For example, in addition to designating "wol-la-chee," meaning "ant," for a, "be-la-sana" and "tse-nihl," which meant "apple" and "axe," respectively, were also designated for the letter a. The original 211 vocabulary terms were also expanded to 411.
Jevec, and Potter 262)
There is a clear sense that the development of the system was essential to the development of the role as a native American soldier and the idea that the code talker was likely supporting a member of his own native or another native nation from America on the ground likely aided in the desire to fulfill the role of a code talker. It was in fact a highly sought after position that served many fundamental and secondary purposes, not the least of which was the recognition of the value and complexity of a language that had previously been ignored and even subverted, as an "uncivilized" expression by an "uncivilized" peoples.
The Navajo like many other native tribes readily served in the WWII despite the fact that the nation had subverted and even arguably annihilated its culture and in part the reason for this was the belated recognition of culture (in this case language) by a...
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