But it is also a language under pressure — the same forces of English dominance and cultural assimilation that shaped the boarding school era have not disappeared, and the number of fluent Diné speakers is declining with each generation.

The Code Talker story is sometimes invoked as evidence of the language’s resilience and value.

Whether that invocation translates into sustained support for Navajo language education and transmission is a more complicated question.

The Language Today

Diné Bizaad in the twenty-first century is a language that is simultaneously celebrated and endangered.

The celebration is genuine — the Code Talker story has given the language a profile in American public consciousness that few other Native languages have, and the Navajo Nation’s cultural institutions have invested in language preservation and education in ways that have produced some meaningful results.