Foreign sentence or phrase in cryptos

[maradnu]

I have run into my second crypto which has a sentence in another language, then the same sentence again in English. The first one, a couple of months ago, was Spanish & English - the one today was French & English. I studied some French many (many, many) years ago, but the Spanish/English really gave me fits.

I understand using a word or two, but a whole sentence in another language, seems a little unfair. If I knew Spanish well enough to solve cryptos in Spanish, then I'd try to find a Spanish language site with cryptograms.

Maybe I am a little touchy - I'd kind of like to know how other solvers feel about that.

[jdege]

There's nothing particularly tricky about xenocrypts, provided you can find a good word list. But they should be marked as xenocrypts.

IOW, the language should be specified.

I remember banging my head against an unspecified xenocrypt for a good long time - I kept going back to it for weeks. Turned out to be the first two verses of Jaberwocky, translated into Italian. I don't know if it would have been easier, had I known it was Italian, since most of the words were invented.

Brillineggiava, ed i tovoli slati
girlavano ghimbanti nella vaba;
I borogovi eran tutti mimanti
e la moma radeva fuorigraba.

"Figliuolo mio, sta' attento al gibrovacco,
dagli artigli e dal morso lacerante;
fuggi l'uccello giuggiolo, e nel sacco
metti infine il frumioso bandifante".

-- Lewis Carroll, "Jabberwocky"

Originally Posted by maradnu

I have run into my second crypto which has a sentence in another language, then the same sentence again in English. The first one, a couple of months ago, was Spanish & English - the one today was French & English. I studied some French many (many, many) years ago, but the Spanish/English really gave me fits.

I understand using a word or two, but a whole sentence in another language, seems a little unfair. If I knew Spanish well enough to solve cryptos in Spanish, then I'd try to find a Spanish language site with cryptograms.

Maybe I am a little touchy - I'd kind of like to know how other solvers feel about that.

If they are marked then I would have to look up the language...as I know german...solving one in chinese would be impossible...but having had 3 yrs of latin in high school (many, many, many, many moons ago), can squeak by sometimes with italian....but prefer the good ol' english

[frank]

Thank you, Maradnu (or Jack Steeley, or whoever you might be) -- I was doing my last few puzzles before the end of this month's competition -- you know, to pass that extra one or two reachable people ahead of you -- when, with 15 minutes to go, I got this puzzle labled as a proverb with a "x'xxx" word and then a long phrase within parentheses. I sorted out the phrase, "to leave is to die a little" and was left with "x'est" in the line above. Here I was trying to figure out what archaic or biblical English that could be, when I recalled your post and recognized that it was French. You probably saved my 100% this month! Perhaps there should be a separate category, such as "Non-English Phrase."

[bansaisequoia]

Wow, I never knew how to say "slithey toves" or "borogoves" in Italian before.

[maradnu]

Never wanted to know Jabberwocky in Italian either.

Silly, but if many of the words are made up anyhow, why didn't they just use the original made up words instead of creating new made up words.

[jdege]

Because they wanted words that would sound like they were Italian, instead of words that sounded like English.

Johnny ==> Giovanni
Jaberwocky ==> Gibrovacco