Time to Play “Ask Bob”
Aur mae Edhelad, Bob! Iston nin – aen i thangol veth Washington sí – na erui prestad i nath eneth vîn. I nath mabatha nesteg a thangol beleg i bâr hain, a i trenar eneth lín na aníraen prestad i nath. Ennas, gín ú-bartha, echannen i nath sui Edhellen egor Adûnaic, an garo aend na nestad.
Prestannen an le! Mae lû i edledhi nath eneth hen na Elvish. An ir ú-bartha edregol ah ú-thaethaen e-dúr lim, le ú-aníra prestad anuir. Nan boe lû, a prestad naid sui i-annon gwann, an garo nef naeg lim.
HERE’S THE TRANSLATION of the two paragraphs above:
“Good (Thursday) morning, Bob! I had the idea — given what’s happening in Washington these days — to encrypt a message in my blog. the message would consist of a warning that government forces are intruding more and more on private space, and that translating your message is the easiest way to encrypt something. for instance, you could translate this paragraph into something, like Russian or Tagalog, to prevent easy reading. one would merely have to reverse the translation, if one only knew in which language it had been written.”
Bob’s Response
Good Thursday morning, Gorby! That’s a clever idea—hiding a message in plain sight through translation. It’s a simple yet effective form of encryption, especially if you pick a language that isn’t commonly studied by your audience. A step further would be to use a language that doesn’t translate cleanly via online tools, or to add some deliberate obfuscation, such as phonetically spelling out words instead of using direct translations.
My Response:
I wanted to show this technique, which I learned in Spy School back in the day when I worked for Army Intelligence (clearly an oxymoron). The whole trick is to make the language mostly unfindable. I want to avoid the common languages, too obvious and too easy to break. What I want is a constructed language, such as Middle-Earth Elvish, possibly Sindarin.
Bob’s Comment:
That’s right—if the language isn’t supported by Google Translate or similar translation AI, it won’t be easily auto-detected or reversed.
Sindarin and other constructed languages (conlangs) like Quenya, Klingon, or Dothraki aren’t in Google’s system, so anyone trying to decode your message would need:
- Elvish language knowledge (which is rare).
- An Elvish dictionary or linguistic resource (which takes effort to use).
- A Tolkien nerd on standby (not what most government agencies tend to keep around, at least not yet.
So, it won’t work for instant machine translation the way Russian, Tagalog, or Spanish would. But a dedicated person could still figure it out, no matter how you covered your tracks — any code can be busted, but it slows them down just a little, which helps reduce the prison beatings, if your writings are considered subversive or even slightly disturbing to His Highness — Long live the King, which translates in my native language as: “da screwy creep”.
Brute force is always a possibility when dealing with Trump and Musk, but if you write it in Sindarin, the Elvish dialect provides a high barrier to entry. Without prior knowledge that it’s Elvish — and Sindarin Elvish at that — most people wouldn’t even know where to start. And even if they suspect it’s a conlang, Sindarin isn’t a simple swap-in translation—it has irregular grammar, mutations, and poetic structures that make auto-decoding much harder.
If you wanted to slow down brute-force attempts, you could:
- Make slight grammatical shifts – Sindarin is fluid, so even small rewordings would make it harder to match any dictionary.
- Blend in some Quenya words – Mixing two Elvish dialects would confuse even Tolkien language experts.
- Use a transliteration trick – Write it in Tengwar script instead of Latin letters. Then even if someone copies the text, they still need to decode the script before they can translate.
Would you like a Tengwar version of this message for an extra layer of fun? 😏
My Response to Bob:
Actually, yes, I would very much appreciate a Tengwar version of the message — who wouldn’t???
Bob Responded:
Excellent choice! Here is your Sindarin message written in Tengwar script, following the Mode of Beleriand (which is best suited for Sindarin and does not use vowel markings above consonants, unlike Quenya mode).https://youtu.be/_fifAwzxIz8?si=-ptrhs-0COCD2rT5
Tengwar Version of Your Message:
𐑤𐑿𐑦 𐑥𐑲, 𐑚𐑪𐑚! 𐑦𐑕𐑑𐑹𐑥 𐑯𐑦𐑯 – 𐑩𐑩𐑯 𐑦 𐑞𐑩𐑯𐑡𐑪𐑤 𐑝𐑧𐑞 𐑢𐑨𐑖𐑦𐑯𐑑𐑹𐑩𐑯 𐑕𐑦 – 𐑯𐑨 𐑦𐑮𐑿 𐑓𐑹𐑧𐑕𐑑𐑩𐑛 𐑦 𐑯𐑨𐑞 𐑦𐑯𐑧𐑞 𐑝𐑦𐑯. 𐑦 𐑯𐑨𐑞 𐑥𐑨𐑚𐑨𐑞𐑨 𐑯𐑧𐑕𐑑𐑧𐑡 𐑨 𐑞𐑩𐑯𐑡𐑪𐑤 𐑚𐑧𐑤𐑧𐑔 𐑦 𐑚𐑨𐑯 𐑣𐑦𐑯, 𐑨 𐑦 𐑑𐑹𐑧𐑯𐑨𐑹 𐑦𐑯𐑧𐑞 𐑤𐑦𐑯 𐑯𐑨 𐑨𐑯𐑦𐑹𐑨𐑦𐑯 𐑓𐑹𐑧𐑕𐑑𐑩𐑛 𐑦 𐑯𐑨𐑞. 𐑧𐑯𐑨𐑕, 𐑡𐑦𐑯 𐑿-𐑚𐑬𐑹𐑞𐑨, 𐑦𐑗𐑨𐑯𐑯𐑧𐑯 𐑦 𐑯𐑨𐑞 𐑕𐑵 𐑧𐑞𐑧𐑤𐑧𐑯 𐑧𐑡𐑪𐑹 𐑨𐑯 𐑨𐑛𐑵𐑯𐑨𐑦𐑒, 𐑨𐑯 𐑝𐑴𐑧 𐑨𐑯𐑛 𐑯𐑨 𐑯𐑧𐑕𐑑𐑨𐑛.
How This Works as Encryption:
✅ Looks like a completely unknown script to most people.
✅ Even if someone recognizes Tengwar, they might assume it’s Quenya instead of Sindarin, adding an extra layer of confusion.
✅ Google Translate and most OCR tools won’t work on it.
✅ If someone doesn’t have a Tengwar decoder, they won’t even know where to start.
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That having been said, let’s get on with my meditation songs and forget, for a while, the pain and misery brought on us by Trump and his minions. As usual, I’m not posting the meditation songs anywhere. They will only be available in USB Card form. Now it’s time to board the Bardo bus, for our daily video tour!
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See You At The Top!!!
gorby