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It's the fictional Iran-Turkey war.

The Iranian commander is ordering his troops. He encodes his order in their own language:

۶۶۰ ۶ ۲۰۱ ۲۳۳

What did he order?

Note 1: Each number (one-digit or three-digit) is a single word.

Note 2: The numbers are from left to right. Of course, the resulting sentence is from right to left.

Note 3: Each letter has a number and a word is made by summing the numbers of each letter in it.

Note 4: You may need to be good in Persian language and some of its secret war words.

Note 5: The first word has 4 letters, the second one has 2 letters, the third has also two letters, and the last (fourth) word has six letters.

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1 Answer 1

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The widespreed and common cipher in Perso-Arabic alphabet (first used by Arabs) is Abjad system which itself roots back to Phoenician alphabet.

The system consists of 28 letters. Each of them has a number assigned. The system isn't in the alphabetical order of Arabic language wchich also has 28 letters.

The Abjad order is as follows (right to left):

ا، ب، ج، د، ه، و، ز، ح، ط، ی، ک، ل، م، ن، س، ع، ف، ص، ق، ر، ش، ت، ث، خ، ذ، ض، ظ، غ

The numbers are as follows (from left to right (the first number for ا)):

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90, 100, 200, 300, 400, 500, 600, 700, 800, 900, 1000.

Since the Persian alphabet has four additional letters (پ، چ، ژ، گ), Iranians have added them after the last Abjad letter (غ) in the following order, again from right to left: گ، چ، پ، ژ

And the corresponding numbers are 2000, 3000, 4000, and 5000 respectively.

In the question we have the numbers: ۶۶۰ = 660, ۶ = 6, ۲۰۱ = 201, and ۲۳۳ = 233.

660 = 20 + 300 + 40 + 300 (four letters): کشمش (ک ش م ش)

6 = 5 + 1 (two letters): ها (ه ا)

201 = 200 + 1 (two letters): را (ر ا)

233 = 2 + 200 + 10 + 7 + 10 + 4 (six letters): بریزید (ب ر ی ز ی د)

کشمش ها را بریزید

It literally means "pour the currants"

کشمش (currant), ها (plurality sign), را (objective sign), بریزید (to pour in ordering form)

The commander has in fact ordered his troops to attack the enemy with mortars. Because "currant" is used in Iranian war vocabulary as mortar to avoid spyings.

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    $\begingroup$ Thank you for your self-answer. For the larger numbers in the hundreds, is it possible that there are other ways to assemble letters to sum to those numbers? I can imagine the meaning of the sentence changing significantly due to this. $\endgroup$ Commented Jul 11 at 5:57
  • $\begingroup$ @BenjaminWang Yes it is possible. But the resulting word shouldn't be gibberish. For example, 660 can be a 3-lettered word instead of 4. Or it can be another 4-lettered word. But even if those weren't gibberish words they didn't match the answer in the question. Because they weren't related to war. Of course, currant is related to war as I explained in my answer. $\endgroup$ Commented Jul 11 at 16:45

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