Lens of Deciphering?

[Shadekeep]

Ha ha, yes, there are quite a few opportunities! Some of those terribly translated product instruction leaflets come to mind too. Can you imagine trying to use an ancient artifact with instructions equivalent to those of a cheap knock-off electronic gadget? "To ensure the great happening, be always to not make quiet the sad blue thing." ^_^

[KevinJ]

Originally Posted by Shadekeep

And I do think that the translation skill of the Lens is directly related to the abilities of the teacher. Thus a Lens instructed by a really gifted translator would be a notably superior item. Just take a look at the different translations of, say, Beowulf or Dante's Inferno. There are significant differences in English, especially when the translation is by someone who is a gifted writer/poet themself. The Seamus Heaney translation of Beowulf and the John Ciardi translation of Inferno are incredible works in my opinion, and miles apart from other efforts using the same sources.

I have the Seamus Heaney translation of Beowolf and it's the best I've ever read. The more fluent the teacher, the better the translations will be. Appropriate secret codes would be no different. Heck, you could invent a gibberish language for the sole intent of writing 'secret messages'. Voynich manuscript, anyone?

[Shadekeep]

Originally Posted by KevinJ

I have the Seamus Heaney translation of Beowolf and it's the best I've ever read. The more fluent the teacher, the better the translations will be. Appropriate secret codes would be no different. Heck, you could invent a gibberish language for the sole intent of writing 'secret messages'. Voynich manuscript, anyone?

Bingo! The Voynich manuscript was one of the books I had in mind when asking this question. It looks a lot like a cipher disguised as a made-up language and is the kind of argot that Cidri secret orders might use between their members. The Lens essentially functions as a codebook, only much faster for decoding and encoding. (For the latter, write out the text in your own language, and then let the Lens show you the translated "encoded" version, which you copy out on another sheet. Be sure to burn or erase the "plaintext" original.)

[FireHorse]

I wonder… if you used a Vigenère cipher, would you need a separate Lens for each keyword that might be used?

[Shadekeep]

Originally Posted by FireHorse

I wonder… if you used a Vigenère cipher, would you need a separate Lens for each keyword that might be used?

I'd say yes. That gets into the "programmable rules" aspect of ciphers that I was asking about. I think ciphers with straight 1:1 correlations work, but not those which use what one might term "mechanical logic". Thus the Lens wouldn't work like an Enigma machine, or anything else that requires a variable input to calculate the cipher. A Lens trained on a single fixed input might work, but would be of more limited value in terms of the cipher's overall strength.

Something like a book cipher would be right out.

[hcobb]

ITL 162: "The only catch is that every wizard participating in the “teaching” must know the language being taught."

So if I teach the lens Thieves' Argot then it only knows the variant I know at that moment.

[FireHorse]

Originally Posted by Shadekeep

… Thus the Lens wouldn't work like an Enigma machine, or anything else that requires a variable input to calculate the cipher. A Lens trained on a single fixed input might work…

Then I choose the first twelve pages of Mnoren History for Dummies as my keyword. And I mean specifically the rare and collectible 1st Edition, in which the original scribe's spelling errors were inadvertently preserved.

Surely if the Lens can memorize a whole language's worth of Vocabulary, it can memorize a long keyword. ;)

[JohnPaulB]

Originally Posted by FireHorse

So what does the Lens of Translation do when it sees the Word 青 ('ao', 'blue') but the color it's referring to is one the owner of the Lens would call 'green'? Does the Lens know how to distinguish intended Meaning?

If it doesn't, then what you really need is a Lens of Interpretation. Because there's a big difference between a Translator and an Interpreter, and that sort of stuff right there is what it is. (It's also why automated translation generally sucks, because algorithms can't be taught to recognize subtle nuances.)

I like the idea of the separation of Translator vs Interpreter. It will help me if I use a Lens of Translation in a game.

• Can a lens of translation interpret Legalese?
  
• Can it interpret a joke for you that is in a foreign language or are you stuck with a word for word translation?
  
• Can a Lens of Translation be taught sign language and viewed through as if it were a monocle? If so, would the hand words be 'typed' on the lens?
  
• Is there an audio equivalent of the Lens of Translation? Perhaps a Earplug of Translation?

[FireHorse]

Originally Posted by JohnPaulB

• Can a lens of translation interpret Legalese?
  
• Can it interpret a joke for you that is in a foreign language or are you stuck with a word for word translation?
  
• Can a Lens of Translation be taught sign language and viewed through as if it were a monocle? If so, would the hand words be 'typed' on the lens?
  
• Is there an audio equivalent of the Lens of Translation? Perhaps a Earplug of Translation?

• Not unless you hire a Demon to teach it.
• No, because foreign jokes are never funny even when translated well.
• No, partly because it only works on written languages, and partly because wearing a monocle would make you a Villain.
• Yes, and that's how politics are conducted in Cidri's equivalent of the U.N. (coming soon to an expansion near you).

[KevinJ]

Originally Posted by hcobb

ITL 162: "The only catch is that every wizard participating in the “teaching” must know the language being taught."

So if I teach the lens Thieves' Argot then it only knows the variant I know at that moment.

What if there is no written form for Thieve's Argot?