The Code Talkers’ story is sometimes invoked in these language preservation discussions as motivation and inspiration — the argument that Diné Bizaad has demonstrated its value in the most demanding possible context, that it is a language worth preserving, that its complexity and distinctiveness are assets rather than obstacles.

That argument is genuine and has some effect.

Whether it is sufficient to reverse the broader trends is something that the communities working on the ground of Navajo language education are in a better position to assess than any outside observer.

What is clear is that the question is not historical.

The language that helped win the Pacific is a living language whose future depends on choices being made now, by families and schools and communities that are deciding what to transmit to the next generation.

The Archives and What They Hold