Linguistic Diversity among the Navaho Indians

Source: International Journal of American Linguistics, Vol. 11, No. 3 (Jul., 1945), — pp. 156-168
Published by: The University of Chicago Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1263309Outstanding characteristics of the Navaho Indians are awareness of all phases of the culture and the unusual articulateness of this consciousness. Perhaps because of the exceptional place occupied by the Navaho among the Indians of North America their culture shows effects from many areas. These Indians are found in the Southwest with such a strong overlay of Mexican-Pueblo ceremonialism that it can hardly be separated from that which they brought with them, for their residence in the area is more recent than that of their pueblo neighbors. They brought with them many traits from the northern Plateau area which they modified and developed through their
contacts with the Plains.
Linguistically they are related to the Athapaskans of the Mackenzie, Northwest and California regions, not to speak of their contemporary kin, the various Apache tribes.