Teacher Education, Educational Leadership & Policy ETDs

Publication Date

7-19-1972

Abstract

Navajo has been written, in various forms, for more than a century, but practical orthographies have been available for less than fifty years.

Navajo literacy programs have been conducted in the past by various interest groups, but the current effort differs from its predecessors in that it has the support of a growing number of young Navajo educators. Vowel length, tone, ar1id nasality are phonemic in Navajo. The current practical orthography makes use of doubled vowels to mark length, an acute accent to mark high tone, and a cedilla or "nasal hook" to mark nasality. The orthography makes it fairly easy for native speakers to learn to I11ead Navajo; but the diacritical markings pose a problem in learning to write the language.

Phonemic transcription sy1stems and practical orthographies do not always coincide in form. Phonemic transcription systems may be designed to represent speech so1Unds in greater detail than is required by native speakers. Practical orthographies may reflect not only linguistic "reality" but also sociopolitical, psychological, pedagogical, and typographic-economic "realities."

Tests have shown that native speakers find it easier to read than to transcribe comparable material and the diacritics cause a disproportionate amount of difficulty in such transcription. Studies of diacritic frequency show that; the marked member of each feature (long duration, high tone, nasal cavity) is relatively less frequent than the unmarked member.

A review of the literature suggests that any phonemic contrast can be omitted in a practical orthography, including length, tone and nasality. A study of older Athapaskan syllabaries shows that languages with vowel systems very like that of Navajo have been written (and read?) without indication of length, tone or nasality. In fact, Stanley's study of Navajo verb morphophonemics insists that vowel length, tone, and nasality are predictable from the underlying lexical representation.

Attempts to find out what would happen if diacritics were eliminated in part or in whole suggest that while the elimination of all diacritics might result in a large number of homographs, the percentage of potential homographic pairs would still be relatively small. Experiments with adult readers would seem to indicate that accomplished readers are able to read less marked, and even unmarked, text.

Thus, while no one of these lines of evidence is in and of itself conclusive, taken together they suggest the possibility that native speakers can write and read Navajo text, even without the graphic representation of vowel length in which prosodic features are unmarked. Perhaps the most attractive possibility at this time would be the continued use of fully marked text for children, with experimentation in less-marked or unmarked text for adults. The ultimate test will be that of acceptance--or rejection--of such an orthography by Navajo decision-makers

Document Type

Dissertation

Language

English

Degree Name

Teaching, Learning and Teacher Education

Level of Degree

Doctoral

Department Name

Teacher Education, Educational Leadership & Policy

First Committee Member (Chair)

Bernard Spolsky

Second Committee Member

Bruce Joseph Rigsby

Third Committee Member

Miles Vernon Zintz

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