Here we go with the Voynich manuscript..it has already been discussed in the ‘general cipher’ section, however this thread might fit well to discuss (or not discuss) it in future. High Res pics from two different sources, too.
http://www.voynich.nu/folios.html
My personal opinion is that it is either gibberish or alien stuff. There are two good reasons for this theory: First, according to biologists, the plants rather do not exist in nature. Second, the language doesn’t fit to approximately 60 different languages, including aramean, urdu, galic etc..
If you follow this section ( https://www.jasondavies.com/voynich/#f7 … 0.469/3.80) you will find that the book deals with some astrological signs, although they are not only in sort of a wrong order but also has the Taurus in it twice while the Aquarius is in fact missing (possibly due to a lost page):
Regular order of astrological signs (‘on earth’):
1 Aries
2 Taurus
3 Gemini
4 Cancer
5 Leo
6 Virgo
7 Libra
8 Scorpio
9 Sagittarius
10 Capricorn
11 Aquarius
12 Pisces
Voynich order of astrological signs (‘somewhere out there’):
12 Pisces
10 Capricorn
1 Aries
2 Taurus/Taurus
3 Gemini
4 Cancer
7 Libra
5 Leo
6 Virgo
8 Scorpio
9 Sagittarius
Below some of the signs (which clearly are..you can find Sagittarius, Pisces, Libra, Taurus etc.), some Voynich text is written. As one may find out, some of them can be read easily, others are almost unreadable. Of those readable, the length of the words as well as the letters can be transcripted (e.g. Pieces = ‘mars’ etc.). What also can be seen is that Gemini and Scorpio start and end with the same Voynich letter/symbol. Additionally, the Taurus – which can be recognized by its appearance, its position between Aries and Gemini as well as a hamper implying it to be a stock-farmed animal – is represented by a three letter word. Latter indeed does exist in some languages (‘byk’ in Russian, Slovenian, Slovakian, Polisch, Czech or ‘Tyr’ in Danish, Norwegian). HOWEVER: According to the Voynich manuscript, the first letter of the Taurus sign should be equal to the first letter of the Pieces sign. Amongst approximately 60 different languages, this ain’t the case in any of those languages.
So either the Voynich manuscript is gibberish OR it is from some alien planet out there (where the astrological signs do have the same names but occurr in a different order).
A final idea could be that there might have existed sort of a secret magician ‘druid’ language. This would fit, considering an error regarding the astrological sign order, also to the content of the manuscript.
Some more thoughts:
On this page, one female holds a cross which might place the manuscript into an area of Christianity
https://www.jasondavies.com/voynich/#f7 … 0.124/4.40
Only few men can be seen inside the manuscript, mostly are women:
https://www.jasondavies.com/voynich/#f7 … /0.47/5.00
https://www.jasondavies.com/voynich/#f7 … /0.47/5.00
The author had known about fishing, balancing and crossbows:
https://www.jasondavies.com/voynich/#f7 … /0.47/3.00 and following
Here might be sort of a healing issue (lower left):
https://www.jasondavies.com/voynich/#f6 … /0.47/2.00
I prefer the druid version..written in a language that doesn’t exist since more than 800 years..or a thrown-away cooking book from our ancients, 20,000 years ago, while visiting earth? What is your opinion?
QT
*ZODIACHRONOLOGY*
I don’t know what to make of VMS yet but I recently bought this book and read the essays that come with it:
https://www.amazon.com/Voynich-Manuscri … 300217234/
Fascinating stuff. The cryptology pioneer William Friedman spent many years studying VMS. After he died, a message was opened bearing the solution to an anagram he used to hide his opinion of the VMS in. The solution was:
"The Voynich Manuscript was an early attempt to construct an artificial or universal language of the A-Priori type.—Friedman"
So I suppose that would fall in your "gibberish" category. I also have a copy of Codex Seraphinianus which contains a really good example of an invented language and script (although it is interesting to note that the page numbering system was decoded, and found to be using an actual variation of a base 21 system.)
Many words, approximately 10-25% start like ‘qotc’..which is absolutely unusual for a subsitution cipher. Also, due to the length of the words, it rather ain’t a syllable cipher (nor Vigenere, transposition etc.). What could work, however, is sort of a Baconian cipher type (not to forget it might have come from R. Bacon). BUT even for this type of cipher, there are too many different words. So either it is sort of a combination of Baconian and transposition..which would be kind of a ‘new’ unbreakable cipher type, or its gibberish. As I can’t see any rational encryption method in such text, I’d rather say its gibberish (also no language in the world would ‘behave’ like that, even if it was a druid one).
Nice idea to get 600 gold ducats. I just wonder why someone had written and drawn that much for it..
QT
*ZODIACHRONOLOGY*
The Knight & Reddy paper has some interesting insights into the statistical properties of Voynichese:
http://www.isi.edu/natural-language/peo … ich-11.pdf
