Navajo

(This is my first attempted contribution to Ethnologue.  Editors/moderators: feedback is welcome, please.)

This posting is in response to the Ethnologue query on how to say "Wash your hands."  My target language is Navajo. (I am an English speaker studying the language in parallel to my medical work with the people.)

An important caveat: even among native speakers of fluent Navajo, there may be disagreement about the exact orthography of a given word or phrase.  For example, some of the certified medical interpreters at my hospital, though completely fluent when speaking, may be unable to write information for patients in Navajo.

Informant contribution

My informant is a native speaker of Navajo and fluent in both Navajo and English.  When queried about how to translate "Wash your hands," she wrote (verbatim):

Ni'lah tanegiz

Which she glossed as:

                 Ni’     lah      tanegiz

                Your   hands   wash

(In conventional orthography, the apostrophe represents a glottal stop.)

As I heard my informant speak this phrase, I would have rendered it in IPA as follows:

[nilaʔ táánígiz]

in which [á] represents a high tone [a]; the reduplicated vowel [áá] represents a longer vocalic duration; and [í] represents a high tone [i] (Wilson, 1995).

Analysis

Overview. The verb base iigis "wash" is attested (Wall & Morgan, 1958/2016).

The verb form tánéigis "wash something impermeable" is also attested, including Ashkii éí łeetsʼaaʼ tánéígis "The boy is washing dishes" (Glosbe.com).

Both forms are illustrated as specifically applicable to washing hands in Parnwell & Yellowhair (1989).

It seems likely that the form tánéigis is correct, even if the orthography may be slightly different from some models (more in a moment).  Navajo verbs are notoriously complex, comprising a common root list of approximately 2,000 verb stems, with at least ten separate classifications based on the object acted upon (e.g., solid and round, slender and flexible, slender and stiff, non-compact, etc.), ten pre-positional modifiers (e.g., disjunctive adverbs, repetitive prefixes, distributive plural prefixes, fourth-person subject pronouns, etc.), seven "modes" (e.g., imperfective, perfective, usitative, iterative, progressive, etc.), and some ten aspects (momentaneous, durative imperfective, continuative imperfective, semelfactive, conative, etc.) (Young, 2004; Yazzie & Speas, 2007).  

Detailed parsing.

The first conundrum -- on which several Native informants have been unable to shed light -- is ni'lah.  The uncertainty centers on whether ni and l are part of subject & classifier for the verb, or whether ní and ála' represent a possessive + noun.  My Navajo colleagues, all of them educated but none of them linguists, shrug as if to say, "It doesn't really matter, does it?"

Verb analysis.  In this analysis, ni may be understood as a second person singular subject you.  Similarly, the infix l is referred to as a "classifier" (elucidating exactly what that means is a topic for the future; the analysis thus far is based on Navajo Prep, 2004).  However, this parsing leaves the final a (or ah) unaccounted for.  

Possessive/noun analysis.  Under this view, ála' is understood as "hands," and ni is understood as "your" (second person singular), thus "your hands" (Wall & Morgan, 1958/2014, 1958/2016; Glosbe.com).  

This of course would entail two details: the combination of ni and ála' and the divergence from my original informant's transcription of ni'lah.  

The latter can easily be ascribed to the difference in orthography referred to above: I have seen various Navajo speakers represent a glottal stop as an apostrophe (') or as an h (unpublished data).

As for the combination of ni and ála', this is within the spectrum of expected morphophonemic and orthographic changes expected at such a boundary.  Not only are such boundaries often marked by phonological changes, such changes may be represented in written versions of the language (Young & Morgan, 1942/2014).

Finally is the verb itself tánéigis. My informant's choice of this particular form of the verb (as opposed to the more general iigis) is not surprising in that it reflects a native speaker's intuition about washing an impermeable object (Faltz, 1998).

Next is the imperative: despite the complex and sophisticated verbal system of Navajo, there is, surprisingly, no special imperative form.  To express a command or request, one uses the imperfective mode with a second-person prefix (Faltz, 1998).

The complete conjugation of tánéigis may be found at Glosbe.com (https://bit.ly/3NfoaC8).  Most pertinently for this discussion, the second person singular imperfective conjunction of tánéigis is given as táánígis.  

Though there are differences, I believe it is plausible that táánígis is sufficiently close to my informant's transcription of tanegiz to be accurate.  My rationale is as follows:

1. The overarching justification is that, as noted earlier, even highly proficient speakers of Navajo may differ regarding orthography.
2. While vowel length is phonemic in Navajo, not all speakers reliably reflect this distinction in writing (Navajo Prep, 2004). Thus, táánígis and tanegiz are sufficiently similar to be regarded as synonymous among native speakers.  
3. Similarly, vowel height is also subjective when non-linguists transcribe vernacular phrases into conventional scripts.
4. Finally, the terminal voicing of the verb ([s] vs [z]) is also subjective when transcribed by non-linguists. 

Conclusion.

On balance, it appears my informant's off-hand transcription of 

Ni'lah tanegiz

which I heard as 

[nilaʔ táánígiz]

accurately reflects the Navajo interpretation of "Wash your hands."

Garrett Riggs, MD, PhD

Literature cited

Faltz LM.  The Navajo Verb.  A Grammar for Students and Scholars.  Albuquerque, NM: University of New Mexico Press, 1998.

Navajo Prep.  The Navajo language: a sketch.  In: Navajo Preparatory School, Inc.  Diné Bizaad Bóhoo'ah I.  A Conversational Navajo Text for Secondary Schools, Colleges, and Adults, 5th ed, rev. 2004.  Farmington, NM: Navajo Preparatory School, Inc., 2003.  http://www.nps.bia.edu.  (Cited as Navajo Prep, 2004.)

Parnwell EC & M Yellowhair.  The New Oxford Picture Dictionary.  English/Navajo Edition.  New York: Oxford University Press, 1989.

Wall L & W Morgan.  Navajo-English Dictionary.  Originally published by Navajo Agency, Branch of Education, Window Rock, Arizona / United States Department of the Interior, Branch of Education, Bureau of Indian Affairs, 1958.  Reissued by Flagstaff, AZ: Native Child Dinétah, 2014.  http://nativechild.com.  (Cited as Wall & Morgan, 1958/2014.)

Wall L & W Morgan.  Navajo-English Dictionary.  Originally compiled by Wall L & W Morgan, Bureau of Indian Affairs, Division of Education, United States Department of Interior, 1958.  Reissued by Hippocrene Books, paperback edition, 1994, thirteenth printing, 2016.  New York: Hippocrene Books, 2016.  (Cited as Wall & Morgan, 1958/2016.)

Wilson GA.  Conversational Navajo Workbook.  An Introductory Course for Non-Native Speakers.  Blanding, UT: Conversational Navajo Publications, 1995.

Yazzie EP & M Speas.  Diné Bizaad Bínáhoo'aah.  Rediscovering the Navajo Language: An Introduction to the Navajo Language.  Flagstaff, AZ: Salina Bookshelf, 2007.

Young RW & W Morgan.  The Navajo Language.  The Elements of Navajo Grammar with a Dictionary in Two Parts Containing Basic Vocabularies of Navajo and English.  Originally published by the Education Division, United States Indian Service, 1942.  Reissued by Flagstaff, AZ: Native Child Dinétah, 2014.  http://nativechild.com.  (Cited as Young & Morgan, 1942/2014.)  

Young RW & W Morgan.  A Vocabulary of Colloquial Navajo.  Originally published by the Department of the Interior, United States Indian Service, Branch of Education, 1951.  Reissued by Flagstaff, AZ: Native Child Dinétah, 2014.  http://nativechild.com.  (Cited as Young & Morgan, 1951/2014.)  

Young RW.  The Navajo language: a sketch.  In: Navajo Preparatory School, Inc.  Diné Bizaad Bóhoo'ah I.  A Conversational Navajo Text for Secondary Schools, Colleges, and Adults, 5th ed, rev. 2004.  Farmington, NM: Navajo Preparatory School, Inc., 2003.  http://www.nps.bia.edu.