“We hope that using our language in the Perseverance mission will inspire more of our young Navajo people to understand the importance and meaning of learning our language. Our words were used to help win World War II, and now we’re helping you navigate and learn more about the planet Mars, “Nez said in the statement.
The team already has a list of 50 Navajo names, including “strength” (“bidziil”) and “respect” (“hoł nilį”). Perseverance itself has been translated to “Ha’ahóni.”
Perseverance had to be “taught” the language so that it could recognize landmarks labeled in Navajo, NASA said. The accent marks used in the English alphabet to convey the unique intonation of the Navajo language cannot be read by the computer languages that Perseverance uses. So the team uses English letters with no special characters or punctuation to represent Navajo words, the statement said.
“This fateful landing on Mars has created a special opportunity to inspire Navajo youth, not only through amazing scientific and engineering accomplishments, but also through the incorporation of our language in such a meaningful way,” said a Navajo engineer in the US. team, Aaron Yazzie of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California.