Native American code talkers have been used in foreign wars since the early part of the 20th century to help the armed forces of the United States confound enemy forces from decoding tactical messages. The picture to the left is of Chocktaw code talkers who contributed to the Allied victory in WWI. Navajo code talkers are commonly known to have fulfilled the same role in WWII. We had a Native American pot luck last week at work, and I wanted to make my favorite Italian American dish, sausage and peppers. I knew this wasn't very Native American, so I asked a Tlingit lady at work if she could translate the name of the dish for me. She didn't speak Tlingit, but she knew someone down at the Bureau of Indian Affairs who might be able to help me. I went down to the 3rd floor of my building and found this woman, who didn't speak Tlingit, but she thought she knew several other people who did. After another 10 minutes of traveling around in cubicle land and asking her co-workers if they could translate something for me, we found one man who could speak Tlingit, but couldn't write it.
Later that day as I drove home, I thought about how the important role which the code talkers had played in past wars would now not be possible. Not simply because the skills weren't available, but because the internet has made information so accessible in the early part of the 21st century, that the valuable skills of the code talkers have become obsolete in less than a century.
I did find some on-line dictionaries for some other Native Alaskan languages, but nothing to help me out with my sausage and pepper translations. Made me think that I should learn one of the languages in my heritage. I think Italian is the one that I will choose. It sounds so beautiful, and it may not be as useful as German, but being a latin language, it will be easier for me than Norwegian.
Ciao!
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