communicatin during war time.
The term is now usualy assiciated with the United States soldiers, during the world wars,
who used their knowledge `Native American` languages as a basis to transmit coded messages,
there were approximately 400-500 native Americans in the United States Marine Corps whose
primary job was the transmission of secret `tactical` messages.
Code Talkers transmited these over milatary telephone or radio communications, the codes
were built upon their native languages, this service improved the speed of `encryption` of
communications at both ends in the fron line operations during World War II.
The name `Code Talkers` is strongly associated with the bilingual `Navajo` speakers recruited
during World War II by the marines to serve in their standard communications units in the
Pacific Theatre.
Philip Johnston,a civil engineer for the city of Los Angles, proposed the use of `Navajo` to the
Marine Corp at the beginning of the war, Johnston,a world war I veteran, was raised on the
`Navajo` reservation as the son of a missionary to the `Navajo`, he was one of the few
non-Navajo who spoke the language fluently.
Because `Navajo` has a complex grammer, it is not nearly mutually intelligible enough with its
closest relatives within the Na-Dene family to provide meaningful information, It was still an
un-writen language and Johnston thought `Navajo` could satisfy the militay requirement for
an un-decipherable code.
The code consisted of 211 words, most of which were `Navajo` terms that had been imbued
with new, distinctly military meanings in order to compensate for the lack of military
terminology in the `Navajo` vocabulary, for example `fighter plane` was called `da-ha-tih-hi,
which means `humming bird` in Navajo and `dive bomber` was called `gini` which means
`chicken hawk`in addition, the code talkers also developed a designed system that signified
the twenty-six letters of the English alphabet, for example, the letter A was `wol-la-chee`
which means `ant` in `Navajo` andd the letter E was `dzeh` which means `elk`, words
that were not included in the 211 terms were spelled out using the alphabet.
The `Navajo` soon demonstrated their ability to memoriize the code and to send
messages under adverse conditions similar to military sction, the program was deemed
so successful that an additional two hundred `Navajos` were reccomended for
recruitment on july 1942.
Joseeph Bruchac`s book Code Talker - excerpt;
One of our jobs as a code talker was to assign more Navajo words to the letters of
the English alphabet that are used most often, that is because people who break codes
can sometimes do so by hearing or seeing the same sound or symbol appearing many
times, they callthis `word frequency` so we added navajo words for -
A,E,I,O,U,D,H,L,R,S and T, the most commonly used of those letters got more than
one new word, A became not just `wolachii`for `ant` but also `bilasannaa` for `apple`
and `tsent` for `axe`, because it would take far to long to spell out every word that
we sent, we only used this alphabet for words that were not used a lot.
On Sulphur Island, for example, we spelled out the mountain named Suribachi by
sending the navajo words Sheep-Uncle-Ram-Ice-Bear-Ant-Cat-Horse-Itch, we used
separate code words for things often mentioned in warfare.
Chester Nez, the last surviving member of the original 29 Navajo Marines who
developed a code within thheir own language to aid the war effort against the
Japanese.
The code remains the only unbroken code in modern warfare.
Nez spoke about his about his experience as a Code Talker in the South Pacific
at Guadalcanal and Guam.
`We never thought it would work but we developed a code that the Japanese
could not understand` Nez said.
The Wisconsin Department of Veterans Affairs presented Nez with a plaque
from Gov. Scott Walker honoring Nez for his service during the presentation,
`I know some of the Code Talkers were wounded but in the long run, they
were proud to serve their country and their people` said Nez.
The 1st Marine Division in the South Pacific stayed behind in battle when other
soldiers went for rest and relaxation, they stayed in battle the entire time,
It was an amazing feat, they were exhausted and often they would go 24 to 35
hours without food or rest.
Around 40 to 70 Code Talkers are estimated to still be living, no one knows
the number for certain because the nature of their military service was
classified for 23 years following their service, but Nez is the only member
of the original `Navajo` Code Talkers alive today.
The Code Talkers Motto
`Dine bizaad Yee Atah Naayee Yik`eh Deesdii`
Meaning- The Javajo Language was used to defeat the enemy.
Navajo was spoken only on the `Navajo` lands of the American Southwest, its syntax and
tonal qualities, not to meention dialects,made it un-intelligible to anyone without
extensive exposure and training, in fact at the outbreak of World War II, there was fewer than 30 non-
Navajo people known that could understand the language.
Early in 1942, Johnston met Major General B Vogel, the commanding general of the Amphibious
Corps, Pacific fleet and his staff, Johnston staged tests under simulated combat conditions
which demonstrated that `Navajo` men could encoe,transmit and decode a three-line
message in 20 seconds, versus the 30 minutes required by machines at that time.
The idea was accepted with Vogel recommending that the Marines recruit 200 `Navajo`, the
first 29 recruits attended boot camp in May 1942, this first group created the Navajo Code at
Camp Pendleton, Oceanside, California.
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