They did try. And they did capture Navajo men. However, they were unsuccessful in using them to decipher the code. The reason was simple. The Navajo Code was a code that used Navajo. It was not spoken Navajo. To a Navajo speaker, who had not learned the code, a Navajo Code talker sending a message sounds like a string of unconnected Navajo words with no grammar. It was incomprehensible. So, when the Japanese captured a Navajo man named Joe Kieyoomia in the Philippines, he could not really help them even though they tortured him. It was nonsense to him.
The Navajo Code had to be learned and memorized. It was designed to transmit a word by word or letter by letter exact English message. They did not just chat in Navajo. That could have been understood by a Navajo speaker, but more importantly translation is never, ever exact. It would not transmit precise messages. There were about 400 words in the Code.
The first 31 Navajo Marines created the Code with the help of one non-Navajo speaker officer who knew cryptography. The first part of the Code was made to transmit English letters. For each English letter there were three (or sometimes just two) English words that started with that letter and then they were translated into Navajo words. In this way English words could be spelled out with a substitution code. The alternate words were randomly switched around. So, for English B there were the Navajo words for Badger, Bear and Barrel. In Navajo that is: nahashchʼidí, shash, and tóshjeeh. Or the letter A was Red Ant, Axe, or Apple. In Navajo that is: wóláchííʼ, tsénił , or bilasáana. The English letter D was: bįįh=deer, and łééchąąʼí =dog, and chʼįįdii= bad spiritual substance (devil).
For the letter substitution part of the Code the word “bad” could be spelled out a number of ways. To a regular Navajo speaker it would sound like: “Bear, Apple, Dog”. Or other times it could be “ Barrel, Red Ant, Bad Spirit (devil)”. Other times it could be “Badger, Axe, Deer”. As you can see, for just this short English word, “bad” there are many possibilities and to the combination of words used. To a Navajo speaker, all versions are nonsense. It gets worse for a Navajo speaker because normal Navajo conjugates in complex ways (ways an English or Japanese speaker would never dream of). These lists of words have no indicators of how they are connected. It is utterly non-grammatical.
Then to speed it up, and make it even harder to break, they substituted Navajo words for common military words that were often used in short military messages. None were just translations. A few you could figure out. For example, a Lieutenant was “one silver bar” in Navajo. A Major was “Gold Oak Leaf” n Navajo. Other things were less obvious like a Battleship was the word for Whale in Navajo. A Mine Sweeper was the Navajo word for Beaver.
A note here as it seems hard for some people to get this. Navajo is a modern and living language. There are, and were, perfectly useful Navajo words for submarines and battleships and tanks. They did not “make up words because they had no words for modern things”. This is an incorrect story that gets around in the media. There had been Navajo in the military before WWII. The Navajo language is different and perhaps more flexible than English. It is easy to generate new words. They borrow very few words and have words for any modern thing you can imagine. The words for telephone, or train, or nuclear power are all made from Navajo stem roots.
Because the Navajo Marines had memorized the Code there was no code book to capture. There was no machine to capture either. They could transmit it over open radio waves. They could decode it in a few minutes as opposed to the 30 minutes to two hours that other code systems at the time took. And, no Navajo speaker who had not learned the Code could make any sense out of it.
The Japanese had no published texts on Navajo. There was no internationally available description of the language. The Germans had not studied it at the time. The Japanese did suspect it was Navajo. Linguists thought it was in the Athabaskan language family. That would be pretty clear to a linguist. And Navajo had the biggest group of speakers of any Athabaskan language. That is why they tortured Joe Kieyoomia. But, he could not make sense of it. It was just a list of words with no grammar and no meaning.
For Japanese, even writing the language down from the radio broadcasts would be very hard. It has lots of sounds that are not in Japanese or in English. It is hard to tell where some words end or start because the glottal stop is a common consonant. Frequency analysis would have been hard because they did not use a single word for each letter. And some words stood for words instead of for a letter. The task of breaking it was very hard.
When translated directly from Navajo into English it is:
“SILVER TWO BLUE JAY CHICKEN HAWK SHEEP AXE NOSE KEY BLUE JAY IRON FISH AND WHALE. “
You can see why a Navajo who did not know the Code would not be able to do much with that. The message above means: “CAPTAIN, THE DIVE BOMBER SANK THE SUBMARINE AND BATTLESHIP.”
“Two silver bars” =captain. Blue jay= the. Chicken hawk= dive bomber. Iron fish = sub. Whale= battleship. “Sheep, Axe Nose Key”=sank. The only normal use of a Navajo word is the word for “and” which is “dóó ”. For the same message the word “sank” would be spelled out another way on a different day. For example, it could be: “snake, apple, needle, kettle”.
Here, below on the video, is a verbal example of how the code sounded. The code sent below sounded to a Navajo speaker who did not know the Code like this: “sheep eyes nose deer destroy tea mouse turkey onion sick horse 362 bear”. To a trained Code Talker, he would write down: “Send demolition team to hill 362 B”. The Navajo Marine Coder Talker then would give it to someone to take the message to the proper person. It only takes a minute or so to code and decode.
I hate to beg but I recently went back to college and I’m paying super high interest rates for loans because I’m an immigrant and I don’t have a super lengthy credit history.
You might recognize these from edits/pinterest/telegram etc. I made them! So if you’ve ever wanted to support my work, you can share this post around and/or tip me on ko-fi. anything is super appreciated and goes towards my student loans ♡
They did try. And they did capture Navajo men. However, they were unsuccessful in using them to decipher the code. The reason was simple. The Navajo Code was a code that used Navajo. It was not spoken Navajo. To a Navajo speaker, who had not learned the code, a Navajo Code talker sending a message sounds like a string of unconnected Navajo words with no grammar. It was incomprehensible. So, when the Japanese captured a Navajo man named Joe Kieyoomia in the Philippines, he could not really help them even though they tortured him. It was nonsense to him.
The Navajo Code had to be learned and memorized. It was designed to transmit a word by word or letter by letter exact English message. They did not just chat in Navajo. That could have been understood by a Navajo speaker, but more importantly translation is never, ever exact. It would not transmit precise messages. There were about 400 words in the Code.
The first 31 Navajo Marines created the Code with the help of one non-Navajo speaker officer who knew cryptography. The first part of the Code was made to transmit English letters. For each English letter there were three (or sometimes just two) English words that started with that letter and then they were translated into Navajo words. In this way English words could be spelled out with a substitution code. The alternate words were randomly switched around. So, for English B there were the Navajo words for Badger, Bear and Barrel. In Navajo that is: nahashchʼidí, shash, and tóshjeeh. Or the letter A was Red Ant, Axe, or Apple. In Navajo that is: wóláchííʼ, tsénił , or bilasáana. The English letter D was: bįįh=deer, and łééchąąʼí =dog, and chʼįįdii= bad spiritual substance (devil).
For the letter substitution part of the Code the word “bad” could be spelled out a number of ways. To a regular Navajo speaker it would sound like: “Bear, Apple, Dog”. Or other times it could be “ Barrel, Red Ant, Bad Spirit (devil)”. Other times it could be “Badger, Axe, Deer”. As you can see, for just this short English word, “bad” there are many possibilities and to the combination of words used. To a Navajo speaker, all versions are nonsense. It gets worse for a Navajo speaker because normal Navajo conjugates in complex ways (ways an English or Japanese speaker would never dream of). These lists of words have no indicators of how they are connected. It is utterly non-grammatical.
Then to speed it up, and make it even harder to break, they substituted Navajo words for common military words that were often used in short military messages. None were just translations. A few you could figure out. For example, a Lieutenant was “one silver bar” in Navajo. A Major was “Gold Oak Leaf” n Navajo. Other things were less obvious like a Battleship was the word for Whale in Navajo. A Mine Sweeper was the Navajo word for Beaver.
A note here as it seems hard for some people to get this. Navajo is a modern and living language. There are, and were, perfectly useful Navajo words for submarines and battleships and tanks. They did not “make up words because they had no words for modern things”. This is an incorrect story that gets around in the media. There had been Navajo in the military before WWII. The Navajo language is different and perhaps more flexible than English. It is easy to generate new words. They borrow very few words and have words for any modern thing you can imagine. The words for telephone, or train, or nuclear power are all made from Navajo stem roots.
Because the Navajo Marines had memorized the Code there was no code book to capture. There was no machine to capture either. They could transmit it over open radio waves. They could decode it in a few minutes as opposed to the 30 minutes to two hours that other code systems at the time took. And, no Navajo speaker who had not learned the Code could make any sense out of it.
The Japanese had no published texts on Navajo. There was no internationally available description of the language. The Germans had not studied it at the time. The Japanese did suspect it was Navajo. Linguists thought it was in the Athabaskan language family. That would be pretty clear to a linguist. And Navajo had the biggest group of speakers of any Athabaskan language. That is why they tortured Joe Kieyoomia. But, he could not make sense of it. It was just a list of words with no grammar and no meaning.
For Japanese, even writing the language down from the radio broadcasts would be very hard. It has lots of sounds that are not in Japanese or in English. It is hard to tell where some words end or start because the glottal stop is a common consonant. Frequency analysis would have been hard because they did not use a single word for each letter. And some words stood for words instead of for a letter. The task of breaking it was very hard.
When translated directly from Navajo into English it is:
“SILVER TWO BLUE JAY CHICKEN HAWK SHEEP AXE NOSE KEY BLUE JAY IRON FISH AND WHALE. “
You can see why a Navajo who did not know the Code would not be able to do much with that. The message above means: “CAPTAIN, THE DIVE BOMBER SANK THE SUBMARINE AND BATTLESHIP.”
“Two silver bars” =captain. Blue jay= the. Chicken hawk= dive bomber. Iron fish = sub. Whale= battleship. “Sheep, Axe Nose Key”=sank. The only normal use of a Navajo word is the word for “and” which is “dóó ”. For the same message the word “sank” would be spelled out another way on a different day. For example, it could be: “snake, apple, needle, kettle”.
Here, below on the video, is a verbal example of how the code sounded. The code sent below sounded to a Navajo speaker who did not know the Code like this: “sheep eyes nose deer destroy tea mouse turkey onion sick horse 362 bear”. To a trained Code Talker, he would write down: “Send demolition team to hill 362 B”. The Navajo Marine Coder Talker then would give it to someone to take the message to the proper person. It only takes a minute or so to code and decode.
Hello Aquarium family. It’s with great sadness that we share that our beloved sea otter Rosa passed away today. At 24 years old, Rosa was the oldest resident otter at the Aquarium and one of our most experienced surrogate moms, having raised 15 stranded sea otter pups in her time with us.
While Rosa spent the last few months behind the scenes getting extra special care from our staff, she was the matriarch of the Sea Otters exhibit. Beloved and cherished by millions of visitors and fans of the live Sea Otter Cam, she was instantly recognizable thanks to her blonde head (eclipsed only by Ivy as our most grizzled of kelp grizzlies) and her signature head-all-the-way-back swimming style.
ALT
“Rosa was one of our most playful sea otters, and even at 24 years old, she would still be seen frolicking and wrestling with the younger otters when she instigated it,” said Melanie Oerter, curator of mammals. “Rosa was usually found sleeping against the window while on exhibit with her chin tucked tight into her chest and her tail swishing back and forth.”
After being found stranded as a four-week-old pup in September 1999, Rosa became part of the Aquarium family before our sea otter surrogacy program even took shape. Our Sea Otter Program staff raised her by hand for nearly seven months before releasing her to the wild.
ALT
Rosa eventually returned to the Aquarium once again in March 2002 when she didn’t take to life outside of human care, and she immediately became a fixture in the formative years of our sea otter surrogacy program as a caring adoptive mother for rescued pups destined for wild release.
She was a delight to work with, though she certainly had her expectations of our staff according to the many Sea Otter Mammalogists who trained (were trained by?) Rosa over the years.
ALT
“Rosa was an incredibly smart otter! Generally calm and patient with the staff. However, she could be defiant at times and there would be no convincing her to do something she did not want to do,” said Oerter. “She would often just look at us or swim away. I believe she was the one who was really training us all of these years. I certainly learned a lot from working with such an incredible otter. It has been a privilege and to say we will miss her is understated.”
Rosa relaxed into retirement from surrogacy in 2019, acting as a companion and cornerstone in the ever-changing raft of otters in our care.
ALT
Wild female sea otters live between 15 and 20 years, and reaching the age of 24 is a testament to the exceptional care Rosa received throughout her life from our Veterinary and Animal Care teams. In recent years, she began showing signs of age-related health concerns. In the last few weeks, her health had been deteriorating. After an exam, the veterinary and animal care teams made the difficult choice to humanely euthanize Rosa because those health conditions were compromising her quality of life. She passed away peacefully, surrounded by her caretakers.
Rosa’s legacy lives on both at the Aquarium with our other resident sea otters Kit, Selka, Ivy, and Ruby, and in the wild, where sea otter pups she raised continue to raise pups of their own, contributing to the recovery of their species and their ecosystems along the California coast.
ALT
Rosa was an inspiration to millions as a charismatic ambassador for her threatened species while playing a leading role in the story of sea otter recovery from near-extinction during the fur trade. Rosa will be greatly missed by all of us who got to know her over the years.
To celebrate Rosa’s long life, please feel free to share photos and stories of your encounters with Rosa at the Aquarium in the comment section on this post, in her memory and for the staff and volunteers grieving her loss. Thank you all for being such a big part of Rosa’s life. 🦦♥️
Have an electrician over today & he comes through from the kitchen like ‘i was looking at that poster on your wall wondering how I hadn’t heard of the movie so I googled it. What is the point. Is it just there to catch people out.’ And I’m like, well,
got tired of all depressing and hating yourself for being aro vibes on legit any other platform besides tumblr (looking at you tictac app) so wanted to listen to positive aromantic playlists and legit could NOT FIND ANY??????
And the ones that were vaguely positive were made for aroace ppl. Which is great! But im not ace!!! So WHERE’S MY POSITIVE AROALLO REP?!?!?!
Anyways i solved this hyperspecific problem myself and made a POSITIVE AROALLO playlist:
It’s so messed up that a site that’s supposably queerfriendly has these results. For the people that answered no what do you think the A in LGBTQIIA stands for because if you think it stands for ally i’m going to scream. Those are the same people that believe that aro or ace people don’t experience oppression meanwhile we do not feel safe in our own community. The same community that prefers to celebrate allies for doing the bare minimum than us !
Community college is not only OK, it’s a very good idea. 90% of jobs aren’t going to care where you got your degree. For those remaining 10%, here’s a hack that can save you tens of thousands of dollars in tuition.
Go to community college, get an Associate’s Degree in General Ed. This will take you two years, and it is statistically likely that at the end of those two years you will have a better idea of what you want to actually do with your life than you did when you were fucking seventeen years old.
THEN Decide on your major. If you need a Prestigious School, you are much more likely to get in with an associate’s degree and a good GPA than you were with a diploma and a good GPA. Since you have an associate’s degree, those credits are locked. None of this “Okay, you can transfer to our college, but you’re going to have to retake your English Credits and maybe another humanities course” shit. You have a degree that says you completed that part of your education, and you can now concentrate on the remaining two years required for a four year degree in your major.
We are doing kids a major disservice when we act like college is the only life path that can lead to success. These days the market is oversaturated with hyper specific degrees that there aren’t enough jobs for, while not enough people are going into trades to keep those professions running smoothly.
You can go into a trade school or an apprenticeship instead of college, you won’t spend as much, and you will start making money sooner. And let me just add: people make good money in the trades.
Trade school or tech institutes are really good alternatives to even community college. Many MANY jobs don’t even require a degree, just certification (or you get better pay with a cert) so you may be spending more at even a CC than you actually need to. And most trade/TIs will get you in and out in under a year!
I think it’s really funny the way pop sci publications will put so much shock value towards “WORLD’S DEADLIEST ANIMALS” when they really mean “deadly to humans specifically”
Black mamba and chimpanzee ain’t got shit on our humble friend the anteater, who has ended 500 lives just for breakfast and is coming back for seconds
We talk about big deadly grazers like anteaters and whales but I feel like insectivorous bats deserve some extra respect for not only chowing down on 6000-10,000 lives per night, but for also Actively Hunting them (often while also schlepping halfway across a continent on migration), instead of just sticking their schozz in their food’s house. Like I get why- efficiency is the greatest virtue of any predator- but it think there’s an element of horror to how stunningly efficient bats are that they can hunt and kill thousands of lives per night as like, a side activity to a road trip.
if you say “as one does” after any phrase nobody’s allowed to think you’re weird anymore. cheat code bypass for all standards of social normalcy
i was gonna add something like “so i was *extremely violent/grotesque/unusual thing*, as one does” and then i stopped because i realized the george costanza nature of this post.
“it’s like an instant bypass, jerry. nobody can say you’re strange anymore when you pull that bad boy out”
“an instant bypass.”
“yes. and i use it to escape social accountability. as one does.”
Hey, guys? Make peace with yellow teeth. I’m so serious right now.
Every time I visit my parents anymore, they always take time to comment on my appearance and how much it’s changed, for better or worse. I could easily turn this into a fat-positivity post, or nonbinary-positivity, glasses, hair, ect. But the one thing I don’t think I’ve ever seen any positive talk about are yellow teeth.
My teeth are stained yellow. I doubt they will ever be white, and to be honest? I don’t care.
I don’t have cavities. I brush. I pick between them at least once or twice a day to keep them clean. And yet they remain yellow.
I cannot tell you the sheer amount of damage this can cause a person, especially if they keep constantly getting told to brush their teeth every time they visit family. Like… I do. There’s nothing I can do about this. And I don’t really want to.
The only reason I feel any compulsion to whiten them is out of embarrassment when other people look at me weird for smiling at them. And how fucked up is that. I have taught myself subconsciously to suppress any joy or happiness I get when I’m around other people for fear that they’ll see my teeth.
If you see how I draw myself, it’s always with white teeth, even though that’s not true. The only time I’ve ever seen yellow teeth in cartoons, it’s always for the slobby character that doesn’t take care of themself.
I didn’t even realize how much it was damaging me until today, when I caught myself forcing back a smile at work.
Obviously, remember to brush your teeth and keep them healthy. This is not a post about letting yourself fall into disrepair. But if someone has less-than-white teeth, then… okay? And?
I think we should just stop judging people for their appearances in general. People come as they are. That’s all they need to do. Who cares what fucking color their goddamn teeth are.
Addendum to this post because the people in the notes are absolutely correct:
Make peace with crooked teeth.
Make peace with sideways teeth.
Make peace with missing teeth.
Make peace with deformed teeth.
Make peace with teeth that DO have cavities in them.
Make peace with rotting teeth.
Make peace with damaged teeth.
I think a big part of why this has gone un-talked about for so long is just because having yellow teeth is associated with damaged teeth in some way, and thus indicative of a person’s day-to-day life. But, just like with everything else, this is NOT TRUE.
Missing teeth does not automatically mean that person gets into a lot of fights or was bullied. It could just mean that that tooth got removed.
Not everyone can afford braces, and for some people, they can be more harmful than helpful.
Some people’s teeth are hard to maintain, and they get cavities VERY easily. This doesn’t mean they don’t try their best to take care of themselves.
Everything has nuance. Let’s stop boxing everything in “good” and “bad” categories based on what beauty companies want us to be, yeah?
“average person eats 3 spiders a year” factoid actualy just statistical error. average person eats 0 spiders per year. Spiders Georg, who lives in cave & eats over 10,000 each day, is an outlier adn should not have been counted
the first place transfemmes aren’t allowed is in PUBLIC
people get that, right? Many of the transfemmes being banned can’t just “go outside”, there is no outside when a constant onslaught of transphobia keeps you stuck at home. Many transfemmes don’t have homes, either! Can’t get jobs - lots of us are forced to beg on social media sites like this in order to have any money at all.
getting banned from social media is annoying, most of the time! But if you are relying on this site to live, it can KILL you. Same way phones are a luxury, but a 911 call is an emergency. If you cut someone’s phone line when they are calling emergency services, you are a murderer!
No I’m not attracted to you. Quit your evil putting your finger under my chin to make me look up at you. I know I’m your nemesis and all but we really need to set some boundaries when you’ve got me tied up like this.
No look I get it. You’ve got your evil plan, you’ve gotta get me out of the way but you also want to see me suffer as I watch the world burn, I know. But like, I’m not into this. Sexually or otherwise. Wait, you thought I was doing this because I liked you? I’m trying to stop you from using a death laser. No I don’t think death lasers are sexy what on earth are you talking about
Wait. That’s why you dress like that? I thought that armor was impractical. No I don’t find our relationship to be homoerotic I find it to be tedious. Look, man. We all keep trying to get you into therapy. No I’m not kink shaming you I’m saying you’ve completely misinterpreted this relationship. I actually do think you should answer for your war crimes. Yes, really. No you’re the one not listening to me in this situation. Yes that is the alarm the others will have cut all your wires and called in the fbi by now.
What do you mean you thought we had something special? I have other enemies. You’re not the only one. No I’m not doing kinky things with them either I blow up their nefarious devices. Speaking of which, you might want to move like… ten feet to your right.
No, enemies to enemies. And then still enemies.
Cannot stress enough how lovers will never be part of this equation even a little bit
The henchmen in the tags who have been assuring the villain since the beginning that “of course he likes you back, why else would he keep coming to destroy your death lasers”
The henchmen have been reading too many romance novels.
Awfully defensive are we? I think the henchmen are onto something.
You know I didn’t intend for this character I made up to be aromantic but this whole post has turned into being arospec at a family reunion simulator
To make them a grave would be giving up. To keep that promise would be to accept their erasure. Narinder has broken godhood and rules of existence once, twice, already. He simply just has to do it again
anyways this is me now that someone has pointed this out btw:
Sara, you have no clue how much this has been going around in my head.
The second i saw the crowns side eye when Finor asked about the grave I KNEW this was connected to the side eye the crown gave narinder in the other comic!
I am so unwell about a possible conversation where Lambert revives (hello happy ending I need you aaaaaaaaaa) and they realize that Narinder broke his promis to them. And they probably get upset (because, if I’m correct about where i THINK their death will happen, they will not yet be aware about their own importance towards narinder) because he didn’t care enough and they confront him about it. And narinder (still freshly traumatized) would have to explain, maybe even have a small breakdown about how he just couldn’t do it.
And Lambert would realize that him not being able to accept their death is a way larger admission of his affection then any monument of mourning could ever be.
YOU. you get it
For a short time, Lambert believing this is the final sign that they hardly mean anything to him, then Narinder is gripping them, holding them close and shaking trying to explain that he did not have the will to accept losing them and would rather face the consequences of breaking universal rules again and again than to bury his heart into the ground
this is the saddest fucking thing. wheres that post about when you cant even write a poem about it because its just there already
if you germinate cucumber seeds in the dark vs. in the light the ones grown in the light will look normal and the ones grown in the dark actually won’t be stunted in the way you might predict, these seedlings grow into pale yellow plants with smaller leaves because they expend every ounce of energy they have into growing as tall as they can possibly endure, in the dark they grow much faster and taller than they do in the light, because they don’t know they’re an experimental treatment kept in the dark, they think they’re buried alive in the soil or under some foliage and they’re growing upwards trying to break through into the light. its the most obvious thing in the world and also the most devastating
Returning to Tumblr simply to point how the cast of Game Changer is like no other. This interview is wild.
Game Changer makes it look like Sam Reich is pushing his friends into silly Situations but in reality this man is just barely holding these people back
No I’m not attracted to you. Quit your evil putting your finger under my chin to make me look up at you. I know I’m your nemesis and all but we really need to set some boundaries when you’ve got me tied up like this.
No look I get it. You’ve got your evil plan, you’ve gotta get me out of the way but you also want to see me suffer as I watch the world burn, I know. But like, I’m not into this. Sexually or otherwise. Wait, you thought I was doing this because I liked you? I’m trying to stop you from using a death laser. No I don’t think death lasers are sexy what on earth are you talking about
Wait. That’s why you dress like that? I thought that armor was impractical. No I don’t find our relationship to be homoerotic I find it to be tedious. Look, man. We all keep trying to get you into therapy. No I’m not kink shaming you I’m saying you’ve completely misinterpreted this relationship. I actually do think you should answer for your war crimes. Yes, really. No you’re the one not listening to me in this situation. Yes that is the alarm the others will have cut all your wires and called in the fbi by now.
What do you mean you thought we had something special? I have other enemies. You’re not the only one. No I’m not doing kinky things with them either I blow up their nefarious devices. Speaking of which, you might want to move like… ten feet to your right.
No, enemies to enemies. And then still enemies.
Cannot stress enough how lovers will never be part of this equation even a little bit
The henchmen in the tags who have been assuring the villain since the beginning that “of course he likes you back, why else would he keep coming to destroy your death lasers”
The henchmen have been reading too many romance novels.
Awfully defensive are we? I think the henchmen are onto something.
You know I didn’t intend for this character I made up to be aromantic but this whole post has turned into being arospec at a family reunion simulator
