Dr. William Morgan, a Navajo linguist, devoted his career to the development and preservation of the Navajo language. Morgan collaborated with Dr. Robert Young in writing "The Navajo Language," an unabridged Navajo-English dictionary. He also taught Navajo at the Navajo Community College and worked for the Native American Materials…

Highlights the lifelong work of linguists Robert W. Young and William Morgan in developing written Navajo. In contrast to technical orthographies, Young and Morgan developed a practical orthography that took advantage of native speakers' implicit knowledge and opened up possibilities for producing materials in written Navajo. Young and Morgan also…

Examines literacy practices at Genoa Industrial Indian School (Nebraska), 1884-1934, one of the largest federal Indian boarding schools. Focuses on literary texts that students read, particularly "Stiya: A Carlisle Indian Girl at Home" and "Ramona"; student essays about preservation versus extinction of Indian languages and…

Less than 200 years ago, nearly every Cherokee could read and write the Cherokee language because of the syllabary form of writing invented by Sequoyah. Language use declined due to government boarding school policies that forbade use of the Cherokee language. Isolated communities and medicine people kept the language alive. Current efforts to…

Weaves a Navajo elementary teacher's anecdotes from her own and her father's educational experiences with archival materials to provide a historical context for Navajo literacy. Discusses early written Navajo; the role of schools and churches in the expansion of written Navajo; and the advancement of Navajo linguistics during John Collier's…