Re: RIP, Carl Gorman, Code Talker

[Martin Minow <minow@apple.com>]

>
>- aside from the NSA sucking up everything in sight relating to
>languages, doesn't Chomsky's theoretical 'Universal Syntax' (all
>human languages have an identical fundamental syntax) negate the
>effectiveness of the Code-Talker approach in the long run?
>

Not really; at its core, Chomsky's theory is a claim that every
human can learn any human language -- something that 2-year old
infants prove every day. I.e., nothing in language is specific
to any particular human social or racial group: the differences
are learned.  There is a fair body of research that indicates
that, after (roughly) puberty, humans do not learn foreign
languages in the same way that infants learn their first language;
but rather overlay the new language on top of their existing
language.

>- on the other hand, the lovely ambiguities of natural language
>would seem to be capable of effectively obscuring the meaning of
>the message even if the plaintext were revealed.

The code talkers used a variety of puns and allegorical metaphors
to hide the underlying meaning from someone who could translate
Navaho but lacked the overall shared culture of the Navaho sailors.
During the 1940's, only a handful of non-Navaho (generally linguists)
were fluent in the language (probably less than two dozen).

Incidently, in a recent episode of the South Bronx tv series, a crime
was solved because a black policeman was fluent in Japanese.

Martin Minow
minow@apple.com