Why no Navaho Code speaker copys?

Sadly, the Haida language was probably already in decline during the 1940s and did not have a big enough pool of fluent speakers to pull qualified canidates from.

Not to mention the several language isolates there. Yukaghir, anyone?

I agree that the British, with all the little countries they once controlled, could have easily found their own code speakers. You'd think that as big as Russia was with all the Mongolians and siberian tribes they also could do it.

This brings up another criteria in choosing a language that would work. The Navajo have about 170,000 speakers today. I can't say if there were more or less during WWII, I imagine the numbers weren't extremely different, however.

According to Wiki, which references a Russian site that I can't read, Yukaghiri languages are spoken by 604 people. Again, I don't know how much this may have changed through the 20th century, but let's use this number as an example to establish my point.

Assume we're talking about some hypothetical language that did have 600 speakers at the time some government or other was contemplating such an idea. Now, take those 600 people and figure out how many of them would have been 1) eligible to join the military loyal to the cause, and capable of being trained in the more complex parts of the system that have been mentioned.
 
The Japanese, if I remember correctly, generally recruited people from Kagoshima as radiomen. The local dialect, "Satsuma Japanese", is, though not unintelligible to a Japanese speaker, strong enough that it was difficult for a non-native speaker to understand. As far as I'm aware, they never did pick a different language for codetalkers, but one of the Taiwanese aboriginal languages would probably be the best bet, Japanese anthropologists having the most organised knowledge of these languages. Of course, this is nowhere near as foolproof as Navajo; there's a strong likelihood that the Chinese would have more than one aboriginal speaker of any language on hand.
 
The Japanese, if I remember correctly, generally recruited people from Kagoshima as radiomen. The local dialect, "Satsuma Japanese", is, though not unintelligible to a Japanese speaker, strong enough that it was difficult for a non-native speaker to understand. As far as I'm aware, they never did pick a different language for codetalkers, but one of the Taiwanese aboriginal languages would probably be the best bet, Japanese anthropologists having the most organised knowledge of these languages. Of course, this is nowhere near as foolproof as Navajo; there's a strong likelihood that the Chinese would have more than one aboriginal speaker of any language on hand.

Actually, the chances of China having an aboriginal language speaker would have been very slim. Taiwan had been under Japanese rule for nearly 50 years at the time of WWII, and before that, the Qing government had virtually no power over the central and eastern parts of the island, which is where most of the aboriginal population is concentrated. Contact between Qing officials and the aboriginal population was through the local Han population, if at all. It is unlikely that any aboriginals migrated over to the mainland.

Although none of the languages are as complex as Navajo, there were over 20 languages spoken by the aborigines on the island at the time. Eliminate those which had only a few speakers and Tao (which is mutually intelligible with a northern Philippine language), and you have 14-15 potential candidates.
 
I think also that appealing to the warrior etho of the Navaho also helped.

I don't think they necessarily had to appeal to the Navajo in any special kind of way. They were just as much Americans as anyone else born in the USA.

It does bring up a rather interesting point though: Navaho was a good choice because its speakers were already onboard with fighting for the mother country. The British or the Japanese say wouldn't have that luxury when they looked for potential language minorities in their colonies, so you'd have to offer them something for their trouble of fighting for you, and it better be a good offering too because keep in mind you won't be knowing what the code speakers are saying in the heat of the battle any more than the enemy, so you better be nice to them.
 
I'm not sure where all of the comparisons between Navajo and Basque are coming from. Navajo is far from a language isolate - It has many known relatives in the Athabascan language family, some of which are spoken in Canada and Mexico. The Athabascan speakers are believed to have arrived in the Americas relatively recently compared to other Native Americans, so there is much greater linguistic diversity outside of this family.

Actually, the chances of China having an aboriginal language speaker would have been very slim. Taiwan had been under Japanese rule for nearly 50 years at the time of WWII, and before that, the Qing government had virtually no power over the central and eastern parts of the island, which is where most of the aboriginal population is concentrated. Contact between Qing officials and the aboriginal population was through the local Han population, if at all. It is unlikely that any aboriginals migrated over to the mainland.

Apparently quite a few of them were living in mainland China, particularly in Fujian province, at the time of the communist takeover just a few years later.
 
Hmmmm...someone mentioned a conlang... Perhaps Professor Tolkien trains a few Brits in Sindarin?

I brought it up, but I also pointed out that if you have educate people you might as well educate them into knowing how to do codes instead. Teaching people to be fluent in a language, especially a constructed language, isn't exactly a quick and cheap process.

On the other hand Tolkienian language speakers in WW2 does sound pretty hilarious. I can imagine the "Bilbo squadron" going face to face with "the Orks" (slang for Germans). :p
 
Top