The puzzle was adapted from the book Problems from Linguistics Olympiads, 1965–1975 (MCNMO, Moscow, 2007), edited by Roman Senkov.
The puzzle is purely logical and no prior knowledge of Malay is required to solve it. Please do not search for the translations. The solution to this puzzle will be published in the next Ad Astra issue. Good luck!
At the beginning of the 20th century, the Malays used two alphabets – one based on Arabic and the other on Latin. In addition, some of them were familiar with a special secret script. This diversity in writing reflects not only the region’s complex colonial and cultural history but also the adaptability of the Malay language across different contexts.
The Arabic-based script, known as Jawi, had been widely used in the Malay Archipelago since at least the 14th century for religious texts, literature, and administrative documents. Jawi adapts the Arabic script by adding letters to represent sounds specific to Malay. By contrast, the Latin alphabet – known as Rumi – gained prominence during the colonial period and is now the dominant writing system in Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, and Brunei for most secular and educational purposes.
Beyond these conventional scripts, there existed a little-known cipher alphabet, a “secret script” used by certain Malay communities. This script, documented in the early 20th century by Dutch scholar R.A. Kern, was a form of substitution cipher. In his 1908 article, "A Malay Cipher Alphabet," published in the Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (source: https://www.jstor.org/stable/2843133), Kern described how each standard letter was replaced with a unique symbol, rendering the message indecipherable to the uninitiated. Such ciphers were reportedly used for confidential or sensitive communications, often with religious or political implications.
A letter written in the “secret script”. “A Malay Cipher Alphabet” by R. A. Kern. Source: The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, Vol. 38 (Jan. - Jun., 1908), pp. 207-211
Below are several words, each written in this secret script and in the Latin-based alphabet:
— sěnam
— epok
— měnung
— tanah-merah
— měntigi
— senamaki
— ia
— puak
— sangka
Question. Try to translate the following words into English:
Note: The combination ng represents the sound [ŋ] (as in the English word sing or the German singen “to sing”).
Please send us your solutions to
adastraletter@gmail.com,
use "linguistic puzzle Ad Astra 2025, issue #1" as the subject line.
★ Solution of the Linguistic Puzzle 2024, issue #1 (Ad Astra 2024/1):
Note 1. Some English words can be recognized immediately: it's easy to guess that rezonansu corresponds to "resonance," and opuchimisuto corresponds to "optimist," since words of the same origin and meaning exist in English as well. Other words, such as mōtā or sutā, aren't immediately recognizable and become clear only after identifying general patterns. By analyzing the words we easily recognize, we can establish phonetic rules governing how English words change when borrowed into Japanese. Without dwelling on straightforward correspondences (such as r → r, b → b, etc.), we will highlight instances where noticeable phonetic changes occur.
Note 2. Some rules for transliteration from English to Japanese:
Vowel insertion:
Japanese avoids consonant clusters and final consonants, except the sound [n].
Usually, vowel u is inserted after consonants.
Vowel o is inserted after t or after soft s (from English s).
Vowel i is inserted after dz (from English dʒ).
Consonant changes:
English l → Japanese r
English v → Japanese b
English w → Japanese u
English z → Japanese hard dz; English j (dʒ) → Japanese soft dz
English s → Japanese soft s
Combinations like nj, tj, sj lose the j, softening the consonant (e.g., nju → nyu)
English ng (ŋ) → Japanese ng
Single final consonants in English words are typically doubled in Japanese.
Vowel correspondences:
English vowels a, æ, ə → Japanese a
English vowels ɔ, o → Japanese o
English diphthong əu → Japanese ō
English diphthong ei → Japanese ē
Diphthongs ai and oi remain unchanged.
Final vowels and sometimes stressed vowels in English words become long vowels in Japanese.
Note 3. Changes in pronunciation of English words in Japanese occur for two reasons. First, these words must be adapted to the phonetic structure of Japanese, where consonant clusters are generally not allowed, and sounds such as [l] and [v] do not exist (specifically, [v] occurs only before [a]). Second, these words are borrowed primarily from the American variety of English, in which pronunciation has already diverged from British English.
