A new American Indian language app hit the iTunes store January 20 that features translations of animal names from English to Diné, Lakota, Mvskoke and Ponca. The menu screen offers a choice of four languages. Once a language is chosen, a short list of animals appears from which to choose.

Developed by the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian and the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service, “Native Words, Native Warriors” shares the stories of the code talkers, U.S. military soldiers who came from more than a dozen Native American tribes.

Indigenous words denote a sense of culture, and their use reflects an evolving trend in Indian country. Still, as tribes attempt to resurrect history and instill pride through native place names, they face a gamut of political, practical and financial obstacles from Alaska to Arizona.

The code talkers began in early 1942, when Philip Johnston, a white protestant missionary's son, presented the idea of using the Navajo language to create a code the Japanese couldn't break. Johnston recruited 29 young Navajos to become Marines, not informing them about the plan for the code. Once the Navajo Marines had passed boot camp and combat training, they were instructed to create a code based on their native language.

FARMINGTON — A two-day conference to brainstorm how teachers can save the Navajo language started Friday at San Juan College. San Juan College and Diné Language Teachers Association co-sponsored the conference. More than 100 Navajo language teachers from schools across the Navajo Nation and school districts in border towns attended Friday's training sessions...

Sixty-five percent of tribal language speakers live in just three states -- Alaska, Arizona and New Mexico. Nine counties within the three states contain half the nation's tribal language speakers, the report said.

WASHINGTON – Coconino County election officials have provided translators at the polls for Navajo speakers. They have done the same for Hopi voters. But Yuma has them stumped. “There has never been a request for (Yuma),” said Coconino County Elections Administrator Patty Hansen. “So now we’re trying to find someone who can speak that language.”

During World War II, the U.S. military enlisted Navajo Indians who used their native language to devise a clandestine, unbreakable code. Host Michel Martin speaks to Chester Nez, the last of the original Navajo 'code talkers,' and Judith Schiess Avila, co-author of Nez' autobiography.

...Years later, Nez was shocked to learn he’d been recruited by the Marines, specifically to devise a code using the same language the government tried to beat out of him. Judith Avila helped Nez write his memoir Code Talker, which was just published. "It was extremely ironic one of the very things they were forbidden to do - speak Navajo - ended up helping save us during the war," Avila said.

For the past decade, Nez has devoted his time to educating people about the work of the code talkers. Nez, now 90, signs his name Cpl. Chester Nez and wears his code talker uniform at public appearances. With his son, Mike, he has visited colleges and schools across the country. “He wants young people to know what the code talkers did in World War II and wants them to be proud to be Navajo,” Mike says. “He wants them to know how they fought for their country. And he wants them to learn their language.”

In an attempt to preserve endangered indigenous dialects such as Lakota and Ho Chunk, South Dakota-based programmer Biagio Arobba has built LiveAndTell, a user-generated content site for sharing and learning Native languages. It can work for any language, but his passion is to preserve the endangered tongues you won't find in textbooks, language programs, or widely taught in classrooms.

LOMA LINDA, Calif. (AP) — Navajo code talker Joe Morris, one of more than 400 American Indians who used the language of their ancestors to relay secret battlefield orders during World War II, has died. He was 85.

Although Navajo is the most-spoken native language in North America, with as many as 177,000 speakers, it is a victim of U.S. policies from a century ago that forced American Indians to stop speaking their languages. After decades of boarding schools and student placement programs, the Navajo language has dwindled, spoken mostly by tribal elders...

...Johnston is best known as the man who pushed successfully for the adoption of the Navajo language for secure military communications in the hands of the Navajo Code Talkers during World War II.

School board members were given a brief oral history of the district’s Keres (Native American) language class. Small steps have been taken since 2000 in reference to the class being offered in public schools.

The Cherokee language, which is on the verge of extinction, was very useful for U.S. troops during World War I. They used Cherokees, dubbed “code talkers,” to exchange secret messages in the Cherokee language at the Battle of the Somme.

Code talkers played a major role in the war by sending messages in a code that substituted words from the Navajo language for military terms. The Japanese could not break the code, and it cost them dearly.