s - Wyższa Szkoła Filologiczna we Wrocławiu

RICHARD L. LANIGAN
INTERNATIONAL COMMUNICOLOGY INSTITUTE, WASHINGTON, D.C.
Familiar frustration: The Japanese encounter with
Navajo (Diné) “code talkers” in World War II
ABSTRACT. After the December 7, 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor Hawaii, the United States
declared war on the Empire of Japan as part of World War II. The War in the Pacific
consisted largely of combat at sea and the systematic invasion of Pacific islands. The combat
forces on both side of the conflict consisted largely of marines, i.e., sea borne ground
soldiers. As in any war situation, communication is a vital element of logistics and is
naturally susceptible to ease dropping by enemy soldiers who speak their opponent’s
language. While bilingual English-Japanese soldiers were available on both sides, the U.S.
Marine Corps had the innovative idea of using a third language to confuse the Japanese. This
idea was plausible because of the existence of the Native American ethnic group of the
Southwestern United States called Diné, which means simply “human” or “the people”. The
more common usage is Navajo, the name given by the invading Spanish in the 17th century.
Most Navajo’s are bilingual in American English, many are trilingual in Spanish. The men of
this tribe were recruited by the U.S. Marine Signal Corps to develop a code in the Navajo
language to use on radio-telephones in combat. This is a story of “familiarity” because
Navajo is a tonal language very close in phonology to Japanese, yet utterly incomprehensible,
“frustrating” in syntax and semantics to the Japanese ear. This is the first level of the code.
The second level consisted of using nouns and verbs used to describe Nature as substitutes
for words used to describe soldiers’ ranks, equipment, and relationships. Thus, even
a Japanese who spoke Navajo (there were none!) would not understand the message.
KEYWORDS. U.S. Marine Signal Corps, code talkers, Japanese, Navajo, tonal languages
Introduction
Shortly after the December 7, 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor at Hawaii, the
United States declared war on the Empire of Japan as part of World War II. The
so-called “War in the Pacific” consisted largely of combat at sea and the systematic
invasion of Pacific islands. Ultimately, this “theater of the war” was
forever marked by the horrific decision to drop an Atomic Bomb on the Japanese
homeland to end the conflict in the Pacific. 1 The combat forces on both
sides of the conflict consisted largely of marines, i.e., sea borne ground soldiers.
As in any war situation, communication is a vital element of logistics and is
naturally susceptible to eaves dropping (listening in) by enemy soldiers who
1
Ironically, the bomb was largely developed at Los Alamos Laboratories, Taos City, New
Mexico not far from the Diné homeland.
LANGUAGES IN CONTACT 2011