03-01-2026, 08:57 PM
Greetings,
My name is David Leimbach and although I've had an interest in the Voynich Manuscript for many years this is my first time writing about it.
I'd like to draw attention to some issues that may be misdirecting our intuition and a solution to that misdirection.
Here I try to take a look through a scribes eyes and build a small profile regarding glyph consistency. Due to the severe lack of errors and the consistency with which glyphs are written in the text I don't think it's controversial to suggest each scribe was very skilled at their work but with some caveats.
It is clear there is great consistency among some glyphs but a lack of consistency among others.
Gallows glyphs are all over the place in height and form. Meanwhile many other glyphs look almost rubber stamped in their consistent size and shape. I would suggest this means we have many commonly known glyphs that scribes would have spent their entire careers writing and some new unusual glyphs, but to us and our scribe these are not the same sets of glyphs.
I propose Voynich glyphs are not all as unusual as they appear to us. I believe our scribe would be very familiar with some glyphs and that familiarity would help them write many consistently, but would actually know them as numbers.
Even the most skeptical must admit: the EVA-y is unmistakably the number 4. If this is a 4, could EVA-o be a 0? And then where are the other numbers? I propose many of the glyphs that are being considered as letters, should instead be read as numbers.
Our scribe as would any scribes of the time see these glyphs EVA-o,i(and n),r(and m),l,v,d(and g),y and see them immediately for what they are. The numbers 0,1,2,4,7,8,9. Of course 3,5,6 have no place in any self respecting book of appreciation for lumpy women so I must leave these to you to decide
[attachment=13300] Number images from Ms. Barth. 24, c. 1460s, Rhein region.
These characters of note can easily be read as:
EVA-n is the number 1 at the end of a "word"
EVA-m is the number 2 at the end of a "word"
EVA-g is the number 8 at the end of a "word"
These all resemble the suggested number with an additional descender or end of word flourish and all appear only at the ends of words.
[attachment=13302] [attachment=13303]
Furthermore EVA-i as the number 1 appears in the middle of words, but never at the end. EVA-n appears only at the end of words. Here's a little bit more evidence as I interpret this bit from folio 5v. EVA-n is usually made in a single pen stroke. You see two identical words, except on the second one it appears the scribe forgot the tail, finished the 1 and then added it in an additional stroke. The fact that the first stroke would by itself be an EVA-i adds to this impression.
[attachment=13304] [attachment=13301]
This leaves gallows and our new alphabet is much reduced: EVA-a,c,s,e,h,q,x,z
My reference for numbers is taken from Ms. Barth. 24, c. 1460s, Rhein region. Here is a sample (page 4)
[attachment=13305]
Unfortunately seen through these eyes does not give the VM such a sexy look that we're used to seeing anymore. To see the VM as a medieval scribe might and replacing gallows with characters on my keyboard leaves us looking at it like this. Here is the first paragraph of 1r, for illustration I've also swapped the gallows
EVA-f = &
EVA-p = $
EVA-t = #
EVA-k = %
&ach9s 9%a4 a2 a#a111 sh04 sh029 c#h2es 9 %02 sh0489 s029 c%ha2 02 9 %a12 ch#a111 sha2 a2e c#ha2 c#ha2 8a1 s9a112 she%9 02 9%a111 sh08 c#h0a29 c#hes 8a2a111 sa 00111 0#ee9 0#e0s 2040#9 c#ha2 8a111 0#a111 02 0%a1 8a12 9 chea2 c#ha111 c$ha2 c&ha111
The VM would have appeared much more familiar to a reader at the time it was written as a book of codes to be deciphered and not seen as a language to be translatable into any other written or spoken language.
Clearly this approach to looking at the glyphs has lots of implications, first of which is that there are no translatable words in the manuscript as commonly thought. Instead we're looking at codes which refer to some unknown keys that we must somehow reconstruct.
Thank you for your consideration.
My name is David Leimbach and although I've had an interest in the Voynich Manuscript for many years this is my first time writing about it.
I'd like to draw attention to some issues that may be misdirecting our intuition and a solution to that misdirection.
Here I try to take a look through a scribes eyes and build a small profile regarding glyph consistency. Due to the severe lack of errors and the consistency with which glyphs are written in the text I don't think it's controversial to suggest each scribe was very skilled at their work but with some caveats.
It is clear there is great consistency among some glyphs but a lack of consistency among others.
Gallows glyphs are all over the place in height and form. Meanwhile many other glyphs look almost rubber stamped in their consistent size and shape. I would suggest this means we have many commonly known glyphs that scribes would have spent their entire careers writing and some new unusual glyphs, but to us and our scribe these are not the same sets of glyphs.
I propose Voynich glyphs are not all as unusual as they appear to us. I believe our scribe would be very familiar with some glyphs and that familiarity would help them write many consistently, but would actually know them as numbers.
Even the most skeptical must admit: the EVA-y is unmistakably the number 4. If this is a 4, could EVA-o be a 0? And then where are the other numbers? I propose many of the glyphs that are being considered as letters, should instead be read as numbers.
Our scribe as would any scribes of the time see these glyphs EVA-o,i(and n),r(and m),l,v,d(and g),y and see them immediately for what they are. The numbers 0,1,2,4,7,8,9. Of course 3,5,6 have no place in any self respecting book of appreciation for lumpy women so I must leave these to you to decide
[attachment=13300] Number images from Ms. Barth. 24, c. 1460s, Rhein region.
These characters of note can easily be read as:
EVA-n is the number 1 at the end of a "word"
EVA-m is the number 2 at the end of a "word"
EVA-g is the number 8 at the end of a "word"
These all resemble the suggested number with an additional descender or end of word flourish and all appear only at the ends of words.
[attachment=13302] [attachment=13303]
Furthermore EVA-i as the number 1 appears in the middle of words, but never at the end. EVA-n appears only at the end of words. Here's a little bit more evidence as I interpret this bit from folio 5v. EVA-n is usually made in a single pen stroke. You see two identical words, except on the second one it appears the scribe forgot the tail, finished the 1 and then added it in an additional stroke. The fact that the first stroke would by itself be an EVA-i adds to this impression.
[attachment=13304] [attachment=13301]
This leaves gallows and our new alphabet is much reduced: EVA-a,c,s,e,h,q,x,z
My reference for numbers is taken from Ms. Barth. 24, c. 1460s, Rhein region. Here is a sample (page 4)
[attachment=13305]
Unfortunately seen through these eyes does not give the VM such a sexy look that we're used to seeing anymore. To see the VM as a medieval scribe might and replacing gallows with characters on my keyboard leaves us looking at it like this. Here is the first paragraph of 1r, for illustration I've also swapped the gallows
EVA-f = &
EVA-p = $
EVA-t = #
EVA-k = %
&ach9s 9%a4 a2 a#a111 sh04 sh029 c#h2es 9 %02 sh0489 s029 c%ha2 02 9 %a12 ch#a111 sha2 a2e c#ha2 c#ha2 8a1 s9a112 she%9 02 9%a111 sh08 c#h0a29 c#hes 8a2a111 sa 00111 0#ee9 0#e0s 2040#9 c#ha2 8a111 0#a111 02 0%a1 8a12 9 chea2 c#ha111 c$ha2 c&ha111
The VM would have appeared much more familiar to a reader at the time it was written as a book of codes to be deciphered and not seen as a language to be translatable into any other written or spoken language.
Clearly this approach to looking at the glyphs has lots of implications, first of which is that there are no translatable words in the manuscript as commonly thought. Instead we're looking at codes which refer to some unknown keys that we must somehow reconstruct.
Thank you for your consideration.
