Why Navajo is one of the most difficult languages (2023)
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Re: Why Navajo is one of the most difficult languages (2023)
#2What I like about the code talkers is: the Japanese knew it was Navajo. But even that wasn't enough, because they used particular code words, so even if you knew Navago it didn't solve the problem.
Re: Why Navajo is one of the most difficult languages (2023)
#3[flagged]
Re: Why Navajo is one of the most difficult languages (2023)
#4Windtalkers surprisingly good movie btw. For Nicholas Cage anyway.
Re: Why Navajo is one of the most difficult languages (2023)
#5What I like about the code talkers is: the Japanese knew it was Navajo. But even that wasn't enough, because they used particular code words, so even if you knew Navago it didn't solve the problem.
It wasn’t so much what words they used. The Japanese just didn’t have any way of translating / understanding Navajo.
Kind of like you may hear a language, and recognize what it is, but no idea what they are saying.
The Navajo language was not written at the time, and it’s very different than others and subtle differences in tone can make all the difference. Their written notes of what they heard were probably generally inaccurate which made breaking the code impossible (vs enigma which was exactly copied, and the output is German, they just then needed to break it)
Re: Why Navajo is one of the most difficult languages (2023)
#6What I like about the code talkers is: the Japanese knew it was Navajo. But even that wasn't enough, because they used particular code words, so even if you knew Navago it didn't solve the problem.
It wasn’t so much what words they used. The Japanese just didn’t have any way of translating / understanding Navajo. Kind of like you may hear a language, and recognize what it is, but no idea what they are saying. The Navajo language was not written at the time, and it’s very different than others and subtle differences in tone can make all the difference. Their written notes of what they heard were probably general…
You could imagine a top-secret Japanese effort to infiltrate the US and kidnap a Navajo person. Might not work, of course, but there are a lot of Navajos.
But even that wouldn't have worked.
Re: Why Navajo is one of the most difficult languages (2023)
#7[flagged]
I'm not really understanding your criticism. It seems reasonable to assume that a more complex alphabet generally results in a more complex language. After all, when teaching language, a decent amount of time is spent just memorizing letters. Almost double the number of letters would make that task alone twice as hard.
Of course, you could then make the argument that these vowels are encapsulated in English (as the same vowels in English have different sounds), but I think the article makes it clear in the sentences around your quote that these extra letters exist because Navajo has much more complex tonal sounds than English, not because they are making something implicit in English explicit in their language.
Re: Why Navajo is one of the most difficult languages (2023)
#8[flagged]
"Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work."
"Edit out swipes."
Re: Why Navajo is one of the most difficult languages (2023)
#9[deleted]
Re: Why Navajo is one of the most difficult languages (2023)
#10[flagged]