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| A count of the 87 characters reveals a symbol frequency very close to that that would be expected if the cipher were a simple substitution cipher, based on a plain text in English, but attempts to decipher it along these lines have so far proved fruitless, leading to speculation the cipher may be more complex. | A count of the 87 characters reveals a symbol frequency very close to that that would be expected if the cipher were a simple substitution cipher, based on a plain text in English, but attempts to decipher it along these lines have so far proved fruitless, leading to speculation the cipher may be more complex. | ||
| The solution is as follows - | |||
| From several 'clock dial' diagrams found in one of Elgar’s note books dating from the 1920’s were he appears to be trying to recall his system I have managed to reconsstruct the alphabet he used. | |||
| Using the above ingenious ‘clock dial’ as a mnemonic aid I believe he wrote the message straight of without any prior composition. | |||
| Substituting the alphabet for the message gives the following;- | |||
| BLTACEIARWUNISNFNNELLHSYWYDUO | |||
| INIEYARQATNNTEDMINUNEHOMSYRRYUO | |||
| TOEHO’TSHGDOTNEHMOSALDOEADYA | |||
| This appears to be gibberish until we remember Elgar had a love of word play & word puzzles, often using phoneticised spellings i.e. ‘My Dear Dorabellllla – How many ells long is that…..’; ‘gorjus’ for gorgeous; ‘flopsikon’; ‘warbling wigorously in Worcester wunce a week’; ‘bung yirds’ for young birds; ‘xqqq’ for excuse; ‘ckor’ for score; etc. etc. | |||
| Looking at the end of lines one & two we have the letters YDUO & YUO, the most common word used in personal messages is YOU occurring twice as often as AND & three times as often as THE; in the middle of line three appears TNEH – it soon becomes apparent that Elgar has used or invented a variation of ‘backslang’ e.g. CIPHER would become CREHPI. (In another letter to Dora dated 26th Feb 1899 Elgar writes are you living backwards like the Queen in Alice’) | |||
| Reversing the words in ‘backslang’ and inserting the word divisions (assuming I’ve found the right ones), what he actually wrote was:- | |||
| B LCAT IE AWR USIN FN NN ESHLL WY YOUD | |||
| INTAQRAYEIN NET DMINUNEHO M SRRY YOU | |||
| THEO O ’THS GOD THEN M SO LA OD E ADYA | |||
| If Dora was still with us I am sure she would have easily read and understood this message despite it’s few errors – either Elgar intended to give her the key at some later time or it just didn’t occur to him that combining the simple substitution with his phoneticised spellings, backslang and omitting word divisions made it virtually impossible for Dora to solve. | |||
| As Dora is no longer with us to give the explanation – changing the phoneticised spellings and correcting a few minor errors (the orientation of a few symbols being unclear) the message sent was, as best as I can make it out, meant to read:- | |||
| B (Bella) hellcat i.e. war using ?? hens shells why your | |||
| antiquarian net diminishes, am sorry you | |||
| theo O ‘tis God then me so la do E (Elgar) Adieu | |||
| The first line didn’t make much sense to me until I remembered seeing the following in a letter from Elgar to Dora Penny dated Sept. 24th 1898 | |||
| ‘…. and then some Sunday at Wolverhampton you can give us tea and fire eggs at me as of yore.’ | |||
| The middle line – ‘antiquarian net’ – would seem to mean circle of elderly friends. | |||
| The last line – On Elgar’s visits Dora would often sit turning the pages, or sing, for Elgar at the piano – I assume there must have been occasions when asked to do this she had declined (her father being a Rector) and religious duties taking priority. | |||
| The following are 2 contemporaneous messages the reader may wish to unravel – it was by considering how difficult the second of these would be to solve if the word divisions were removed and the whole encipherd using Elgar’s symbols, that led to the above solution. | |||
| DAAER oter Ditheer ndaer Elenher. Ewer iveler taer Utneyper. Idneyser sier taer Radfleldber Ollegecer. Erceyper taer heter Ospitalher. Evening Standard, Thu 1st Aug 1889 | |||
| MA petite Marie, nod efto raur hsuf nke swoton gnihb tae. 8. 10. 9. 1. 21. 15. 7. seutno yadta 9.8. 7. - 22 – 13 niaw tidal orsei amo dneb ius eriw onll tliaf. – J’en suis. Evening Standard, Mon 11th Nov 1872 | |||
| Solution by - Jean Palmer author of ‘The Agony Column Codes & Ciphers' | |||
| ==External links== | ==External links== | ||
Revision as of 09:49, 24 October 2007
The Dorabella Cipher is an enciphered letter written and enciphered by Edward Elgar to Miss Dora Penny (the letter was accompanied by another dated July 14,1897). She was never able to decipher it and its meaning remains unknown to this day.
The cipher, consisting of 87 characters spread over 3 lines, appears to be made up from an alphabet of 24 symbols, with each symbol consisting of either 1, 2, or 3 approximate semicircles, oriented in one of 8 directions. The orientation of several of the characters is ambiguous. A small dot, meaning and significance unknown, appears after the fifth character on the third line.
A count of the 87 characters reveals a symbol frequency very close to that that would be expected if the cipher were a simple substitution cipher, based on a plain text in English, but attempts to decipher it along these lines have so far proved fruitless, leading to speculation the cipher may be more complex.
The solution is as follows -
From several 'clock dial' diagrams found in one of Elgar’s note books dating from the 1920’s were he appears to be trying to recall his system I have managed to reconsstruct the alphabet he used. Using the above ingenious ‘clock dial’ as a mnemonic aid I believe he wrote the message straight of without any prior composition. Substituting the alphabet for the message gives the following;-
BLTACEIARWUNISNFNNELLHSYWYDUO
INIEYARQATNNTEDMINUNEHOMSYRRYUO
TOEHO’TSHGDOTNEHMOSALDOEADYA
This appears to be gibberish until we remember Elgar had a love of word play & word puzzles, often using phoneticised spellings i.e. ‘My Dear Dorabellllla – How many ells long is that…..’; ‘gorjus’ for gorgeous; ‘flopsikon’; ‘warbling wigorously in Worcester wunce a week’; ‘bung yirds’ for young birds; ‘xqqq’ for excuse; ‘ckor’ for score; etc. etc.
Looking at the end of lines one & two we have the letters YDUO & YUO, the most common word used in personal messages is YOU occurring twice as often as AND & three times as often as THE; in the middle of line three appears TNEH – it soon becomes apparent that Elgar has used or invented a variation of ‘backslang’ e.g. CIPHER would become CREHPI. (In another letter to Dora dated 26th Feb 1899 Elgar writes are you living backwards like the Queen in Alice’) Reversing the words in ‘backslang’ and inserting the word divisions (assuming I’ve found the right ones), what he actually wrote was:-
B LCAT IE AWR USIN FN NN ESHLL WY YOUD
INTAQRAYEIN NET DMINUNEHO M SRRY YOU
THEO O ’THS GOD THEN M SO LA OD E ADYA
If Dora was still with us I am sure she would have easily read and understood this message despite it’s few errors – either Elgar intended to give her the key at some later time or it just didn’t occur to him that combining the simple substitution with his phoneticised spellings, backslang and omitting word divisions made it virtually impossible for Dora to solve.
As Dora is no longer with us to give the explanation – changing the phoneticised spellings and correcting a few minor errors (the orientation of a few symbols being unclear) the message sent was, as best as I can make it out, meant to read:-
B (Bella) hellcat i.e. war using ?? hens shells why your
antiquarian net diminishes, am sorry you
theo O ‘tis God then me so la do E (Elgar) Adieu
The first line didn’t make much sense to me until I remembered seeing the following in a letter from Elgar to Dora Penny dated Sept. 24th 1898 ‘…. and then some Sunday at Wolverhampton you can give us tea and fire eggs at me as of yore.’
The middle line – ‘antiquarian net’ – would seem to mean circle of elderly friends.
The last line – On Elgar’s visits Dora would often sit turning the pages, or sing, for Elgar at the piano – I assume there must have been occasions when asked to do this she had declined (her father being a Rector) and religious duties taking priority.
The following are 2 contemporaneous messages the reader may wish to unravel – it was by considering how difficult the second of these would be to solve if the word divisions were removed and the whole encipherd using Elgar’s symbols, that led to the above solution.
DAAER oter Ditheer ndaer Elenher. Ewer iveler taer Utneyper. Idneyser sier taer Radfleldber Ollegecer. Erceyper taer heter Ospitalher. Evening Standard, Thu 1st Aug 1889
MA petite Marie, nod efto raur hsuf nke swoton gnihb tae. 8. 10. 9. 1. 21. 15. 7. seutno yadta 9.8. 7. - 22 – 13 niaw tidal orsei amo dneb ius eriw onll tliaf. – J’en suis. Evening Standard, Mon 11th Nov 1872
Solution by - Jean Palmer author of ‘The Agony Column Codes & Ciphers'
External links
- The Elgar Cipher Group A discussion group for those interested in trying to solve the cipher.
- "Can You Solve Elgar's 'Other' Enigma?"
- Dunin, Elonka, 2006, The Mammoth Book of Secret Codes and Cryptograms, ISBN 0-7867-1726-2 (contains an image of the cipher)
- Breaking Elgar's enigmatic code
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