Voynich Theories

 

If you have ever found yourself asking “Where can I found out about XYZ’s moderately-loopy-but-eerily-hard-to-disprove Voynich Manuscript theory?“, then you’ve come to the right place. Here’s very probably the longest list of such theories on the Internet…

And finally, Voynich theorists who wish to remain (at least partially) anonymous…

17 Comments

  1. avatar Tricia May 21, 2013 3:47 pm

    Landmann says
    They believe (through a wrong letter assignment) to read the word “oladabas.” Then they put to the level of the word “olazabel” and deem the VMS to be catalane. “Olazabel” is Basque.

    I wonder if that was ever tested more?

  2. avatar Diane O’Donovan April 23, 2013 2:46 pm

    I would have liked to read Ackerson’s ideas, but the link seems long gone.

  3. avatar Rolando (@fisicoteorico) January 13, 2013 1:25 am

    I let them know that the code, is based on u8n code used by the kings of the world to communicate secretly, but the bigger problem is that this code behind, I met since I was 7a, there are other codes, that could only be decode, if someone had the table where there are over 784 simulated codes, right, 784 codes, to the left, 784 down codes, and 784 codes up, meaning that there are more than 3136 combinations, but I think just used the code 9, these tables may still be in the hands of some other king, he is satisfied of their ancestors, was the most common form of communication of their reigns and the decisions they had to do, I have a notion , some of the symbols, but these are artificial, and to decode them, must be obtained in order such as decoding, the plants are similar to each other, that we still have, but mostly, these plants seem familiar, are seen in Guatemala, Ecuador. I’m working on artificial remember those codes, I doubt that the words of 2, 3, and more letters, may be giving other codes, indicating that only the codes are fake or artificial, any communication, may do so by writing to rolandohernandezrivero @ gmail.com.

    quiero hacerles saber, que el código, está basado en u8n código que usaban los reyes del mundo para comunicarse secretamente, pero el problema mayor, es que detrás de este código, que conocí desde que tenía 7a, hay otros códigos, que solo se podrían decodificar, si alguien tuviera la tabla en donde hay más de 784 códigos simulados, hacia la derecha, 784 códigos, hacia la izquierda, 784 códigos hacia abajo, y 784 códigos hacia arriba, ósea que hay más de 3136 combinaciones, pero, creo que solo usaba el código 9, estas tablas, podrían estar aun, en manos de algún otro rey, que tenga constancia de sus ancestros, era la forma más común de la comunicación de sus reinados y las decisiones que tenían que hacer, creo tener, noción, de algunos de los símbolos, pero estos son artificiales, y para decodificarlos, hay que obtener en su orden dicha forma de decodificarlo, las plantas, tienen parecidos a otras, que aun tenemos, pero mayormente, estas plantas aparentemente familiares, son vistas en Guatemala, Ecuador.
    Estoy trabajando en recordar dichos códigos artificiales, dudo, que las palabras, de 2, 3, y más letras, puedan estar dando otros códigos, esto solamente están indicando a los códigos falsos, o artificiales, cualquier comunicación, pueden hacerlo escribiendo a rolandohernandezrivero@gmail.com.

  4. avatar thomas spande January 8, 2013 6:39 pm

    Dear all, In my opinion, the cipher substitution is consistent and constant, i.e. a “backward swirly S” is an S throughout the VM. An important proviso however is that not all those swirly S’s are created equal. For example, some represent embedded scribal abbreviations, a right paren “)” atop a “c” null, at first glance looks like that backward swirly S but is made with two strokes of the pen and indicates truncation follows. Here is the nux of why the decoding of the VM is problematic. I think a consistent system of cipher substitution can be achieved but then another layer of the onion is met and that is the use of invented scribal abbreviations as well as incorporation of known abbreviations, such as the Tironian notation that Nick has commented on. We have layered atop a cipher substitution, the use of deletions and truncations that are indicated by what appear at first glance, simple scribal flourishes but are, I think, embedded macrons. Cheers, Tom S.

  5. avatar nickpelling January 6, 2013 9:42 pm

    Michael: it is indeed possible to tie very complicated (and random-looking) cryptographic knots with a relatively small amount of creative effort. Yet that’s [k]not what we see in the Voynich Manuscript: there, we see a strong patterning system, with even tighter letter-to-letter binding than in English or Latin. There are even strong statistical patterns in places you wouldn’t necessarily expect, like the first letter of a paragraph, two-thirds of the way along the top line of a paragraph, the end of a line, the start of a word, etc.

    So, the challenge here isn’t explaining away too much randomness, it’s explaining away too little randomness. Hope this is a help! :-)

    http://www.nickpelling.com/

  6. avatar Michael Kyle January 6, 2013 9:30 pm

    nickpelling: I guess that is where my knowledge on the subject of ciphers and cryptology ends. I know very little.

    Now I could be very wrong, but would it be so hard to make up your own script and ways of transcoding that would be impossible for anyone to mathematically deduce based on the sheer randomness of the encoding methods?

    Say every letter has more than one character, actual spaces are random, deciphered spaces are indicated using a number of encrypted characters. Encoded character order shifts on a set order with the introduction of new sentences on a given page. Letter order for any given word could shift based on position in a sentence. etc. etc. etc.

    Could something that complex and thought out really be decoded by a person who knows nothing of the encoding methods? This subject is starting to fascinate me, I think I’m going to read more on it.

  7. avatar nickpelling January 6, 2013 8:44 pm

    Michael: all fair enough deductions… but the big question is how. Specifically, how that person managed to achieve that before anything as complex as polyalphabetic ciphers were invented. :-)

    http://www.nickpelling.com/

  8. avatar Michael Kyle January 6, 2013 6:47 pm

    After a brief study of the VMs, I came to a possibly insignificant conclusion to describe the plant drawings with no real life counterpart. Someone who would go to such great lengths to hide the meaning of the text would also find a way to hide the identity of the botanical plants referenced in the text.

    I believe the VM to be nothing more than an early 15th century physician or herbalist going to great depths to hide the secrets of his practice. After all, there was a lot of money to be made by reputable physicians from the noble class during this age. This author in the process just also happened to create an indecipherable text, probably due to his own paranoia of the subject matter becoming public, thus rendering his knowledge unprofitable.

  9. avatar thomas spande December 18, 2012 11:17 pm

    Dear all, a “ps” to my last post. One very important point, recognized by most, is that the word lengths in the VM are arbitary but made to resemble real word lengths. Words have been taken apart and put back together in odd ways. There seem no really reliable markers for word endings although my view is that the tipped “?” which is “ch” in Armenian may serve often as the end of a word. The ampersand, “&” occurs here and there but often at the start of a word, sometimes isolated and sometimes at the end of a word. It can mean just the letters “et” but also Latin for “and” or part of “etc”. Its use in Latin, either medieval or renaissance, is a puzzle at the moment.

    There are many Tironian notes (Nick first pointed this out) and other scribal abbreviations which complicate life as often the usual indicators like the “overbar” are missing. Cheers, Tom

  10. avatar thomas spande December 18, 2012 7:54 pm

    Dear all, I think most Voynichers will agree to the following:

    1) the end product is Latin but likely a Latin style, loaded with scribal abbreviations, that is older than the early 15C vellum date of the VM.

    2)Most think it is a cipher substitution code

    3)I doubt personally that many, maybe none, of the plants depicted in the herbal section are accurate depictions of real plants but have been altered to feature likely medicinal uses. Some are totally fanciful with mouse- or beetle- shaped leaves. Leaves are often joined and indicate, I think, the plant’s use for healing breaks in the skin. If green, then fresh leaves are used. If brown, dried leaves can be used. If plant stems join, the leaves or roots can be used as an aid in healing bone breaks. If the roots are untinted, they are not used. Hidden writing is in some roots.

    3) Certain glyphs resemble those used in Armenian but have other meanings (my idea, not generally accepted).

    4)Two scribes are at work but both seem to use the same abbreviations and cipher substitutions so are likely working from an enciphered plain text. The VM is definitely a copy as has been shown by codicology studies of Nick Pelling and others.

    5)the tinting or coloration is of two types: original, very faint in most drawings or done later and perhaps several times by tinters of varying skills. Some water color is used, some crayon and apparently some goache is used. The original was evidently colored ink.

    5) The vellum has been fairly precisely dated by C-14/C-12 isotope ratios but the date at which the ink was applied remains uncertain. It likely also originates from the early 15C.

    Cheers, Tom

  11. avatar Ruby December 13, 2012 2:35 pm

    Hello! I started to publish my first attempts at translation of the Voynich manuscript on my blog. I would be honored to your review at the work. Best regards
    Ruby

    http://readingvoynich.wordpress.com

  12. avatar thomas spande December 12, 2012 9:52 pm

    Mary, I think you are right on many points, or at least they tend to agree with my prejudices. I believe it is in Latin cursive, maybe of the Czech flavor (no Q. W and the incorporation of what I think are “ch”s. I think the language overlaid is not Hebrew but Armenian which has a number of glyphs used in the VM: the 4, the 8 and 9, the mirrored “&”, the tipped “?” the “o” sometimes appearing as “a” and the backward swirly “S”.The key to a decrypt is the 8 and 9 which use letters (Roman e and t respectively) so that 89 becomes et (and). The 4, “mirrored &”, tipped ? are “c”. “f” and “ch” respectively. The herbs are deliberately fanciful and have medical uses embedded in them. They are reasonably well drawn but very poorly tinted and retinted. Orignal ink can be found in every one by careful inspection.I think the substituted ciphers (the c-c combinations and the gallows glyphs) were designed to resemble Arabic. Nick pelling on his pages points out the use of Latin scribal abbreviations for omitted letters and truncations. These abound in the VM. We may never know the purpose of this thing and the extreme care used in copying from some coded plaintext, likely in Latin but with a lot of English, German and Italian may as you indicate be intended for initiates or intimates of the scribes. I don’t think there is a “colophon” or if there were one, it was scraped off. The sentences on the last page were not by either of the scribal hands involved in the creation of the VM. Any normal colophon is in the hand of the vellum maker and scribe, not a sloppy thing like we see in the VM. Best wishes. Tom Spande

  13. avatar Mary October 26, 2012 5:05 pm

    This is indeed a difficult book to break down, I have taken a look at it thoroughly, perhaps because it seems like it is a copy of another book and hence why it is scribed without fault in penmanship, with the exception of a repeated word here and there (which is often the case when someone is copying text from another book). Things that add more to my suspicion that this is a copy are the crude drawings, from someone with no drawing ability trying to re-draw a depiction by someone else as well as some of the drawings appearing somewhat similar to the botanical pharmaceutical portion of the Harleian Manuscripts. Perhaps both had access to the original and decided to “re-write” them by their own conclusions and perceptions. I don’t quite agree with the Manchu suggestion and many others as I had tried those languages. Problem with it lays in that it’s in the stylized writing of the era, almost as a Latin cursiva but with variations of what seem to be some sort of ancient language combination which meant the original writer was adept in linguistics as well as ancient languages. There’s a colophon, and there might be indeed the phonetic form of writing which adds even more difficulty in translation. If indeed some of the researchers suggesting that the writing is ancient Hebrew, because then there seems to be some mix match of Aramaic along with a few ancient Greek letters then that would mean that either it’s a copy of something from somewhere slightly before (or around) 300 BCE Mesopotamia or someone with a good knowledge base of the languages of the era. I don’t agree that this was something someone wrote to make a book seem to have more value, since I myself had made in the past some private journals written in a mix match of ancient languages or made up runes (like Tolkien’s Uruk) so no one could read my journals. But for the invented runs I do have a puzzle (a table or legend) to help break down the alphabet of those fictional runes if I were to give the journal to someone else. Meaning this was something secretive of the time in which only a selected few were meant to read it (ie apprentice). This is just my opinion from a mere observer, nonetheless despite everything it is a beautiful “journal” of sorts.

  14. avatar Joachim Dathe October 13, 2012 3:10 pm

    I am missing my development here:
    voynich2arabic.wordpress.com

    http://voynich2arabic.wordpress.com

  15. avatar Shiam September 18, 2012 2:21 pm

    Upon viewing the Voynich Book page by page, IMMEDIATLY
    understood the language, and why no one in the past times have not deciphered.
    This language is ” The Heavenly Language”.
    No one has before has understood this language, It is a gift given. Man did not write this, it was penned by man, but the language was given from our heavens.
    Know that these plants were in the Garden, Long past.
    For Healing and Knowledge purpose. Look and see, understand.

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