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Cypher Language: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}
The writers need a new language. But they don't want to actually invent a new language. So they make the "new" language a cipher of English—usually, a [[wikipedia:Substitution cipher|substitution cipher]]—with the same words, grammar and all. Typically, an entirely new 26-letter alphabet is invented, but occasionally "cryptogram"-style ciphers are used, as in ''[[Final Fantasy X]]'' and ''[[The
Works from non-English-speaking countries may do the same with their own language or alphabet, but not always.
See also [[Wingdinglish]]. For when this happens to the language's grammar itself, see [[Relex]].
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▲{{examples}}
== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==
* Digital World writing in the first three seasons of ''[[Digimon]]'' is also a cypher of katakana. (The fourth season only uses three or four symbols.)
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** This is blatantly stated in the ''[[The Lord of the Rings|LotR]]'' title page. The Cirth at the top reads "The Lord of the Rings, translated from the red book" while the Tengwar at the bottom continues, "of Westmarch by John Ronald Reuel Tolkien. Herein is set forth the history of the War of the Ring and the return of the King as seen by the Hobbits."
** Most of the people who use tengwar in [[Real Life]] are using it in this context, rather than using it to write actual Elvish languages, though the better ones at least make a set of phonetic rules to write English in rather than substituting English spelling.
* Converting the Hebrew characters of "golem language" statements in ''[[
* There was a mystery novel that did this in what was supposed to be Coptic. (I forget the name or the author, but the protagonist is a female lawyer in 1880s San Francisco.)
* Frequently found in the works of [[Edgar Rice Burroughs]]: most of his alien/non-human languages come with alphabets that, regardless of their often bizarre appearance, are simple ciphers that map directly to the Roman alphabet.
== [[Live
* The Hebrew alphabet is used for this purpose in the Aussie version of 'The Amazing Race'.
* The creators of ''[[Stargate]]'' made a cypher to function as the Ancient language during production of ''[[Stargate Atlantis]]''. It even fed back into the main series, though obviously episodes from before the premiere of Atlantis don't use the actual cypher, but are just "made up as we go" blocky-looking symbols. Stargate Universe uses the cypher, too, drawing most attention to the numbers of the countdown clock. Enterprising viewers have [http://www.thescifiworld.net/fonts.htm created a font called "Anquietus"] and some fans are fluent in written Ancient (which isn't as hard as it sounds; it could easily be learned in a day and mastered in a week).
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[[Category:Language Tropes]]
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