Saad Hadít’éii Nanilt’ąʼ

Saad Hadít’éii Nanilt’ąʼ is an online grammar resource. Navajo language learners can develop an understanding of Navajo grammar using this resource.

Welcome to the Diné k’ehjí Saad Hadít’éii Nanilt’ąʼ, a digital space dedicated to assisting Navajo language teachers and learners. With this resource, they can come to understand sentence structure. This online resource can be used to build lesson plans and curricula. Cherishing Diné Bizaad, we work to sustain the language.

A good place to begin exploring is with the section called The Structure of Sentences. That section provides an overview of sentence structure and directs the user to other sections in the Saad Hadít’éii Nanilt’ąʼ.

Speakers of Navajo have different levels of knowledge about the language. One can learn from the sentences that are written and recorded. Students of Navajo language will gain a perspective of linguistics by thoroughly looking through the morphological glosses.

Complex sentences can be explored and studied using this resource. Fluent speakers and teachers can begin to build their skills in working with Diné Bizaad grammar. Teachers can use the language recordings to teach the grammar. This resource can allow comparison between Navajo and other Athabaskan languages and one can become aware of the differences among them.

Overall, the resource focuses on the morphology (word structure), syntax (sentence structure), and grammar of Navajo sentences. It also includes different words or sentences based on regional dialects that can be found throughout the Navajo reservation. (There is an oral version and written version of the Navajo language). To accommodate all language learners, the texts are in Navajo and English.

This is a good resource for self-study if you are advanced enough to follow the examples and their linguistic explanations. However, due to its complexity it should be accompanied with help from others when first approaching it.

The website is made up of subareas of Navajo speech which have their own introductions and explicit examples. New terms were coined for grammatical concepts such as verbs, morphemes, and parts of speech, which are accessible on a worksheet. The development of this resource is an ongoing project. Each year (every summer) we add a new language category to the Saad Hadít’éii Nanilt’ąʼ.

History:

Founded in 1997, the Navajo Language Academy (NLA) is a nonprofit organization dedicated to the scientific and cultural study of Diné Bizaad. For nearly three decades, the NLA has brought scholars together on the Navajo reservation to provide rigorous linguistic training for Navajo educators, as well as undergraduate and graduate students. In 2017, the Academy focused its impact by launching Diné Bizaad Research Experiences — an immersive summer project for Diné students to document and use data to form generalizations about the language. The program continued at a distance during Covid years. Today, Saad Hadít’éii Nanilt’ąʼ stands as a testament to the resilience of our community and the enduring vitality of our language.

This project has been funded by the National Science Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Indian College Fund, Swarthmore College, and Navajo Technical University. Technical support was provided by Swarthmore College.

In these resources, example sentences are often drawn from Young & Morgan (1987). The abbreviation YM (1987) refers to this book. YMM (1992) refers to Young, Morgan, & Midgette (1992).