Maxwell Week #5: What's That I Hear?

I’m not usually one for TV shows and movies, but there is one show that I discovered a few years ago and have never missed an episode of. That show is Dark Winds, which premiered in 2022, but is set in the 1970’s based off of Tony Hillerman’s crime novels on the Navajo reservation in the American Southwest. It centers around the tribal police solving dangerous cases but also dedicates substantial time toward exploring the main characters’ use of the Navajo language as a tool to gather valuable information on the job.


    Photo credit: AMC


I liked being the center of attention in elementary school, where classmates would come to me asking how English words could be translated and how it would sound in my second language. Most of them at that point had never met someone that could carry anything other than an English conversation, so it naturally piqued their interest to have a chance to hear something different. The big point for them was really the aural part of this: the brand new sounds they encountered, sounds that made absolutely no sense to them but conveyed an entire language to someone else. 


Over in Louisiana, a man makes videos that have found their way to my Instagram feed. His goal is to create a school that teaches Cajun French to a new generation and helps keep the dialect alive. The casual interviews he does with locals that speak the dialect, which he says varies even from town to town, are a practice opportunity for me to see if I can match the French words I think I hear to what is actually said, with the captions there as my backup and as an answer key. 


What Dark Winds, the Cajun guy, and I all do is that we are all sources of American sound. It’s really quite something to experience the novelty of some new sounds, words, hand motions, or bumps on a page. Whether it’s just some first few ephemeral words or an entire language, this place is so big and filled with interesting things to explore!

Comments

  1. Kan XuOctober 27, 2026 at 9:40 PM

    Maxwell, this was an insightful, yet approachable blog about what Americans sound like. While only recently the English language was made the official language of the United States, it is still so interesting how, as a result of this nation’s intertwining of numerous ethnicities and cultures, the languages that one hears on a daily basis is so diverse. I especially like how you highlighted a show about Navajo people, as the Navajo language and other native languages are actively being erased by the current US government. It is extremely important to preserve those languages, and their sounds, so that they too can get the spot they deserve in the fabric of America. We are living in a time where attempts to genericize and generalize the US’s culture and languages are increasing in intensity; to ensure that our culture remains diverse, we must do all that we can to uplift their voices, as you have done.

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  2. Sophie LeinerOctober 28, 2026 at 4:10 PM

    Your story about getting attention from kids for being able to show them something new/exciting reminded me of my own story! When I was in kindergarten or preschool (I don’t remember) a boy very briefly transferred into my class, and he was also the center of attention for a bit of a different reason. He knew how to read, which was not something me or most of the other kids had grasped yet. I have a super blurry memory gathering around him and asking him to read various pages of different books out loud, and I thought it was the coolest thing ever that someone my age could read. I guess this just goes to show how curious kids are!

    Your take on American sound is super interesting, I love how diverse all of your examples are! I’m also not a super frequent TV watcher, so I’ll definitely have to check out the show you recommended.

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