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| New YouTube primer on the VMS |
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Posted by: magnesium - 21-02-2026, 10:37 PM - Forum: News
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This video is the first time I have encountered this YouTuber, whose channel seems to be focused on the history of and inspirations behind Tolkien, science fiction, and fantasy writ large. As a one-video overview on the manuscript itself and all the various hypotheses, she does an excellent job.
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| How Many Common, Unique Letters Do *You* Think There Are? |
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Posted by: rikforto - 21-02-2026, 02:12 PM - Forum: Voynich Talk
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What it says on the tin!
Three things:
- I know you don't know. I don't know. None of us know. But if you had to put down one number, not a range, what would it be?
- The threshold for "common" is up to you.
- Unique means they aren't variants of each other. I think it's pretty common to take n to be a final form of i, and so that would be one letter, not two. Ligatures don't count as a new letter, either.
Feel invited to also expand your answer into a range, explain your cutoff, list your alphabet, and generally explain yourself. I'm curious about all that too!
(If you're wondering my motivations, I was working on something and I found myself asserting that most of us think there are fewer than a certain number of letters. I wondered if that impression was, you know, true?)
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Voynich-Manuskripts mittels 80/20-Matrix https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.18715735 |
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Posted by: Denny92 - 21-02-2026, 02:17 AM - Forum: Theories & Solutions
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Der Balkan-Kodex: Strukturelle Dekodierung des Voynich-Manuskripts mittels 80/20-Matrix.
Autoren/Urheber
van Gulik, Denny
Beschreibung
ENTHÜLLUNG: Der Balkan-Kodex
Titel: Strukturelle Dekodierung des Beinecke MS 408 (Voynich-Manuskript) mittels der 80/20-Matrix
Autor: Denny van Gulik
Datum: Februar 2026
Ort: Gnarrenburg, Niedersachsen
1. Forschungsgegenstand
Die vorliegende Arbeit präsentiert die vollständige Entschlüsselung des Voynich-Manuskripts (MS 408). Im Gegensatz zu bisherigen kryptographischen Versuchen nähert sich diese Untersuchung dem Kodex aus einer bautechnisch-strukturellen Perspektive. Das Manuskript wird nicht als Geheimschrift, sondern als ein funktionales Fachbuch betrachtet, dessen Sprache einer systematischen Deformation unterliegt.
2. Methodik: Die 80/20-Matrix
Der Schlüssel zur Dekodierung liegt in der Identifizierung einer spezifisch linguistischen Zusammensetzung, die hier als 80/20-Matrix definiert wird:
80 % phonetisch deformiertes Latein: Fachbegriffe der mittelalterlichen Botanik und Medizin, die durch Lautverschiebung und bewusste Buchstabendeformation (EVA-Zeichensatz) unkenntlich gemacht wurden.
20 % Balkan-Regionalismen: Verwendung von Begriffen aus dem balkanischen und südosteuropäischen Raum (z. B. Amum für Wasser, Otlar für Kräuter, Pala für Hof/Palast), die als Brückenvokabeln fungieren.
3. Kernergebnisse der Untersuchung
Die Analyse von 246 Seiten belegt zweifelsfrei, dass es sich um das interne Handbuch einer medizinisch-pharmazeutischen Bruderschaft handelt.
Der institutionelle Rahmen: Die wiederkehrenden Begriffe Palar (Palast/Hof) und Frater (Brüder) deuten auf eine hochgradig organisierte Forschungsgruppe hin, die im Schutz eines Herrscherhauses agierte.
Inhaltliche Schwerpunkte: Dokumentation der thermischen Extraktion (Pokedum), Konservierungsmethoden in Honig (Melle) und komplexe balneologische Anlagen zur hydrotherapeutischen Behandlung (Thermalbäder).
Statistische Validität: Die Konsistenz der 80/20-Matrix über den gesamten Korpus von 246 Seiten schließt die Theorie eines „Sinnlostextes“ (Hoax) oder einer reinen Chiffre ohne zugrundeliegende Grammatik aus.
4. Bedeutung für die Wissenschaft
Mit der Vorlage dieses Werkes wird das anhaltende Rätsel des MS 408 gelöst. Die Arbeit bietet Philologen, Medizinhistorikern und Botanikern eine lückenlose Übersetzungsgrundlage und eröffnet neue Einblicke in die pharmazeutische Praxis und die logistischen Strukturen gelehrter Gemeinschaften des 15. Jahrhunderts.
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| Theory that the final section is a multilingual glossary |
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Posted by: eggyk - 20-02-2026, 04:43 PM - Forum: Theories & Solutions
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Theory
My speculation is that the recipes section You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. - You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. may be a multilingual glossary. Each subsection (assumed as words beginning with p) would then start by listing the different ways the object is pronounced, with both dialectal differences and language differences. The repeated words -such as "okedy okeedy"- would be similar to eachother because they represent a homophonic representation of the different ways that people call the same object.
An example of what I mean in english is something like this: (written with vowels in IPA to signify my attempt at some different dialects):
Bellis Perennis: Also Deɪzi, Deɪzɪ, Dɛɪzi, also Deese or Deezɛ, rarely called Deɪz aɪs, is found in...
(Bellis Perennis: Also "day-zee", "day-ziih", "dayy-zee", also "Deh-seh" or "Deh-ze", rarely called "Dayz eyes", is found in...)
Malus domestica: Pomme, Poma, also Apfel, Appel, sometimes Malum or mala, is found in....
How this fits with what's known about the VMS
Use Case
The use case for such a glossary is quite straightforward. The author wanted themself -or anyone who could understand the script- to be able to know the different names that people have for various things. If they lived in a fairly multicultural area, or an area with frequent through-traffic, having a knowledge of how certain things are called would be especially useful. I imagine there would be a LOT of overlapping names too (especially with plants and herbs), with one culture differentiating between two similar things where another doesn't.
Such a place could be somewhere like along the trading routes that ran between italy and western europe, with frequent travellers of various tongues. If the author wanted to buy, sell, acquire or find a specific plant for use, knowing that some people say "day-zee" and some say "Deh-Seh" or some people say "pomme" and others "Poma" is probably very useful.
Lower quality parchment/drawing/decoration
If the document was intended to be used, perhaps day to day, outside in the rain, during travels, during preperation of materials or other activities, as opposed to only read in an academic context, it makes sense to use a slightly less expensive material for this. It also could be a reason for the lower quality drawings and colouring. Why waste time making a perfectly decorated manual if theres a good chance it will smudge, or be ruined during the intended use?
I thought I would use this thread to discuss the merits of this theory (which i'm sure is not unique of course) but also to post some things that i've noticed that led me to it. The first of which is a re-transcribing of some of the first lines of subsections using a different alphabet, which i will post immediately under this post.
Looking for signs of this theory in the text
Effects of using a specific transliteration alphabet
When looking for words that are potentially similar to one another, the transliteration alphabet that you use has an effect. For example, EVA k and t look very similar to eachother on paper, yet sounded out in EVA are quite different. The choice of which letters to use is somewhat arbitrary, yet for this task it has an huge effect.
In order to make the transliterated alphabet easier to sound out, I'm adjusting the EVA and using that for these examples. As long as the transliteration is consistent, our choice of specific letter used to represent each symbol doesn't matter for these purposes. This is just to demonstrate the potential properties of the words.
For clarity, I will use BOTH the EVA and my adjusted version in any examples.
The adjustments to EVA and their reasoning
Adjusted EVA: k = tl, t = thl, l = th, y = -us / con-, m = ré / ch = er / sh = ér
The most important changes are to take similar looking Voynichese symbols and assign them letters that are closer in sound than in EVA.
l: based on it sort-of looking like a cursive greek theta ϑ or the letter thorn Þ (which often resembled wynn ƿ and y).
image_2026-02-20_164811643.png (Size: 2.16 KB / Downloads: 242)
I'm using "th" as it's easier to write.
m: looks like r with a flourish, similar to "re" or "te" in some manuscripts. I have chosen "ré" arbitrarily here, with an accented é only for clarity in examples.
k: splitting the gallows into two letters and assigning TL, simply based on it somewhat resembling a TL
t: again splitting the gallows, assigning L the same way as above but interpreting lL instead of TL, making THL
ch: assuming that c is actually e , and the crossbar is a property of h, so ch = eh . h looks like a small cursive r, so "ch" = "er"
sh: same assumptions as "ch", but s = é
q also gives plenty of issues, but for the purposes of this thread I am going to consider q to be a type of contraction, marker or punctuation instead of a plaintext letter. Something like "also, and, +". This is simply an experiment to see if grammar emerges if q is seperated from its word and treated this way.
Example You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. line 30:
EVA: Polshedaiin qokeoy keol chokeol qotedy qoteedy dar raiin shedy qotain oteedy
EVA: Polshedaiin qokeoy keol chokeol qotedy qoteedy dar raiin shedy qotain oteedy
aEVA: Pothéredaiin q otleous tleoth chotleoth q othledus q othleedus dar raiin éredus q othlain othleedus
There are a few things of note here.
1) Words that did not obviously relate to eachother in EVA suddenly seem far more alike. Compare "qokeoy / qoteedy" vs "otleous / othledus". It seems far more likely that some people may say "otleous" and some may say "othledus". Its less likely that someone may say "okeoy" and someone else says "oteedy".
2) Words similar to the constituent parts of "Pothéredaiin" are found after "dar raiin". P-oth-éred-aiin contains "éred" and "oth-aiin", and "éredus" and "othlain" are seen in the sentence. This is probably coincidence, but it's concievable that someone could shorten "pothéredaiin" to "éredus".
3) The first words to not be part of a string of similar repeated words is "dar raiin". The structure is something like (repeated words),(repeated words), dar raiin (slightly different words). I will discuss this further on, but this structure matches other first lines of other subsections.
Comparing first lines of subsections -f108v
EVA
1) Pchedal qokeedar otedy qokeedy lky ltal aiin oteo pcheey otedar am ol
2) Polaiin okedain okal otchedy qokeedy raraiin okeedy qokar qokal dam
3) Pchedaiin okedy otedal lkedeed okedar okeey qoteol lkedy oteo raiin am
4) Pcheor okear sheey qokeey ykeealkey raraiin opsholal shedy oparam oty
5) Polkeedal sheokchey lotedaiin otedy opchedaiin otshedy qotey raiin ol
6) Polshedaiin qokeoy keol chokeol qotedy qoteedy dar raiin shedy qotain oteedy
aEVA
1) Peredath q otleedar othledus q otleedus thtlus thtlath aiin otleo pereeus othledar aré oth
2) Pothaiin otledain otlath othleredus q otleedus raraiin othleedus q otlar q othlath daré
3) Peredaiin otledus othledath thtledeed otledar otleeus q othleoth thtledus othleo raiin aré
4) Pereor otlear éreeus q otleeus contleeathtleus raraiin opérothath éredus opararé otus
5) Pothkeedath éreotlereus thothledaiin othledus operedaiin othléredus q othleus raiin oth
6) Pothéredaiin q otleous tleoth erotleoth q othledus q othleedus dar raiin éredus q othlain othleedus
aEVA with punctuation
1) Peredath: Also otleedar, othledus and otleedus, thtlus, thtlath, aiin otleo pereeus othledar aré oth
2) Pothaiin: otledain, otlath, othleredus and otleedus, raraiin othleedus and otlar and othlath daré
3) Peredaiin: otledus, othledath, thtledeed, otledar, otleeus, also othleoth, thtledus, othleo raiin aré
4) Pereor: otlear, éreeus, also otleeus contleeathtleus raraiin opérothath éredus opararé otus
5) Pothtleedath: éreotlereus, thothledaiin, othledus, operedaiin, othléredus, and othleus raiin oth
6) Pothéredaiin: Also otleous, tleoth, erotleoth, also othledus and othleedus dar raiin éredus and othlain othleedus
There is obviously a lot of work and analysis to go into this, but this far enough for now.
Edit: it seems that posting a reply simply adds it to the OP, oh well
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| New Phonetic-Pedagogical Theory: MS 408 as a Parental Survival Guide |
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Posted by: Rodrigo - 20-02-2026, 09:15 AM - Forum: Voynich Talk
- Replies (2)
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Hi everyone,
I’ve been studying the manuscript from a human perspective. My theory is that this isn't a complex military code, but a phonetic guide for oral transmission from parents to children.
Key points of my hypothesis: - The "8" symbol: I believe it represents a polarity marker (YES/NO), used as a quick visual cue for a child's behavior or safety.
- Repetitions: These are not errors. They represent the musical rhythm of a voice (like a lullaby or a mantra) to help the child memorize survival advice.
- Initial glyphs: They mark the beginning of a "lesson" or a song.
The manuscript is a tool to preserve a family’s voice and knowledge. I’d love to know if anyone else has looked at the "8" as a simple binary instruction for phonetic teaching.
Best regards!
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