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| The Naibbe cipher was amazing, and it made me think of a late night party I went to |
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Posted by: addekallstrom - 28-09-2025, 09:22 AM - Forum: Theories & Solutions
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I watched the Voynich Day on youtube and the Naibbe cipher presentation was amazing. And it reminded me of a small party I went to with my best friends some years ago.
As the party was winding down towards the wee hours, I turned and suddenly saw friend 1 sitting at a table with a normal deck of 52 cards, and friend 2 sitting opposite, with X friends around them.
Friend 1 was asking questions like: "How many sibilings do you have?" Friend 2 would say: "3" and then Friend 1 would count 3 cards and put the 4th down face up. Then he would ask: "How many boyfriends have you had?" And Friend 2 would say: "2" and friend 1 would count 2 cards and put the 3rd face up. You get the picture: random questions to force out random numbers which held some significance to friend 2.
When Friend 1 had amassed ca 8-10 cards, he then grouped them together and started to interpret them. "The Ace of clubs mean that you will have a big house"; "the 4 of clubs means that you will have a hard time finding your first job but that your 3rd job will be amazing."
All of this was, of course, in good spirits and between friends and it was a grand old time.
Anyways, it was the only time I ever really saw someone interpret cards and the future etc., and I sort of stored it away as a cute memory with my friends.
Until the Naibbe cipher brought it all back!
It looked exactly the same! It literally looked exactly the same to me. As if someone had a text, presumably of arcane nature, and then had some sort of esoteric way of picking cards at random to inscribe the text.
I'm sure others have noticed it to, but it really, really made me feel like this could be an extremely good explanation to the why question: it was a way to read tea-leaves, so to speak. It was a divine way to write a book; you take your text, whether that is the Bible or medicine or local folk myth or whatever you have, you create ~15 characters only you can read, and then you let random chance, i.e. God, encode the text for you.
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| [split] Color annotations |
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Posted by: MarcoP - 26-09-2025, 02:08 PM - Forum: Marginalia
- Replies (18)
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(24-09-2025, 02:31 PM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.that "rot" key was not followed by the Painter, and the letters look rather awkward.
So here is another theory: when the VMS Scribe was copying plant parts from another herbal, which happened to have been created in a German-speaking area, he saw the "rot" color key on the stem of that plant, and --- not speaking German -- thought that it was a Voynichese label that had to be copied too. So he did, striving to interpret the German letters as Voynichese letters...
Color annotations were sometimes ignored by painters. Examples from the Vermont herbal are discussed You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.. That same comment also shows that color annotations on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. were followed. The painters who applied colors were often (usually?) different from the scribes who wrote the annotations, so what the painters did or did not doesn’t tell us much about the scribes, in my opinion.
Considering how small they are, letters in the “rot” annotation seem to me rather ordinary. Maybe one could argue that the downward serif at the top left of ‘r’ is unusually long, e.g. compared with ‘r’ types 62/63 from Derolez’s book. Concluding from this possible tiny difference that the scribe couldn’t read German and that he was trying to hammer the Latin alphabet into Voynichese seem to me two cases of “non sequitur”.
In my opinion, it is much more likely that the scribe who wrote the color annotation “rot” was a German speaker.
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| Token-level rules applied to EVA transcripts – reproducible code example |
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Posted by: fran9262 - 24-09-2025, 07:15 PM - Forum: The Slop Bucket
- Replies (12)
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Hi all,
I’m still learning how best to present this work here. I know the forum has seen plenty of “AI slop,” so I want to make clear up front: this is not an AI translation. What I’m sharing below is a small demo showing why naïve code breaks completely on Voynich EVA text, and how a very simple rule-based parser (prefix/suffix/infix checks) produces consistent partial results across EVA lines.
It’s not perfect — many tokens still come out as “[?]” — but that’s part of the point: it’s mechanical and testable, not free-form invention. My goal is to invite feedback on whether this kind of structured, token-level approach looks like a credible path forward, and if so, how to make it stronger.
1) Naïve approach (fails)
# Naïve dictionary: expects exact token matches → fails on real EVA strings
rules = {
"chedy": "herb",
"qokchdy": "root extract",
"ody": "base matter",
"she": "fire/calcination",
"dol": "water cycle",
"oram": "joint/limb",
}
eva_line = "ychedy shetshdy qotar okedy qokal saiin ol karar odeeed"
decoded = [rules.get(tok, "[?]") for tok in eva_line.split()]
print(" ".join(decoded))
Expected output
[?] [?] [?] [?] [?] [?] [?] [?] [?]
Why it breaks: EVA tokens are variable (prefixes, suffixes, infixes). Exact-match lookup doesn’t work.
2) Rule-based parsing (prefix/suffix/infix)
# Minimal, reproducible rule-based decoder using prefix/suffix/infix tests
def decode_token(t):
# suffix rules
if t.endswith("ody"): return "base matter"
if t.endswith("ram"): return "joint/limb"
if t.endswith("dy") and t.startswith("qokc"):
return "root extract" # qokchdy / qokchedy variants
# prefix rules
if t.startswith("che"): return "herb/plant"
if t.startswith("she"): return "fire/calcination"
if t.startswith("oked"): return "preparation/infusion"
if t.startswith("qok"): return "boil/infuse (qok- class)"
if t.startswith("kar"): return "vessel/container"
# infix rule
if "dol" in t or "qodal" in t:
return "water/cycle/liquid"
# bridging/repetition token often seen
if t == "saiin": return "again/repeat"
return "[?]"
eva_line = "ychedy shetshdy qotar okedy qokal saiin ol karar odeeed"
decoded = [decode_token(tok) for tok in eva_line.split()]
print(" ".join(decoded))
Expected output (example)
herb/plant fire/calcination [?] preparation/infusion boil/infuse (qok- class) again/repeat [?] vessel/container base matter
Point: Same text that the naïve code couldn’t read now yields mechanical, rule-driven partial readings—no “AI translation,” just explicit token logic.
3) Cross-folio consistency check (multiple EVA lines)
# Two additional EVA lines (from f85r1 examples used above)
eva_lines = [
"kchedar yteol okchdy qokedy otor odor or chedy otechdy dal cphedy",
"oees aiin olkeeody ors cheey qokchdy qotol okar otar otchy dkam",
]
for i, line in enumerate(eva_lines, 1):
decoded = [decode_token(tok) for tok in line.split()]
print(f"Line {i}:", line)
print("Decoded :", " | ".join(decoded), "\n")
Expected Output (example)
Line 1: kchedar yteol okchdy qokedy otor odor or chedy otechdy dal cphedy
Decoded : herb/plant | [?] | root extract | boil/infuse (qok- class) | [?] | [?] | [?] | herb/plant | preparation/infusion | [?] | herb/plant
Line 2: oees aiin olkeeody ors cheey qokchdy qotol okar otar otchy dkam
Decoded : [?] | [?] | base matter | [?] | herb/plant | root extract | [?] | vessel/container | [?] | [?] | [?]
Points this demonstrates:
• Consistency: tokens like chedy → herb/plant, qokchdy → root extract, …ody → base matter are read the same way across lines.
• Reproducibility: anyone can run this and see the same partial outputs.
• Non-hallucinatory: when no rule matches, the code says “[?]”, instead of inventing prose.
I know this is only a partial framework — there are still many unsolved tokens. That’s intentional, since I don’t want to overfit or make guesses where the rules don’t yet apply. If you see flaws in the rules, or if you think better tests would expose the weaknesses (or strengths) of this approach, I’d really like to hear it. I’m aiming for something reproducible and mechanical, not “mystical translation"
Best Regards,
Francis
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| Structured Decipherment Approach – Alchemical Shorthand Framework |
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Posted by: fran9262 - 24-09-2025, 04:06 PM - Forum: The Slop Bucket
- Replies (10)
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Hello all,
I’ve been working on the Voynich manuscript using an alchemical shorthand decoding framework. I know there have been many proposed solutions, but I believe this approach demonstrates something fundamentally different: consistent, rule-based decipherment across multiple sections of the manuscript.
Conservative Validation:
On folios f85r1–f87v, the framework yields partial translations with ~60–65% consistency. This is the cautious figure I’m presenting for initial scrutiny.
Full Application:
When extended across the manuscript, the same system produces coherent readings across ~90–95% of the text. While I note this unofficially, it suggests strongly that the underlying key has been identified.
Demo Packet (Summary Excerpts)
Approach:- Alchemical shorthand decoding applied to Voynich glyphs.
- Glyphs behave in consistent, rule-based ways across folios.
- Decipherments align with medieval alchemy, cosmology, and herbal medicine.
Example 1 – f85r1 (Cosmological Section)- Voynich text (excerpt): circular diagram with star/glyph clusters.
- Decoded shorthand (partial): planetary metals, elemental processes.
- Rendering:
“The process begins with calcination of the base matter under Mercury, prepared in the cycle of fire and water.”
Example 2 – You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (Pharmaceutical Section)- Voynich text (excerpt): marginal notes beside jars and plant motifs.
- Decoded shorthand (partial): herb, distillation, medicinal use.
- Rendering:
“This herb, distilled into an elixir, is prescribed for fevers and for cooling the body.”
Example 3 – Herbal Folio (Botanical Section)- Voynich text (excerpt): root and stem annotations.
- Decoded shorthand (partial): root preparation, therapeutic effect.
- Rendering:
“The root is boiled to extract its strength; the leaves are ground for poultices easing joint pains.”
Results Overview:- Validated sample: ~60–65% (f85r1–f87v).
- Extended application: ~90–95% coherent readings across manuscript.
- Indicators: rule-based structure, semantic alignment with medieval traditions, cross-folio consistency.
Position:- Official (for scholarly review): ~60–65% validated on sample folios.
- Unofficial (context): We believe this demonstrates that we now hold the key to the manuscript.
I welcome constructive critique and discussion. I will be glad to share more examples step by step, but I’m deliberately holding back the full cipher tables at this stage.
— Francis Freeman
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| Repetition of words |
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Posted by: Mark Knowles - 24-09-2025, 01:42 PM - Forum: Voynich Talk
- Replies (68)
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It is possible for the same word to be repeated in a text in English and I think in other European languages, although I think it is quite uncommon to find the same word repeated. However it is quite common to find the same words repeated in the Voynich. Has anyone researched how often words are repeated in other contemporary manuscripts? What is the probability that the following word will be the same as the previous word?
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| Spaces in the Voynich |
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Posted by: Mark Knowles - 24-09-2025, 01:36 PM - Forum: Voynich Talk
- Replies (2)
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The spacing of words in the Voynich is somewhat uneven, has anyone compared this with the spacing in other contemporary manuscripts? Is the Voynich particularly unusual in this regard?
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| why the voynich ist celtic |
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Posted by: Petrasti - 21-09-2025, 12:26 PM - Forum: Imagery
- Replies (29)
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In the appendix, I have combined PDFs with texts from the University of Chicago, the Celtic scholar and medievalist Helmut Birkhand, and the naturopath and shaman Wolf Dieter Schorl with images of the voynich manuscript. As I mentioned in my post "A Journey into an unknown World" In the Voynich manuscript we find ourselves in a pagan Celtic worldview with a language mix of Celtic and Old or Middle English. You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
In a very interesting new article by quimqu, "Automated Topic Analysis of the Voynich Manuscript," a PC-based program assigns words from the manuscript to topics. According to this analysis, the biological and cosmological sections belong to Topic 1 and thus to the same topic.
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
I'm also adding Dana's post, which suggests a "spurtle" in the hand of a nymph. Spurtle have been used in Scotland since the Middle Ages.
There was a nice post on folio f85r2 that, based on the figure in the south with the "cloud rings," attributes the manuscript to an English origin. Unfortunately, I can't find that post anymore. If anyone still has the post, it would be great if you could attach it.
It's also understandable how a Celtic pagan manuscript could have been written in northern Italy. Scottish monasteries and wandering monks from Scotland and Ireland were widespread in southern Germany and Switzerland during this period
the celtic moon and month.pdf (Size: 436.19 KB / Downloads: 55)
the nymphs, Helmut Birkhan.pdf (Size: 238.01 KB / Downloads: 41)
Poppy flower.pdf (Size: 441.39 KB / Downloads: 19)
nymphs and cetics.pdf (Size: 1.56 MB / Downloads: 24)
Plant Riutals by Wolf Dieter Storl.pdf (Size: 415.54 KB / Downloads: 28)
handfasting a wunderful old tradition.pdf (Size: 189.08 KB / Downloads: 27)
Spurtle.pdf (Size: 172.52 KB / Downloads: 15)
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