N.M. first state to adopt Navajo textbook (fwd link)

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N.M. first state to adopt Navajo textbook

10:44 AM MST on Wednesday, July 30, 2008
By FELICIA FONSECA / Associated Press Writer

ALBUQUERQUE (AP) -- In the Navajo language, there's no one word that translates
into "go" - it's more like a sentence.

"There are so many ways of 'going,'" said Evangeline Parsons Yazzie, a Navajo
professor at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff. "It states who is going,
how many of us are going, where are we going. So the tense, the adverb, the
subject, the number of people, all of that is tied up in one little tiny verb."

Those verbs are part of what makes the Navajo language one of the most difficult
to learn, she says. Yazzie is hopeful a book she recently wrote will provide a
user-friendly way for New Mexico students to learn not only the language but
the culture of a tribe that long has tied the two elements.

State officials formally adopted Yazzie's book, "Dine Bizaad Binahoo'ahh," or
"Rediscovering the Navajo Language," Tuesday in Santa Fe.

Access full article below:
http://www.fox11az.com/news/topstories/stories/kmsb20080730jc-nm-state-navajo-textbook.19926999.html