(31-08-2026, 09:03 PM)Mauro Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Some time ago I did something similar: I calculated the geometric distances of Voynich glyphs according to the distribution of their previous and following characters (the 'routes' in your diagram) and I made some observations you might find interesting. [...]
Thank you —
what you wrote matches very closely with what I now measured. Your distance_following(k,t) = 0.12 comes out almost identical for me (0.122), even though I use a different transcription.
In the letter-by-letter count, the immediate predecessor of k in “okaiin” and “qokaiin” is the same—an o. The q does not come immediately before the k and is invisible in this count. So “...ok...” and “...qok...” end up in the same category: “Predecessor = o.” Am I seeing this correctly?
Counted this way, an “o” precedes “k” about 61% of the time and precedes “t” about 65% of the time—almost the same, which explains your small distance of 0.12.
But if you separate the two categories, it looks like this:
only o before it qo before it
k 30% 31%
t 46% 19%
k is neutral toward both channels, whereas t favors the pure “o” and avoids “qo.”
In absolute numbers: ok:ot ≈ 3032:2798 (almost 1:1), but qok:qot ≈ 3121:1121 (almost 3:1).
That’s why I think the totals (61% and 65%) are similar more by chance. The apparent similarity between k and t seems to be an effect of the merging.
But of course, we don’t know exactly what “units” are. However, since q is bound to o 97.7% of the time, I treat the two glyphs in this combination—from q’s perspective—as a single unit—whether that’s correct, who knows
(P.S. Not only in Latin but also in German, “qu” is bound nearly 100 percent of the time—just as a side note)
If you want to add a prefix to a German word that doesn’t contain a ‘v’ at the end, the prefixes to use are ‘ver-’ and ‘vor-’. The letter ‘v’ is also rarely found in German words.
Unlike ‘Ein-’, ‘Aus-’, ‘Auf-’, ‘Zu-’, etc.
I’ve already tried everything.
Since, based on various reactions, I suspect that you haven’t yet fully understood how the VBM really works and why this model fits so well with the VMS—here’s an example (this isn’t the actual cipher, but just a feasibility study)
f115v.26 dcheedy kchedy lcheey ror al chokedy dol qokeeeos qolkeedy qokar ar
Processed for VBM without changing a single letter:
d [cheed] y|k [ched] y|l [chee] y|r [o] r|a Ø l|ch [oked] y|d [o] l|qo [keeeo] s|qo [lkeed] y|qo [ka] r|a r
y|k = one of the vowel bridges, with the space represented here by the vertical line.
The characters in square brackets are the consonant clusters, which are primarily determined here by the “e” family of the VMS. So we define:
d = open; left half of the bridge at the edge of the line (LAAFU)
cheed = t
y|k = i (Vowel Bridge)
ched = zs
y|l = i (Vowel Bridge homphone)
chee = chtr
y|r = a (Vowel Bridge)
o = g
r|a = e (Vowel Bridge)
al = L2, i.e., NO consonant nucleus
a belongs to r|a = e
l belongs to l|ch = u (that’s why we need these short words)
l|ch = u (Vowel Bridge)
oked = nd
y|d = e (Vowel Bridge)
o = g ← same value as above
l|qo = e (Vowel Bridge)
keeeo = tn
s|qo = i ( Vowel Bridge homophone)
lkeed = chtsn
y|qo = e ← an established working anchor (Vowel Bridge)
ka = ll
r|a = e ← same value as above (Vowel Bridge)
r = open; right half of the bridge at the edge of the line (LAAFU)
t - i - zs - i - chtr - a - g - e - u - nd - e
- g - e - tn - i - chtsn - e - ll - e
Together:
TIZSICHTRAGEUNDEGETNICHTSNELLE
with clear-text word boundaries:
t | iz sich trage | unde | get nicht snelle
This is part of an original sentence from the Breslau Pharmacopoeia, which reads:
“Jdoch deuwet iz sich trage, vnde get nicht snelle uz deme libe”
In Englisch “However, it is digested slowly and does not pass quickly out of the body.”
This shows just how perfectly these vowel bridges and consonant clusters can be translated into a normal language, as long as you treat the two letters separated by a space as a vowel (bridge) and the tokens as consonant clusters. It fits perfectly—even if this example isn't the actual cipher.
----
But this also highlights something else: namely, why it is so incredibly difficult—if not impossible—to determine the correct assignment of consonant clusters and vowels, especially since different vowel bridges can represent the same vowels, and consonant clusters are, after all, only fragments of the language and are likely even encoded differently depending on their length.
Still, the VBM is a model that can generate normal language from this VMS gibberish with very few assumptions, and that’s pretty crazy.
How many successful translations do you already have?
What kind of texts might you find difficult to work with?
It seems to me that this is a simpler and more understandable way to explain your theory through translations.
And one more question — can you translate the Currier A texts, for example, the pages from the beginning of Herbal A? As far as I remember, the vast majority of solvers focus on Currier B. I see that your approach seems to be based on the Currier B texts (because the desired bigrams are more common there).
Wait a minute, that’s not a translation!!!! I told: that’s NOT the cipher.
This possibility arises solely because of the many degrees of freedom you have with a line like that. To prove it, you’d have to show that applying the same substitutions to all the other lines would also result in understandable sentences. But that’s not the case here!
It’s just a proof of concept showing that the VBM can generate understandable sentences from the Voynich in a very simple way! But only under the assumption that spaces are part of vowel bridges and the rest are consonant clusters.
I’ve been trying for month to figure out how to determine which consonant clusters are hidden behind which VMS clusters, but that’s nearly impossible.
As I understand it, the “Stars” text is the most fully developed part of this cipher. It appears to have been further developed as it was being written.
(01-09-2026, 09:06 PM)JoJo_Jost Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Wait a minute, that’s not a translation!!!! I told: that’s NOT the cipher.
This possibility arises solely because of the many degrees of freedom you have with a line like that. To prove it, you’d have to show that applying the same substitutions to all the other lines would also result in understandable sentences. But that’s not the case here!
It’s just a proof of concept showing that the VBM can generate understandable sentences from the Voynich in a very simple way! But only under the assumption that spaces are part of vowel bridges and the rest are consonant clusters.
I’ve been trying for month to figure out how to determine which consonant clusters are hidden behind which VMS clusters, but that’s nearly impossible.
Oh, sorry, I didn’t understand.
But it turns out that one line has several translations? Or is the translation you provided not the true one?
(31-08-2026, 09:56 PM)JoJo_Jost Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Thank you —
what you wrote matches very closely with what I now measured. Your distance_following(k,t) = 0.12 comes out almost identical for me (0.122), even though I use a different transcription.
I also rounded to two decimals instead of three. Yes, almost identical.
(31-08-2026, 09:56 PM)JoJo_Jost Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.In the letter-by-letter count, the immediate predecessor of k in “okaiin” and “qokaiin” is the same—an o. The q does not come immediately before the k and is invisible in this count. So “...ok...” and “...qok...” end up in the same category: “Predecessor = o.” Am I seeing this correctly?
Yes, exactly.
(31-08-2026, 09:56 PM)JoJo_Jost Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Counted this way, an “o” precedes “k” about 61% of the time and precedes “t” about 65% of the time—almost the same, which explains your small distance of 0.12.
Thank you.
(31-08-2026, 09:56 PM)JoJo_Jost Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.But if you separate the two categories, it looks like this:
only o before it qo before it
k 30% 31%
t 46% 19%
k is neutral toward both channels, whereas t favors the pure “o” and avoids “qo.”
In absolute numbers: ok:ot ≈ 3032:2798 (almost 1:1), but qok:qot ≈ 3121:1121 (almost 3:1).
That’s why I think the totals (61% and 65%) are similar more by chance. The apparent similarity between k and t seems to be an effect of the merging.
Interesting. One thing I can do is to calculate distances considering also 'qok' and 'qot' as single glyphs ('atoms') and see what happens. The distances in respect with the previous characters should be (trivially) about zero between 'qok' and 'qot'. The distances according to the following character should be low, given the effect of 't' and 'k', but who knows, the VMS is always full of surprises. A comparison between 'qok/qot' and 'ok/ot' could be interesting too. Not sure when I can do that though, I'm pretty busy this week.
(31-08-2026, 09:56 PM)JoJo_Jost Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.But of course, we don’t know exactly what “units” are. However, since q is bound to o 97.7% of the time, I treat the two glyphs in this combination—from q’s perspective—as a single unit—whether that’s correct, who knows
I would add: we don't even know if "units" are a real thing or not. That's said, considering 'qo' as a single glyph is a distinct possibility, however, also considering 'ok/ot' as glyphs and 'q' as a prefix is a possibility, as having 'qot, 'qok', ot' and 'ok' as separate single 'units'. I can't really say which is which, if any.
(31-08-2026, 09:56 PM)JoJo_Jost Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.(P.S. Not only in Latin but also in German, “qu” is bound nearly 100 percent of the time—just as a side note)
In Italian too. However EVA 'qo' is arbitrary, I would not rely much on its similarity to Latin 'qu'. On a sideline: if I remember correctly, German is rather special because not only 'qu' is bound nearly 100 percent of the times, but 'ch' is bound too.
(01-09-2026, 09:29 PM)ololololo Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Oh, sorry, I didn’t understand.
But it turns out that one line has several translations? Or is the translation you provided not the true one?
Yes, a single line on its own could also have multiple translations. You look at the vowel/consonant cluster pattern—just the pattern itself and which consonants and vowels must be the same within the line. You search for these patterns, with their specific characteristics, in a text, as I’ve done here. Then you fill in this pattern with the consonants and vowels required by that pattern for the specific text (in this case, the Breslau text)—and just like that, you have a translation—it’s that simple.
The only problem is that this assignment of consonants and vowels only fits this one line (in this case, even the next one- you can even end the Breslau sentence exactly with the next line, but that’s just a coincidence)—
but not the entire text. So it is no solution.
I tried to figure out the original pattern by translating hundreds of lines this way, hoping that the most common assignments would eventually become clear. Unfortunately, that didn’t work either, due to the excessive number of possible solutions.
But from these attempts, I came up with this line. I could provide many more lines—that would certainly be impressive—but their assignments wouldn’t match up. This was only a different approach to cracking the cipher, since a homophonic cipher—which may also have a length dependency—cannot be cracked using pure frequency analysis alone.
More importantly, however, with these very few assumptions, the VMS can quite simply become a readable text. And until now, so many researchers have only ever proven that the VMS cannot be a language—and I agree with that, as long as
one stays at the token level.
And here, the VBM demonstrates something that none of the other attempts have managed to do. While this isn’t proof that the VBM is the solution, it is a strong indication that it could be—precisely because so few assumptions are necessary.
It’s also interesting that this doesn’t work with the Romance languages because they have so many vowels. Based on my research so far, this consonant-vowel rhythm actually seems to fit only Germanic languages perfectly. But I've only looked at the well-known European languages—and certainly not all of them.