“In the autumn of 1937, Young… developed the official government orthography [for Navajo] together with his Navajo co-worker William P. Morgan, and Harrington, with the help of the anthropologist and novelist Oliver LaFarge. This orthography was used in reading and teaching materials in the spring of 1940, and a number of primers and school readers were produced” (Spolsky 2009). This undertaking was the result of the BIA (Bureau of Indian Affairs) hiring Harrington to come up with a writing system for Navajo (Lyon 1989: 153).

This orthography would later become known as the “Young and Morgan alphabet” (Splosky 1970). This was crucial since, between 1940-1957, Y&M published the newspaper Ádahooníłígíí utilizing this orthography, which is now the standard way to write Navajo.