It's a Secret. . .

Word of the Week Cryptography (krip-tahg-ruh-fee): The art of writing or solving codes. For a secretive word, its meaning is pretty straightforward! It comes from the Greek words kryptos meaning "hidden" and graphein meaning "to write."

Yassou!

I have something fun and important to bring to your attention! Tuesday, April 27th is. . .

- - - - - . - . . . . . - . - . - - - - . . . - . . . - - . - - !

Did you get that? No? Maybe I'd better explain a bit better.

It's Morse Code Day! I'm sure you've heard of it, but you might not understand exactly what it means. Morse code is an old form of communication, using two different signal lengths in different combinations. The two signals are called dots and dashes. The dashes are twice as long as the dots. It sounds like a whole lot more work than ways we communicate today, because it was! These signals were sent using a telegraph.

The science behinds it truly confuses me, but so does most technology! Computers, phones, fax machines, and the internet included.

It was created by Samuel Morse in 1836 and existed even before the radio was invented. Even after the invention of the radio, Morse code continued to be transmitted to communicate with people far away.

So much planning and thought went into the creation of Morse code. They carefully studied the English language to determine which letters were most frequently used and which were used the fewest. To explain a bit better, the letter E is the most common letter in the English language. To make it easier on the person sending the message, the E was represented by the easiest and simplest signal, one dot.

A really fun fact to also keep in mind is that capital and lower case letters don't exist in Morse code. A letter is a letter. And good thing, because it seems complicated enough with one version of each letter.

So, what about now? How often is Morse code still used? It's been adapted a lot over the years. Even in today's world, some people with disabilities who cannot communicate verbally use Morse code to communicate with others through tapping. Amazing, amazing, amazing!

Time for some fun! I encourage you to try your own hand at writing secret messages using Morse code. Check out the chart at the end of this blog.

OR

Create your very own version of Morse code for your friends and family to interpret with a fun Secret Code Spinner. Print out a copy, and give it a spin!

Bonus: Solve my code if A = g

ECHXHYMM VYACHM QCNB SIO!

Have fun!

Morse Code 4-27

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