Military personnel using their native languages for secret wartime communication
"Codetalkers" redirects here. For the band, see The Codetalkers.
For the Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain character, see List of characters in the Metal Gear series § Code Talker.
Choctaw soldiers in training in World War I for coded radio and telephone transmissions
A code talker was a person employed by the military during wartime to use a little-known language as a means of secret communication. The term is most often used for United States service members during the World Wars who used their knowledge of Native American languages as a basis to transmit coded messages. In particular, there were approximately 400 to 500 Native Americans in the United States Marine Corps whose primary job was to transmit secret tactical messages. Code talkers transmitted messages over military telephone or radio communications nets using formally or informally developed codes built upon their Indigenous languages. The code talkers improved the speed of encryption and decryption of communications in front line operations during World War II and are credited with a number of decisive victories. Their code was never broken.
There were two code types used during World War II. Type one codes were formally developed based on the languages of the Comanche, Hopi, Meskwaki, and Navajo peoples. They used words from their languages for each letter of the English alphabet. Messages could be encoded and decoded by using a simple substitution cipher where the ciphertext was the Native language word. Type two code was informal and directly translated from English into the Indigenous language. If there was no corresponding word in the Indigenous language for the military word, code talkers used short, descriptive phrases. For example, the Navajo did not have a word for submarine, so they translated it as iron fish.[1][2]
The term Code Talker was originally coined by the United States Marine Corps and used to identify individuals who completed the special training required to qualify as Code Talkers with their service records indicating "642 – Code Talker" as a duty assignment. Today, the term Code Talker is still strongly associated with the bilingual Navajo speakers trained in the Navajo Code during World War II by the US Marine Corps to serve in all six divisions of the Corps and the Marine Raiders of the Pacific theater. However, the use of Native American communicators pre-dates WWII. Early pioneers of Native American-based communications used by the US Military include the Cherokee, Choctaw and Lakota peoples during World War I.[3] Today the term Code Talker includes military personnel from all Native American communities who have contributed their language skills in service to the United States.
Other Native American communicators—now referred to as code talkers—were deployed by the United States Army during World War II, including Lakota,[4] Meskwaki, Mohawk,[5][6] Comanche, Tlingit,[7] Hopi,[8] Cree, and Crow soldiers; they served in the Pacific, North African, and European theaters.[9]
^"Code Talking – Native Words Native Warriors". americanindian.si.edu. Archived from the original on January 12, 2019. Retrieved January 27, 2019.
^"American Indian Code Talkers". The National WWII Museum | New Orleans. Archived from the original on January 27, 2019. Retrieved January 27, 2019.
^Kent, Jim (March 17, 2017). "Lakota WWI Code Talkers Receive Congressional Gold Medal". South Dakota Public Broadcasting. Retrieved June 21, 2023.
^Meyer, Holly (June 18, 2010). "Last Lakota code talker Clarence Wolf Guts dies at 86". Rapid City Journal. Archived from the original on June 23, 2010.
^Deer, Ka'nhehsí:io (December 4, 2018). "Last WWII Mohawk code talker honoured by Assembly of First Nations, House of Commons". CBC.ca. Archived from the original on December 8, 2018. Retrieved December 7, 2018.
^"Mohawk Code Talkers Honored in Washington, DC". CKON-FM. November 20, 2013. Archived from the original on May 11, 2015. Retrieved February 6, 2019.
^D'Oro, Rachel (March 27, 2019). "Alaska Native servicemen finally honored as Code Talkers". Fox News. Associated Press. Archived from the original on April 22, 2019. Retrieved April 21, 2019.
^Magahern, Jimmy (September 2014). "Humble Pride". Phoenix magazine. Phoenix, AZ: Cities West Media. ISSN 1074-1429. Archived from the original on July 31, 2019. Retrieved August 1, 2019.
^Lyle, Amaani (June 28, 2015). "Word Power: How Code Talkers Helped to Win Wars". archive.defense.gov. Washington, D.C.: U. S. Department of Defense. Archived from the original on September 30, 2017. Retrieved August 1, 2019.
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