Which other countries could produce something like the Navajo code talkers?

[Edwin Moore]

Which other countries have very rare minority languages that could be used to develop a secret code?
I'm sure Brazil could pull something like that off even in today's world.
Why didn't other powers in WW2 try something like this? Surely there were bilingual africans in allied colonies whose languages were unknown to axis powers.

 

[Quintuplicate]

The Basque.

 

[Mort the Reaper]

The Soviet Union, maybe?

 

[marathag]

Always surprised that the British didn't use Nepalese everywhere but the Pacific, and use one of the Canadian First People's Language there.

It's not like this was a secret to them, they should have noticed what the AEF was doing in 1918, with Choctaw Code Talkers

 

[La Rouge Beret]

Australia.

 

[Richard V]

It would have to be a very static war for this to work, which is probably why it was well suited for the Pacific campaign. Also US used wireless radio more extensively than anyone else. The SCR-536 for example allowed platoons to talk to each other, not just companies. Armies dependent on field telephones were likely less vulnerable to enemy intercepts.

 

[Theoretical_TJ]

Brazil or some of the African colonial powers also come to mind.

 

[Errolwi]

Australia.

The easiest way for an 'Aboriginal' to enter the Australian forces at this time was to pass as a Maori.

Maori were used for low level tactical codes on occasion by 2 NZ Division.

 

[sonofpegasus]

There is a Myth(possibly true) that 'Old Etonians' in the British Army used Faux Latin (also known as pig latin) as that was thought to by unkown to the Japanese, unfortunately some Japanese officers had gone to English Public schools!

 

[aaronupright]

The British had colonial troops. While English was the ostensible language of comms, the fact that voice over wireless would sometimes use the troops own or even regional language was noted at the time.

 

[Jukra]

In static war field telephone links were suspectible for being intercepted. Finns used Swedish in some cases, as educated Finns in addition to Swedish-speakers could speak Swedish, but finnish speakers employed by the Soviets usually could speak just finnish. Or that was at least the theory.

 

[anotherlurker]

Any country with red colored dots on this map.

http://www.endangeredlanguages.com/#/4/51.773/42.724/0/100000/0/low/mid/high/unknown

 

[Mike D]

The UK has several - Welsh, Gaelic and Cornish (plus literally dozens of native languages in the Empire days, everything from Cantonese through all the Indian languages to Swahili, Bantu, Zulu etc in Africa). The Royal Welch Fusiliers (I think) used Welsh in Bosnia rather than messing round with crypto as they judged that it was unlikely the Serbs had many fluent Welsh speakers.

 

[Anarch King of Dipsodes]

The Basque.

Nope. There is a Basque diaspora, with speakers in many nations, including the US. The US actually considered using American Basque speakers as code talkers. That got shot down when it was pointed out that there was a group of Spanish priests in Japan. (As Spanish Catholics, they were presumably loyal to the pro-Axis Franco government, and probably sympathetic to Japan.)

 

[Killer in]

The Brits could have used Welsh I suppose.

 

[Addlcove]

The Brits could have used Welsh I suppose.

code talking doesn't really work when you have to spent 20 seconds pronouncing each word

 

[Cryhavoc101]

There is a Myth(possibly true) that 'Old Etonians' in the British Army used Faux Latin (also known as pig latin) as that was thought to by unkown to the Japanese, unfortunately some Japanese officers had gone to English Public schools!

They used old boy code in the desert - unfortunately Captain Alfred Seebohm - commander of Rommel's Radio Intercept unit had also been to British Public school.

There must be many languages in the British Empire that might have been used.

Sadly there existed a core of Racism among the 'whites' of the Empire so early war the use of 'code talkers' I fear is unlikely (New Zealanders use of Maori not withstanding)

Luckily the British became op sec fanatics from late 42 onwards as they shrugged off the amateur approach to warfare and increasingly became more professional - so code talkers was probably less of a requirement for them late war.

code talking doesn't really work when you have to spent 20 seconds pronouncing each word

Not to mention the amount of Phlegm required - not good if in the desert and short of fresh water!

 

[Analytical Engine]

Welsh was used in WWII, but not widely. The RAF were planning on using Welsh further, but this was never implemented.

http://ww2talk.com/index.php?threads/“popty-ping”-welsh-code-talkers.74326/

Wikipedia lists various languages either used for, or were possibilities for, code talking. The US used more than just Navajo during WWII, and more than just Choctaw in WWI.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_talker

The Egyptians apparently used Nubian-speakers as code talkers during the 1973 Arab-Israeli War.

Not to mention the amount of Phlegm required - not good if in the desert and short of fresh water!

Hey! Navajo words are much longer than Welsh ones.

 

[DrakonFin]

In static war field telephone links were suspectible for being intercepted. Finns used Swedish in some cases, as educated Finns in addition to Swedish-speakers could speak Swedish, but finnish speakers employed by the Soviets usually could speak just finnish. Or that was at least the theory.

That was the theory, and generally it was probably true. Many of the men from Finland who were officers in the Tsarist army came from Swedish-speaking families, and some of them joined the Reds in Russia, too. Men like later Admiral Axel Berg, say. But they definitely were a small minority. There were also some Finland-Swedish Reds who escaped/moved to Russia in 1918 and after it, but the numbers would have been absolutely and comparatively very small. One example would be Eyolf Mattson. Of these groups, and of the well-educated leading Reds of 1918, who at least spoke some level of Swedish, not many would have been available during WWII to listen on tapped field telephones. They had either been purged, or then they were engaged in very different sort of work.

By the way, do you know if someone has researched the fates of Finland-Swedish Reds/Communists in the USSR, specifically, not as part of a general study about Finnish exiles in the Soviet Union?

As for the question in the OP, maybe Finland could just use people from Rauma? Nobody understands what the hell they are saying most of the time, and in the WWII timeframe the dialect would still be spoken more than today.

 

[Bernard Woolley]

Sadly there existed a core of Racism among the 'whites' of the Empire so early war the use of 'code talkers' I fear is unlikely (New Zealanders use of Maori not withstanding)

IIRC British officers who had served with the Indian Army used Indian languages on occasion.