behsh bee koh ih tsoh

What a scary, long word we have for you today! Yeeyah!

Actually, you’ve seen these words before but in various forms.

So can you figure out what it means?

We’ll help you along:

• béésh
• bii’
• kǫ’
• tsoh

Now, here’s how it converts to English, roughly: the-metal—inside-it—fire—(structure-it-sets)—it-is-big.

You’d probably take a while to guess that it’s the Navajo word for ‘power plant’ or ‘generating station.’ Many coal-powered generating stations are located around Dinétah, and provide jobs for many Navajo people. The idea behind the word is that fire is contained within the big metal structure.