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Codes & Letters

Ciphers, scripts, symbols — every code humans write, taken apart.

A decoding guide for readers curious about how messages are encoded, with letter counts, glyph measurements and language maps that anyone can check.

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZABC

Five ways in

One entry from each of the five sections.

  1. Ciphers

    Illustration: a closed two-leaf writing tablet tied with cord and sealed with plain red wax, a stylus beside itIllustration
    Picture creditIllustration: Codes & Letters. Generated schematic image — not a photograph or historical record. Reuse: CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), to the extent any copyright exists in this image.

    How the Caesar and Vigenère ciphers work, where they came from and how each is broken, plus Morse code and letter counts in English, German and French.

    Flagship entryCaesar Cipher: Why 'Find the E' Is the Weak Way to Break It

  2. Writing Systems

    Illustration: an empty wooden type case seen from above, its compartments ranging from one very large to many smallIllustration
    Picture creditIllustration: Codes & Letters. Generated schematic image — not a photograph or historical record. Reuse: CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), to the extent any copyright exists in this image.

    How the world's writing systems work, from alphabets and abjads to syllabaries and logosyllabic scripts, how they changed, and how lost ones were deciphered.

    Newest entryEvery Writing System in Unicode: Alphabets Are Outnumbered

  3. Grammar

    Illustration: two pairs of hands facing each other, one pair miming a push with an upright palm, the other held stillIllustration
    Picture creditIllustration: Codes & Letters. Generated schematic image — not a photograph or historical record. Reuse: CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), to the extent any copyright exists in this image.

    Linguistic typology for curious readers: the different ways the world's languages solve the same grammatical problem, such as ordering subject, verb and object.

    Flagship entryWord Order: English's SVO Isn't the World's Most Common

  4. Symbols

    Illustration: an open touring car of the 1920s driving away down a straight country road past a bare roadside postIllustration
    Picture creditIllustration: Codes & Letters. Generated schematic image — not a photograph or historical record. Reuse: CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), to the extent any copyright exists in this image.

    Public symbol systems such as road signs and hazard symbols: where each came from, what makes a symbol readable at a distance, and how readings vary by culture.

    Flagship entryRoad Signs: A Red Triangle Means Danger Only by Treaty

  5. Letterforms

    Illustration: hands at a bench vise holding a steel counterpunch upright on a clamped punch blank, a hammer raisedIllustration
    Picture creditIllustration: Codes & Letters. Generated schematic image — not a photograph or historical record. Reuse: CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), to the extent any copyright exists in this image.

    Letters taken apart in openly licensed typefaces: the names of their parts, the optical corrections designers make for the eye, and the spacing between them.

    Flagship entryAnatomy of a Letter: Why the O Is Drawn Taller Than the H

Latest entries

  1. Ciphers

    Caesar Cipher: Why 'Find the E' Is the Weak Way to Break It

    How the Caesar cipher works, what Suetonius says Caesar wrote, and a 10,000-message test: on 20 letters, matching all 26 counts beat hunting for E, 95% to 30%.

    Illustration: a closed two-leaf writing tablet tied with cord and sealed with plain red wax, a stylus beside itIllustration
    Picture creditIllustration: Codes & Letters. Generated schematic image — not a photograph or historical record. Reuse: CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), to the extent any copyright exists in this image.

  2. Writing Systems

    Every Writing System in Unicode: Alphabets Are Outnumbered

    Unicode 18.0.0 encodes 175 scripts. By the Unicode Standard's own typology, 66 are abugidas and 59 alphabets; 37 run right to left. Full table and CSV.

    Illustration: an empty wooden type case seen from above, its compartments ranging from one very large to many smallIllustration
    Picture creditIllustration: Codes & Letters. Generated schematic image — not a photograph or historical record. Reuse: CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), to the extent any copyright exists in this image.

  3. Grammar

    Word Order: English's SVO Isn't the World's Most Common

    In WALS, 564 of 1,376 languages put the verb last (SOV) and 488 use English-style SVO. Count by genus and the gap widens; German has no dominant order.

    Illustration: two pairs of hands facing each other, one pair miming a push with an upright palm, the other held stillIllustration
    Picture creditIllustration: Codes & Letters. Generated schematic image — not a photograph or historical record. Reuse: CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), to the extent any copyright exists in this image.

  4. Symbols

    Road Signs: A Red Triangle Means Danger Only by Treaty

    Why warning signs are red triangles across much of Europe and yellow diamonds in the US: treaties from 1909 to 1968 set the shapes, and Vienna allows both.

    Illustration: an open touring car of the 1920s driving away down a straight country road past a bare roadside postIllustration
    Picture creditIllustration: Codes & Letters. Generated schematic image — not a photograph or historical record. Reuse: CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), to the extent any copyright exists in this image.

  5. Letterforms

    Anatomy of a Letter: Why the O Is Drawn Taller Than the H

    The parts of a letter, from baseline and x-height to stem, bowl, counter, serif and terminal, measured in two open fonts, and why the O is drawn taller than H.

    Illustration: hands at a bench vise holding a steel counterpunch upright on a clamped punch blank, a hammer raisedIllustration
    Picture creditIllustration: Codes & Letters. Generated schematic image — not a photograph or historical record. Reuse: CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), to the extent any copyright exists in this image.

  6. Ciphers

    Letter Frequency: E Is Commoner in German Than in English

    Letter frequency tables counted from nine novels: e is 12.5% of English letters, 16.0% of German and 17.2% of French. Umlauts, accents and letter pairs too.

    Illustration: three closed hardback novels of different thickness standing side by side, their spines plainIllustration
    Picture creditIllustration: Codes & Letters. Generated schematic image — not a photograph or historical record. Reuse: CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), to the extent any copyright exists in this image.

  7. Writing Systems

    Latin Alphabet: How 21 Letters Became 26, and Why Z Is Last

    Why Z is the last letter: Latin dropped it, gave its seventh place to G, then added it back at the end. How Cicero's 21 letters grew to 26, step by step.

    Illustration: a teacher and two children seen from behind in a small Roman schoolroom, the children side by side on a benchIllustration
    Picture creditIllustration: Codes & Letters. Generated schematic image — not a photograph or historical record. Reuse: CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), to the extent any copyright exists in this image.

  8. Grammar

    Thou vs You: Thou Was the Familiar Form, Not the Formal One

    In Chaucer's and Shakespeare's English, thou was the familiar word and the plural ye or you the polite one. How thou faded, and where 207 WALS languages stand.

    Illustration: hands resting on a closed ledger on a shop counter as a customer walks out of the open doorIllustration
    Picture creditIllustration: Codes & Letters. Generated schematic image — not a photograph or historical record. Reuse: CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), to the extent any copyright exists in this image.

  9. Symbols

    Peace Symbol: Semaphore N and D, by Its Designer's Account

    Who designed the peace symbol in 1958, why Gerald Holtom said it combines semaphore N and D, his second story about Goya, and what CND says about copyright.

    Photo: a round black CND button badge with the white peace symbol, photographed in 2010
    Picture credit"Cnd button" by Marshall Colman — Public domain (photograph released into the public domain worldwide by its author, with an unconditional grant of use where that is not legally possible (Commons PD-self); the symbol shown is simple geometry not protected in the US (Commons PD-shape), and CND states the symbol has "quite deliberately never been copyrighted" and is free for all, https://cnduk.org/the-symbol/) — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cnd_button.JPG

  10. Letterforms

    X-Height: Same Font Size, Different Letter Sizes, Measured

    X-height measured from 13 open font files: at one font size, the lowercase x stands 40.5% of that size in EB Garamond and 55.0% in JetBrains Mono.

    Green guide sign on wooden posts at a rural junction, 2013: Rohnerville 3 ahead, Alton 3 left, with a US 101 shield
    Picture credit"Hydesville CA Interchange" by Ellin Beltz — Public domain (released into the public domain by the photographer, Ellin Beltz, who also grants anyone the right to use it for any purpose where such a release is not legally possible; the sign shows only place names, distances, arrows and a route shield) — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hydesville_CA_Interchange.jpg

  11. Ciphers

    Vigenère Cipher: Named for a Man Who Didn't Invent It

    How the Vigenère cipher works, why Bellaso's 1553 keyword cipher came before Vigenère's book, and how repeats and letter counts give away the keyword.

    Illustration: a hand reaching for a folded letter sealed with plain red wax on a desk with a quill and inkwellIllustration
    Picture creditIllustration: Codes & Letters. Generated schematic image — not a photograph or historical record. Reuse: CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), to the extent any copyright exists in this image.

  12. Writing Systems

    Egyptian Hieroglyphs: Picture Signs That Spell Consonants

    Egyptian hieroglyphics explained: one sign as a word, a sound or a silent label, the 24 consonant signs, why vowels went unwritten, and how many signs exist.

    Scribe's board, Dynasty 18: rows of black hieratic script with a few red marks, cracked across the lower half
    Picture credit"Scribe's Exercise Board with Hieratic Text - Egypt, New Kingdom, Dynasty 18, reign of Amunhotep I, c. 1514-1493 BC, wood - Brooklyn Museum - Brooklyn, NY - DSC08694" by Daderot — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Scribe%27s_Exercise_Board_with_Hieratic_Text_-_Egypt,_New_Kingdom,_Dynasty_18,_reign_of_Amunhotep_I,_c._1514-1493_BC,_wood_-_Brooklyn_Museum_-_Brooklyn,_NY_-_DSC08694.JPG — CC0 1.0 (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)