In most Hollywood movies, the Native American Navajos still fight on horses in the American Southwest. But during World War II, a group of Navajos made their language into weapon to protect the United States. They were the Navajo Code Talkers, and theirs is one of the few unbroken codes (电码）in military history.
Navajo was the perfect choice for a secret language. It is very complex. One vowel (元音）can have up to ten different pronunciations, changing the meaning of any word. In the 1940s, Navajo was unwritten language. No one outside of the reservation could speak it or understand it.
The Navajo Code team had to invent new words to describe military equipment. For example, they named ships after fish: lotso-whale (battleship), calo-shark (destroyer), beshloiron-fish (submarine). When a Code Talker received a message via radio, he heard a series of unrelated Navajo words. He would then translate the words into English and use the first letter of each English word to spell the message. The Navajo words tsah (needle), wol-la-chee (ant), ah-kh-di-glini (victor), and tsah-ah-dzoh (yucca) spelled NAVY.
The Code Talker kept the code a secret. They memorized everything. There were no code books. As a result, no ordinary Navajo soldiers, if captured by the enemy, could understand the code. More than 3,600 Navajos served in World War II, but only 420 were Code Talkers with the US Marines. They coded and decoded battlefield messages better and faster than any machine. They could encode, transmit, and decode a three-line English message in 20 seconds. Machines of the time required 30 minutes to perform the same job.
Even after the war the code remained top secret. When they were asked about their role, Code Talkers just said: “I was a radioman.” War movies and histories came out without mentioning them. The code was never used again and was finally declassified in 1968. Only then did the secret came out.
【小题1】What do we know about the Navajo language?| A．It had complex spoken and written forms. |
| B．It was created during the Second World War. |
| C．It was understood only by the Navajos. |
| D．It consisted of ten vowel letters in total. |
| A．They put the unrelated Navajo words in order. |
| B．They recorded the message in Navajo letters. |
| C．They submitted it to the officer immediately. |
| D．They turned It into English in a secret way. |
| A．Replaced. | B．Approved. |
| C．Made known. | D．Forbidden. |
| A．The Navajo Code Talkers can be found to fight on horses in US movies. |
| B．The Navajo language contributed a lot to the US army in World War II. |
| C．War messages were translated into English through Navajo code books. |
| D．Around 12% Navajo soldiers were taken prisoner during World War II. |
