Well, it's nice to meet you
@Gareth, and thank you for saying hi! :)
Okay, this might be a tiny bit complicated, but bare with me.
By cypher, I mean replacing the letters of English words with new letters so it no longer looks like English, but the key is to do it in a way so it still looks like a humanly-pronounceable and authentic language, and then maybe tweak the grammar a bit to make give it a little linguistic charm.
For example, below is the English-to-Kryan cypher;
you always cypher the digraphs first.
ng → cs
ch → hw
ck → v
gh → / (simply deleted)
ph → g
rh → th
sh → b
ti → b
th → m
wh → w
zh → t
ci → ll
wr → th
qu → f
a → o
b → l
c → ll
d → h
e → u
f → g
g → d
h → pf
i → a
j → c
k → v
l → dh
m → lh
n → n
o → e
p → r
q → f
r → th
s → p
t → sh
u → i
v → s
w → w
x → ñ
y → y
z → t
Then you apply the extra language rules:
- Double vowels or double consonants get reduced to one ("book" → "leev" → "lev")
- Always cypher nouns in their singular form; the plural is formed by adding -r (if it ends with a vowel) or -er (if it ends with a consonant) to the end of the noun after it's passed through the cypher. ("books" → "book" → "lev" → "lever")
- Remove all articles ('the', 'a', and 'an') from the sentence and replace 'the' with 'i-' after it has passed through the cypher. ("the book" → "book" → "lev" → "i-lev")
- If there's a
subject personal pronoun (I, you, he, etc.), attach it to the front of the main verb. ("I read the book" → "Iread book" → "athuoh i-lev")
- If there's a personal pronoun as the direct object of a verb (me, you, him, etc.), place it in front of the main verb. ("I see you" → "you Isee" → "Yei apu.")
- Adjectives are placed after nouns. ("the red book" → "book red" → "i-lev thuh")
- Words that end in consonant clusters take on the vowel '-u' after being ciphered to ease pronunciation. ("learn" → "dhuothn" → "dhuothnu"; "shirt" → "bathsh" → "bathshu")
- For possession, you always use the word "of" and it is attached to the word that follows it with a hyphen. If the following word begins with a consonant, then you remove the "f" making it "o-". If the following word is "the", then the "f" remains but there is no hyphen. Otherwise, you use "of-". Then you pass it through the cypher. ("The dog's book." → "The book of the dog." → "The book ofthe-dog." → "I lev egi-hed.")
- For the infinitive form of a verb "to + verb", "to" is attached to the beginning. ("to read" → "toread" → "shethuoh")
- Infinitives, when combined with a helping verb are usually placed after the object. ("I want to read a book." → "Iwant bok toread." → "Awonshu lev shethuoh.")
- And, finally, yes/no questions (questions that begin with 'do' or 'does') are ciphered as statements and simply a question mark indicates that it's a question. ("Did you read the book?" → "Youread book?" → "Yeithuoh i-lev?"
- Everything else can just be ciphered normally. (I might have to tweak some things later on, though; this is the draft I have now.)
So the example in my first post would be cyphered like this:
"I speak the language of ice, and I like to read books."
→ "Ispeak (i)-language of-ice, and Ilike bok(er) toread."
→ "Asruov i-dhocsiodu eg-allu, onh adhavu lever shethuoh."
Only Kryan players will be allowed to use the Kryan cypher, and only Pyran players will be allowed to use the Pyran cypher; unless they're an interpreters, in which case they will have access to both. If the cypherment of dialogue becomes too tedious, maybe I can make a computer program to do it for the players XD But it would be really cool if the players ended up using the cyphers so much that writing dialogue in the languages became second nature for them.
I hope this clarified some things! Don't hesitate to ask any other questions you might have :)
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