The Voynich Ninja

Since I first wrote the draft paper attached to You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. above in this thread, I have extended the set of cipher rules for determining when to read/write words backwards instead of forwards. Here is this set of backwards words cipher rules as I have currently identified them:

Words may be written forwards or backwards. But this decision is not made at random or arbitrarily; rather, the forwards or backwards order of words is in line with the “Yorkist” theme of the cipher wherever possible, as the following rules will explain:
 
A word is written backwards if doing so will achieve any of the following “Yorkist” appearances of the word as written on the page:

• If it will make the “Y” character appear first in the word, as in “YORK”
  
• If it will make the “K” character appear last in the word, as in “YORK”
  
• If it will make the first letter “b” of the detested “BolingBroke” appear last in the word
  
• If it will make the first letter “m” of the Yorkist claimant to the throne “MortiMer” appear first in the word
  
• If it will make the “r” character appear last in the word, as in “MoRtiMeR”
  
• If it will make the “p” character appear first in the word, as in “Percy”
  
• If it will make the “th” character appear first in the word, since the “th” character is similar in shape to the “Y” character
  
• If it will make the “n” character appear first in the word, since the “n” character is similar in shape to the “m” character
  
• If it will make the “t” character appear first in the word, since the “t” character is similar in shape to the “p” character
  
• If it will make the “f, v” or “d” character combinations appear first in the word, since they contain the “p” and “t” characters respectively
  

Yes, these rules create a large number of "Yorkist cipher homonym" sets. That is part of the extreme difficulty of the cipher. But it is also a very good explanation for the low entropy values measured in the Voynich MS text, as well as for the unusual restrictions on which characters and combinations can occur in which parts of a word, the beginning, middle, or end. 

Geoffrey

There's a lot of questions one could ask here, not least about the farts galore.  But I'll start with a basic one.  What was the methodology for arriving at the theorized correspondences, especially the "backwards ones"? 

It may be contained earlier in this thread, but in the word doc I see nothing about the methodology.  You have worked through 10 lines, and the odd word here and there.  These 10 lines are not sufficient to establish such correspondences, especially the "backwards ones".  Looking quickly, I see only 3 or 4 examples of the b-reversal in those 10 lines, and one apparent example where a b wasn't reversed ("si-sib").  I can't see any clear examples of y/th being reversed in them. 

So:  what data and method did you use to arrive at these conclusions?  Did you take a sample of words ending in *m across the manuscript?  How many?  What ratio of them made clear Middle English words when reversed?  How many would still have made clear Middle English words in their unreversed form?  What is the rule for deciding not to reverse, e.g. si-sib? 

If those ten lines are the bulk of the sample, and the rationale for deciding to reverse is because doing so makes a Middle English word that could vaguely be connected to the Wars of the Roses, then I'm afraid the path of reasoning you are racing down is taking you round and round in circles.

About the b-reversal: As many Voynich MS researchers know, the character EVA [m] tends to occur at the end of a line of text. In these 10 lines, this character, which I read as the Yorkist cipher letter value "b", occurs as the final character of 5 of the 10 lines! To wit, the 7th, 5th, 3rd, and 2nd lines from the bottom of You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. , and also the 3rd line from the top of You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. . I consider 50% of the lines in this passage to be a rather substantial proportion of line-final EVA [m] / Yorkist cipher letter value "b", although that was not even my particular aim to identify a large proportion of line-final "b" in this passage of text. It just happened to be there.

My initial inspiration to identify the cipher rule to write any plaintext word with initial "b" backwards to make "b" appear in word-final position instead came from the three words of text on folio page You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. , where all three words end in EVA [m]. It so happens that all three of those words spell Middle English words both when read forwards and when read backwards. That was where the idea of the backwards b-words cipher rule first occurred to me.

Also, in the center ring of text on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. , the only two words that must be read backwards are the 5th and 10th words, which both have word-final EVA [m].

You can catch up on this particular topic within the thread by reading the following posts: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., and You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.. Again, I identified the backwards b-words cipher rule based on all of these prior passages of text, before I ever even looked at the 10 lines of text on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. and You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. that are under discussion here.

Again, the "Yorkist" motivation for this rule is to banish the first letter of "BolingBroke", the name of the first Lancastrian king Henry IV, to the end of almost every word in which it appears. 

Thus, the Middle English words "bimoueth", "BiYtch", "biri", and "bou" are all written backwards at the ends of lines in this passage, because of this rule.

The Middle English word "si-sib" does not need to be written backwards, because "b" is already at the end of it, "where it belongs" according to the Yorkist anti-Bolingbroke perspective of the authors and creators of this cipher!

============== ======= = 

You also ask about examples of y/th being reversed in words in this passage. I can point to the following examples: 

In the 7th line from the bottom of You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. , the second word EVA [sheol] = Yorkist "theOs" = Middle English "soueth". 

Same line, sixth word EVA [sholar] = Yorkist "thOsir" = Middle English "riseth". (I explain elsewhere that "O" is sometimes written to represent an unstressed "e" in endings such as "-er" and "-eth". The "Yorkist" motivation is to make the letter "O" in "YORK" appear as frequently as possible in the text.)

And the final word in this line is an example of both the backwards b-words and backwards final-th-words cipher rules: EVA [sheoctham] = Yorkist "theOmib" = Middle English "bimoueth".

In the 6th line from the bottom of You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. , the second word EVA [shokal] = Yorkist "thOtis" = Middle English "siteth".

Same line, final word EVA [shoekar] = Yorkist "thOetir" = Middle English "riteth".

In the 5th line from the bottom of You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. , the fifth word EVA [cholols] = Yorkist "Ychchl" = Middle English "lacche". (This is an example of the cipher writing final "e" as Yorkist cipher letter value "Y", and then writing the word backwards, in order to make the first letter "Y" of the word "YORK" appear as the first written character of words in the text as frequently as possible.) 

Same line, sixth word EVA [chkaiin] = Yorkist "YtO" = Middle English "oute". (This word follows exactly the same process as described for the previous word.)

In the last line at the bottom of You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. , the second word EVA [chokal] = Yorkist "Ydis" = Middle English "side". (Also the same process as the previous two words in this list.)

Geoffrey

(12-05-2021, 02:20 AM)geoffreycaveney Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.The Middle English word "si-sib" does not need to be written backwards, because "b" is already at the end of it, "where it belongs" according to the Yorkist anti-Bolingbroke perspective of the authors and creators of this cipher!

I'm afraid you have missed my point here.  Let me rephrase my question:  how are you determining whether a word ending with -b needs to be reversed by you or be left untouched in order to find meaning? 

In the small sample you provide, there are a number of words ending with EVA m, which you transpose as -b.  These are theoumib; chtyib; irib; sisib; and oub (EVA sheoctham; olfcham; aram; dalam; and aim).   You then reverse the order of four of these in order to produce a Middle English word.  But not sisib.  You say the b was naturally at the end of the word.  How does your system distinguish between sisib and the others, and does this happen anywhere else?

(12-05-2021, 02:12 PM)tavie Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

(12-05-2021, 02:20 AM)geoffreycaveney Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.The Middle English word "si-sib" does not need to be written backwards, because "b" is already at the end of it, "where it belongs" according to the Yorkist anti-Bolingbroke perspective of the authors and creators of this cipher!

I'm afraid you have missed my point here.  Let me rephrase my question:  how are you determining whether a word ending with -b needs to be reversed by you or be left untouched in order to find meaning? 

In the small sample you provide, there are a number of words ending with EVA m, which you transpose as -b.  These are theoumib; chtyib; irib; sisib; and oub (EVA sheoctham; olfcham; aram; dalam; and aim).   You then reverse the order of four of these in order to produce a Middle English word.  But not sisib.  You say the b was naturally at the end of the word.  How does your system distinguish between sisib and the others, and does this happen anywhere else?

The nature of the encryption method of this cipher is that there can be no "automatic" way to distinguish between these two possibilities. Yes, one may say that according to strictly and purely cryptographic principles, it is thus a "defective cipher". I do not dispute this point. However, I argue that we may able to find enough context clues in order to suss out the intended meaning of the great majority of the words and lines of the MS text anyway. For example, with the word "theoumib" it is really not so difficult at all to see that this must have been "bimoueth" written backwards, as it is fairly clear to see that "theoumib" is not a word. And with "chtyib", well, given the context, it is fairly obvious to recognise which English word is spelled backwards here, even 600 years later. In general, there are many more words that begin with "b" than words that end with "b", so very often it will be clear or even obvious that such a word is written backwards.

But I admit that there can be certain ambiguous cases. In general, the shorter the word, the fewer letters it has, the more possibility there is that an added layer of "Yorkist cipher homonymy" can be created by these cipher rules. In such cases, the reader attempting to decipher the text must hope that the other, less ambiguous, words provide enough context to guide one in the correct choice of the intended original word and meaning of the more ambiguous cipher words.

Thus, the whole thing is like a very complicated word puzzle game. It cannot have been intended as a very practical method of encrypted communication. Rather, it was a secret cipher word puzzle shared only among a very small and close group of people. One can imagine the author of a particular line showing it to his siblings or other close companions, and challenging them to figure out what the words mean and what the line says. And again, of course, it was a very good thing for them that the cipher was so complicated, obscure, and ambiguous -- because if Henry IV or an official in his court had discovered the manuscript and somehow been able to crack the cipher and figure out what the text meant, its authors all would have been executed for treason!

Geoffrey

Naturally a research project such as my theory of the Voynich MS as a complicated Yorkist English cipher text written in Middle English and in French is a long-term work in progress, and as such I must continually make additions, improvements, and revisions to my work. I cannot post every single such revision publicly, but from time to time I want to update readers of this thread and this forum, so that you may see the most current and updated version of my theory and my research work.

The attached file represents the most current and updated presentation of my theory and the research that supports it. In particular, the attached document revises and updates my hypothesis about the place of origin where the primary master scribe of the Voynich MS script and text was trained: an Iberian-trained master scribe who likely joined the retinue of Edward, 2nd Duke of York, during the period when he served as the Lieutenant of the Duchy of Aquitaine and thus was the effective de facto ruler of English-controlled Aquitaine and Gascony from July 1401 until May 1403. At this time English-controlled Gascony bordered Navarre, Aragon, and the northeast tip of Castile, so I consider it quite plausible that some Iberian-trained master scribe very well could have joined the Duke of York's retinue during this period. Edward actually inherited the title of Duke of York during this period, in 1402. Then I propose that he retained this Iberian-trained master scribe in his retinue (service) when he returned to England and Wales in 1403, and it was this scribe who was the primary inventor and writer of the Voynich MS script and text in the following years, likely beginning in 1404-1405 in accordance with historical events in England described in the lines of text on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. and You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. that I have read and interpreted so far. This master scribe could have taught and trained a few other scribes (the other "Hands") to write this script, regardless of the national origin of these other scribes. The point of this hypothesis is to address the objection from palaeographic experts and scholars of medieval European manuscripts that the handwriting of the Voynich MS script and text does not resemble that of an English-trained or even of a French-trained scribe. 

The attached file also includes the updated description of the Yorkist cipher rules, as well as all 11 consecutive lines of text that I have now read and interpreted at the bottom of You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (7 lines) and the top of You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (4 more lines). The last line of this text will be new to readers of this thread.

Geoffrey

I just want to make a brief comment here for readers of various threads on this forum, that while the discussion of "Input data accuracy" is quite interesting in its own right and well worth studying, I consider it highly and extremely unlikely that this could possibly be a decisive factor in the evaluation of the correctness or incorrectness of my theory of the Voynich MS text as a Yorkist English cipher text written in Middle English and in French. I use the standard and popular Takahashi transcription for consistency and to avoid introducing my own bias into the reading of the Voynich characters themselves, precisely because I am well aware that certain other degrees of freedom must unavoidably be introduced in the ensuing steps of my interpretation process. Yes, there may well be a small number of minor imprecisions and inaccuracies in Takahaski's transcription; indeed, there may be such imprecisions and inaccuracies in any such transcription. And yes, these may affect a small number of minor details of my reading and interpretation of lines of text in the MS. Such things cannot be avoided at this stage of this process, because the exact correct transcription will not become clear, if it ever does, until after the meaning of the MS script and text is definitively determined. 

If my theory is right, the small number of errors in minor details of the Takahashi transcription are extremely unlikely to obscure the large-scale correctness of the reading and interpretation of the great majority of the MS text. If my theory is wrong, it will not be the possible errors in the Takahashi transcription that are the decisive criterion in making such a determination. I just want to make this point clear to all readers of this thread and the other threads currently active on this forum.

Geoffrey

There is quite a list of good reasons why your theory cannot be correct, but I also agree that transliteration accuracy is not one of them. I think I already wrote it before, but the changes you introduce, seemingly arbitrarily, are orders of magnitude greater than any transliteration errors.

These very significant changes are necessary of course, because, without them, the Voynich MS text cannot be mapped to Middle English (or Latin, German, Greek etc etc), as demonstrated by the Voynich of Bennett, Stolfi, etc.

Even with all these changes, I have extreme doubt about the validity of the resulting plain text.

(15-05-2021, 01:53 PM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.There is quite a list of good reasons why your theory cannot be correct, but I also agree that transliteration accuracy is not one of them. I think I already wrote it before, but the changes you introduce, seemingly arbitrarily, are orders of magnitude greater than any transliteration errors.

These very significant changes are necessary of course, because, without them, the Voynich MS text cannot be mapped to Middle English (or Latin, German, Greek etc etc), as demonstrated by the Voynich of Bennett, Stolfi, etc.

Even with all these changes, I have extreme doubt about the validity of the resulting plain text.

I am happy to debate and discuss any particular analysis of reasons why you or others may believe that my theory cannot be correct. I do dispute the characterisation of the "Yorkist cipher" rules that I propose as "arbitrary" (or rather the claim that I introduce them "seemingly arbitrarily"). A particular strength of my current theory is that I have provided a very clear reason and motivation for the cipher authors to introduce these cipher rules which curiously reduce the entropy of the resulting cipher text: The aim was to make the letters of the word "YORK" appear as frequently as possible throughout the MS text. That may be bizarre, but it is not arbitrary; it may be a very strange reason, but it is not without reason. Further, an additional aim was to make the first letters of "York", "Mortimer", and "Percy" appear as the first letter of as many words as possible throughout the MS text; to make the final letters of "YorK" and "MoRtiMeR" appear as the final letter of as many words as possible; to make the first letter of the hated name "BolingBroke" appear as the last letter in almost every word in which it appears, and almost never as the first letter of a word; and even to make characters and combinations with very similar physical shapes to the characters for "Y", "M", and "P" -- that is, the characters for "th", "n", "t", and the combinations representing "f, v" and "d" -- also appear as the first letter of as many words as possible throughout the MS text. Yes, all of this may be even more bizarre, but it cannot be called "arbitrary": There is a clear reason and even a political motivation for the choice of letters involved. All three words "York", "Mortimer", and "Percy" are the family names or titles of the principals of the rebellion against Henry IV in the period 1403-1406 and the following years.

Geoffrey

Perhaps an illustrative way of looking at this, is to try to follow what the person did, when composing the Voynich MS text. This is from one of the most recent examples, in post #103.

The proposal is that the following plain text was encoded into the MS:

Quote:" kirche-eek -- irour-isynge, picchynge, path-isynge -- is also accitynge tir-biri "
" siest side, lo! sis dis-lisynge "

Now the fist question is whether this is valid Middle English. I am no expert, but it looks extremely weird to me. The explanation of this text in modern English is proposed to be:

Quote:" The Church also -- seeing wrath, equipping with weapons, seeing the path -- is also summoning the three regions "
" You fall down sideways, lo! [your] good fortune being ruined "

This raises two more problems: first of all this is not really a completely sensible text. It looks like the earlier mentioned "word salad" to me. The second is, that, if one really translated this into middle English, one would not end up with the proposed plain text.

However, when encoding:

Quote:" kirche-eek -- irour-isynge, picchynge, path-isynge -- is also accitynge tir-biri "
" siest side, lo! sis dis-lisynge "

it is first transformed by the encoder into:

Quote:" KrcheeeK  irOrisK  pYcK  pthisK  isOsl  KtisK  tir  iriB "
" sYOs  Ydis  lO  sis  dislisYeK "

This involves:
- numerous deletions: i, u, ch , a , a , ac , i , t ,  (maybe not complete)
- numerous changes: ynge -> K (while K is also K) , i -> Y , cc -> K , y -> i , ie -> YO , e -> Y ,
- at least one introduction of an e.

Finally EVA transliteration:

Quote:[ yroleeey  arairaly  pchody  tshaly  alols  ykaly  kar  aram ]
[ dchol  chokal  saiin  dal  okalsalchey ]

Now if one wanted to test if this could really work on some real middle English text (and there are plenty examples), then one would still have to make some arbitrary changes like in what I called the "first transformation".

There is simply no way of testing this....