this post was submitted on 27 Jul 2025
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Building Solidarity - One Word at a Time

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So I was looking at Wiktionary's list of translations of the name "Japan", trying to find some inspiration for what I might call that country in my conlang. There were a few mildly interesting ones, although most of the names were basically just what you'd expect, so I wasn't really getting any inspiration.

And then I noticed the Navajo translation: {Binááʼádaałtsʼózí|????} {Dineʼé|people} {Bikéyah|their-country}. And because Navajo was literally the only spoken language outside of East Asia to not call Japan by some variant of 日本, I thought that maybe learning the etymology of the first word of this mysterious name would solve my conlanging woes... So I clicked the link, and my jaw just immediately dropped. I probably gasped and covered my mouth, too, and I said out loud, "Ohhhh noooo......!! What the fuuuuck broooo......! OK, I'm not calquing THAT for my conlang, that's for sure."

Yup, it's an eye thing! And at that, the Wiktionary page for Binááʼádaałtsʼózí Dineʼé Bikéyah included one link in its "derived terms" section: Binááʼádaałtsʼózí Dineʼé Bikéyah Yázhí. So I of course had to click on that page, too, and it turns out that that's what Korea is called in Navajo, with the somewhat disturbing implication that the Navajo name for Korea is just "Little Japan" — but hey, it's their language, not mine!

So then of course I had to check if Navajo went for the hat trick and also gave China an epicanthic name, and lo and behold, {Binááʼádaałtsʼózí|their-eyes-are-narrow} {Dineʼé|people} {Bikéyah|their-country} {Ntsaaígíí|big}. This is however evidently a less common name for China than {Tsiiʼyishbizhí|braided-hair} {Dineʼé|people} {Bikéyah|their-country}, referring to Qing-era queue haircuts... So there's that.

Edit: Someone commented something that seems obvious in hindsight, which is that these names were deliberately coined by Code Talkers during WWII and have simply remained in use since!


But yeah, American Sign Language. Just like Navajo, it developed naturally within what is now recognized as Seppoland; it has a long and continuing history of repression; its speakers number 100K ~ 1M; it has polypersonal grammar; and it is, on the whole, poggers. And, interestingly enough, it ALSO gave China, Korea, and Japan names modeled on epicanthi! Basically like pointing to the corner of your eye with the initial of the respective country. I learned about this from EtymologyNerd.

These old ASL signs are probably still used by some older people, although they started to fall out of favor in or about the 1990s, and are today discouraged. Here's a 1994 South China Morning Post article about it, with this somewhat striking opening line:

IN a new twist to America's growing thirst for political correctness, Asia's citizens are being defended against an unlikely enemy - the deaf. [sic]

...Which makes it seem to me like SCMP was just kind of laughing at the whole ordeal and not particularly offended by the old signs to begin with. And this kind of gets into how the way people talk (or sheepishly don't talk) about racialized features is very much an arbitrary and culturally bound thing, as much as race itself is. Like if there wasn't this centuries-long history of slurs and caricatures, imperialism and systemic racism, children pulling their eyes... How would we react to these Navajo names and ASL signs?

...Probably differently, but in any case, I'm certainly not going to insist that Navajo should change its names for the countries of the world, because that's an issue I'm entirely not party to.

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[–] DancingBear@midwest.social 10 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I assume the Navajo speakers made up a name for Japan during ww2 or ww1 when they were used as secret translators… it’s not like they had ships back in the day to trade with the Japanese… I believe their native lands were in the four corners region of the United States… so I believe it was landlocked even… I’m not native nor am I an expert on the Navajo people specifically… I’m just commenting…

The Navajo words that would be used to describe things and peoples would be new and probably similar to compound words in English… like E-mail which is a shortened version of electronic mail…. They wouldn’t have known that Japan existed on the other side of the globe…

Obviously there are still Navajo people who live today thank goodness they were not completely wiped out by the colonialist genociders….

The speakers of Navajo who still use and speak the language can adapt their language as most other people and languages tend to do…

It is interesting though thanks for posting

[–] Erika3sis@hexbear.net 8 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

I also know that in Navajo, one word for a cell phone is bił níjoobałí, meaning "with it one spins around" — as in, holding one's phone up high, walking around, trying to find a place with a better signal, because the reception can be pretty poor in Navajoland. So I think it is very interesting that even with modern technology, that Navajo/Diné people are coining new words rooted in their own environment, instead of relying on loanwords.

And thank you for commenting! This was interesting. Looking into it, most of the more unusual Navajo country names were indeed coined during WWII by Code Talkers and have simply stayed in use since, just like you said. And from your use of ellipses I want to say you're probably older?

[–] DancingBear@midwest.social 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

No comment, how do you say god damn it in Navajo… 😂

Edit: Also, ‘with it one spins around’ is the perfect definition for cell phone…. Although these days, maybe ‘with it one who walks into the stampede of the buffalo’ might be better haha, but I have no idea if Navajo even lived in the native range of buffalo or not actually….

[–] GrouchyGrouse@hexbear.net 9 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Yeah there's a few unfortunate translations of some of the old names the Europeans applied to indigenous people that flew under the radar because they were indigenous words and nobody else knew the meaning. For example the Europeans meet People A and ask about the other indigenous groups in the area, People B and People C. People A give them some names. What the Europeans don't know is that People B are enemies of People A whereas People C are considered allies and some claim direct kinship with People A. So the European writes down in his notebook what the words sound like and that ends up on maps and in the history books. What he doesn't know is that one word means something like "Righteous Noble Brothers Who Stay Winning" and the other translates as "The Weakling People Who Pick Their Asses And Sniff Their Fingers After."

I'm exaggerating for the sake of humor but that stuff did happen. It is very interesting how biases seep into things.

[–] Erika3sis@hexbear.net 6 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Eskimo is said to mean "eaters of raw meat" according to oral traditions, though linguists dispute this.

[–] KuroXppi@hexbear.net 7 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Fun fact, we call portable coolers 'eskies' (brand name whose mascot was a cartoonised Inuit standing next to an igloo, later generalised for the product category a la bandaid) where I live. I can't not hear it as a slur so I've adopted the kiwi term 'chilly bin'

[–] GrouchyGrouse@hexbear.net 4 points 1 month ago

Chilly bin is excruciatingly cute and I love it

[–] Edie@hexbear.net 6 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

The wikimedia link doesn't work, there is an extra set of ( and ]: ](](

[–] Erika3sis@hexbear.net 5 points 1 month ago

Should be fixed now, should've double checked

[–] Lurker123@hexbear.net 6 points 1 month ago (2 children)

It is interesting how the name for a country is a description rather than just a proper noun. Very different than English where the most descriptive you get is adding one word (Ivory Coast, Greenland) or a description of the government (the people’s republic of).

I wonder if in day to day life they had some pronoun usage to shorten it. Imagine you’re two Navajo bros talking to about Japan and China. Like surely using that long ass phrase - which is only differentiated by noting that one of them is the big country, would be unwieldy?

[–] Erika3sis@hexbear.net 5 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

DancingBear pointed out that these names were coined by Code Talkers during WWII to be deliberately opaque, and the names have simply stayed in use into the present day. So that's why they're so descriptive. Not all of the opaque country names of Navajo were coined during WWII, though, and another thing to keep in mind is that countries often have multiple names in Navajo, some shorter than others. At least one country has an initialism in Navajo, namely Seppoland (USA), which is abbreviated as WBA for Wááshindoon Bikéyah Ałhidadiidzooígíí.

I would certainly imagine that it would be unwieldy and that you could use pronouns instead of the extremely long names — Navajo does have an obviative, just like Ojibwe does, but I don't know whether the obviative actually would be used in this case. I see that there's also pronominal affixes used specifically for places, so I don't know what the deal with that is. Navajo isn't a language I'm studying or anything like that. I do know somebody who did study it, though, so maybe I can ask him.

What I can say, though, is that on the Navajo Wikipedia article for Wááshindoon Bikéyah Ałhidadiidzooígíí, the full name is used four times in the opening two paragraphs, which would suggest to me that the full names are used really not that much more rarely than the full names in English. I'm reminded of that old study about how all languages convey information at more or less the same rate because some languages are just spoken faster than others. And Navajo, if you've listened to it, can be pretty damn fast.

Also, another thing I wanted to mention although it isn't really relevant to anything: France is called Wīwī in Maori. Isn't that just the best thing you've ever heard?

[–] Lurker123@hexbear.net 2 points 1 month ago

Thanks, interesting stuff. And yeah that France name is hilarious.

[–] DancingBear@midwest.social 4 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

I would think there are so few Navajo speakers left that they would strive to speak formally, preferring to use the long form so that they can help each other preserve and pass on the language, but I’m no expert.

Edit: preserving the dirty words of course 👀