Indigenous American code talkers (Or, why translation glossaries are important)

It’s September 1918. The First World War enters its 4^th year. America, having entered the war in April of 1917, has already reckoned with the grim realities of attritional trench warfare, and is grappling with another problem. Their adversaries, the Central Powers, had gone to great lengths to compromise American communications; they had tapped telephone lines, intercepted messengers, and deciphered codes that were sent in English. Using this information, they can easily anticipate the actions of the American forces, and gain a significant advantage.

Now, accounts differ on what happened next – some state that a Captain overheard a conversation between two Choctaw soldiers in the 142^nd Infantry Regiment, and asked them to relay messages in their native language, while others believe that Eastern Band Cherokee first decided to use their language to code messages for the 105th Field Artillery Battalion during the Second Battle of the Somme. Whichever is true, the result was the same – although very late in the conflict, the use of Indigenous American Code Talkers completely baffled the Central Powers code breakers – some code breakers even thought that these messages were being transmitted and decoded underwater in an effort to confuse them.

Development and issues faced

Indigenous American Code Talkers were more widely used during the Second World War. Despite some efforts to sabotage and dissuade Indigenous Americans from joining the US military by Germany and other Axis allied nations, Code Talkers became an integral part of US military communications. Most famously, the Marines Corps enlisted 29 Navajo Code Talkers during the Pacific campaign, who were able to quickly transmit messages with ease and remarkably few errors – such as during the battle of Iwo Jima, a gruelling  2-month campaign, when six Code Talkers transmitted 800 messages without a single error.

However, the Code Talkers faced a problem. As we’ve discussed in previous blogs, the Second World War saw unprecedented technological advancement. New inventions, such as new types of airplanes, tanks, and other weapons poured onto battlefields, as well as new and novel uses of existing technologies, such as radar, blood transfusions, and even ball-point pens. All these new technologies, as well as innovations in military tactics, hadn’t existed mere months or years before – therefore didn’t exist in the vocabulary of the Code Talkers. With the accuracy of communications being of paramount importance, and with Code Talkers working in stressful circumstances, how did they ensure clear, effective communications?

In the case of the Navajo, they quickly pulled together a glossary of new terms, usually by combining existing words that are related to what they are describing. Here are a few examples:

• Aircraft carrier = Bird Carrier
• Artillery = Many Big Guns
• Submarine = Iron Fish

While these examples seem fairly self-explanatory, others, have a more ‘novel’ approach with their translation into Navajo:

• Spain = Sheep Pain
• Grenade = Potatoes
• District = Deer Ice Strict

With terms agreed on, this was then consolidated into an official glossary, which was disseminated to each Code Talker. This meant they were quickly able to learn terminology for these new inventions and concepts, and would rapidly be able to help the marines by relaying quick, accurate messages. This provided the US with an unbreakable code, that gave them a massive advantage and helped them win in the Pacific theatre.

You can read the now declassified glossary of Navajo terms here Navajo Code Talker Dictionary

What can this teach us?

So, what can this teach modern translators and localization engineers? While we hopefully won’t be involved in any World Wars, we do live in an age of unprecedented technological advancement. Within the past few years, the rise of cloud computing, AI applications, and the adoption of electric and hydrogen-fuelled transport is changing the way many industries and organizations work. New concepts and ways of doing things are being implemented in the real world at a faster rate than at any time in history. Communicating about these new ideas, especially in different languages, is becoming more complicated.

However, if you have a new product or novel service, you can take steps to communicate clearly about your ideas. By taking a leaf out of the Navajo Code Talkers book, and creating an agreed glossary of terms (or termbase), you can ensure consistency and clarity in your communications, regardless of the language it is in.

Not only does this ensure that communications are clear and concise, it also helps lower your translation costs in several ways. Firstly, it saves your translators time, as they have a go-to list of your most complex terminology they would otherwise be struggling to translate correctly themselves. It can also be used to help you leverage MT tools, translation memories, and AI tools to do some of the heavy lifting with translating (provided, of course, that you have some expert human oversight – something that we strongly recommend at 3di). Thirdly, it can also be useful at the QA stage, as your QA testers can use your glossary of terms to easily check – most CAT and TMS tools also have the facility to check if the correct terms are used in the correct context.

So, if you are looking to embark on a translation project, and you have a complex product or service, using tried and tested techniques such as setting up a localization glossary can help ensure consistency and drive down costs. And remember, if it worked for the Code Talkers in two World Wars, it will probably work for you as well.