Re: Navajo codetalking

On Fri, 20 Oct 2000 18:22:12 -0400 John Cowan <jcowan@...>
writes:
> http://www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq61-4.htm
>
> The section headed "Alphabet" was used to encode English letters as
> Navajo words (the English equivalents began with the relevant
> letters,
> but of course the Navajo equivalents didn't).
>
> The conlang-interesting section is the 400-odd Navajo equivalents of
> various military terms, which expose underlying Navajo metaphors
> (the literal English translation is given as well as the formal
> English equivalent).
>
> Bonus: a translation of the U.S. Marine hymn ("From the halls of
> Montezuma/To the shores of Tripoli") into Navajo.
Great ideas here. Except I don't care much for referring to Japan as
"slant eye" or Africa as "blackies". Of course it was 1945 when they came
up with these.

DaW.