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The Navajo Language

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The Navajo Language
After the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor during World War II Japan had the upper hand on the US. Japan was easily able to decode and intercept military messages, until February 1942; Philip Johnston, a civilian engineer and World War I veteran came up with the idea to use the Navajo language as their code. These “wind talkers” played a vital role in winning the Pacific war (Conner 2002). This concept was used before in the first world war. The Native American tribe, Choctwa, served as code talkers. Johnston believed that the Navajo language fulfilled the military requirement for an undecipherable code. Through Johnston’s idea, the training and implementation by the Navajos, the Japanese were never able to crack the code.
“Navajo is an unwritten
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