The Voynich Ninja

(13-06-2026, 10:01 AM)JustAnotherTheory Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.we have no reason to think he was a shipwrecked Indian writing in Malayalam

He was not Indian, he was born in Madagascar, and wrote in Malagasy (sorry for the typo).  He learned the Malayalam script from his mother, who was a Mappila from Kozhikode working as a You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. at the Sakalava court.

Quote:the Northern Italian/Bohemian region where the parchment was fabricated (not to mention that he had a magic box full of Taccola, Kyeser and Duc de Berry manuscripts)

The parchment was manufactured wherever it was in the 1400.  It was bought in Bohemia by the Counts Rozemberk, lingered in their vellum discards box in for a century if two, until their guest John Dee bought it together with a dozen books from their library, before going back to England.  The box was not magical, just sturdy and waterproof.

Quote:And by a stroke of unimaginable luck, happened to come back with the book to the exact same Northern Italian/Bohemian region)

He never set foot in Central Europe.  After his rescuer took him to Spain, he enrolled again as a sailor aboard a Genoese merchant ship plying the Rome-Barcelona route.  In one of the stays in Rome he went sightseeing and lost his cherished Book of Dreams somewhere.  We now can tell that it was at or near Villa Torlonia -- because, about a hundred years later, the book was found under a closet by a Jesuit, who assumed it was the long-lost book mentioned in Marci's letter, which he then took out of the box of unbound Kircher's correspondence and attacked to the book, and filed the latter among the books absconded from the Collegio Romano in 1860. 

I know that this last part is hard to believe; but improbable things do happen sometimes.

All the best, --stolfi

(12-06-2026, 08:48 PM)ololololo Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Voynichese itself is not a full-fledged language. The theory of an artificial language also falls away - it is too redundant. However, it can still be a modified language (German, Occitan, Bavarian, Chinese, etc.).

Any encryption (except for compression, but here it's very unlikely) is a bijective function preserving orientation (while encoded string "ABC" can be rotated in multiplies of 45deg or even reflected, the 'B' would still be between 'A' and 'C' in the output; otherwise we would have more than 1 encryption/decryption for the same piece of information) between 2 sets of (groups of) symbols, therefore any encrypted text can be cracked by a simple bruteforce. While it may look impossible with the current technology (for a set with 30 [and since the manuscipt doesn't contain punctuation and numerical symbols the actual number is going to be bigger] symbols checking all 30! bijective functions would take 100s of years on a PC capable of doing 10^9 ops/sec), we can take just 2 different words (preferably from different pages) containing the same symbols and try to crack them instead: if words are of length, for ex. 5, then we don't need more than A(50, 5) checks (50 is a random upper limit on a size of alphabet + symbols), which is very manageable. If 2 words we get this way belong to the same language (ancient Italian?) - we likely cracked the code. It's a simple trick, so I assumed that someone already tried it and it failed (none of the known languages had the resulting words). Then what other conclusion, except for existence of Voynichese, can we derive from it? Besides, the only structural difference between encrypted and unknown language is that unknown language may have unique grammar rules (like those which omit punctuation symbols). However methods of translation and decryption differ: translated are words, not symbols.

Also, how many other encrypted books (not letters, messages etc.) are there? But how many are written on a foreign language?

Your remarks is correct. 
You can read my post about the numeric cipher, as I am currently studying it.

(14-06-2026, 12:24 PM)SpamBot Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.how many other encrypted books (not letters, messages etc.) are there?

For example, Codex Copiale, encrypted by a simple substitution with nulls.

(14-06-2026, 12:24 PM)SpamBot Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. While it may look impossible with the current technology (for a set with 30 [and since the manuscipt doesn't contain punctuation and numerical symbols the actual number is going to be bigger] symbols checking all 30! bijective functions would take 100s of years on a PC capable of doing 10^9 ops/sec)

I think you're underestimating the sheer magnitude of 30!. It's ~2.65 *10^32. A computer able to check 10^9 bijective functions/sec (which is a lot faster than doing 10^9 ops/sec) will take 2.65 * 10^23 seconds to check them all, that is to say ~5 * 10^16 years, or 5 * 10^14 100s of years. About 3.8 million times the current age of the universe.

(14-06-2026, 12:24 PM)SpamBot Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Any encryption (except for compression, but here it's very unlikely) is a bijective function preserving orientation (while encoded string "ABC" can be rotated in multiplies of 45deg or even reflected, the 'B' would still be between 'A' and 'C' in the output; otherwise we would have more than 1 encryption/decryption for the same piece of information) between 2 sets of (groups of) symbols, therefore any encrypted text can be cracked by a simple bruteforce.

I'm not sure I understand these statements. There is nothing unusual or anachronistic with having multiple ways to encrypt the same message, as long as the decryption is unique. Most diplomatic ciphers worked this way with letter variants. And homophonic polyphonic ciphers also allow multiple decryptions, with the right one only clear from the context.

Also, any cipher that produces out of order pieces can change ABC to ACB:

For example, I can encode this message:
SUPPOSE I WRITE ALL ODD CHARACTERS FROM THE LEFT TO THE RIGHT AND ALL THE EVEN ONES FROM THE RIGHT TO THE LEFT

by keeping each odd letter and removing each even letter and writing them from the end of the line towards the center:

SPOEIWIEALODCAATR RMTELF OTERGTADALTEEE NSFO H IH OTELFTE H TTGRETMR EONV H L N HI H TTE H OFSECRH D L TR  SPU

I'm not even sure how to analyze this in terms of ABC, it's mostly scrambled. And encoding this on a piece of paper is a breeze, just keep writing one letter at a time taking turns at the beginning and the end of the line.

(14-06-2026, 09:07 PM)oshfdk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.And homophonic ciphers also allow multiple decryptions, with the right one only clear from the context.

You mean polyphonic.

(15-06-2026, 08:31 AM)nablator Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.You mean polyphonic.

Yes, confusion is my middle name  And don't get me started on bigram/conditional entropy, I don't think there was a single time when I used the term correctly on the first try.

Thank you!

(13-06-2026, 06:03 AM)JoJo_Jost Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.We all know by now that you're absolutely convinced it comes from the East and that you categorically reject anything that doesn't fit your theory. But where can one actually find information about the background of your theory?

Funny turn.
It is not a „theory“ to remark that many „researchers“ stick to the Alpine origin without any good reasons and reject to consider other directions of Europe, i.e. the East, or as well the North.
So I have no special „theory“ about a point of origin where something has or has not to fit to — but everybody should keep in mind that many of VMS‘s strange details would also fit to works from Riga, Novgorod or even Trapezunt…

But if you want to: just check, for example, Claudette Cohen‘s approach to VMS. She is only indirectly mentioned here in the „solutions“ list (which provides enough examples for failed „westeuropean“ theories); even though CC stumbled at bit over Old Norse already and never made it really to finno-ugric systematics, she showed some things that are quite more important than Ellie Velinska‘s findings — without any intention of reducing EV’s work.

(14-06-2026, 09:07 PM)oshfdk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I'm not sure I understand these statements.

I went with my gut feeling and chosen the first definition for a cypher that came to my mind, which makes all solutions unique (it failed at it too btw), because if they are not, then how can you claim that you have decrypted something, until you have shown that there are no other fuction(s) which produce meaningful text(s), or you have found all of them (and shown that none other exists)?

(14-06-2026, 09:07 PM)oshfdk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Most diplomatic ciphers worked this way with letter variants. And homophonic polyphonic ciphers also allow multiple decryptions, with the right one only clear from the context.

Clearly your example doesn't fall under my definition of encryption (to which symbol is mapped symbol 'S'?). Nor is it possible to decrypt it uniquely (without knowing the function used or the original text): "A MNEON" - is it "AN OMEN"? "A GENRE"? "A FENCE"? "A COMBO"?

I've noticed that scrambles have a funny property: if you apply the same rule to the same text several times, you'll end up with the original message (it's a consequence of letter cycles, and their existence is a consequence of Dirichlets principle). Which means that, again, those can be solved by considering all permutations (why this is important look in the 2nd message)

(14-06-2026, 09:07 PM)oshfdk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Also, any cipher that produces out of order pieces can change ABC to ACB:

I meant a bit different thing: consider a graph (oriented tree) whose vertices are all symbols of your original message and edges reflect the order of those symbols. Any encryption (disclaimer: I could come up with) doesn't change this graph. See?

I've actually downloaded the manuscript from the yale site (if someone from yale is reading this: adding your bullshit copyright notice on the first page instead of last so the pages you can view online and in your provided pdf differ by 1 is very convenient, thanks) to try to prove that that the scrambles, if aren't involved, then, at least, are unlikely: check the page 180:1006250, 3rd plant (4th picture), the one with gnomecap leaves and 2 penis legs, has "oMae" written near it (I assume that those don't form sentences but are rather words associated with pictures because 1.majority of sentences are in a straight line, even when pictures are present, but not here 2. pages like 177:1006247 have words written over images, which, I believe, are to be associated with images rather than being parts of sentences), the same word can be found (twice?) on the respective plant page 49:1006121 (I am not sure where to upload the respective images.), which means that if scrambles are present, then they are done within words, not sentences/paragraphs etc. (that is, if you won't scramble text associated with pictures with the main text; or allow for the existence of "holy words" which are ignored from scrambles).

As a sidenote, the same "oMae" is associated with the picture of root of a different plant 177:1006247, so we can dismiss the idea that "oMae" is a specific word for leaves/green part of the aforementioned plant.

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Some other things (in no particular order) that I've noticed while skimming through:
- "oMae" is present in the "alphabetical circle" 115:1006187, which probably were used as a tool for encryption or decryption; it might mean a single letter/digit.
- Pages from 128:1006200 up to 135:1006207 are clearly referencing zodiacs.
- 133:1006205 has the word "octebra" in the middle of the picture, a Libra month is "october" and there is a Libra symbol in the middle. Same thing with 135:1006207, in the middle there is something like "dembre" - Sagittarius month "december". Aren't those enough to figure out the language/country?
- 128:1006200 Pisces contain 2 words, one is "mane" (likely "march"), and the other encrypted/voynichese. Those might be the same or reference another Pisces month.
- 122:1006194 8-sided star has 8 words associated with it. Star is alchemical symbol(?). Historians, what could be the words?
- 126:1006198 6-sided star has 6 (7?) symbols associated with it, if we assume that it's alchemical hexagon, then we can get meaning for those 6 symbols
- 127:1006199 has the same star, but now with words, which migh have the same meaning as the symbols from above.
- 136:1006208 and onwards contain alchemical recipes(?). Note that as with the plants, first were drawn pictures, then written text (I make this conclusion from the "curvature" of the text)
- 148:1006220 is written as if there is a picture on the right, but the space is empty. 198:1006268 same thing. Explanation?
- 162:1037112 and onwards is a short summary/quick reference or table of contents, but since pages weren't originally enumerated, we can rule out the latter. Those also could provide some meaning to symbols/words.
- Those should be either at the beginning or end of the manuscript, suggesting that it was disassembled (before the pages were enumerated)
- 193:1006263 and 194:1006264 have different font size, it gets smaller, likely to keep the text on a single page. Possible reason to why the text can't be split on different pages?
- 29:1006101/143:1006215 look at the first symbol. The writer (scribble?) is counting something; 85:1006157 he draws a curve and then proceeds to count the loops; 99:1006171 contains arab numerals, enumerated are the 6-sided star symbols from 126:1006198 (or not?), then they repeat in cycles - this might've been one of the very first pages written, containing the encryption rule, another one being 120:1006192. Both are possibly connected to the "alphabetical circle" 115:1006187.
- 118:1006190 is the shortest page. Can be bruteforced for any possible mapping (only 14! symbols).

(12-06-2026, 09:11 PM)ololololo Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I know that the plants described Gheuens and Rapaport, and identified by O'Neil (at least, this is stated on voynich.nu).

Did they find a rule for plant exageration? Could they be encrypted/scrambled too?