I started reading Dine Bizaad Bohoo’aah I : A Conversational Navajo Text for Secondary Schools, Colleges, and Adults A Publication of the Navajo Preparatory School . It’s a workbook that I found for conversational Navajo. It is going to be a little tough to figure some of these pronunciations.
The Navajo language was constantly spoken around me. We had Navajo language classes growing up. I had the basics down. My colors, my clans, numbers. When I was with my grandparents that could only speak Navajo I was able to grab them whatever they needed and do whatever they wanted me to do. We communicated with gestures and smiles.
One of the toughest things to overcome is this whole idea of me telling myself “I should know this.” I went back home recently and fucked up the word dibé (sheep) and said béégashii (cow) instead…. How silly of me. I was embarrassed to lose such a basic word. I guess that is two basic words.
Today while I was going through the first few pages of Dine Bizaad Bohoo’aah recognized two words as I read them aloud “bilasáana yiyą́.” I recognized the first word as apple. I read the second word out loud and heard myself say something I have heard my family say at dinner. “Eat” or what reminded me of the words used around our dinner table.
I smiled as I these two words together made sense to me. The memories of sitting out my grandma’s dining room table. The memories of family get-togethers. The words that I would hear and say, a lot of small words just came back to me in memories. I don’t use these words everyday, but now I get to.
I took a few small steps today. Learning more about my language. I also read more about the history of Dinetah. This week I will be exploring more words. While I review these words and phrases I fortunately have my resources. I have my family. I will be reading more and asking questions about pronunciations.
I’m really still trying to figure this out.
N A V A B R O 