[Dutch]

   Has anyone considered using constructed languages such as esperanto or interlingua for secret messages?  In order to use them, you have to learn them like any other language.  Interlingua is based on the Romance languages and is fairly easy to read if you know Spanish or Italian.  Esperanto is not as easy to read at sight.  I have used both over the last few years.  There are others as well; volapuk, ido. 

Let me know what you think about it?

Dutch

[Aaron]

I think the concept is certainly intriguing, and you could make it even further complex by mixing 3 or 4 languages together. They don't necessarily have to be constructed, either. For instance, use English grammar but cycle the translation of the words between French, German, and Italian. Then encode it using Vigenere and a Russian keyword.

[Stun90]

IMHO, to use a language, even English, just for the sake of using it would be disasterous in cryptology. I have never heard of these constructive languages except esperanto before. But another language, especially one like esperanto with no official status in any country, in your arsenal to encrypt is golden. Dutch or anyone using these languages would benefit 1000 fold. Any well encrypted message should never be assumed that the message was solely encrypted in the host language. Somewhere down the line it may have been translated into another language, To know another language such as Dutch eluded to, could spell disaster for a hack trying to penetrate the code. I believe that it could only help in assisting the code as long as both creator and cypher of the code know that it is being used. I agree with Aaron with the cycle of translation and using one or more of these languages in there would create difficulty in solving the cypher. Hope I made myself clear.

[redroseviking]

Sounds good to me.
A lot of work constructing it, though.
The trouble with Esperanto is that it is geared to Europeans and Americans (people who live in the Americas).
I have not seen volpuk. Is that a Russian/Slavic artificial language?

[Dutch]

Volapuk was a language constructed by a German priest whose name was Schleyer.  It proved to be very complicated and through his repeated attempts to correct defects in the project, it was eventually abandoned.  Those who were adherents of Volapuk soon became disillusioned and turned in favor of Esperanto.  There may still be books available on this language; possible at alibris.com or amazon.com.  Interlingua was created at the beginning of the 1900's.  It is completely based on the romance languages complete with all their fallacies and complications.  Other created languages such as Ido (an offshoot of esperanto), idiom neutral, etc. are almost nonexistant.

Dutch