Im a little confused what the difference between these 2 skills, and when you would use which. If anyone could help me clarify the difference that would be most useful.
What is the difference between secret tongue and Ciphers
I always assumed that Secret tongue was secret spoken language and ciphers were a secret written language.Though in all honesty, I always kinda presumed taking the skill would imply granting both a tongue and a written language of sorts.
I always assumed that Secret tongue was secret spoken language and ciphers were a secret written language.
That's how I interpreted it as well. "Tongue" is an archaic term for language, and ciphers are written characters .
I would assume that the skill Secret Tongue would allow you to write what you speak (common sense) - but Ciphers is an even more secure form of written communication where the reader may not even realise he is looking at a word.
Writing in Secret Tongue is potentially more dangerous because even some braindead hiver will notice something is off when he is reading a text that makes no sense, possibly triggering further investigation and ultimately a breach of the code.
... or at least this would be my justification to have both Skills.
I don't usually recommend licensed material for background due to all the different and usually contradicting ideas, but the Inquisition Illustrated Guide from Black Library (a sort of fluff collection unifying the most important Inquisition stuff from a number of popular novels, codices and studio articles into one handy glossary) has a fairly useful example from Dan Abnett's (who also wrote part of the background for Dark Heresy) novels:
<excerpt follows>
Glossia
A secret language developed and used by Inquisitor [Eisenhorn] to communicate securely with his colleagues. Glossia's strengths lay in its idiomatic use of language. It was not encrypted, and used normal words. Meaning was derived from sentence structure, and the use of certain headwords to provide context. Eisenhorn believed Glossia to be undecipherable without inside help. Rather than a rigid formula, it requires an ear for poetry, metaphor and imagery, and a knowledge of the other speakers to decode, and allows its users to improvise new terms and meanings, and still be understood. It was only compromised when [Jekud Vance] was captured and tortured by [Marla Tarray].
Use of Glossia depends on a knowledge of the characters and personalities privy to the code: it used substitution words such as nicknames or code names, and often used simple verb formations to describe certain protocols. Eisenhorn also codified a number of 'set actions' that could be put into practice on a simple two - or three - word command without the need for complex instructions.
Consider the following sample sentences:
1. "Thorn wishes aegis, rapturous beasts below."
2. "Rose thorn, abundant, Bby flame light crescent."
3. "Razor delphus pathway! Pattern ivory!"
In phrase (1), Eisenhorn ("Thorn") requests air cover ("aegis") due to heavy enemy assault. In phrase (2), Eisenhorn clarifies the jeopardy ("rose" and "abundant"), and notes the death or incapacity of one of his accompanying team ("by flame light crescent"). In phrase (3), "razor delphus pathway" is a pre-set action indicating a high-scale order for air-to-ground attack, qualified by a "pattern" to indicate extent. In this case, "ivory" indicates extensive or maximum assault.
It should be noted that Glossia was a fluid and evolving code, and certain words and phrases often carried very different meanings or nuances of meaning in contrasting circumstances.
<excerpt end>
Needless to say, every Inquisitor who bothers with such codes will likely have his or her own special language and/or ciphers, as will a number of Imperial organisations (iirc, Inquisitor's Handbook mentioned "Battle Cant" for the Sororitas).
It's probably not something that is going to play a huge role at the usual table, but with a group that gets sufficiently in-character, or enjoys being this creative, I suppose it can be fun coming up with your own code language similar to Glossia!
I always viewed Secret Tounge as being a preexisting language that professional groups used but if you were part of that group you could 'speak it'. For example all Administratum adepts who could speak it would know what another Adept using Secret Language Administratum was saying.
So when professionals use extensive technical language that can be secret tounge. It is secret to anyone outside the group.
Secret Tounge Acolytes is unique in this regard as it only related to one particular cell rather than all acolytes.
As GM I would also argue that secret tounge is a complete language and you can pretty much say anything in it from describing the nuances in tax returns to telling jokes (probably really nerdy injokes)
Ciphers is a far less extensive language and simply conveys the most pertinent details. On the other hand it is pretty much uniqiue to whichever specific group is using it. So one Guard unit would have different ciphers to another.
Also ciphers can use body language and hand signals far more than secret tounge. (I.e when the swat team leader holds up his hand makes a fist then holds up two digits etc).
Ciphers is quick and secure as a language but can only give quite specific details so you couldn't hold a normal long conversation with it.
That's my take anyway.
Edited by Visitor QGlossia above would be a 'secret tongue'.
Ciphers on the other hand rely on cipher keys or other forms of decoding. They are also quite popular in prison letters to communicate with gang leaders from inside (often using the 10th Upper Case letter to start each word, and every underlined letter afterwards to make words. Grossly oversimplified).
As said previously, you can write down a secret tongue, but it's still something your common literate bloke will look at with an eye brow 'That's gibberish' or 'what the fek is this?'. Ciphers can be written deceptively in a letter, with the intent of passing through observation, or it can pass through a military vox network (encrypted channels requiring the key on the deciphering end).