Word: navajos
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...Navajo language will of course be used when, and only when, certain preliminaries are effected...
First, the teachers must learn to speak, read and write Navajo, a notably difficult language...
When all this is done, the Indian Bureau will proceed to explain to the Navajos that they must reduce their stock. But the explanation, and the subsequent reduction, was inaugurated in 1934 and 1935. By the time the bilingual teachers get around to it, the Navajo stock will be reduced to the vanishing point. They think it's far too near that point already. Doesn't your article put the cart before the horse...
...Your preliminary summary of the complicated Navajo problem and the urgency of stock reduction to save the soil on the reservation, was remarkable. I never would have believed the matter could be stated so completely in so little space...
There did exist, not a "jargon" invented by scientists, but an alphabet for recording the Navajo language-a competent language, incidentally, with a large vocabulary. The alphabet, worked out by scientists, was minutely accurate in catching every sound and intonation, but contained so many odd characters, special marks and accents as to be utterly unusable for ordinary purposes. Dr. Harrington and I were asked to work out an alphabet in which Navajo could be written understandably, using only what is to be found on the keyboard of a standard typewriter...