Navajo code talkers, also known as windtalkers, were used by the U.S. Marine Corps to baffle the Japanese in World War II. They sent and received messages about military maneuvers in their native language. But why the Navajo? To be effective, codes have to be difficult to decipher. Navajo, like many Native American languages, is difficult to learn. Not only does the Navajo language have lots of words, they are difficult to pronounce. What's more, Navajo was, at that time, an unwritten language spoken by fewer than 30 'white men'. There were no dictionaries or translators to aide the enemy. And while the language itself was a hard code to crack, it was made more difficult still. Navajo code talkers used Navajo words to represent each letter of the English alphabet. When a code talker sent a message using the word "wol-la-chee", the Navajo word for ant, the code talker receiving the message knew he was spelling a word that began with the letter a.