Topic > The Importance of Language During World War II

Between 1939 and 1945, the world witnessed the deadliest war in human history. During this war which pitted the Allies (United States of America, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom and China) against the Axis (Nazi Germany, the Kingdom of Italy and the Empire of Japan), seventy to eighty-five million people died. .Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay Human language was of great importance in that time period. In fact, language is a human's unique ability to produce sounds and syllables that form meaningful words and expressions to convey thoughts and emotions. There was a mutual influence between the language and the main events that occurred during this Second World War. In particular, in the United States of America, World War II (WW2) introduced some new words and expressions to define, describe or even alleviate the darkest episodes of human history. Furthermore, the language played an important role in the victory of the United States and its allies over the Axis forces. Language, just like the world humans live in, is in a constant state of flux. The way World War II changed the world also largely changed the way Americans speak and redefined the way they think. Indeed, the Second World War was, among other things, a period of devastation but also of technological achievements and globalization. These incredible technological advances combined with the unprecedented brutality of war had a profound impact on the American language. Indeed, historians and civilians have had to invent new words to describe every horrific event or every new technological feat. A study conducted by American author Wilfred Funk estimated that “for every year the United States was involved in World War II, we added more than 6,000 words to the American vocabulary.” Many of these newly created words refer to grave massacres, such as the word “genocide,” which is certainly one of the gravest neologisms showing the enormity of wartime atrocities. This word was first used by the British newspaper Sunday Times, when it reported that "the United Nations indictment of 24 Nazi leaders has introduced a new word into the language: genocide" (1944). Furthermore, war criminals have widely used dehumanizing and disgusting euphemisms to justify the mass murders they ordered. For example, the term “collateral damage” describes all casualties that are the inadvertent results of military operations, while the term “Area of ​​Concern” refers to the Auschwitz death camp. The prefix “mega” instead derives from the measurement of bombs (one megaton equals one million tons of TNT) and reflects the larger scale of destruction achieved by nuclear weapons. On a lighter note, there is an automaker's borrowed word for its brand: Jeep comes from the initialism GP (general purpose) – used to describe the unlimited function of a war vehicle, reduced to one word of a single syllable. Other acronyms have also survived: radar is a 1940 US coin, taken from the initial letters of “radio Detection and Range”. RDF – the equivalent British acronym – was quickly replaced by the more catchy acronym. The atrocities of war have and will continue to generate thousands of words, expressions and euphemisms that we still use in everyday language. Indeed, World War II had such a profound impact on American discourse that it inspired a series of dictionaries and anthologies that served torecord the terms and phrases coined during this period of extreme brutality. The Second War didn't just have an influence on the American language. It was also influenced by the language itself. Indeed, the language contributed largely to the eventual victory of the United States of America over the Empire of Japan and Hitler's Nazi Germany. In fact, ever since the United States entered the world war in 1941 there was a race to find a language that the enemy could not understand, which would make it easier to coordinate attacks and make plans by telephone or radio. This search for an indecipherable code of sounds and syllables was therefore intense. Discovering a code that the enemy couldn't crack would allow information to be transferred securely at very high speeds. It would mean a guaranteed victory for the winner of this race. Therefore, language, as basic as it may seem, was crucial during this deadly conflict. In the United States, the Marines thought of devising a code that has its roots in a Native American language: the Navajo language. 29 Navajo Native Americans were then recruited to develop and use this nearly impossible-to-crack code. These men were called "Code Talkers". What made the Navajo language so different from other languages ​​is that it was not a written language. Only a few words had been written, but they were not enough to help the enemy decipher the vocabulary. However, 20 years after the war ended, the Code Talkers revealed the secret of their language. Chester Nez, a Navajo Code Talker states that “they started talking about different things, animals, sea creatures, birds, eagles, hawks and all those domestic animals. They used different animal names, from A to Z. So, for A, they got a fire ant that they live with all the time. B they got a bear, Yogi the bear, C a cat, D a dog, E a moose, F, a fox, G, a goat and so on.” So, these Native American soldiers used a Navajo word to represent each letter of the English alphabet. This is the English translation: CODE RECEIVE-DHhere is how the message is decoded:MOASI (C-Cat), NE-AHS-JAH (O- Owl), LHA-CHA-EH (D-Dog), DZEH (E-Elk ), GAH (R-Rabbit), DZEH (E-Elk), MOASI (C-Cat), DZEH (E-Elk), TKIN (I-Ice), A-KEH-DI-GLINI (V-Victor), DZEH (E Elk), LHA-CHA-EH (D-Dog)This ingenious form of language served its purpose later in the war by allowing the Americans to regain control of the islands occupied by Japanese forces in the Pacific Ocean. It also enabled the famous Normandy landings (in 1944) which led to the retreat of Nazi forces into France and the fall of Hitler's Empire in 1945. Thousands of Allied lives were thus saved thanks to the Code. The speakers and their secret language. Please note: this is just an example. Get a custom paper from our expert writers now. Get a Custom Essay To conclude the essay, Philip Gooden and Peter Lewis said it best when they argued that “war is the mother of invention.” The phrase, which is a modification of the proverb “necessity is the mother of invention”) refers to language. World War II reached such high levels of brutality and atrocity that new words and expressions had to be created to designate incidents previously unknown to the American public. These unprecedented events also led to the use of euphemisms in the language English, especially on the side of Nazi war criminals who employed dehumanizing and disgusting euphemisms to make light of their crimes against humanity. Furthermore, the fate of World War II was in the hands of language itself. Indeed, a group of Native American soldiers called the Code Talkers developed and memorized a special code that proved fundamental