On July 10, Indi­an Coun­try Today announced the first film ever dubbed in the Nava­jo (or Dine’) lan­guage, with the head­line “Jedis and Indi­ans!” Yes, it’s a 35-year-old movie that’s been dig­i­tal­ly enhanced and tak­en on new mean­ing (some would say cheap­ened) in the light of the three “pre­quels,” but it’s a film that will nev­er lose its cul­tur­al cachet as a touch­stone for sev­er­al gen­er­a­tions of movie lovers. I’m talk­ing of course, about the first Star Wars (or Episode IV: A New Hope). Despite the fact that the film has been dubbed into hun­dreds of lan­guages for bil­lions of non-Eng­lish speak­ers, this event is entire­ly different—the view­ers of the Nava­jo Star Wars are all native Eng­lish speak­ers who have under­stood and loved the orig­i­nal per­fect­ly well.

Rather than intro­duc­ing the film to a new audi­ence, the point of this exer­cise is to bring a very pop­u­lar, famil­iar piece of media to an audi­ence eager to con­nect with their fad­ing tra­di­tion­al lan­guage. Manueli­to Wheel­er, direc­tor of the Nava­jo Nation Muse­um in Ari­zona, con­ceived of the project to pre­serve the lan­guage for gen­er­a­tions, includ­ing his own, who are los­ing touch with Dine’. In the short video above, watch Wheel­er and the voice actors and trans­la­tors dis­cuss the project’s suc­cess in inspir­ing young peo­ple to speak more Nava­jo. Wheel­er told NPR’s All Things Con­sid­ered, “Lan­guage is at the core of a cul­ture. And I felt we need­ed a more con­tem­po­rary way to reach not just young peo­ple but the pop­u­la­tion in gen­er­al.” He also said that he is not flu­ent and that “there are thou­sands and thou­sands of us out there that are in that same sit­u­a­tion.”

So what bet­ter way to intro­duce those thou­sands to the fine com­plex­i­ties of Nava­jo than with a movie almost every­one knows all the dia­logue to? The trans­la­tion was not with­out its chal­lenges. The team of five trans­la­tors had to find ways to con­vey con­cepts unfa­mil­iar to the lan­guage, such as “robot,” which was trans­lat­ed to the equiv­a­lent of “a machine that thinks for itself.” The new­ly-dubbed film’s pre­mier at a Win­dow Rock, Ari­zona rodeo sta­di­um thrilled the small crowd of 200 peo­ple. As Indi­an Coun­try Today reports, the crowd “erupt­ed in cheers and screams when they heard famil­iar char­ac­ters like C‑3PO and Darth Vad­er deliv­er­ing clas­sic dia­logue in their beloved Dine’ lan­guage.” And as Wheel­er puts it above, “peo­ple were very engaged with­out feel­ing like they were in a les­son.” As any­one who’s stud­ied languages—their own or others—knows, pop cul­ture near­ly always trumps lec­tures and work­books.

Speak­ing of learn­ing lan­guages, don’t miss our handy col­lec­tion: Learn 46 Lan­guages Online for Free: Span­ish, Eng­lish, Chi­nese & More. And if any­one knows of free online Dine’ lessons, let us know and we’ll hap­pi­ly add them to the list.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Pho­tog­ra­ph­er Revis­its Aban­doned Movie Sets for Star Wars and Oth­er Clas­sic Films in North Africa

Star Wars Uncut: The Epic Fan Film

Star Wars as Silent Film

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Wash­ing­ton, DC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness

“Mur­der!” exclaims the first word in the trail­er above. “Mys­tery!!” the next con­tin­ues. “Treach­ery!!! Romance!!!!” Before these claims can rack up a fifth excla­ma­tion point, we learn the plight of the pro­tag­o­nist — “hound­ed by spies,” “hunt­ed by police,” and “dou­ble-crossed by the woman he loves.” The film? Alfred Hitch­cock­’s The 39 Steps, (watch free online here) his 1935 British thriller star­ring Robert Donat and Madeleine Car­roll. The film has tak­en so many crit­i­cal lau­rels since its release that the way this trail­er bal­ly­hoos it like a pot­boil­er comes as a shock. “It STARTS with a MURDER,” “and ENDS in a THRILL” — not to men­tion a cer­tain cin­e­mat­ic craft in between.

If you sim­ply let the video run, it will treat you to 24 more trail­ers in a row for var­i­ous Hitch­cock fea­tures, from 1940’s For­eign Cor­re­spon­dent, “the thrill spec­ta­cle of the year,” to 1946’s Noto­ri­ous, “dar­ing­ly direct­ed by that mas­ter of sus­pense,” to 1976’s Fam­i­ly Plot, by which point breath­less onscreen text had gone out of style, replaced by sil­ly gags.  These come cour­tesy of archive.org, which main­tains an Alfred Hitch­cock Trail­er Col­lec­tion. Their rep­e­ti­tious promis­es of thrills, sus­pense, mys­tery, and intrigue of all stripes reminds us that, for all his pure film­mak­ing skill, Hitch­cock also act­ed simul­ta­ne­ous­ly as his own best sales­man: or rather, his pic­tures, pre­sent­ed in these tan­ta­liz­ing con­densed forms, sell them­selves. Can we assume that, like every­thing else about a Hitch­cock movie, this did­n’t hap­pen by chance?

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Alfred Hitchcock’s Rules for Watch­ing Psy­cho (1960)

Hitchcock’s Sev­en-Minute Edit­ing Mas­ter Class

37 Hitch­cock Cameos over 50 Years: All in One Video

Col­in Mar­shall hosts and pro­duces Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture and writes essays on lit­er­a­ture, film, cities, Asia, and aes­thet­ics. He’s at work on a book about Los Ange­les, A Los Ange­les Primer. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall.