"It's an irony that probably didn't go unnoticed by Choctaw soldiers fighting in World War One. While the tribe's children were being whipped for speaking in their native tongue at schools back home in Oklahoma, on the battlefields of France the Native American language was the much-needed answer to a very big problem." World War One: The original code talkers
What a shame that they were not recognized until long after their deaths. The US government has such a terrrible track record in its treatment of Native Americans, yet these brave men performed an essential service. And the "Lesson in Choctaw" was interesting. Thanks for sharing this article.
This was very interesting. It's so sad that the US wanted to ban the Indian languages, but this was an international problem and a very imperialistic style. All the 'western' countries wanted to be monolingual, for example Franco banned Catalan, Basque etc, Britain banned Welsh, France banned Catalan, Breton etc, and in Belgium Walloon, Picard etc are nearly dead although three generations ago this were the walloons' native languages, now only French. The wars' code talkers and also the code breakers were all interesting. I think that it's often that they were not famous, because of the secrecy. But it's important that they receive the same gratitude and honour that the other ones like the pilots etc.
"The last of the 29 Navajo Americans who developed a code with their native language to encrypt military messages in World War 2 has died." BBC NEWS: Navajo Code Talker Chester Nez dies at 93
