An Illustrated Dictionary of Navajo Landscape Terms - Paperback

by David M. Mark (Volume Editor), David Stea (Volume Editor), Carmelita Topaha (Volume Editor)

The Navajo language (Diné bizaad) has a vocabulary of landscape terms that allows speakers to communicate about their environment. This book documents that vocabulary and provides photographic illustration of many of the terms. The meanings of these terms seldom match the English-language terms one-to-one. Terms include explicit reference to earth materials such as water or rock/stone. Rather than alphabetically, this book is organized by material and form categories.

This dictionary is a valuable resource for language preservation in schools and elsewhere, and for linguists, anthropologists, geographers, and earth scientists interested in indigenous conceptualization of landscape and environment.

Author Biography

David M. Mark, Ph.D., is SUNY Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Geography at the State University of New York at Buffalo. He was one of the founders of the fields of geographic information science and cognitive geography. He has written almost 250 published articles, chapters, or books.

David Stea, Ph.D., is Professor Emeritus of Geography and International Studies at Texas State University, San Marcos, and Research Associate at the Center for Global Justice (Mexico). He is a co-founder of environmental psychology. His books include Image and Environment, Maps in Minds, Environmental Mapping, and Placemaking.

Carmelita Topaha is a member of the Navajo Nation, Newcomb Chapter. She has a B.A. in anthropology from Fort Lewis College, Durango, Colorado. She has worked as a consulting anthropologist, archaeologist, or ethnographer on a variety of projects.