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The power of words : native languages as weapons of war

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The Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian, with the Smithsonian Institution Traveling exhibition Service, launched a new traveling exhibition “Native Words, Native Warriors." The exh...

The Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian, with the Smithsonian Institution Traveling exhibition Service, launched a new traveling exhibition “Native Words, Native Warriors." The exhibition tells the remarkable story of soldiers from more than a dozen tribes who used their Native languages in service to the U.S. military in WWI and WWII. This top-secret program was an instrumental part of the allies' success while it took a machine up to 4 hours to transmit and decode a message, the code talkers could do it in less than three minutes. The codes were never broken. Native Words incorporates interviews with the soldiers to record this little-known part of history.

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