Nemo Ha’deist’ii’

Happy new year! Or, as the famous clownfish Nemo might say: Nizhónígo Nináánááhai Dooleeł! On Christmas Day the Oscar-winning movie Finding Nemo had its world premier in the language that played such a special role in World War II: Diné Bizaad, the Navajo language. President George W. Bush, in honoring Native American ‘code talkers,’ said the secret messages they relayed ‘turned the course of battle.’ The Japanese never did break that code.

The computer-animated film aired with English subtitles (closed caption) on the PBS channel FNX, First Nations Experience, which is devoted entirely to Native American and world indigenous content. FNX launched full-time nationally in late 2014.

That old Bobby Darin song Beyond the Sea (Somewhere waiting for me/ My lover stands on golden sands…) that plays at the uplifting end of the film is sung in Navajo phonetically by Patrick Stump, vocalist of the pop-punk band Fallout Boy. There is not a shred of pop or punk in Patrick Stump’s rendition.

The Navajo version of the movie includes the voices of more than 14 children. One of them is Quinton Kein, the voice of the missing clownfish Nemo. (Recorded when Quinton was 11 years old.) Unlike most Navajo children, he is fluent in his native tongue which he says he learned from his grandmother. He grew up in a house without electricity.

Nemo Ha’deist’ii’ aired for the first time this past spring in Albuquerque and a few other cities in the Southwest. It is the second major motion picture to be translated into Navajo. The first, in 2013, was Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope.

#FindingNemo #FNX #PBS #Navajolanguage #DinéBizaad