In the classic PlayStation 2 game (and
recent PlayStation 3/Vita port)
Final Fantasy X by game maker Square Enix, there is a crypto-language called "Al Bhed." The language is spoken by one of the game's main characters, Rikku, as well as numerous non-playable characters. It's a "crypto-language" in that it is not a true language, but is actually encrypted English, similar to ROT-13 except that it's strangely pronounceable, and not based on any obvious mathematical rules.
Now, there is a system in-game that deciphers the language for you, but it requires collecting 26 items, 4 of which can be easily missed & can't be acquired once missed, and the final item doesn't show up until the end of the game, which doesn't help you figure out what the Al-Bhed-speaking characters are saying at the beginning of the game. So I wrote a series of functions in Mathematica that translate from English to Al Bhed, and another series that handles the other way around. The system works!
Now, in the game, the Al Bhed speakers intentionally don't encrypt proper nouns, and these functions ignore that particular rule, so there is room for improvement. There is also a Japanese language version of Al Bhed, which I didn't cover here, but could be done. I would, of course, appreciate comments on how to improve this.
How to translate English to Al Bhed:
ToAlBhedLowercaseChar[x_] :=
Switch[x, "a", "y", "b", "p", "c", "l", "d", "t", "e", "a", "f",
"v", "g", "k", "h", "r", "i", "e", "j", "z", "k", "g", "l", "m",
"m", "s", "n", "h", "o", "u", "p", "b", "q", "x", "r", "n", "s",
"c", "t", "d", "u", "i", "v", "j", "w", "f", "x", "q", "y", "o",
"z", "w", _, x]
ToAlBhedChar[x_] :=
If[UpperCaseQ[x],
ToUpperCase[ToAlBhedLowercaseChar[ToLowerCase[x]]],
ToAlBhedLowercaseChar[x]]
ToAlBhedString[x_] := StringJoin[Map[ToAlBhedChar, Characters[x]]]
ToAlBhedString["How razorback, jumping frogs can level six piqued \
gymnasts!"]
"Ruf nywunpylg, zisbehk vnukc lyh majam ceq bexiat koshycdc!"
How to translate Al Bhed to English:
FromAlBhedLowercaseChar[x_] :=
Switch[x, "a", "e", "b", "p", "c", "s", "d", "t", "e", "i", "f",
"w", "g", "k", "h", "n", "i", "u", "j", "v", "k", "g", "l", "c",
"m", "l", "n", "r", "o", "y", "p", "b", "q", "x", "r", "h", "s",
"m", "t", "d", "u", "o", "v", "f", "w", "z", "x", "q", "y", "a",
"z", "j", _, x]
FromAlBhedChar[x_] :=
If[UpperCaseQ[x],
ToUpperCase[FromAlBhedLowercaseChar[ToLowerCase[x]]],
FromAlBhedLowercaseChar[x]]
FromAlBhedString[x_] := StringJoin[Map[FromAlBhedChar, Characters[x]]]
FromAlBhedString["Ruf nywunpylg, zisbehk vnukc lyh majam ceq bexiat \
koshycdc!"]
"How razorback, jumping frogs can level six piqued gymnasts!"
(edit: add a hyperlink)
