The Voynich Ninja

(30-01-2026, 10:12 AM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Indeed the word lengths seem similar to those of Voynichese.  Hmm...

And that is High Bavarian, which is actually a mixture of Middle High German and Bavarian. In slang, the word lengths are even closer to Voynish. I have adapted it, but please note that it is not perfect, especially since I cannot imitate a single dialect from the Middle Ages - "it could be like that" (same Text in Slang/phonetic writen): 

Das sey dann, dasda Mensch zelang blüat, un dassa krank werd do solt’m als helfn
Nimma handsfoll krauts daäsda heyst sanguinaria ota bursa pastoris vñd habms fürd’ nasn‘s verstät.
Komts aber vonem haubt so ism vorzn indr stirn wee· wenim dr flus komt d'plüts hilfft däs kraut.
Hata abernit hitz vñd isnt inner fuchte vñd plüatts zesere komts vondm haubt
Kompt abrs vonde lebern soism we indr recht seit las manem aufdr recht hand.
Kompts abre vonde miltz soism wee inda linck seit las manm aufde linck hand.
Däsis auch d’allr edlst arzney d’ye ward.
Gurt‘n nicht lasm mit viel oben als dässa d’nacht plos lig vñd gewßm wassa däs halb effy sey andr stirn...

And if u now imagine that the Gallows could be Consonants / Consonantcluster. For Example Eva P p  maybe = "P/b and pl" then ur nearly in that case, and the Entropie will be as low as in voynich.  

(30-01-2026, 02:01 PM)Rafal Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Notice that he writes plůt instead of blut (blood).
AI tells me that this "p" instead of "b" seems to be a very south German / Swiss thing.

Yes, but that not the only shift

Basic form (Middle High German): bluot

Initial shifts (voicing):
bl- ↔ pl-

Vowel shifts (Upper German/Bavarian):
uo ↔ u ↔ ū ↔ ua ↔ ü

Final shifts:
-t ↔ -d

Possible Form (synthetic): bluot, blůt, blut, bluat, bluad, pluot, plůt, plut, pluat, pluad, blüt, plüt

And that's by no means all of the possible shifts in words of bavarien/Austria/switzerland. However, it could explain why the text, if it is indeed Bavarian slang that was written almost phonetically and then encrypted, can no longer be decrypted, even with a relatively simple cipher. Because you need the right slang for that. Especially since different villages would sometimes use completely different words for the same thing, words that we may not even know today.

(30-01-2026, 02:27 PM)DG97EEB Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Did Bavaria exist then?

[attachment=13804]

Of course. Here is a map of the Duchy of Bavaria.
Around 1400, Padua (Cimbrian) was still German-speaking. Apart from the city-state of Venice, as it was an island.

(30-01-2026, 02:27 PM)DG97EEB Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Did Bavaria exist then? My theory is also a southern German, meaning Swabia/Konstanz or ultra Montane as the Italians called them. Possibly a German educated in Padua who then returned North...

The Bavarian language originated in the 8th century, making it older than Middle High German.

(30-01-2026, 03:03 PM)JoJo_Jost Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

(30-01-2026, 02:27 PM)DG97EEB Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Did Bavaria exist then? My theory is also a southern German, meaning Swabia/Konstanz or ultra Montane as the Italians called them. Possibly a German educated in Padua who then returned North...

The Bavarian language originated in the 8th century, making it older than Middle High German.

Wow... Good knowledge... In any case, I think we are in agreement

I have spent quite a lot of time on RAG trying to find some suitable candidates as well....

(30-01-2026, 02:54 PM)Aga Tentakulus Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

(30-01-2026, 02:27 PM)DG97EEB Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Did Bavaria exist then?

Of course. Here is a map of the Duchy of Bavaria.
Around 1400, Padua (Cimbrian) was still German-speaking. Apart from the city-state of Venice, as it was an island.

Padova and the neighbouring cities such as Verona were predominantly Italian speaking by Dante's time (circa 1305). The Da Carrara signoria was founded in 1318 and was very similar to the Dalla Scala government in Verona. Venice conquered most of Veneto in the first decade of the 1400s. I think the theory that it could be someone from Switzerland/Bavaria/Southern Germany still is quite likely, however he or she would've likely travelled to Italy rather than been an "italian" german native speaker

Problem is, that there is no „standard“ speaking or writing of „Bavarian“ as well as for any other dialects or German at all. Standardization of spelling and grammar came centuries later - shifts of b<—>p or vowels were quite common throughout all scripts and regions.
So this writing-as-hearing approach here can be all or nothing (again).

Next problem is, that even in the sample text here some postings before, a number of doubled consonants occured - some of them at quite uncommon places, several things are written different today, but I do not remember any german text coming without quite a bunch of double consonants and even vowels.
VMS shows nearly no double characters at all.
Yes, now the wonder boys will show up saying that it is no problem at all to magically ˋencrypt´ double letters as single characters and keeping them easily apart from really single letters — well if it is so easy, go on and just translate.
Whoever is german-speaking here: open a random VMS text page, look at the writing and tell me fully seriously that you see a german text structure there before you…

I think the ultimate test is if someone can give a coherent reading of some longer text or not.

We can talk forever about Italian masters, Quattrocento, Ghibelin merlons, grammatics of Bavarian, Slovenian and Irish and so on but without reading the text it will remain speculations.

I wonder if JoJo_Jost will try to read something or will he say like some others "I identified the language for you, now let someone do the boring job"  

(31-01-2026, 02:23 PM)Rafal Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I wonder if JoJo_Jost will try to read something or will he say like some others "I identified the language for you, now let someone do the boring job"   

You all should be more thankful to @JoJo_Jost, because he found an European language whose words seem to be quite short, close to monosyllabic.  

The narrow distribution of word lengths has always been a strong argument against the text being natural language, in the plain or in an algorithmic encoding (as opposed to a codebook-based cipher), given the dogma that the language had to be European.  

Now, with Bavarian, you may be able to get past that argument, without giving up the dogma...

All the best, --stolfi

(31-01-2026, 02:56 PM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Now, with Bavarian, you may be able to get past that argument

With anagrams maybe.

(31-01-2026, 02:04 PM)Stefan Wirtz_2 Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Problem is, that there is no „standard“ speaking or writing of „Bavarian“ as well as for any other dialects or German at all. Standardization of spelling and grammar came centuries later - shifts of b<—>p or vowels were quite common throughout all scripts and regions.
So this writing-as-hearing approach here can be all or nothing (again).
...

You're right, but as Stolfi says below, I wasn't so much trying to say, ‘That's Bavarian!’ My thesis here is different: Bavarian could explain some of the oddities in the statistical analysis of the Voynich manuscript – and that alone would be crazy enough, because it hasn't been seen that way before. European languages were completely ruled out. 

Regarding the double letters: I don't think that will be a problem. If it's a cipher that leans towards Bairish substitution, a lot of information has to be destroyed anyway. Duplications would be the lesser evil.

@ Rafael No, I don't have a solution, otherwise I would have written it. As already written here, I even suspect that it could be incredibly difficult to decipher VMS, precisely because of the many possibilities and variants of Bavarian, including, among many others, those pointed out by Stefan here. And yes, sorry, I also think that as an ‘individual’ I would be completely overwhelmed by this.

Part 2, if I ever finish it, is already complicated enough. That's step 2. With it, I want to clarify the question of whether a cipher from that time could represent a VMS-like structure from a Bavarian text. So something like a Naibbe cipher, only simpler and more obvious.
If I succeed even halfway, that would be another interesting indication that it could be Bavarian.

A solution would only be expected in step 4 or 5... And for that, you would certainly need powerful computer programmes. Why? Quite simply, if you have a word like High German ‘falten’ (f116) = English: ‘folding’ and that could possibly be written in Bavarian as follows:

faltzen, falzen, pfalzen, Pflazen, Pfaltzen, baltzen, balzen, falatzen, faltzn, falzn, pfalzn, Pflazn, Pfaltzn, baltzn, balzn, falatzen, then it all with ‘o’ as an ‘a’ or even sounds similar to au / ou. etc, etc, etc.

Then it becomes a puzzle in which you first have to figure out which basic forms of the bavarian language were used. There are so many possibilities that no human being will be able to solve it. Probably only advanced computer programmes could do that.

With the simple cipher I am developing, this is easy to see when you try to translate it back. Due to the significant loss of information, you have to know quite precisely which language variant is being spoken – otherwise you cannot compensate for the loss of information.

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(31-01-2026, 04:19 PM)nablator Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

(31-01-2026, 02:56 PM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Now, with Bavarian, you may be able to get past that argument

With anagrams maybe.

Can you elaborate on that? Perhaps that will help me.