The Essay

During this past week, we were given an assignment that required us to write a paper on whatever topic we chose for the annotated bibliography. The topic that I had chosen was religion and print in Germany. Luckily, I had found many books to go with my topic and I found it really interesting!

From Oral to Written

We began our unit on written knowledge this past week discussing various materials and forms of written language. In the Mediterranean region, as well as East Asia, the writing down of language did much to change the face of politics in that particular region.  For the Greeks and Romans this meant carting the conquered nation's library off to your land to hold their knowledge hostage, and assert your authority.

From dwcouch on Flickr. 

Interestingly enough when Europe came to conqueror America they thought to use this same method, to no avail. At the time that Europe came to America most the native peoples did not have written systems, and of those that did reading and writing were not everyday activities.

Navajo War Language

A war, the Navajo, and the language that saved America.

I'm the proud great-granddaughter, and niece of U.S. Marines. All my life I've taken an interest in the men and women that have fought and died in defense of their country, my country. In the fifth grade I first learned about the men of the 382nd Platoon, United States Marine Corps, from then on I've had a fascination with the men know as the Navajo code talkers.

Below is a music video about the Navajo Code Talkers, I'd skip to about the 30 sec mark, then pay attention!

As we begin our short journey into the world of oral knowledge I want to start with a look at the oral knowledge of the Navajo, and especially their alphabet-less language.