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+--- Thread: Have we ruled out simple substitution unwisely? (/thread-5344.html)
Have we ruled out simple substitution unwisely? - eggyk - 09-02-2026
I thought it may be genuinely worth debating this. I decided to post this here instead of in the talk area, even though i'm primarily talking about our working assumptions when discussing these issues, not proposing different, well thought out solutions. Either way...
It seems that when people talk about a possible subsitution, the counter-arguments tend to be:
-The entropy of the VMS does not match that of known natural languages, so a substitution cipher alone is not the solution
-If it was a simple substitution cipher, it would have been decoded long ago
I think it's worth checking these assertions from first principles, checking which assumptions have been made in order to make them.
Entropy
Did our choice of transliteration alphabet influence the calculated entropy?
In order to calculate the entropy of the VMS we must use some transliteration of the text. The entropy is then calculated using those transliterations.
Is it possible that there are influential choices made by every alphabet so far which are innapproprate?
EVA's repeated strokes e/c/i/n
Let's take this set of characters : eees aiin
Lets assume for a moment that this IS plaintext language in a latin script, made of latin "a,e,c,i,m,n,u". If the scribe uses a flourish at the end of a word or for contractions (very common from manuscripts i've seen) it's possible that that sentence transcribes to:
cccc aiii / ecec aiii / eccc ain / eeec am / ccee aui / eeee aiu / ecce ani
as well as many many other configurations. We assume that it only ever says "eees aiin".
When we calculate the entropy, we see multiple i's and e's in the transliteration. After a set of i's, there is almost always an "n". We look at the text and assume that each case of aiiin is the same. Wouldn't this surely lead to unnatural or unusual entropy results?
If we were to do the calculations again, but for every "aiiin" we instead substitute an equally possible set of characters (aiim, anin, amii, aum) how would that affect the results?
Assumption that different symbols are different letters
I infered this above, but it's important too. When transliterating the VMS, we assume that the symbols are seperate. What if -depending on the position within a word or line or some other rule- the same letter is written two different ways? We look at q often here, noting that it only appears at the start of words.
What if t is equivalent to ql? or k is equivalent to m? Or perhaps s is simply an e (ē denoting a contraction)?
Im not arguing that this is the case, at least not now, but if it were the case how would the entropy be affected?
Applying current thinking to existing manuscripts
If we were to treat capital letters from normal manuscripts the same (assuming they are seperate "glyphs" with seperate meaning) how different would our analysis be of those texts? We may look at a capital A and say "Yes, this rare glyph only occurs at the beginning of words, never the middle or the end. Very unusual for natural language"
The same could be said for various minims like I discussed above. If we had no context for latin, wouldn't we assume that "minim" is really "iiiiiiiin" or "mmmi" or something? Its already difficult to transcribe those words with full context given!
Anyway. I'm posting this to primarily discuss which of our current assumptions are valid, and which may not be valid. If we've made an incorrect analysis somewhere, and that has become the bedrock of further discussion, it leads to people being politely dismissed straight away. We should make sure that our foundation is not made of sand.
RE: Have we ruled out simple substitution unwisely? - asteckley - 09-02-2026
(09-02-2026, 03:17 PM)eggyk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Did our choice of transliteration alphabet influence the calculated entropy?
Much of the stuff you are suggesting would tend to increase predictability of glyph sequencing. One would expect the net result to be a lowering of the entropy even further.
RE: Have we ruled out simple substitution unwisely? - eggyk - 09-02-2026
(09-02-2026, 03:43 PM)asteckley Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.(09-02-2026, 03:17 PM)eggyk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Did our choice of transliteration alphabet influence the calculated entropy?
Much of the stuff you are suggesting would tend to increase predictability of glyph sequencing. One would expect the net result to be a lowering of the entropy even further.
I don't understand how suggesting that "aiiin" may be a variety of different combinations of letters increases predictability. It surely makes it less predictable.
RE: Have we ruled out simple substitution unwisely? - oshfdk - 09-02-2026
(09-02-2026, 03:17 PM)eggyk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.If we've made an incorrect analysis somewhere, and that has become the bedrock of further discussion, it leads to people being politely dismissed straight away. We should make sure that our foundation is not made of sand.
I'm not sure there is a problem in the first place, I haven't seen occasions where simple substitution was dismissed without at least looking at the result it produced.
If a person enters with a reproducible simple substitution solution that all of a sudden leads to a meaningful and grammatical text in some attested language, I'm absolutely sure this won't be dismissed straight away. As far as I understand, the only thing that is dismissed straight away is AI slop, and I believe rightly so.
Also, some simple substitution solutions may be able to explain the entropy, etc. For example, Jorge Stolfi's Chinese theory appears to be based on phonetic transcription, which means all possible problems that simple substitution has would also apply, but it's argued that the entropy and the structure of the words are explained by the features of the underlying language.
RE: Have we ruled out simple substitution unwisely? - Stefan Wirtz_2 - 09-02-2026
(09-02-2026, 03:17 PM)eggyk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I thought it may be genuinely worth debating this. [..]
Yes it is.
Coming from this thread's title, I would even say that a lot of unwise things happen(ed) around the Voynich Manuscript, and insisting that "it can't be simple substitution" (= an unknown alphabet) is one of them.
One hint is the a , just widely accepted as an 'a'. I never saw a ressourceful doubt on this being anything else than an 'a'.
As it never appears at the end of VMS words, Wilson once suggested that the y might be the "end-of-word-version" of 'a', so in this use having 2 writings of letter 'a', depending of positions.
a occurs in plain sight and at positions where we may expect this vowel in natural languages -- at least those appearances do not obstruct this.
The thing is: if the, in nearly all languages, rather frequent letter 'a' appears at "normal" positions and density, what worth would have any enciphering that left it there?
A cipher with such flaw would have been cracked soonest, but latest with today's computer powers.
About predictability: there are lots of conditions forcing a (kind of vowel) to follow consonants, go's and no-go's for letter combinations, etc.
That depends very much on a source language - which we don't know for VMS.
I did never see even only a valid list of 'characters' of Voynich -- meaning those letters who appear in words, occasionally in unique combinations, which would allow to say that a sign or a short combination of signs is meant to be a 'character' at all.
In your example, I don't clearly see eee : since there seems to be a rest of ink between the second and third e ,
this may as well be an ece
RE: Have we ruled out simple substitution unwisely? - eggyk - 09-02-2026
(09-02-2026, 04:09 PM)oshfdk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I'm not sure there is a problem in the first place, I haven't seen occasions where simple substitution was dismissed without at least looking at the result it produced.
If a person enters with a reproducible simple substitution solution that all of a sudden leads to a meaningful and grammatical text in some attested language, I'm absolutely sure this won't be dismissed straight away. As far as I understand, the only thing that is dismissed straight away is AI slop, and I believe rightly so.
That's fair, although from my personal experience I feel as though people are not encouraged to persue such ideas here. I do often see messages that dismiss the possibility of a simple substitution as well due to entropy issues. I don't have a specific example to give you, so i might be wrong
(09-02-2026, 04:09 PM)oshfdk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Also, some simple substitution solutions may be able to explain the entropy, etc. For example, Jorge Stolfi's Chinese theory appears to be based on phonetic transcription, which means all possible problems that simple substitution has would also apply, but it's argued that the entropy and the structure of the words are explained by the features of the underlying language.
This is a good example of what I mean, this wording presumes that the entropy is something that needs to be explained. In that sense, the beginning point of the discussion is that the entropy of the VMS has been measured correctly and is not normal. I do note that most people still attempt substitutions based on the existing alphabets though.
RE: Have we ruled out simple substitution unwisely? - oshfdk - 09-02-2026
(09-02-2026, 04:26 PM)eggyk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.That's fair, although from my personal experience I feel as though people are not encouraged to persue such ideas here. I do often see messages that dismiss the possibility of a simple substitution as well due to entropy issues.
I certainly won't encourage people to spend time on simple substitution ideas and I certainly would dismiss the possibility of a simple substitution, but I'd still have a look. Sometimes even when a solution is obviously wrong, there can be some interesting insights in it.
The caveat is that most "simple substitution" solutions are not simple substitution, but fuzzy substitution, like various scenarios you show in the original post. For example, if
"for every "aiiin" we instead substitute an equally possible set of characters (aiim, anin, amii, aum)"
then this stops being simple substitution already, as far as I can see.
RE: Have we ruled out simple substitution unwisely? - Rafal - 09-02-2026
I would say that everything said that most things from this thead has been already tried.
You can check the transcription of Prescott Currier. He several treats groups of signs as single entities like it was suggested here:
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
It increases the entropy but makes the words very short, many words will have only 2-3 symbols.
And it didn't help to solve the manuscript.
One thing that hasn't been thorughly tried are exotic languages (Jorge Stolfi hypothesis).
In the past people tried many languages with simple substitution and it didn't work. But there is much more languages that people haven't tried.
The simple substitution for them has actually never been ruled out. So if anyone wishes, he may try with Wolof, Geez, Samoyedic or Lao. But personally I won't be holding my breath
Quote:One hint is a just widely accepted as an 'a'. I never saw a ressourceful doubt on this being anything else than an 'a'.
See my old thread: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
RE: Have we ruled out simple substitution unwisely? - eggyk - 09-02-2026
(09-02-2026, 04:41 PM)oshfdk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I certainly won't encourage people to spend time on simple substitution ideas and I certainly would dismiss the possibility of a simple substitution, but I'd still have a look. Sometimes even when a solution is obviously wrong, there can be some interesting insights in it.
The caveat is that most "simple substitution" solutions are not simple substitution, but fuzzy substitution, like various scenarios you show in the original post. For example, if
"for every "aiiin" we instead substitute an equally possible set of characters (aiim, anin, amii, aum)"
then this stops being simple substitution already, as far as I can see.
I was suggesting this to see its affect on entropy, not as a decoding attempt.
In such a case, the theoretically correct solution would be a simple solution, or not a complicated solution at least, but we just wouldn't be able to tell apart which symbol is which.
Again, if we had the word "minimum", written frustratingly like iiiiiiiiiiiiiii, if you know which lines are which it's simple (i guess its not even substitution), and if you don't know, its not.
RE: Have we ruled out simple substitution unwisely? - eggyk - 09-02-2026
(09-02-2026, 04:51 PM)Rafal Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I would say that everything said that most things from this thead has been already tried.
You can check the transcription of Prescott Currier. He several treats groups of signs as single entities like it was suggested here:
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
It increases the entropy but makes the words very short, many words will have only 2-3 symbols.
And it didn't help to solve the manuscript.
That's different to what i mentioned, isn't it? In each case the groups of signs are considered to be a single entity.
I'm stating that groups of signs could each be a variety of different entities, in different configurations, exactly like minims.