评论
打印
Hear that? That is a military code of the Choctaw nation.
听见了吗？那个就是乔克托族的军用密码
Can't understand it? Neither could the Germans.
听不懂？德国人也听不懂。
Our story starts on the Western front during Word War I.
故事还得从一战的西部战线说起。
The Allies are in trouble,
盟军遇上了麻烦，
the Germans have tapped their phone lines and deciphered their codes.
因为德军发现了盟军的电话线路还破解了他们的密码
As the Allies struggled to find a solution,
盟军为此急得焦头烂额的时候，
one captain overheard two of his Native American Choctaw soldiers speaking their mother tongue.
一位陆军上尉无意间听到了他手下的两名乔克托族印第安士兵在讲他们的家乡话。
When the captain overheard the two soldiers speaking their native language
上尉听到两个士兵讲方言，
"they probably thought they were in really big trouble."
“两人肯定以为自己完蛋了。”
That's Nuchi Nashoba, ("Hi there.")
这位是诺奇·纳肖巴，（大家好）
Great-granddaughter of one of those two soldiers
她是上述两名士兵其中一位的重孙女儿
and president of the Choctaw Code Talkers Association.
同时也是乔克托密码通讯员协会的会长
Around this time, if a Choctaw were caught speaking the language,
在那个时候，如果一个乔克托人说方言被抓住了
they were liable to be sent away to a reeducation program.
肯定会被送去劳教
But the captain, he had a different idea.
但这位上校不这么想
"If I can't understand what they're saying,
“要是我都听不懂他们在说什么，
perhaps the Germans won't understand what they're saying."
或许那些德国佬也听不懂。”
The U.S. military began transmitting technical messages in Choctaw,
从那以后，美军开始用乔克托语传递信息，
and, unsurprisingly, the Germans could not break the code.
不出所料，德国人没能破解这些密码。
Not all military terms had a direct Choctaw translation.
并非所有的军事用语在乔克托语里都有直接对应的表达。
Machine gun...was little gun shoot fast.
机枪……是枪速较快的一种小枪。
Ammunition...was arrows.
弹药……是箭
And gas...was bad air.
毒气……则是不好的气体
And due at least in part to the Choctaw code talkers and their neologisms,
多亏了（至少一定程度是如此）这些乔克托语通讯员还有他们造的词
the war ended soon thereafter.
战争不久就结束了
"When you look at how ironic it is for the government to say you can't speak your language,
“一想到政府说不准你说方言，
but yet they used them to help win World War I.
但他们自己却用你的方言打赢了一战，多可笑啊！
That's pretty amazing to me."
我是觉得挺不可思议的。”
