secret language codes tricks spies thieves and symbols apr 2010

[...]... authors who cunningly bury all sorts of secret messages in 1 secret language passages of prose, as the alert reader may discover in the present text All these features of language and others are exploited in the most popular word game of all, the cryptic crossword In all languages some words have more than one meaning, different words sometimes sound alike, and often a phrase or sentence can be construed... Spelling is also arbitrary Words like music and logic were once spelt musick and logick, and words like honour and labour have the alternative spellings honor and labor Although writing is essentially a means of representing speech in permanent form and although the means of representation is arbitrary, people in literate societies become fascinated by the written symbols, whether these represent individual... backwards as 2 Hindi Urdu is essentially one language It is called Hindi in India and written in Devanagari script, and it is called Urdu in Pakistan and written in a form of Persian (ultimately Arabic) script 3 Some anagrams can be found in speech as in lifer and ler, where the anagrammatic relationship is simple, but in written language it is possible using pen and paper to nd more complicated anagrammatic... rotator, tenet, and tot are palindromes, as are the names Anna and Glenelg (Scottish and Australian place name) and the name of the pop group ABBA, who had a palindromic hit entitled SOS Malayalam, the name of a Dravidian language spoken in southern India (Kerala state), is also a palindrome.5 Palindromes are not universal and their frequency depends on the word shapes that are possible in a language In... are possible in a language In most Australian languages, for instance, all words begin with a consonant and end in a vowel, so there are no palindromes However, these languages were spoken and signed, but not written, and an interest in palin dromes seems to be conned to cultures with written forms of language Japanese is written with Chinese characters and syllabic signs (which are ultimately derived... Among criminals and others who tend to attract the attention of the authorities, an elaborate argot often develops, a mixture of slang and jargon Such in group languages serve both to bond their users and to create codes which are opaque to the authorities They employ two means of disguise One is a type of code in which mainstream words are replaced with substitutes: stir for jail and screw for jailer,... account see Blake 2008, ch 10 7 secret language Not all humans have access to writing Even today the vast majority of the worlds languages are not written, though this is obscured by the fact that national languages such as Chinese, English, Hindi Urdu, and Russian are written.2 Writing is deriva tive, a way of representing speech, yet many people treat it as the primary form of language There is also a lot... instance, information needs to be passed secretly between governments and military authorities Acrostics can serve an important purpose in relation to secrecy, as we see in Chapter 4 We also consider how letters can be shufed or replaced by other letters to form a cipher and how words can be replaced by other words in a code The ciphers and codes used by governments and the military are recognized as such,... earthquakes, tidal waves, and eclipses of the sun and moon occurrences which past societies often attrib uted to supernatural powers Belief in the supernatural accounts for some of the strongest constraints on straightforward commu nication, and chapters 6 and 7 are largely concerned with this In many cultures certain words and phrases cannot be used for fear of offending a god or spirit and inviting retribution,... interesting to note that palindromes and other forms of word play have been a regular feature of curses and charms for centuries, and in the past people have often seen hidden meanings in the formal properties of written words Anagrams As mentioned above, an anagram is a word made up of the letters of another word, so that reside is an anagram of desire and vice 9 secret language versa Other groups of words . AVOIDANCE 191 8 Jargon, slang, argot, and secret languages’ 195 JARGON 197 SLANG 200 ARGOTS AND ‘ SECRET LANGUAGES’ 211 9 The everyday oblique 241 POLITENESS AND THE LIKE 244 DELIBERATE OBSCURITY. Biblical secrets 114 KABBALAH 114 ANAGRAMS 116 CIPHERS 116 NOTARIKON 118 GEMATRIA 122 ONOMANCY 126 6 Words of power 128 BELIEFS ABOUT LANGUAGE 128 LETTERS AND SYMBOLS 139 MAGIC WORDS AND FORMULAS. 64 RIDDLES FOR THE READER 70 4 Ciphers and codes 72 STEGANOGRAPHY 78 SUBSTITUTION CIPHERS 82 TRANSPOSITION 97 CODES 100 TOWARDS A RANDOM KEY 102 v ONE-TIME PAD 106 SECRET COMMUNICATION IN THE COMPUTER