#cryptolang

[cryptolangsguy]

If you interact with this post, I will encode your username (or a word of your choice) into 10 cryptolangs, or more.

[thecrazyworldbuilder]

I just found out that you are the person who invented the term "cryptolang" and the system for which to document them. For that, I thank you.

My actual question is what do you do about altering grammatical aspects of a base language? Say that I want to turn pronouns into prefixes and such.

Other than that, have a great day!

Well m'liege, that's purely up to the creator of a cryptolang. Via the notation, you could theoretically write it down via either word ("replace the pronoun She with Thaú-, attaching to the word after it") or via a CDS sequence like follows: She4Thaú1, which specifies that the isolated unit "She" turns into initial unit Thaú, erasing the spacebar after it.

Cryptolangs got no rules, anyone can make their own documentation standards, anything, tis' a free territory for everyone as I hold no copyright over any of that.

Rock-'n'-roll, liege, happy cryptolangin' 😎

[multiversetravelingjournalist]

My thoughts on Cryptolangs

Sometimes, conlanging is too much work or it does not fit what one is going for in a project, whether it be a story or just a worldbuilding thought experiment. Sometimes, one just needs a way to make something strange without completely reinventing it. Sometimes, one just needs to create a cryptolang. But a cryptolang is just a cypher with extra steps, isn't it? Well, there could be more to this concept than meets the eye. A cryptolang's could have it's own interesting features without becoming a fully constructed language; its function can fit the themes of something being transformed into something else and can be applied to more smaller groups than an entire conlang for a larger one.

But what is a "Cryptolang?" According to @cryptolangsguy , "Cryptolangs are the perfect middle between conlangs and ciphers. They are tools which can be used to encode text, hide it's meaning but keep it pronounceable." How does it do that? By replacing phonemes with other ones. In fact, they could even replace all the consonants of a word with vowels and vowels with consonants, but that will be covered later. While the exact mechanisms of Cryptolangs are beyond the scope of this post, It is replacing letters with other letters. But it could be so much more than that.

Cryptolangs could be so much more than just a fancy cypher with extra steps, it could be creating a new language from an already existing one. For example, one could take all the letters of a word in the English language, take "green" for instance, and add the letters of that word to the end of the sentence in reverse order, producing "greenneerg." Now, comparisons are formed through the affixing of "-er" for comparatives and "-est" for superlatives to the end of a word. One could do the same for this theoretical cryptolang and produce the conjugated formes "greenerreneerg" and "greenesttseneerg" and that would be an interesting grammatical feature already because it already created infixes, affixes that go within a word. A strange feature indeed. But why stop there? Could there be another way of marking comparison? What if one were to create a new rule in which removing the first letter creates a comparative and the last one creates a superlative? Thus, we get "reenneerg" for "greener" and "greenneer" for "greenest." Does this count as a constructed language? maybe. But it is for sure that the aesthetic and grammar of the language is based on the already English language and grammar and the letters haven't even been rearranged yet. There is so much potential for using such transformations in a thematic way.

One of those themes could be the exploration of how an individual's physical transformation is reflected in their speech. For example, taking the above framework that has already been created, the individual who speaks this language could be obsessed with symmetry and balance. Thus, all the words they say become palindromes and the modifications reflect their own biases in choosing one side over another. Of course, this is more reverse engineering a theme from what one already has. A less cumbersome way would be to come up with the character's, well, character and build the features off of those aspects. Granted, this is more artistic than technical so what is considered for features can vary from creator to creator.

However, these features can be applied to individuals, small groups, or even entire nations, in larger number than a fully original constructed language. According to Mark Rosenfelder himself, the author of the Language Construction Kit, Advanced Language Construction, Conlangers' Lexipedia, and Syntax Construction Kit, the bulk of a conlang's work is in coming up with a lexicon, all the words. With a Cryptolang, a lexicon naturally arises from the changes one makes to the letters of each word with each rule laid out. Naturally, these letter changes can lead to mergers and synonyms. Though, theoretically, one can come up with ways to distinguish words from a source language. But that is a thought experiment for another day. What is possible is that one can create all sorts of cryptolangs by setting up rules, changing them, mixing them together, or stacking one set of cryptolang rules on top of another. It is relatively faster to create rules for a cryptolang's phonology and grammar than it is to come up with an entire lexicon in an original constructed language. Thus, one can create more cryptolangs in comparison to a single conlang.

So, in summary, Cryptolangs can have interesting features, they can reflect the lexical aspects of a character's physical transformation, and they can be more productive than conlangs. Hopefully, this badly worded essay will open you cryptolangers' eyes to the potential of these sorts of creations whether you are a veteran with a thousand under their belt or a rookie creating their very first. Thank you all for reading this, and till next time! ;)

[conlangcrab]

Try also:

-> @444names and the Markov chain procedural name generator.

-> @444namesplus and the WordGen by JasonTank, as well as Awkwords.

-> The Wiktionary and Wikibooks' real life names from various countries, cultures and religions.

-> @cryptolangsguy and the wonder of cryptolangs in general, on r/cryptolangs (as well, check out the GitHub cryptolang encoder by MurderWho).

While this method is fun shit and giggles, and I used it before, nowadays I find it way too basic/mindless for my taste.

Cheers .w.b

[444namesplus]

My name is Arcee.

This is a blog creating random procedural-generated name stashes of wide variety, using tools like Awkwords, the Cryptolang Documentation Standard Automaton, and Markov Namegen. Since the blog spits out more "exotic" names, it is recommended you visit @444names - The main blog of the two - For solely Markov Namegen generated names.

The stashes will be numbered starting with 1/5/2025. This means the ≈500 stashes beforehand are going to be lacking any numeration. You can find most of the numerated posts via the #444list tag (streaks of me forgetting to tag lists happen - I mass edit posts afterwards later on to add it back).

I strive to have each stash number 444 names within itself, but there is no guarantee about that number; Some will have more, some posts will consist of just one name (and won't be put into the stash list probably).

Archive:

[conlangcrab]

Desperate due to Awkwords being abandonware so I delved into some alternatives.

Scriboly Fake Language Generator Closer to a cryptolang than an actual conlang-generator. Through some testing determined that the site uses some internalized rules to decide how to translate words into encoded versions of themselves. The number of syllables (which are AWFULLY miscalled "phonemes" here) alters the results of the translation, and the translation is stable regardless of what the text is or tab session. Neat, keeping it for sure.

LanguaGen Might be the perfect fit actually. Though sadly, it is still in development, and aims to cover all the functionality of Awkwords (as said in the About), which is superb. Saving.

sca2 A Zompist sound change applier. Very fancy, will use for cryptolanging most probably.

[dailywalkhauls]

Hello

My name is Arcee and among many other special interests (listed below "Keep Reading"), I am something of a magpie myself, interested in all that shines for it is gold to me.

On this new blog I will share some of the finds from my daily physical/mental health walks, as well as older finds from my "archive".

You can submit your finds too via asks or post submissions!

Looking for co-runners for this blog! If you are interested, DM me.

Admin and moderator sideblogs

Arcee:

-> @thecrazyworldbuilder : : Worldbuilding and writing

-> @thecrazyneographist : : Neographic scripts

-> @cryptolangsguy : : Cryptolang content and community updates

-> @444names and @444namesplus : : Name stashes generated in a procedural way via Markov chains

-> @overstimcore : : Archive of my overstimcore collage creations

-> @conlangcrab : : Constructed languages and linguistics in general

-> @verical : : Calligraphic creations written in a neographic script I invented

[cryptolangsguy]

Reverse vowels.

Waking -> Wikang

Reduce >1 clusters and hiatuses

Wikang -> Wikan

Duplicate consonant before the last vowel. Ignore if only one vowel.

Wikan -> Wikkan

Bassar Dommen Elabbat Enikku Ennal Geddon Gedikko Geninnur Kenayyir Maccil Messar Muggam Pennat Sellir Sivvar Sor

[thecrazyworldbuilder]

Some naming conventions I got.

Angels of Ael get their names by simply having any array of alphabetic symbols put between the prefix A- and the suffix -el. If the array begins with A, then the prefix gains an umlaut; If the array ends with E, the suffix gains an umlaut. Thus Asoupel, Aexampleël, Äabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzel, Astrange-nameël, Aisn'tel are valid names for them.

The royal bloodline of Xerii get their names by putting the clusters/hiatuses inside a word in reverse order, and: If there's an initial cluster -> Add "a-" Male firstborn -> Suffix "-ius" Female firstborn -> Suffix "-iel" Male nextborn -> Suffix "-is" Female nextborn -> Suffix "-ia". Names like Arkadia, Noicius, Erociel, Koais are valid names.

There's a way of naming I could use that I haven't labeled yet. Take a four or less letter word with a consonant cluster in it and break said cluster with "i", then add: Masculine suffix: -or, -an Feminine suffix: -ia, -elle, -anna Family name suffix: -is, -us, -as, -es, -os, (toponymics like "shire", "hill"), -ax.

Another uses a cryptolang called "Duenagáir". -> Replace A with Ue, E with Αi, I with Eo, O with Io and U with Oa. -> Break consonant clusters with "a". -> Add an acute accent to the penultimate vowel. Thus names like Duérak, Seonagáir, Giurái and the like are born. Or, an alternative last step could be to add an apostrophe before the last vowel, creating names like Teogara'iss, Meosata'ir, Sawiur'ad, Soagu'er, Meon'at...

[multiversetravelingjournalist]

Vyeshal Cryptolang String

I decided to make the Vyeshal cipher language from the Tooth and Tales game into an actual cryptolang string a la @cryptolangsguy.

AIEOAw#_EeOo_UAhYaw#_UhYe#_OyYoo#_ErAl#_AiYo#_AeYa#_GD_MV_FH_PB_RL#_WVw#_ZZh#_ThShCh{Zh}J{Y}Z#_IngEeng#_AwngOng#_UhngOong#

Additional Rules:

Add "ye" between certain translated consonant clusters (unspecified in the Reddit post) when they become difficult to pronounce.

Add "ye" to the end of word-final consonant clusters.

Insert between certain clusters of a consonant and when finding them difficult.

Exclude "the" and "a".

Replace "that" and "those" with "this" and "these". Due to the unfortunate translation of the former word.

Sample text:

Wee Ruhn this bizness! Vwoo loyen shes pezhyenoss!

The original Reddit post says that Vyeshal "replaces Phonemes" instead of letters. So, I try to keep the English source spelling as accurate to the pronunciation as possible.

Unfortunately, <oo> was used to transcribe /ʊ/ and /u/ with different transformations for each. So, I had <oo> represent /u/ and <u> /ʊ/. <a> was also used to transcribe /æ/ and /ɑ/ with one being the transformed and the other the result. I decided to transcribe them as <a> and <ah> respectively. Vyeshal also had <I> and <A> represent <ai> and <e> respectively. This felt confusing and made the string text confusing as to how they should be handled. Not to mention that it would mean writing capital vowels in the middle of words. So, I changed those to <ai> and <ae> respectively.

All in all, this was a fun exercise and I am thinking of expanding this project into other cryptolangs with, respectively, more alien twists on each one. Keep a look out for that.

With that said,

Zhengyek zah heel loogeeng!

[cryptolangsguy]

It's a cryptolang, Eguangal in this case.

how to annoy neographists -> howtoannoyneographists -> h o wt oa nn o yn eo gr a ph i stsl o l -> l o stsl i pha gr eo yn o nn oa wt o h -> lostsliphagreoynonnoawtoh

Lostsliphagreoynonnoawtoh

Name derived from "how to annoy neographists lol".

Lazy stuff.

[thecrazyneographist]

Xeotaijuep'af / Wisehand

More properly called "Xeot'a Juep'af", script for this cryptolang.

[444namesplus]

Use *Lanuge cryptolang on words, use them as particles within a constructed name.

Golhar, Sanerfomafar, Balhedmon, Sarwite, Sedofcas.

*reduce all consonant clusters, e.g. "str, cr, ght" to their initial letter, and same with vowel hiatuses, e.g. "eau, ee, iia".

[conlangcrab]

As a person who speaks three languages (and is yoinking phrases/words from countless others on occasion because language is bullshit and the only rule is "get understood") my vocal stims/boredom vocalizations do be sounding wild at times.

Moose mating call.

Half-realized rhotic tap vowel series ("rarerirorurooraaryuryoryaryrw").

Just nonsense gibberish or filler words ("asipatänka" "gibbledigook" "thingamajigabombastic" et.c.).

Cryptolanging words across languages - Which sound like chanting spells or something ("Hero... Hairiu... Uriiha... Ahiiru... Ejoosa- No, Ajiisu...")

Bogos binted.

Spoonerisms.

Javanais, Louchebem, Pig Latin (all count as cryptolangs technically but who gives a buck).

-throat singing-

Yup Kup level goblin mode.

E

[cryptolangsguy]

Or be insane, like me.

The final stage of every OC's creation is having to go through websites like this to name it:

[cryptolangsguy]

Turns out Saurian from the Star Fox series is a legitimate cryptolang.

Here's the encoding rule:

AUI_BRHXPFVLCSJZQGWNDTK_EO_Y[0]# Note: The letter Y turns into the numeral "0", zero.