Code Talkers

Code Talkers. Written by Susan Lennox.

风语者。 苏珊·伦诺克斯 著。

Introduction The date is February 19, 1945. A group of U .S. Marines reaches the beach of Iwo Jima Island in the Pacific Ocean. All will be lost if the enemy learns of their plans. But the Marines have a secret code. They can transmit messages that no one else can understand.

引子 故事发生在1945年2月19日。 一队美国海军陆战队抵达了太平洋上的硫磺岛海滩。 如果敌人得知他们的计划，一切就都完了。 但是海军陆战队有一套秘密密码。 他们传递的情报，没人能破译。

Philip Johnston's Bright Idea By 1942, the United States had entered World War II. The U .S. military was sending coded messages between groups of soldiers to keep them safe and ready to fight. However, the enemy was getting hold of those messages and was very good at breaking US codes. In some cases, this led to many American deaths. Philip Johnston contacted the military about using a code based on Navajo. Johnston had lived around Navajo Indians as a child. He knew that few people outside the tribe understood the Navajo language. He also knew that Navajo was a hidden language. It was only spoken and had no written symbols. These things made Navajo perfect for top -secret messages. The US military agreed to try it.

菲利普·约翰斯顿的好点子 到1942年，美国加入了第二次世界大战。 美军在各部队之间发送加密情报，保障安全、做好战斗准备。 可敌人总能截获这些情报，还非常擅长破译美军密码。 有时候，这造成了大量美军伤亡。 菲利普·约翰斯顿向军方提议，使用基于纳瓦霍语的密码。 约翰斯顿小时候生活在纳瓦霍印第安人聚居区。 他知道，部落外很少有人能懂纳瓦霍语。 他还知道，纳瓦霍语是一门隐秘的语言。 它只有口语，没有文字符号。 这些特点让纳瓦霍语非常适合传递绝密情报。 美军同意试一试这个方案。

Mysterious messages Sending hidden messages dates back to ancient times. Early on, only the sender and the person getting the message would know how the message was hidden. Sometimes they used invisible ink, which seems to disappear once it's put to paper. Later, heat or chemicals would make the ink visible so the message could be read. At other times, the sender would shave and then tattoo words on a man's head. Once his hair grew back and covered the message, he traveled to visit the person the message was for. That person would shave his head to read the message. With most modern coding systems, the message itself is not hidden, but its meaning is. Even if the message falls into enemy hands, the reader must know the code in order to understand it.

神秘情报 传递秘密情报的历史可以追溯到古代。 早期，只有发信人和收信人知道情报是怎么隐藏的。 有时候他们会用隐形墨水，写在纸上就好像消失了一样。 之后，加热或者用化学药品处理就能让墨水显现，读出情报。 还有的时候，发信人会剃光一个人的头发，把字纹在他头上。 等头发长出来盖住文字，他就前去见收信人。 收信人再剃光他的头发，就能读到情报了。 现代大多数密码系统，不隐藏情报本身，而是隐藏它的含义。 就算情报落到敌人手里，不知道密码也读不懂内容。

At the start of World War II, the American military changed codes all the time. Yet over and over, their efforts failed. Many Japanese students had learned American English in the United States. The Japanese codebreakers could break messages almost as quickly as the Americans sent them.

二战初期，美军一直在更换密码。 可他们的尝试一次次失败了。 很多日本学生曾在美国学习美式英语。 日本破译员破译情报的速度，几乎和美军发报一样快。

Why Navajo? The idea of using a Native American language was not new. During World War I, the United States had used several Native American languages to transmit secret messages. So why not use those same codes during World War II? After World War I, both Germany and Japan had sent students to the United States. They had learned those Native American languages. However, any student would have had a hard time learning Navajo. It belonged to a different family of languages than many other Native American languages. The Marines believed that no one outside the country would understand

为什么选择纳瓦霍语？ 用美洲原住民语言当密码不是新想法。 一战时，美国就用过好几种原住民语言传递密报。 那为什么二战不接着用这些密码呢？ 一战结束后，德国和日本都派了学生到美国。 这些学生学会了那几种原住民语言。 不过，任何外国学生都很难学会纳瓦霍语。 和很多其他原住民语言不同，纳瓦霍语属于完全不同的语系。 海军陆战队相信，美国境外没人能听懂它。