."

– ishwar  (speak) 17:35, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

papers

• Articulatory correlates of the voicing contrast in alveolar obstruent production in German
• The fortis-lenis distinction in Thurgovian, or Where is the syllable in Swiss German?
• The Ongoing (Un)merging of Stops in the Swabian Dialect of Isny im Allgäu

---

Hi… thanks once again for all the papers you sent me.

Where to start... First of all, sorry for generalizing across too many Englishes. The notion that the d in code-share is voiceless (presumably by forward assimilation) comes from the June 12 post of John Wells' phonetic blog (scroll down to the bottom ⅓).

The under-ring is not the "devoiced" diacritic (I assume you mean "partially devoiced" by that?), but the "voiceless" diacritic, used e. g. for voiceless nasals or voiceless implosives which don't have IPA symbols of their own while their voiced counterparts do.

I have recently heard a bit of what was apparently "Züridütsch" – the kind of Swiss German that the Thurgau dialect apparently belongs to. My observation does not contradict (to put it cautionsly :-) ) Kraehenmann's description that it distinguishes short and long voiceless lenes and lacks fortes, according to the way I and apparently Wells use those terms. (The word total, for me [toˈtaːl]~[tɔˈtaːl], comes out as what I hear as [ˈd̥ːɔd̥ːɑːl̺ˠ].) The "geminates" are as exotically long as in Italian. There are long lenes in my two kinds of German (dialect & Austrian standard), too, but only when the clusters |pb|, |td|, |kg|, |bb|, |dd|, |gg| occur across word or morpheme boundaries; they are distinct from my fortes. – Unfortunately that means that I don't use "fortis" and "lenis" the way they were invented (for just such a Swiss dialect)…

I should emphasize once more that I of course agree that the terms "fortis" and "lenis" are completely irrelevant in a phonological description of Navajo; all that's important is that all three stop series are voiceless and that there's an aspirated and an ejective series (as the paper you sent me clearly shows, of course). But the consonant table is not a phonological description; it is a (not too narrowly) phonetic description, with brackets and possible allophones of one possible phoneme and all. That's why I changed a few symbols to more closely fitting ones.

Unsurprisingly I can't disagree with Ladefoged (who am I to…!) that all such terms should be used carefully. These Korean sound samples simply freak me out: the "aspirated" series consists of ordinary aspirated fortes (including a textbook [kʰ]), the "fortis" series sounds like voiceless lenes (the affricate may be finally voiced), and the "unaspirated" series is just freakish. I wonder if it consists of clusters of voiceless lenes + [h]. I also wonder if someone erroneously exchanged the "unaspirated" and the "fortis" columns. In that case, Ladefoged's findings that something unique is going on with the glottis in the "fortis" series would be plausible… though, of course, I couldn't tell what it is… Anyway, even though there are three series of voiceless consonants in Korean, and even though only one of them is described as aspirated in the literature and sounds clearly and strongly aspirated to me, I can't find my fortes in the Korean sound samples.

Now to the real point: original research. Yeah, erm. I hope that Wells' blog, and the fact that this German university website says "'voiced', 'devoiced', 'voiceless' and 'voiceless aspirated' plosives" are distinguished both by VOT and by "the strength of the release noise" and calls the latter contrast fortis/lenis, just like I believe I do, will save me from this quite real danger.

Next week I will probably be able to record sound files of myself. Maybe that will help explaining what I mean. :-)

David Marjanović | david.marjanovic_at_gmx.at | 00:15 CET | 2006/11/17

Update: No, not next week. Next month. :-(

David Marjanović | david.marjanovic_at_gmx.at | 16:35 CET | 2006/12/2

tl,'N, x/h

Two questions:

• Is tł really aspirated? Or is it just a voiceless fortis? Not being used to lateral fricatives, I'm bad at hearing that (…from the single example in Ladefoged's sound files in the external links).
• Is j entirely voiceless, or is it a voiceless stop released into a voiced fricative? Or do both versions occur (as they do in Mandarin, depending on the speaker)?
• The Southern Athabaskan languages page says Navajo has glottalized nasals. Is this true? Should they be mentioned? Does the orthography treat them as consonant clusters ( 'm, 'n)?

David Marjanović | david.marjanovic_at_gmx.at | 17:11 CET | 2006/11/9

• Yes, tł is aspirated.
• j is probably consistently voiceless throughout. Really only dl has a regular voicing of the affricated release.

Thanks! But is dl released into [l] or into [ɮ]?

• ʼm and ʼn are often phonetically sequences of [ʔm] and [ʔn] (I dont know if they are ever creaky-voiced, glottal stops and ejectives often have creaky phonation at their boundaries in Western Apache). They are considered phonemes in Hoijer's structural analysis. Morphophonemically or underlyingly, they are the result of something called "D-effect" where an underlying d + m results in ʼm.

I see, thanks!

– ishwar  (speak) 20:38, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

I have one pdf on Navajo phonetics that I could email use if you want. – ishwar  (speak) 20:57, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Yes, please, that would be nice!

David Marjanović | david.marjanovic_at_gmx.at | 18:50 CET | 2006/11/11

Another question: Why did you delete the mention of "phoneme" and "allophone"?

David Marjanović | david.marjanovic_at_gmx.at | 20:01 CET | 2006/11/11

dl is released into an approximant [l] that is similar to l. See pp. 160-161 in McDonough & Ladefoged (1993). It is actually one-third voiceless and two-thirds voiced approximant.

I removed the mention of allophone because in at least two analyses (i.e. of Harry Hoijer and Gladys Reichard) /x/ and /h/ are considered different phonemes. I simply dont want to take sides on the issue and just list them as sounds.

– ishwar  (speak) 21:25, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Incidentally, reading over McDonough & Ladefoged again (p. 153), I see that they say the glottalized nasals can be realized as creaky nasals. – ishwar  (speak) 21:29, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Navaho or Navajo?

Considering this is the English Wikipedia, I think we should move it. Any thoughts?Cameron Nedland 01:45, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Even though the second is an originally Spanish spelling, both are acceptable. This isn't a problem; please don't make it one.

(You have shown no interest in this article before now that I can see. I therefore assume that your proposal is based solely on your interest in spelling reform. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it.") RJCraig 09:34, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm sorry guys, I didn't mean to make a big deal of it. Please don't get mad at me.Cameron Nedland 20:10, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

Question

Under the "name" section in the USA article, it states that the Najavo (Dine) name for the US is Wááshindoon bikéyah ałhidadiidzooígíí. Does anyone who speaks Navajo have any information about the literal meaning of the words and the name's origins and implications? Thanks so much! --198.59.190.201 21:52, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

Interesting. I wonder if Wááshindoon = "Washington."65.102.39.98 19:11, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Q

How is Q pronounced in Navajo, what sound is that? It's not on the consonant chart but I do see it in various words, including some in this article.65.102.39.98 19:11, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

It is a nasalised vowel o. It is the same sound as in french "mon" meaning mine. Maunus 20:07, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

It's not a Q. It's an O with an ogonek.

David Marjanović | david.marjanovic_at_gmx.at | 17:19 CET | 1006/11/9

Suggested move

Hi. Shouldn't this article be at Diné bizaad, with Navajo language forming a redirect? Vizjim 15:11, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

No. See Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English). --Ptcamn 15:32, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Looking at that article, it allows for the use of the accented é, and encourages the proper names of languages to be used. I'd think that "Navajo language" is not a term for the language, it's a description, so it's not in any sense a prefereable term under that policy. Vizjim 23:04, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

The language is generally called Navajo in English. And this is what is used in Navajo-English dictionaries. language is added to the article name to distinguish it from the ethnic group. This is similar to the use of German language and Germans as opposed to Deutsch Sprache and Deutsche. Additionally, Navajo is probably what is most encountered in general and linguistics encyclopedias. – ishwar  (speak) 20:45, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

• Yep, that all makes sense. Cheers! Vizjim 10:02, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Yi/bi

Hi. In the section on "Yi-/bi- Alternation (animacy)", the animacy hierarchy is addressed, but the actual yi-/bi- alternation isn't even mentioned, let alone explained, and there aren't any examples. Given its prominence and imporance in Navajo linguistic studies, it seems like a good thing to include. I'm not entirely clear on the specific workings of the system, myself, though, so I hesitate to try adding that info. Take care, --Miskwito 06:20, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Hi. Yes, that remains to be written. The section on pronominal marking should probably be a written first. You can a read brief description with Navajo examples here: Southern Athabascan grammar#yi-/bi- Alternation (Animacy). I think I'll eventually replace those Navajo examples there with Western Apache examples. Obviously, much more can be written about it. – ishwar  (speak) 16:59, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Witherspoon??

Hi there. I'm very surprised that no one has made use of Gary Witherspoon's work here. He's a leading expert on the language.--Dylanfly 16:37, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Just a note--the work by William Morgan & Robert W. Young is the accepted standard used for all Navajo language classes including those offered by Diné College. All language text books for modern Navajo are based on their work which, I assume, includes Witherspoon Asdzani Bah (talk) 23:20, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

Witherspoon is not the primary author of "Diné Bizaad Bóhoo'aah" I or II. I've checked three different college library catalogs and each has "Navajo Language Institute (N.M.)" listed as the author so it should be treated as having a corporate or institution/association author. Even the Library of Congress Online Catalog does not list a personal name for the author. Asdzani Bah (talk) 02:40, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

He actually is the primary author of the original versions of these works no matter what the catalogs say. But, you're right that we should have the bibliographic info match the catalog since that is what people will need to find these. – ishwar  (speak) 04:26, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Rising/Falling short vowels?

Just a quick general question. Do the Navajo language have rising and falling tones associated with short vowels, or are the moving tones only associated with the long vowels? Or another way of asking this question is if short vowels are subjectable to only low/high tones only or can short vowels also experience shifting tones in addition to low/high tones? CJLippert 16:00, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Hi. I missed this earlier. Rising and falling tones are only seen on long vowels or diphthongs. So, another way to analyze this is to say that Navajo only has two tones, high and low, and that the rising and falling pitch melodies are the result of sequences of different tones.

As for short vowels experiencing shifting tones, there are alternations between short vowels and long vowels. In these cases, you can find alternations betweeen short vowel with high tone and long vowel with falling tone. For example, the verb naashá "I go about" ends in short vowel with a high tone, but when you add the subordinating enclitic -go to the end of this verb, you get naasháago in which case the previously high short vowel is lengthen and partially lowered to a falling tone due the influence of the enclitic -go (which has a low tone). This pattern affects stem-final high short vowels in verb stems that are followed by enclitics with low tones. This doesnt happen when these enclitics follow nouns stems, postposition stems, or particles. – ishwar  (speak) 16:24, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks again. That was simple and clear. CJLippert 01:34, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Where is "Ń"?

Looking at the Navajo language curriculum, it seems they allow several letters with diacritics, mainly a, e, i and o with no diacritic, accute, ogonyek or accute-ogonyek... to indicate tone and nasality for the vowels. However, they also provide two consonants with diacritics: Ł ł and Ń ń. The article speaks of Ł ł, but where is Ń ń? CJLippert 16:06, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

BTW, it would be helpful if the current Navajo Alphabet is first introduced rather delving right into the pronunciation and throwing letters with diacritics at the reader who may not be familiar with the current orthography or the alphabet used in the current orthography. CJLippert 16:12, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

The Navajo alphabet consonants are presented in the Consonant table – where the letters in bold is the written letter and the letters in brackets are the IPA pronunciation of that letter. There is no "Ń". Whether this is a mistake I am not sure about at present but I am inclined to think that it is deliberate.·Maunus· ·ƛ· 17:23, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Table is good but it doesn't give the parsing order... which an alphabet implies. CJLippert 18:21, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

This presentation of the Navajo alphabet also has no "Ń".·Maunus· ·ƛ· 17:26, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

But... see the following:

• http://home.earthlink.net/~pfeiffer/N-Navajo%20Language.html
• http://dine.sanjuan.k12.ut.us/dine_web/downloads/files.htm
• http://www.ncela.gwu.edu/resabout/research/literature_early_literacy.pdf pp. 68-80

CJLippert 18:00, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

I see. It seems we will have to do some research.·Maunus· ·ƛ· 07:45, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Hi. These symbols (both capital and lowercase) represent syllabic nasals with a high tone. They are optional (but very common) contractions of the syllable ní. This also happens with low toned syllable ni turning into a syllabic n. Example: ní’séłt’i’ or ń’séłt’i’ meaning "extend it around/set them in a circle" (perfective mode). Yeah, the whole writing system needs to be better explained. – ishwar  (speak) 01:44, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

yes, thanks, that was helpful. CJLippert 14:28, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

the navajos are the largest american indian tribe in the us. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.117.239.32 (talk) 01:01, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Visual aspects and Classifiers

Here is a passage from "For Hearing People Only" (3rd Ed, Deaf Life Press 2003; it's an introduction to Deaf culture for outsiders) which leads me to believe that Navajo has visual aspects which are important, but don't seem to be mentioned in the article: "Classifiers are also found in Navajo, a highly visual spoken language that, until recently, lacked a written form. ASL and Navajo use classifiers in the exact same way; their morphology (word formation) is similar. ASL is thus structurally closer to Navajo than to English!" (71) Are there noteworthy visual aspects of Navajo? Are the classifiers visual? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 165.123.186.208 (talk) 03:33, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

It's not really clear what you mean, but I think you are misunderstanding that passage. Navajo is spoken so the classifying segments of classificatory verb stems are pieces of spoken words, which are by definition indicated aurally. Note that we're talking about classificatory verb stems and not the "classifier" prefixes which dont classify anything ("classifier" prefix is a bad name that is handed down from tradition). ASL is signed so its classifiers are pieces of signed words, which are by definition indicated visually. So the passage is just pointing out that ASL and Navajo are similar in that they classify nouns into certain semantic categories while English doesnt. The phrase "highly visual" is poorly worded in my opinion. This is just referring to the fact that nouns are classified according to specific criteria that is probably most often perceived with the eyes. For example, a FFO (flat flexible object) noun like a blanket is probably considered to be FFO because the speaker can see that it is indeed flat and flexible. However, you could also tell if an object is FFO by touching it, and presumably blind Navajo speakers have no problem speaking Navajo and putting nouns into categories even though they cannot see the objects that the nouns refer to.

The morphology being similar is a separate issue. See ling.ucsc.edu/Jorge/fernald.html (Athabaskan Satellites and ASL Ion-Morphs) for discussion. – ishwar  (speak) 05:12, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

See also: www.ingentaconnect.com/content/jbp/sll/2000/00000003/00000001/art00002 (Exploitation of morphological possibilities in signed languages: Comparison of American Sign Language with English). – ishwar  (speak) 05:41, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

English, of course, classifies by gender and number. The gender classification is almost degenerate, compared with highly gendered languages such as French and German, almost everything being neuter, the main exceptions being (usually clearly) biologically male or female (notably humans and mammals), and derived entities (dolls, gods, fictional characters, statues, virtual beings). Less typically boats and to a lesser extent are often female grammatically "Boy she was yar", and dialect may use male or female pronouns "put 'im in thar" more liberally than RP. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 00:58, 6 June 2014 (UTC).

Navajo handles gender in nouns about like English does, but no gender distinction in pronouns. Navajo classifies by number, but mostly in the verbs, although sometimes also in nouns. The so-called Navajo classifier prefixes are altogether different. They classify verbs as transitive or intransitive. —Stephen (talk) 01:55, 7 June 2014 (UTC)

Where to find citation for ł in Navajo?

The article L with stroke has the following statement:

In Navajo, ł is used for a voiceless alveolar lateral fricative (ɬ), like the Welsh Ll.

Where could I find a citation for this? Jindřichův Smith (talk) 22:28, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Sapir, Edward, & Hoijer, Harry. (1942). Navaho texts. William Dwight Whitney series, Linguistic Society of America.

– ishwar  (speak) 05:18, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Is the language in decline, or incline?

In the intro of Navajo language the article states that "..more than 100,000 native speakers, and this number has actually increased with time." then right after that in the current use section, it claims that "the language is in decline" Which is it? 76.166.177.72 (talk) 17:14, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Both.

the number of Navajo speakers has increased but the percentage of children learning Navajo is decreasing. We can have an increase in total numbers due to population expansion but a decrease in percentage of speakers in that population expansion. Of course, if it continues, the numbers of speakers will decline eventually as well as we need children to pass the language down to. – ishwar  (speak) 05:23, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Grammar: polysynthetic?? SOV??

The article says that Navajo is polysynthetic and SOV, but I wonder if these are really accurate statements. The examples in the article don't seem to illustrate the degree of incorporation of noun and verb morphemes into a single word that I thought was characteristic of polysynthetic languages. And given the effect of animacy on the ordering of nouns in a sentence, it seems that the most that can really be said is that Navajo word order is verb-final, but not specifically either SOV or OSV. Can any experts comment on these issues? Richwales (talk) 06:24, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

Navajo verbs can have around 8 prefixes attached to the verb stem, which is kind of a lot. It is not as much as some other languages which are even more polysynthetic (e.g. Eskimo langs which can have theoretically infinitely long verbs with recursion of affixes internal to the verb). If you're talking about noun incorporation, Navajo doesnt have productive lexical noun incorporation like Northern Athabascan languages, but you can see incorporated noun elements that seem to be nouns historically. Whether you consider them as incorporated nouns or as something else depends on your analysis. Also the pronominal prefixes are often analyzed as being pronouns that are incorporated into the verb. Others consider these prefixes as agreement markers. Again depends on the analysis. Clearly the prefixes at the leftmost edge of the verb appear to be more recently incorporated into the verb complex historically including postpositions which look similar to postpositions that are syntactically independent from the verb. At any rate, incorporation is not a defining characteristic of polysynthesis. And polysynthesis is a matter of degree rather than clearly defined type.

The unmarked order is SOV. The OSV order is usually called subject object inversion. Accordingly, the OSV sentences are translated and/or analyzed as passive sentences (which are marked compared to active sentences). Although there are analyses of the OSV order as being sensitive to animacy, other analyses consider it to be topicalization due to pragmatics. It should be noted, however, that Navajo usually does not have two overt nouns in sentences because the verb prefixes indicate both subjects and objects which are usually recoverable via the linguistic or situational context. So, a SOV or a OSV sentence is rather rare. But SOV occurs more often than OSV. One study of written Navajo narrative only found one OSV clause out of 294 (which is only 0.3%). But you're right to think about pressures conditioning word order because it may be the word order is determined by pragmatics and not by syntax at all. We can compare this to Lakhota which had only 0.9% deviance from SOV order (out of a 500 clause sample) and Tuscarora with 68% deviance from SOV. Navajo and Lakhota seem to have a more rigid order (at least from these counts) while Tuscarora is rather free. However, there needs to be more research done on their frequency of occurrence. I dont think that 294 clauses is a very big sample. – ishwar  (speak) 08:16, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

I've learned to read, write & speak Nvajo for the last 40 years. It's not as complicated as linguists make it sound. The best reason to lear it and keep it alive is the fact that the Navajo culture is "locked" up in their language. It is always fun to travel fron the Westren Agency to the East side of the reservation and see how well you are understood, Another important definer of communication is the age bracket you are addressing. I.E. older Navajos(60 years and up), middle age Navajos(30-60years)and the younger set of NavaJOS(29 7 under). To be fair, this is a generalization but it pretty much holds true. There is a vast cultural difference between these groups and this makes the language even more dynamic. Remember, the language is seriously important to the culture. As the old generation depleats many of the old stories are lost and the language and words of the old stories are so simply beautiful it's hard to imagine the Navajo language could be the same without them. Even the old jokes told by many are only funny in navajo. Tell them in english and it's simply not funny any more because you've lost too much in the translation. Futher more it's just as important note that what you say and how you say it is equaly important.

Typos?

In the Nouns section, am I right in thinking that beeʼdldǫǫh is a typo for beeʼeldǫǫh? -- Curious, - Erik Anderson 98.225.16.161 (talk) 06:04, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

That’s right. —Stephen (talk) 14:32, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

yi-

Since when is yi- a possessive prefix? Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 23:56, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Nevermind... it's so rare, I couldn't think of an example right away. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 00:07, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

Person

I'd greatly appreciate it if someone would add a sentence or two explaining the different concepts of person -- the text and tables use 3a, 3o, and 3i with no real explanation of what these are. The page on Grammatical person wasn't too much of a help, though if I understand it aright, Navajo's a- prefix sounds similar to how Finnish passive is described at the bottom of the Grammatical person#Additional persons section. -- Cheers, Erik Anderson -- 205.166.76.15 (talk) 02:01, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

source?

talk? – ishwar  (speak) 05:17, 28 June 2012 (UTC)

Yes? You need to give a reason why you tell those who say they speak Navajo "No, you don't", and why you think some other person is better qualified to an answer than the speakers themselves. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 06:02, 28 June 2012 (UTC)

Simply because the qualified person is a linguist, and the article was published by an esteemed publishing company. There is no reason to doubt Golla's numbers.

Self reporting is not always accurate. So, there is always reason to doubt what people say themselves. Additionally, census information is usually not that detailed. There are several types of bilingual speakers, some of which may not be considered a 'native speaker' in the way this terms is normally understood. The census does not have different categories of how well a person speaks or understands a language. Since Golla says that his number is 'conservative', I interpret this to mean speakers that have a command of Navajo roughly the same as a monolingual English speaker's command of English. (I think that this is a reasonable interpretation.)

But, the fact you doubt whether Golla's figure is accurate is irrelevant. The encyclopedia's job should be to just report what people have written about the number of speakers. Instead of having just one estimate, we have two: one is probably a more lenient number, the other a more conservative number. This gives us a better picture of the situation. – ishwar  (speak) 06:31, 28 June 2012 (UTC)

KNDN, modernization, cultural practices

Regarding the edit that removed the following from the article according to the edit summary, "doesn't say that",[14]

"nonetheless, despite modernization of the language, as of 2013, radio station KNDN maintains certain traditional cultural practices in its Navajo language programming."

It looks like the statement is supported by the following part of the cited source,[15]

"The station, for example, has a separate room where it allows people to come in as guests and make death and funeral announcements over the radio so that the radio hosts do not have to participate. If the hosts did participate, they later would have to go through special ceremonies since death is such a taboo topic."

--Bob K31416 (talk) 14:52, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

where is "nonetheless"? "despite"? (And how is that relevant here, anyways?) Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 23:01, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

Your clarification of your position now makes your objection reasonable to me. Regards, --Bob K31416 (talk) 00:26, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

Modern translation efforts

If anyone adds a section of notable works translated into Navajo, consider adding Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope. Reference:

• Trudeau, Christine (2013-05-15). "Navajo Star Wars: A Reason To Celebrate". KUNM. Retrieved 2013-05-28. This summer Star Wars, Episode Four will get re-dubbed in Navajo.

davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 18:18, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

linguist Victor Golla

There is an error in this source. The paragraph quotes him as saying there are 120,000 native speakers, and that 115,000 live on the Navajo Nation. But it then says that the remaining 12,000-15,000 live elsewhere. That is more than 120,000 people, so that statistic is either misquoted or inaccurate. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.33.103.183 (talk) 16:21, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Adding Some Information Of Navajo Language.

From Wikipedia, we all know that Navajo or Navaho comes from Athabaskan language. But the text lack some information about how Navajo Language developed. The Navajo Language was not well-known by people until World War 2 because the Japanese use the Navajo Language as code for their wireless connection until World War 2. The Navajo Nation Government plays an important role in Navajo Language development which is not included by Wikipedia. . In 1923, a tribal government was established to help meet the increasing desires of American oil companies to lease Navajoland for exploration. Navajo government has evolved into the largest and most sophisticated form of American Indian government. The Navajo Nation Council Chambers hosts 88 council delegates representing 110 Navajo Nation chapters. The next part i want to add is the language structure of the Navajo language. From Wikipedia, we noticed that

References

Adding Some Information Of Navajo Language.

From Wikipedia, we all know that Navajo or Navaho comes from Athabaskan language. But the text lack some information about how Navajo Language developed. Navajo belongs to the Apachean branch of Athapaskan languages, language found in three geographic zones: the subarctic of interior Alaska and western canada, the Pacific coast in southern Oregon and California and southwest in Arizona and New Mexico. The Navajo Language was not well-known by people until World War 2 because the Japanese use the Navajo Language as code for their wireless connection until World War 2. The Navajo Nation Government plays an important role in Navajo Language development which is not included by Wikipedia. . In 1923, a tribal government was established to help meet the increasing desires of American oil companies to lease Navajoland for exploration. Navajo government has evolved into the largest and most sophisticated form of American Indian government. The Navajo Nation Council Chambers hosts 88 council delegates representing 110 Navajo Nation chapters. The next part i want to add is the language structure of the Navajo language. From Wikipedia, we have the idea of consonants, vowels, tones. From the grammar section, we know how the sentence structure works. But it lack the word structure. And the word stem us very important which is not included by Wikipedia. The list below is a specific list of classifying stems in Navajo

• -ʼą́' --- to handle a roundish object, such as ball, box, hat knife, book, boot.
• -tą́' --- to handle a slender or long stiff object , such as pencil, gun, cigarette.
• -tiʼ --- to handle an animate object such as a person, bug, mouse, moose as well as images of living beings, such as a doll and the backbone, ribs and neck are still intact
• -nil --- to handle a set of objects or plural objects that can be individually distinguished, such as a half dozen eggs, people, coats, sacks of wool, a small number of books, rocks.
• -jaą́' --- to handle a mass, or plural objects that cannot be easily ditinguished individually, such as a handful beads, salt, a large number of objects such as books, matches, rocks.
• -lą́' --- to handle a slender , flexible or ropelike object such as a rope, belt , snake; also object that come in pairs such as gloves, shoes socks.
• -ką́' --- to handle an object in an open container, such as a dish of food, a bucket of water, an open bottle of beer, a baby in a cradle board , an injured person on a stretcher.
• -tsooz--- to handle a flat flexible object ,such as a sheet, a shirt, handkerchief, as well as small sackful if objects, such as a small sack of coffee or groceries.
• -yi --- to handle a large bulky object, in a sack or a load, such as a large sack of wool or potatoes, a trucjload of firewood , a saddle.
• -jool --- to handle noncompact or wool-like material, such as loose hay, wool, gaseous matter such as fog, smoke, dust.l
• -tiee --- to handle mushy object such as oatmeal, mud butter

The list above shows all the stems of the Navajo Languages. And there is an interesting phenomenon that every object must be placed into one of these categories when used with a classifying verb of handling. The final aspect i want to add is the importance that Navajo language makes to Native Indian Language.The Navajo language developed the classification of the words. This is new concept such that English and Spanish don't have this word stem system.

Cheneyxun (talk) 15:41, 23 April 2014 (UTC)Beihan Xun(For class AIS LING 210 SP14 001-2 University of Arizona)

References

Keyboards

I have an open question that perhaps someone who monitors this page can help me with. I notice that Djembayz added the information about theNavajo keyboard layouts. I am wondering if that user can contact me on another channel twitter/email, etc. I am studying keyboard layouts as part of my M.A. in linguistics and am looking for the tools which were used to create those keyboard layout diagrams displayed on this page. http://hugh.thejourneyler.org/2012/keyboard-design-for-minority-languages/ (And if that user has any info on who might have created/designed the Navajo layout.... also if there is anyone who is currently using that layout and how popular it is.) – I know that that is a lot of info which is not really germane to the the actual article here, and that is why I am asking for them to contact me on another channel – contact info is at: http://hugh.thejourneyler.org/resume/.

Perhaps an interesting page section can be developed for digital written communication practice in Navajo... My include if there is an Android, iOS, Ubuntu, OS X, or Windows 8 localization set up for Navaho.

Hugh Paterson III (talk) 00:01, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

I believe they were created by Native Innovation Inc. For iPhone and iPad apps, see iPhone and iPad Navajo. For Android, see Android Navajo.

Languagegeek developed keyboards for PC and Apple computers.

Most written communication in Navajo is through English, since Navajo speakers were never taught to read or write Navajo until just the past decade. The Navajo alphabet and orthography in use today was developed in the 1940s and ’50s, but was not taught in school and few speakers know how to use it. For this reason, there has been no localization for Navajo, other than that used on Navajo Wikipedia. Older speakers are now being encouraged to teach themselves how to read and write the language. —Stephen (talk) 16:23, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

GA push

Because WikiProject Languages has very few recognized-quality articles and it's a field I enjoy, I'm interested in taking this article to GA status and possibly FA after that (I've recently done this with Czech, which is being reviewed at GAN now). The most major obstacle, though, is that the Grammar section is positively gigantic, particularly in the Verbs subsection. It's far too inaccessible and detailed as it is, yet I don't feel I know enough about the language yet to have a handle on what's essential to stay and what can be cut. Can anyone help with this? Might a separate "Navajo grammar" article be useful? Tezero (talk) 23:34, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

Grammar section

I've taken the bold, possibly controversial step of migrating the vast majority of the Grammar section to a new article: Navajo grammar. It went way too far into detail for a general language article, though I'll be building it up from the couple of paragraphs it is now. Please tell me if you have any concerns. Tezero (talk) 19:36, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

I think there is a clear lack of structure in the grammar section, it provides information in a disjoint way that is not helpful for the reader. Before writing the grammar section you need to know what are the most important aspects of Navajo grammar, and then write it in a coherent way that starts by presenting the basics, then the specifics with examples of usage. For example in the section of verbs, what is the structure characteristic of a Navajo verb? What does it look like? (examples of fully inflected verbs) What categories does it inflect for (declension is only for nouns, and mostly in languages that have case)? You may not need to provide an exhaustive overview of the Navajo verb in that section but it has to be an accurate summary that gives the reader a feeling of what Navajo is like both typologically and specifically. User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 17:24, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

I've added some examples and translations per your hidden comments. I'll try to find a fully conjugated verb with all of the categories and write a brief introduction to the section (even if I personally feel that's made redundant by the article's introduction), as well as some more full sentences to illustrate grammatical features. Tezero (talk) 18:30, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

The article's introduction can never make anything redundant, because the intro is supposed to summarize the article and everything in the intro has to be mentioned with sources in the article body. Also an article should consist mostly of prose, and prose introductions and descriptions are necessary for the reader to be able to understand and contextualize the information given in tables and examples.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 19:10, 16 August 2014 (UTC).

What does the na- prefix mean? And what does it dual/plural mean? (you dont mention the number system when you describe the person system, does it have a dual category?)? These kinds of things is what you need to put in the prose introduction, the language inflects verbs for aspect, mode, verbs agree with subjects by inflecting for their person and number, the pronominal system distinguishes the following persons and numbers, etc. This is the basics of describing a language summary style.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 20:02, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Navajo language/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Maunus (talk · contribs) 03:44, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

The article seems broad in its coverage, balanced, etc. I've done a mini-PeerReview below. Feel free to disagree with any statement in the review, or to revert any of my copyedits; not everything in this review is necessary to pass GA.

Lead

• No pronunciation guide for "Navajo"?

• Done. Tezero (talk) 16:18, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

• The language contains a fairly large phoneme inventory: in colloquial usage, "fairly" can mean "somewhat" or "quite", so this statement will come across as meaning anywhere from "somewhat larger than average" to "quite larger than average". Is "contains a fairly large phoneme inventory" insufficient?
  • When this comes up later in the article, I think it would be good to tell the reader the number of phonemes, and the average number of phonemes for languages (and English?) to give an idea of what "large" signifies.
• it includes several uncommon consonants (that are not found in English): I'd drop the parentheses

• Done by you. Tezero (talk) 16:18, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

• contains both nasal and non-nasal versions: I'd link Nasal vowel

• Done by you. Tezero (talk) 16:18, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

• is quite phonetic: rather than phonemic?

• I'm pretty sure "phonetic" is the correct term; do you have examples of the opposite usage? Tezero (talk) 16:18, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

I am pretty sure it is not correct to say that it is phonetic, the script as far as I can see is almost entirely each letter representing a phoneme rather than a phone. In anycase the section on orthography doesn't mention either phonemic or phonetic so the statement is not supported.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 20:00, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

Fair enough; I'll nix it. Tezero (talk) 21:19, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

Or (assuming the sources support it) you could say something like "spelling is regular and reflects pronunciation", which is clearer to a layreader anyways. Curly Turkey ⚞¡gobble!⚟ 22:51, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

• beyond easy recognition: beyond easy recognition even for a native speaker?

• Well... what would you suggest? Tezero (talk) 16:18, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

• with similar irregularity: "irregularity" wasn't stated earlier in the sentence---recast to make it clear?

• Reworded. Tezero (talk) 16:18, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

• The language does not have grammatical gender: if it did, it would be worth mentioning, but if it doesn't, I'd drop it from the lead. I mean, there are so many other language features Navajo doesn't have, right? Articles, honorifics...

• Done. Tezero (talk) 16:18, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

History

• The phenomenon of tone in the Athabaskan family evolved independently in all of its subgroups: this is sudden, and seems to take for granted that the reader would know that these languages have tone.

• Reworded. Tezero (talk) 18:28, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

• that pronounced these glottalic consonants differently: has it been positied how they were pronounced?

• Source doesn't say. Tezero (talk) 18:28, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

• with which it predictably shares a similar tonal scheme: "predictably" as in "you would have guessed they shared it", or as in "you can predict what tone one language will have based on what the other has"?

• Mainly the first one. I've just removed that word, though. Tezero (talk) 18:28, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

• The Navajo's land was initially colonized by the Spaniards: when?

• Fixed. Tezero (talk) 18:28, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

• of its impenetrable grammar: not literally impenetrable?

• I just ended up removing that word, as I couldn't think of another that was culturally neutral enough. Tezero (talk) 18:28, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

• no Navajo dictionaries existed at the time: no Navajo-German or Navajo-Japanese dictionaries, or none at all?

• None at all, I think. Not published, anyway, which I've noted. Tezero (talk) 18:28, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

• during its associated war: meaning World War II?

• In this case, yes, but the source said it was the only code never deciphered during whichever war the code was in - Navajo was more than just the only code not deciphered during WWII. Tezero (talk) 18:28, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

• and English-language radio broadcast to tribal areas: I had to read this twice---at first blush, "broadcast" comes across as a noun

• Added a "was". Tezero (talk) 18:28, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

• although its large speaker pool: how "large" is "large"?

• Figures aren't given in the source, but I've added an explanation. Tezero (talk) 18:28, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

• Moreover, federal acts passed in the 1950s to increase educational opportunities for Navajo children had resulted in pervasive use of English in their schools.: after being told that Navajo was "better off than most", the reader will expect this "Moreover" to introduce another reason the language was resilient

• Reworded. Tezero (talk) 18:28, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

• 18 spoke only Navajo: 18 percent or 18 children?

• Percent. Fixed. Tezero (talk) 18:28, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

• English-only campaigns in the late 1990s: is there something good to link to here?

• Haven't been able to find anything. Tezero (talk) 18:28, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

• has offered an associate's degree in Navajo in the subject, or via the language?

• Done. Tezero (talk) 18:28, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

• In recent years: this'll date easily

• Removed. Tezero (talk) 18:28, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

Phonology

• hard columns (such as {{col-2}}) is not as friendly to the wide variety of browsers and screen sizes and orientations. {{div-col}} allows you to specify an appropriate column width, which the browser adjusts automatically to an appropriate number of columns. Having said that, it's perhaps not a good idea to column-ize this if there's no semantic reason for it, especially when you're putting tables into columns.

• I only did it because the vowel table is so tiny. I've tried your way out with a 40em colwidth; does that work? (My window size isn't that large, so I can't tell how it might look on a bigger monitor.) Tezero (talk) 19:41, 19 August 2014 (UTC)
  • I understand the motivation, but I think accessibility trumps aesthetics. It looks fine now. Curly Turkey ⚞¡gobble!⚟ 00:29, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

Grammar

• for example, there is only a plural marker (da/daa): I don't understand---this is an example of a null prefix?

• No, there's a null prefix for the singular and dual numbers. Tezero (talk) 19:45, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

• revealing a large amount of information: or "imparting" or something? "revealing" sounds strange to me.

• Done. Tezero (talk) 19:45, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

• Is it not worth linking the headwords for Modes and Aspects?

• What do you mean "headwords"? They're already linked to "grammatical mood" and "grammatical aspect", Curly Turkey. Tezero (talk) 19:44, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

• give the same stem: maybe "share"? I had to think for a second to figure out what "give" was expressing.

• Done. Tezero (talk) 19:45, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

• mode/aspect: should avoid the slash per MOS:SLASH, but I'm not sure the best way to handle it
• mósí doo nitsaa da – the cat is not big: I think glosses are supposed to be in single or double quotes (I don't think it's been settled which, or if either are acceptable)---somethink like mósí doo nitsaa da "the cat is not big"

• Done. Tezero (talk) 19:45, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

• may use pronouns at length: I think I know what you're trying to say, but I don't think "at length" makes it clear

• Reworded. Tezero (talk) 19:45, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

• They may also use paralinguistic techniques to convey noun information, such as speaking in a consistently nasal voice to represent coyotes: does this mean they can avoid using nouns if they speak in a nasal?

• In some contexts. Not the best example, I guess, but another one wasn't given. Should I just remove it? Tezero (talk) 19:45, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

• there is no need to decline them for number: can they be declined for number?

• No. Fixed. Tezero (talk) 19:45, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

Generallty I would use inflect instead of decline, decline and declension is mostly used when describing Indo-European case languages.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 20:02, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

Eh, okay. Done. Tezero (talk) 04:45, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

• no examples of nouns? Do they have no morphology, for example?

• Navajo has a fairly small pool of noun roots that are modified by a small set of affixes, as I've just added. I'm not really sure how a morphology-bereft noun would work, unless one morpheme as is the case in isolating languages counts... Tezero (talk) 03:19, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

• could we get some example sentences displaying different grammatical features?
• I know there's a separate Navajo grammar article, but I still feel like this section is knda thin.

• In addition to the bit about nouns, I've added information on the use of classifiers, which wasn't there before; I think all of the prefix types for verbs are covered now. The section should be fleshed out a little as I add examples of the important parts. Tezero (talk) 03:19, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

• • Some linguists such as Eloise Jelinek considers Navajo to have free word order, and has argued that it should be considered a pronominal argument language with discourse based syntactic configuration. This is a well known argument in the literature and linguists will be surprised to read that Navajo is unambiguously classified as SOV.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 18:12, 22 August 2014 (UTC)
    • Well... you've added that, so thanks. I just fixed up the citation for consistency. (I REALLY want this to be done, so I'm just kinda plowing through.) Tezero (talk) 19:44, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

From my point of view that is the wrong attitude. It is not a piece of homework you need to do to be able to write a check mark on a list, but a question about writing a good article for others to read. It is completely OK to say that you didnt imagine it would be this much work and you dont have the energy, time or interest to get it done - we are all volunteers here. But for me the goal is to make sure the article is as good as possible, giving readers a fair and accurate summary of what linguists have written about Navajo.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 19:51, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

I know it's important for it to be good. I just have other projects I want to be able to start in good conscience. I'm looking for good example sentences and stuff right now. Tezero (talk) 20:01, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

There is no shame in letting the nomination lapse now and renominate it again later when you have the time and interest. You did carve out a big bite for yourself with so many concurrent nominations.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 20:24, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

I'll consider it as a last resort, but since I've come so far I'd like to keep it afloat. Actually, now that I'm back at college, I can see what our university library has on Navajo. Tezero (talk) 20:55, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

Update: I've just started working on revamping the Grammar section, held currently in my tempspace, so don't think I've abandoned this. Goes for Czech, too. Curly Turkey Maunus Tezero (talk) 15:22, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

Orthography

• Navajo keyboards were made available for iOS devices in November 2012 and Android devices in August 2013.: I assume these were virtual keyboards?

• Fixing. Tezero (talk) 23:27, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

• written as h, but appears as x after the consonants s or h': what happens when x follows h, then?

• I'm kinda stuck here. That's in the source, but I don't know of any circumstances where you'd want to express a double "h" sound (Navajo doesn't do double-consonants at all), yet the source doesn't mention the necessity of adding "x" after "z" to disambiguate from "zh". What do you suggest? Tezero (talk) 23:27, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

When in doubt, read more. This book discusses Navajo orthography extensively.[16]User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 23:34, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

Here are two more that go into details on the development of different orthographies and how they have been used in Navajo education.[17][18]User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 23:41, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

I could've sworn I'd already looked through The Navajo Sound System for about all it was worth... Alright, I think I can make do with all this. Thanks. Tezero (talk) 23:42, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

Looking at the description of the Young and Morgan orthography in McDonoyugs book it is neither fully phonemic nor mostly phonetic, it underrepresents some phonemic contrasts and overrepresent others. It does represent some allophonic variation such as consonant voicing. This means that it is a specific challenge to the article to describe the differences and relations between the phonemic and the Morgan Young orthography (which seems to be the current standard).User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 00:00, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

Would it be worth starting an article on Navajo orthography? Perhaps the "challenging" parts could be delegated there, where it could be gone into in detail (along with more in-depth descriptions of failed earlier attempts), while this article could simply sum up the important birdseye-view aspects. Curly Turkey ⚞¡gobble!⚟ 00:17, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

That is not a bad idea, but in order to find out what is important birdseye view aspects and what are minor details the author needs to start by having a full overview.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 00:23, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

• the use of an acute accent for vowels with a high tone was taken from French.: this seems to imply that the acute diacritic is used to represent high tones in French. Curly Turkey ⚞¡gobble!⚟ 00:17, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

Yeah, this is also clearly wrong as acute accent is pretty much the standard way to write high tone in the worlds languages. Also used in IPA.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 00:20, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

I'm not making it up. The source says it was taken from French; I don't know what you want me to do. Polish doesn't use the barred-L for the same sound, either. Tezero (talk) 01:26, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

The Spolsky source cites Morgan and Young, McDonough gives a detailed description of Morgan and Youngs orthography so I would look at Morgan and Young and McDonough and see if they corroborate the statement. When in doubt, do more research.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 19:40, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

• It would be a good idea to give examples of the diacritics, rather than just describe them. Curly Turkey ⚞¡gobble!⚟ 00:29, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

• I don't understand. Navajo text, used throughout the article, includes diacritics. Tezero (talk) 19:32, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

Give an example of how they look when you describe the diacritics.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 15:40, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

What do you mean "how they look"? It's just a standard acute accent; I've never seen that further "described" anywhere else. What would you suggest here? Tezero (talk) 06:43, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

Maybe youre right, since in fact all the other diacritics mentioned in the section actually do have examples following them.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 14:48, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

Images

• File:WBA danaaznilígíí.svg: the source is given as Wikipedia---Wikipedia can't be its own source

• Removed. Tezero (talk) 01:44, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

• Other images fine

General

• {{reflist|3}}: again, it's better to use |colwidth=??em rahter than a hard number of columns, as it's friendlier to the wide variety of screens out there.

• Done. Tezero (talk) 21:00, 11 October 2014 (UTC)

• Definitely not needed for GA (or even FA), but I think it would be great if a sound file could be provided for the Sample text (it would be nice to have that in all the language articles, actually), especially as the language is touted as one whose phonology is so different from English. Curly Turkey ⚞¡gobble!⚟ 00:20, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

• I found something for a single word that demonstrates a few features English doesn't have: the ɬ sound, nasalization, and tones. Couldn't find anything of the entire passage, though. Tezero (talk) 21:00, 11 October 2014 (UTC)

———Curly Turkey ⚞¡gobble!⚟ 05:29, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the detailed review; I'll start these tomorrow. Another watcher of this article has brought up the Grammar section issue before, and I just haven't gotten around to fully expanding it yet. Tezero (talk) 05:35, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

Curly Turkey, it's been a few days now since the Czech article, which had been keeping me busy, passed. I absolutely do not have the time for this tonight because I have to fervently catch up on a class I've missed a few assignments for as a result of being out-of-down and poorly organized on top of that. Nor will I tomorrow because I have to create some sound and music files for a project my friends and I are working on. The grammar section does need to be fleshed out with more examples and stuff, I agree, but it would be irresponsible to simply substitute in the old grammar section (now the separate Navajo grammar article) as it's completely unsourced and far too detailed. I do want to finish this up at some point, because I don't like starting projects and leaving them to flounder, but if I haven't at least started fixing up the Grammar section by midnight on Friday (i.e. between Friday and Saturday), feel free to fail this GAN and I'll pick it up when I actually have time. Tezero (talk) 23:02, 24 September 2014 (UTC)

• Okay, ping me when you get around to it. Curly Turkey ⚞¡gobble!⚟ 23:22, 24 September 2014 (UTC)

I was puzzling around about what to do about the lack of details about morphology for a while, but I've found a couple of very helpful sources and I'll be working stuff from them in now. Tezero (talk) 01:01, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

Alright, Curly Turkey, what do you think now? I've added explanations of the functions of everything, with examples of conjugated verbs and short sentences, and there's also some more information in the later part of History section. Think it's ready to go? Tezero (talk) 23:00, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

While I am not reviewing this article I would advise against promoting yet. The classificatory verbs are not really dealt with with clarity, there are no examples of transitive verbs and the inflection of objects, and generally the treatment doesnt separate out sufficient types of inflection or what categories are marked, and how. It doesnt feel very coherent to me. There are some odd english usages "singeing", "being singed". Nothing on syntax except for basic word order. What about mood? Passive? Sentence coordination/subordination? he list of modes and aspects are not informative without examples of their usage.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 00:28, 15 October 2014 (UTC)

Forgot all about these comments. Anyway, Maunus, I'm not really sure if most of your proposed changes are necessary. I mean, looking at Nahuatl, one of your own FAs on a Native American language, it gives nothing about sentence coordination/subordination and only fleeting mentions of mood, aspect, and the passive voice (in addition to the copious unsourced statements, which admittedly aren't a content issue) - and that's for a language without a dedicated grammar article. (There's one for Classical Nahuatl's, but supposedly modern varieties' differ.) I can add examples or clarify wording if you have specific points that need it. Tezero (talk) 02:20, 10 November 2014 (UTC)

There is a huge difference exactly in that Nahuatl is not one language but a group of many languages with different grammatical and phonological systems. The Nahuatl article nonetheless does give a full overview of the grammatical categories shared by all of the varieties and their uses. I would encourage you to look at the Greenlandic article as more comparable to the Navajo article. It is also a possible choice to write a grammar section that is comprehensive but shallow (as the one in Nahuatl), but it has to give a full view of the language's structure not just picking out random elements and leaving out other ones. User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 02:36, 10 November 2014 (UTC)

• Oh, Jesus, I'm really sorry, I totally forgot this review was still open. I don't really have the time to go through it again this week (busy with no-WP things), and after all this time I think I'd have to go through the whole article again to see whether it's really at GA level. Honestly, I should have closed it after a week in the first place. Unless Maunus wants to take over, I think I should archive it so Tezero can put it up again for a proper review. Curly Turkey ⚞¡gobble!⚟ 02:42, 10 November 2014 (UTC)

@Curly Turkey:, I can take over the review if you like. User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 20:24, 22 November 2014 (UTC)

Sorry about that. I wonder if the bots would recognize it if you just replaced my name with yours at the top of the review. Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 21:33, 22 November 2014 (UTC)

Oh, I forgot all about this. As I found out this past week, we have a Navajo grammar at my university for whatever else you want me to fill out. Tezero (talk) 20:45, 22 November 2014 (UTC)

Which one? I am a little surprised that you apparently havent had a navaho grammar available during your previous work here.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 20:47, 22 November 2014 (UTC)

I think it's Young 1987. Anyway, I did have it earlier, but that was before the school year started. That's the main reason I've done so little since late August. Tezero (talk) 21:04, 22 November 2014 (UTC)

Ok, great. I will start a comprehensive review later today.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 21:38, 22 November 2014 (UTC)

"allowed"

The settlers graciously "allowed" Navajo children to attend schools and have their mouths washed out? I doubt that's really the word-choice, but if it is, you're using some really nice racist apologist literature here... So, at least give the page number and line for that word-choice. 174.19.209.252 (talk) 20:53, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

Agree that this is a bad word choice. I would write that sometimes Navajo children attended or were able to attend the schools of settlers.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 21:32, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

I don't disagree, but please, you need to assume good faith here. It's certainly not so overtly poorly worded that you can jump straight to accusing people of racism. Please stay calm when discussing matters. Thanks. Sergecross73 msg me 21:34, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

"allowed" and "have their mouths washed out" were not in the same sentence and are different issues. There were several punishments used for children speaking Navajo, including soap in the mouth, kicks in the butt, rulers across the knuckles, withholding of food, and blows to the ears. I know a number of Navajos today who received those punishments in the various schools they went to (boarding schools, mission schools). School teachers and administrators were not across the board cruel; some were very kind. And some of the harsh teachers were Navajo themselves. In the cited book, Encyclopedia of American Indian History by Johansen & Ritzker, p. 421, it says: Various methods were used in schools to keep students from "talking Indian," including washing student’s mouths out with lye soap if they spoke their Native languages. The only real issue is the word "allowed", and whether another word might be better. In the book, various terms were used, including "ordered", "forced", "required", and "compulsory": p. 98, to invade homes and order children aged seven or older into residential schools. p. 414, the issue of whether children should be removed from homes to attend government boarding schools. p. 79, Additionally, boarding schools forced children to attend Christian services and to recite biblical scripture with the intention of squelching their Native spiritual beliefs. p. 89, Presidet Ulysses S. Grant: Schools should be established, which children should be required to attend; their barbarous dialect should be blotted out and the English language substituted. p. 538, A 1920 amendment made residential school attendance compulsory and set out penalties for parents who refused to part with their children;.... —Stephen (talk) 12:29, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

Yeah, I think the article should definitely describe the well documented abuse against Navajo and other native children that played a big role in the language becoming threatened in the early 20th century. But I think it was more the use of the word "allowed" that made it look very odd and insensitive in the context. I am sure the children didnt feel as if they were being extended a favor.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 14:07, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

Look, I really don't care what the wording is. Change it if you want. Tezero (talk) 14:39, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

It already has been changed.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 14:43, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

"improvised"

Not in source at all -- how is having more than one interpretation the same as "improvising"? "Lift" is not what some people "improvise" for "elevator", they're just different words. 174.19.209.252 (talk) 21:01, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

I agree that "improvised" is the wrong word. New coinages like these are called neologisms, and some languages use neologisms created by the speaker on the spot. This can be called an ad hoc coinage or neologism.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 21:30, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

Not in source, either. Again, "lift" is not an ad hoc way of saying "elevator". Read "Body rituals among the Nacirema", that might ring a bell to show you what you guys are doing here... 174.19.209.252 (talk) 02:24, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

Lift and elevator are synonyms, but there are languages in the world where people create new words on the spot, those words are not synonyms but brand new coinages that are nonetheless intelligible to others because they follow the grammatical rules for how new words can be created. Your analogy is not correct. If I say "the thing that lifts people up to the second floor" to refer to what in English is an elevator, and one of my friends in another situation says "the box that is hoisted up by a cable", then we are not creating new synonyms, but making ad hoc coinages. There are several languages where this is an important strategy for communicating. I know that this is thew case in some Athabaskan languages and it would not be surprising if it were also the case in Navajo. It does all boil down to what the source says of course. But Horace Miners Nacirema really have nothing to do with it, some languages do work differently from English or other Indo+European languages, and there is nothing wrong with describing that when it is the case.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 05:45, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

It IS also the case in Navajo. In Navajo, anything can be said in many ways, and the fact that descriptions rather than specific nouns are used for most things is the main reason why. When we needed to have a word for planet in Navajo, some chose to use the word kéyah, but that just means land/country: the eight "lands" that circle the sun (obviously not a very good choice). Others used the more natural Navajo solution to come up with jóhonaaʼéí yináádáłígíí (the one that is walking around the sun) and kéyah yádiłhił biiʼ hólónígíí (the land that exists in the jet-black sky). But there are many other ways to say it, all equally valid. —Stephen (talk) 15:19, 30 August 2014 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Navajo language/GA2. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Maunus (talk · contribs) 06:37, 29 November 2014 (UTC)

Comments by Maunus

History section looks good. Few Comments:

1. . I dont believe that the statement that Navajo was the only code talking language not to be deciphered is correct. None of the other indigenous languages used for the purpose were deciphered to my knowledge - including Choctaw, Comanche, Meskwaki - probably also Basque. The source giving is an obituary for Chester Nez which is of course written by a journalist and not a specialist in code talking history or Navajo who can be expected to know about the other languages used. So I would either leave out the claim, or find it from a better source.

   Removed. Tezero (talk) 21:00, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

2. . Sloane's 2001 encyclopedia of rhetoric is not a useful source for any claims in this article. It is probably just repeating Mithun's statement.

   I added it because I foresaw it being a controversial claim and I thought it'd be best to have more than a single source. Of course, as I rewrite this whole part, it may not end up being necessary at all. Tezero (talk) 21:00, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

3. . The revitalizaion and status section is excellent.
4. . Phonology could do a better job at describing the articulation contrasts in prose. It seems to be something wrong when it says stops exist in three three laryngeal forms, a plain stop is not laryngeal. It would be more accurate to say that it contrasts plain, aspirated and ejective stops. It also ought to mention the labialized, plain contrast in velars and glottals which is not that common, and probably the fact that there is only voicing distinction in continuants but not in stops. I would look at WALS and see which features are particularly rare and be sure to mention those. IN anycase I think there should be more prose summary of the tables here.
5. . Vocabulary section is very good. I would put it after the grammar section, since usually phonology and morphosyntax is considered "grammar" and opposed to "lexicon" but this is not a necessity.

   Done. This may have messed with wikilinking the first instance of a phrase at some points, though I don't think so, but otherwise, yeah, this is fine. Tezero (talk) 21:00, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

6. . Typology, too much focus on the difficulties of describing it in terms of a typological category. Today's linguists are neither surprised by languages not fitting the old categories, nor do they waste time arguing about it. Would be more useful to describe morphology in more functional terms. What do affixes do? What do stem changes do? Which words have many morphemes, which have few? Is it head marking or dependent marking? Does it have agreement? these kinds of things are more typologically interesting that a paragraph describing how it cannot be easily fit into the old typological categories.

   Yeah, I didn't really realize that at first since it seemed like every single Native American language's grammar article, as well as the sources about it, were just like, "It's polysynthetic. Know what that means? Full sentences in a single word. Because it's not like any other languages do that or this is a completely misleading categorization, right? Have we mentioned it's polysynthetic?" I'm guessing I'll get to this after the rest; just thought I'd let you know. Tezero (talk) 21:00, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

7. . I really dont like the section on verbs, it gives a lot of information that is not useful such as the lists of categories or examples of disjoint morphemes with generic glosses. And it does not give the most useful information, namely an overview of the way that verbs work in the language, what are their morphological structure, what grammatical categories are inflected by which means, and it does not give text examples of how the different morphemes work. It includes random and irrelevant information such as that Navajo has no verb for "to give". Ideally there should be no mentions of grammatical categories without text examples of their use. This section should be rewritten from scratch based on a thorough reading of a good Navajo grammar, and it should be structured so that it starts with the most basic stuff (examples of the forms of inflection, examples of the categories inflected for and proceeding to the more advanced stuff). What categories does the verb mark? How does it mark them? How is it used in context? That is what this section need to describe.

   I've decided it's easier to just completely rewrite the whole grammar section from scratch. I'm doing that in a personal tempspace now. Tezero (talk) 21:46, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

   For the record, the point about there being no verb for "to give" was made in the context of explaining the classificatory verbs, not just as a quirk. Tezero (talk) 20:36, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

8. . The Noun section is better (because of the good examples it does have), but has similar problems to the verb section in that it does not provide the basic information necessary. The first information has to be what the categories of inflection of nouns are. The section mentions the third and fourth person out of the blue without ever having mentioned what the Navajo person/number system looks like. The basic stuff needs to go first = what categories does the Navajo noun mark? How does it mark them.
9. . Other parts of speech come out of the blue since we have nowhere been given a description of the main parts of speech. This should be the first part of the grammar section. What is a demonstrative adjective? How do adjectives and adverbs work syntactically?
10. . The grammar section has no information on syntax or sentence formation at all.

    Frustratingly, this book doesn't seem to, either. I'll see if I can't find anything better online. Tezero (talk) 21:00, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

    Okay, I've been quite occupied with some extremely unpleasant ongoing arguments and such lately, but I might have some time soon. I think this source is already used somewhere in the article; would further use of it be helpful? (I notice right away that it says Navajo is head-marking, which I didn't include before because I only recently learned what that means.) Also, would this be a reliable source? What from WALS would be most helpful to include? Tezero (talk) 03:09, 21 December 2014 (UTC)

It is hard to imagine a Navajo grammar that doesnt have syntactic information. It may be under a header that doesnt say syntax, but remember that everything that concerns the expression of sentences is syntax. The Hale, Munro Platero pape is certainly a reliable source, but not the best given that it is a low profile conference paper. Navaho is one of the better described native American languages - so you really should find and use the highest profile sources. Faltz 1998 and Young 2000 for the verbs, Young and Morgan 1943 and Speas and Yazzie 1996 and Yazzie and peas 2007 for basic grammar (including syntax), Neundorf 1983 for a dictionary, Elgin 1973 and several articles by Speas for syntax. These would be not only helpful but necessary to include to have a well rounded coverage of the literature. Minimum to include for syntax should be negation, interrogation, and clause subordination and coordination. From WALS alignment, word order, order of Noun genitive and noun adjective, internally headed relative clauses would be good to include as a minimum, with examples of each. Luckily WALS gives precise references for where you can find exampoles of each - they use Speas 1990 and Morgan & Young so you should probably get your hands on those.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 03:35, 21 December 2014 (UTC)

Maunus, I just spent about an hour reorganizing, researching, and adding information to the section in my tempspace. I know it's not anywhere close to being complete - most notably, I haven't touched the WALS stuff yet, nor have I added everything in about aspect/mode and a few other features. Just wanted to let you know I'm still working. Tezero (talk) 04:36, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

I am in no hurry, take you time. But do try to get your hands on as much of the relevant literature as possible. Dont rely on online sources.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 04:42, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

1. . The orthography section could do a better job of describing the history of orthographies by showing how orthographies have differed, and attributing the Young/Morgan orthography to its developers. It also doesnt actually provide an overview of the orthography, so after reading the section the reader doesnt have a clear idea of how the orthography works.

   I can look for things about the history, but what would you expect about "how the orthography works"? It's the Latin alphabet with diacritics for tone and nasality and apostrophes for ejective consonants. Tezero (talk) 21:00, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

There is quite a bit about the history, both n the book by McDonough and in the work of Bernard Spolsky. Also the orthography is more complicated than what you described because it is not fully phonemic. I added some sources about this further up. Orthography is not just the relations between symbols and phones, but also their representation of morphophonemic and grammatical processes and of allophony.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 21:07, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

1. . the example text is good.

Thats it for now.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 06:14, 29 November 2014 (UTC)

Sorry about neglecting this. I've been almost completely occupied with finals and school projects, culminating in one last web design project I'm doing now. Starting tomorrow, I should be able to begin work again. I'll still be at school tomorrow and the day after, during which time I'll still have access to the Navajo grammar text they have - might be able to check it out, but because of its immense size I'd prefer to tackle all of the incompleteness issues while I'm still here. Tezero (talk) 21:40, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

Is everything proceeding well here? Given the above notes I can understand if progress is slow, but since there hasn't been anything here in a month I'm just making sure. Wizardman 15:27, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

Wizardman, Tezero has over 175 edits since you posted the above; indeed, the same you did, Tezero opened Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Sonic the Hedgehog (1991 video game)/archive1. With no edits to the GAN article by Tezero since December 23, and no response from either nominator or reviewer in the two weeks since your question, I'd recommend that this be closed. BlueMoonset (talk) 19:50, 13 February 2015 (UTC)

Coincidentally, I worked a small amount on my personal (temp) copy of the grammar section earlier today. That said, I don't really care if this gets closed; I can simply renominate it if/when I ever make all of his requested changes. Tezero (talk) 19:55, 13 February 2015 (UTC)

Given the writer wants it closed and the reviewer hasn't touched this page since 2014, I believe it should be closed as well. Wizardman 22:26, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

Your opinion is your right, as is voicing it. Closing someone else's review is not. When you do that an automated message is sent in my name.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 22:39, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

So much bullshit

So much bullshit written here no wonder you guys have to protect it to keep this junk. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.19.211.218 (talk) 04:08, 21 November 2016 (UTC)

Be more specific. Maybe someone will agree with you.