This exhibit stresses the importance of language in the National Security Agency’s mission. The exhibit has two major themes.
First, the exhibit explores the complexity of languages and provides facts on characteristics and relationships of diverse languages of the world. The exhibit features a replica of the Rosetta Stone, the key to understanding Egyptian hieroglyphics, which was incomprehensible for nearly 2000 years before its discovery.
Second, the exhibit offers a glimpse of the intricate world of cryptologic language analysts and their critical role in helping policymakers and warfighters defend our nation. It explains the complex and interesting process used by cryptologic language analysts in solving cryptologic problems. The presentation highlights several legendary heroes of language analysis and explains how their contributions helped America and the Free World to meet the many language-related challenges of the past.
The exhibit also features a computer kiosk that allows visitors to view a message by NSA’s Director and to try out their language skills in interactive games.
This display serves as a reminder of the essential role cryptologic language analysts have played in the past and how critical they are in meeting the requirements of the present and the future.