Why Navajo is one of the most difficult languages on Earth
Navajo, a complex and tonal language spoken mainly in Arizona and New Mexico, faces endangerment with about 170,000 fluent speakers left. Revitalization efforts are underway amid cultural identity challenges.
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Navajo is considered one of the most difficult languages to learn due to its tonal nature, complex grammar, and unique phonology. Spoken primarily in Arizona and New Mexico, Navajo, or Diné Bizaad, is part of the Athabaskan language family and has a rich cultural significance for the Navajo people, who number around 400,000. The language's tonal system includes four pitch variations, which can change the meaning of words with the same spelling. Additionally, Navajo has a complex array of consonants and vowels, making pronunciation challenging for learners. Its grammar is verb-centric, with verbs conveying extensive information through various forms and aspects, complicating the learning process further.
The language is endangered, with estimates suggesting only about 170,000 fluent speakers remain, a significant decline from previous decades. Factors contributing to this decline include historical assimilation policies, economic pressures favoring English, and sociocultural attitudes among younger generations who may feel stigmatized for speaking Navajo. Despite these challenges, there are efforts to revitalize the language through educational programs and a growing appreciation for Native American culture. The number of Navajo tribe members is increasing, which may provide a foundation for the language's survival. However, revitalization requires not only educational initiatives but also a shift in how younger generations perceive their cultural identity in relation to mainstream society.
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- Many commenters point out inaccuracies in the article, particularly regarding the number of vowels and consonants in English and Navajo.
- There is a consensus that comparing the complexity of languages based solely on phonetic counts is misleading.
- Some commenters express skepticism about the article's overall quality and its claims about language difficulty.
- Several users highlight the importance of cultural context and the challenges of language revitalization efforts.
- Comments also touch on the historical significance of the Navajo language, particularly in relation to the code talkers during World War II.
14 commentsSomeone else clarified this [0] but got flagged to death for being a bit too harsh, but I do think it's worth mentioning because this is used mistakenly as a prominent example of Navajo's difficulty: the raw numbers of consonants and vowels are not particularly extreme in Navajo, and the numbers that TFA cites for English are wrong.
They seem to have done a relatively simple analysis of the alphabet, but that's not how linguists think about phonology. The alphabet is our way of representing a much more complex system that underlies English, and English's vowel system in particular is far more complex than the alphabet makes it appear.
Our total number of consonants sits at about 24—the alphabet alone would make you forget about some of our affricates (ch as in charge) and some of our fricatives (sh as in shush, zh as in vision, th as in theme, dh as in though), plus a nasal (ng as in ring).
Our vowel system, meanwhile, has anywhere between ~16 in American English to ~25 in Received Pronunciation. Native speakers don't tend to realize just how complicated our vowels are, but getting them wrong is one of the most common ways to get recognized for having an accent.
All told, English has between 40 and 49 phonemes (again, depending on accent), which is quite comparable to Navajo's 45.
I've no doubt that Navajo is harder to learn for most people than English is, but I don't think the phonology plays a big role in that. English's phonology is plenty difficult.
- English does not have 5 vowels; depending on the variety that you speak and counting diphthongs it has about 20
- "phenology"?
- tonal languages, while challenging to learn for someone who doesn't speak one natively, are not that uncommon, and 4 tones (assuming they're counting correctly) isn't that many. Mandarin has 4. Cantonese has (depending on whom you ask) up to 9. There are American languages with 10-20
- English has 24 consonants by most counts (confusing the Latin alphabet with English phonology again), but there are African languages with famously many, many more than that
- "like Spanish, Navajo is a verb-centric language in which syntax centres on actions" - I'm not sure what that even means. Spanish, like Italian, is a pro-drop language which means you can drop the redundant pronoun if you want because the verb inflection tells you everything you need to know. Navajo is (depending again on who you ask) an agglutinative/fusional/polysynthetic language which, while weird to English speakers, is not that unusual (e.g. Turkish, Finnish)
Also, of course, comparing the number of sounds to the number of English alphabets makes absolutely zero sense.
He discussed how much-used languages have lots of adults learning it, badly. This smooths the rough edges away over time.
But tiny languages can be as hard as our brains can accommodate, which is very hard.
I'm sure they meant 2000...
Ouch that hurts, Mr Brinkhof
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