yis kah goh

Your Navajo word for today is tomorrow.

“Tomorrow.”

Alternatively, the word can be yiską́o.

Additionally, yiską́ damóo (or yiską́ damį́įgo) is the word for Saturday.

Example: “Yiską́ągo Monument Valleygóó doogááł.” (note: doogááł is the “future” tense of “to go”)

(Here is the “present” tense of “to go”)

din neh biz awd yeh nh dahz bah ig gee

Today is a special day: National Navajo Code Talkers’ Day. As such, we bring you the Navajo word for ‘Navajo Code Talkers.’

• Diné Bizaad – Navajo, it’s (their) language
• yee – with it, or by means of it
• nidaazbaa’ – plural for of ‘he/she/it went to war’
• -ígíí – particle that converts the verb nidaabaa’ and the phrase as a whole into a noun.

NavajoWOTD.com is, in large part, an homage to the late Keith Little, who passed a month before we began posting our words. It remains, now, a tribute to the Speakers who leave behind a valuable lesson: that our Native languages are powerful tools for shaping our identity as a People.

The Navajo Code Talkers’ service during WWII and afterwards invigorated the movement to preserve the Navajo language in a time when off-reservation boarding schools embraced a brutal policy of banning students from speaking their native language.

The Navajo language and the Code derived from it was a powerful weapon in the Second World War. But that same code became a saving grace for the language as a whole.

uh hyeh heh

Our Navajo word for today is Thank You.

It’s good to point out that the Navajo ‘h’ sound is a lot more exasperated when followed by a short (and a short high tone) ‘e’. The second ‘h’ is less pronounced, or more in line with normal English usage.

Here are a few examples that are useful for understanding expressions of thanks:

Baa ahééh nisin, díidí. (About it I feel grateful, this here.)

Bimá sání dóó bicheii ahéhee’ bidiní. (His grandma and his grandpa, thank you, you tell them.)

Ahéhee’ shikéí dóó shidine’é… (Thank you my friends/family and my people…) [in gatherings].

koh

Today’s word is Navajo for FIRE.

It’s remarkably similar to sǫ’ which is the word for star.

A few weeks ago, the Word of the Day was smoke, or łid.

Intuitively, you might say that the word for a match is kǫ’ tsin (from the earlier word for stick). But it’s actually tsitł’éłí.

dish nih

Here’s another useful action-word that means “it is being said” or “to say (it).” It’s a verb, so the rest of the word forms change depending on who you are talking about. It’s the Navajo word for quoting either yourself or other people.

The full verb paradigm is as follows:

• dishní (I say)
• diní (You say)
• ní (He/she/it says)
• dii’ní (We two say)
• dohní (You two say)
• ní (They two say)
• dadii’ní (We say – three or more)
• dadohní (You say – three or more)
• daaní (They say – three or more)

There are two ways you could use these words. The first is to say a regular sentence, like “Yá’át’ééh!” and then simply append the proper word after, like so: “Yá’át’ééh ní!” (It is good, they say!)

If you want to start a quote with telling someone that what follows is a quote, you simply add á- to the beginning of any of these words, say the quote, and then end with the word that you added the prefix to. For example: “Asdzą́ aní, Albuquerquegóó deekai, ní.” (That woman says, we are going to Albuquerque, she says.)