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  • Essay / The importance of language during World War II

    Between 1939 and 1945, the world witnessed the deadliest war in human history. Seventy to eighty-five million people died during this war which pitted the Allies (United States of America, Soviet Union, United Kingdom and China) against the Axis (Nazi Germany, the Kingdom of Italy and the Empire of Japan). .Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay Human language was of great importance in those days. Indeed, language is the unique ability of a human being to produce sounds and syllables that form words and meaningful expressions in order to convey thoughts and emotions. There was a mutual influence between the language and the major events that occurred during this Second World War. Particularly, in the United States of America, World War II (WWII) introduced new words and expressions to define, describe or even alleviate the darkest episodes in human history. Additionally, language played a major role in the victory of the United States and its allies over the Axis forces. Language, like the world in which human beings live, is constantly evolving. The way World War II changed the world also largely changed the way Americans speak and redefined the way they think. In fact, the Second World War was, among other things, a period of devastation but also of technological progress 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 each horrific event or each new technological feat. A study by American author Wilfred Funk estimates 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 serious massacres, such as the word "genocide" which is certainly one of the most serious neologisms showing the enormity of atrocities committed in times of war. The word was first used by the British newspaper Sunday Times, when it reported that "the United Nations indictment of 24 Nazi leaders introduced a new word into the language: genocide" (1944). Furthermore, dehumanizing and disgusting euphemisms were widely used by war criminals to justify the massive massacres they ordered. For example, the term "collateral damage" describes all casualties resulting unintentionally from military operations, while the term "area of ​​interest" refers to the Auschwitz extermination camp. As for the prefix “mega”, it comes from the measurement of bombs. (one megaton is equivalent to one million tonnes of TNT) and reflects the scale of destruction achieved by nuclear weapons. On a lighter note, there is the word borrowed by an automobile manufacturer for its brand: Jeep derives from the acronym GP (general purpose) – used to describe the unlimited function of a war vehicle, reduced to a word of a single syllable. Other acronyms have also persisted: radar is an American coinage from 1940, taken from the first letters of “radio detection and range”. RDF – the British equivalent – ​​was quickly replaced by a catchier acronym. The atrocities of war gave rise and will continue to give rise to thousands of words, expressions and euphemisms that we still use in everyday language. In fact, World War II had such a profound impact on theAmerican discourse that it inspired a series of dictionaries and anthologies to serve as a compendium of terms and expressions invented during this period of extreme brutality. World War II not only had an influence on the American language. This was also affected by the language itself. Indeed, language contributed greatly to the final victory of the United States of America over the Empire of Japan and Hitler's Nazi Germany. Indeed, since the United States entered the global conflict in 1941, a race had been on to find a language that the enemy would not understand, that would make it easier to coordinate attacks and develop plans by telephone or by telephone. radio. This search for an unbreakable code of sounds and syllables was therefore intense. Discovering a code that the enemy could not crack would allow information to be transferred securely at very high speeds. This would mean a guaranteed victory for the winner of this race. Thus, language, as elementary as it may seem, was crucial during this deadly conflict. In the United States, the Marines considered developing a code anchored in a Native American language: the Navajo language. 29 Navajo Native Americans were then recruited to develop and use this almost impossible-to-crack code. These men were called the “Code Talkers.” What made the Navajo language so different from other languages ​​was 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 end of the war, 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 these domestic animals. They used the names of different animals, from A to Z. So for A, they took a red ant that they live with all the time. B, they took a bear, Yogi the bear, C a cat, D a dog, E an elk, 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. Here is the English translation: CODE RECEIVE-D Here 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 letting the Americans 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 withdrawal of Nazi forces in France and the fall of Hitler's Empire in 1945. Thousands of Allied lives were saved thanks to the Code. Speakers and their secret language. Keep in mind: this is just a sample. Get a personalized article 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 an adaptation of the proverb “necessity is the mother of invention”), refers to language. World War II reached such high levels of brutality and atrocities that new words and phrases had to be created to refer to incidents previously unknown to the American public. These unprecedented events also led to the use of euphemisms in the English language, particularly by Nazi war criminals who employed dehumanizing and sickening euphemisms to lighten their crimes against humanity. Moreover, the fate of the Second War