Xenocrypts

[watermelondestroyer]

Hi! For the Codebusters people out there, can anybody provide a basic crash course on how to solve Xenocrypts (aristos in spanish)? I've never actually learned Spanish but I've heard you can solve them with just a shallow knowledge of the actual language.

[joooohnny]

Im in scioly too, but I don't really knowo how to do them without a large spanish vocabulary. My tip would be to search for common letter paterns and the top 100 most common words (there's a wickipedia page)

[Descifrador]

Hi, there! My first language is Spanish, and here are some personal observations about the language.
I hope they're useful to you.

1. The only letters that appear doubled: C, E, L, N, O, and R.
2. Words almost never end in: B, C, F, G, H, J, K, M, Ñ, P, Q, T, V or W.
3. Almost a complete list of the only possible two letter words: AL, AS, DA, DE, DÍ, EL, EN, ES, HA, HE, LA, LE, LO, ME, MI, NO, NI, SE, SI, SO (outdated), SU, TE, TI, TU, UN, VA, VE, VI, YA, YO.
4. Common two letter interjections: Ah, ay, eh, ja, je, oh, uh, uf, uy.

If I can think of any more PRACTICAL observations, i'll add them to the list.

[Descifrador]

5. Possible single-letter words: A, E, O, U and Y (apart from the names of the letters of the alphabet themselves). "E" is a conjunction used instead of "Y" when the following word starts with "I" or "HI" (that sounds like "i", not "y"). "U" is a conjunction used instead of "O", when the following word starts with "O" or "HO".
6. "Q" is always followed by "U".
7. Not many words begin with "Ñ" and they're mostly uncommon. And, excluding geographical names, not many with "X" and "W" (mostly borrowings, I guess, like "WATERPOLO", "WÉSTERN", "WHISKY", "WIFI", and "WOK". )

In the two-letter word list, I'm obviously excluding geographical names (like that of a famous Italian river, or the birthplace of Abraham), and names of uncommon animals ( like the "ñu" ), and plants perhaps (???), and celestial bodies (like the moon of Jupiter).

[joooohnny]

Thanks, this is really helpful!

[Descifrador]

Thanks, this is really helpful!

[RedEnoch]

Hey, do they have languages other than Spanish? I could do German. Polish would be really fun, if I knew it better!

[RedEnoch]

…I mean, very challenging. My last name has ten letters, two vowels, and no repeated letters. Fairly common Polish name.

[cryptogrammer]

anyone here for scioly, which team r u guys in?? just wondering

[watermelondestroyer]

I'm supposed to be here for SciOly, but its more of a hobby now

[doated]

Codebusters is probably the only event I actually prefer in sci oly. All the others don't get me interested, and I guess part of that is because of my passion for math, which is in codebusters to some extent.