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Teaching My Children to Speak Diné

By Christie Cooke

I don’t speak the Diné language.

My parents are both fluent speakers.

I don’t know why I didn’t learn.

In my heart, I know I want to learn. I always have. I know the very basic. I teach my children a word or two here and there. When I introduce my children to people, I tell them, “Shake hands. Ya’a’teeh.” A simple word and gesture but so important to the people and place I come from.

Yesterday I talked with a colleague of mine at work and spoke about a linguistics course he has offered to teach.

After our discussion about politics in the U.S., we began our discussion about the politics of American Indian language revitalization.

He spoke to me about his class and his experience with the Potawatomi language. His father was a fluent speaker of Potawatomi language, and one of the only speakers of the language in the tribe. His father has passed and my friend is left with no connection to the language much less the culture.

I told him my thoughts about Diné language and what it means to me, however little and obscure, but still on my mind when it think about my children and what they will value one day as Diné peoples.

“My parents speak the language,” I told him. “Its comfort to my ears to hear the language around me,” I continued.

I mentioned how one of my best friend’s passion and goals in life is to encourage Diné language revitalization among non-Diné speakers, particularly urban Dinés. I admire this woman so much.

Then I told him my plan.

One of these days, I was going to send my children away, but back to the Rez, reverse boarding school style, and my children would stay with their grandparents and be immersed into the language. No English. Strictly Diné to be spoken.

I don’t know if I could do it, really. I would like to begin my children’s journey back to the Rez and with Diné language while they are young.

I know I don't speak the language, but at the very least, my two children would be able to converse with one another in Diné, in a language so sacred that even, I, their mother, wouldn’t understand.

Christie Cooke's "Native Moms" blogs are available for syndication. Please contact reznet to purchase republishing rights.

Christie Cooke, Navajo, has a master of fine arts degree in creative writing from the University of Arizona. She is a graduate of the Freedom Forum's 2007 American Indian Journalism Institute. Cooke teaches English at Haskell Indian Nations University in Lawrence, Kan.