The endangerment is also genuine.

The percentage of Navajo people who are fluent in Diné Bizaad has declined significantly over the past several decades, as younger generations have grown up in English-dominant educational environments and have had less exposure to the language in daily life.

The boarding school era’s attack on Native languages was, in the specific sense of reducing the transmission of those languages across generations, substantially successful — not because the languages ceased to exist, but because the social conditions that had sustained their transmission were severely disrupted.

The Navajo Nation has established language immersion programs, has supported the development of Diné Bizaad curriculum materials, and has taken other steps to support the transmission of the language to younger generations.

These efforts have produced genuine results — there are Navajo children today who are learning the language in ways that would have been supported and encouraged rather than punished.

But the overall trend in language vitality remains concerning.