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Why Voynichese doesn't have cribs? - Printable Version

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RE: Why Voynichese doesn't have cribs? - RobGea - 27-01-2026

Found this thread with google but i havent read it
The Voynich Ninja › Voynich Research › Voynich Talk > Historic cipher mapping
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RE: Why Voynichese doesn't have cribs? - Stefan Wirtz_2 - 27-01-2026

(27-01-2026, 05:31 PM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.[..]
There is a crib on page f68r3: the name for the Pleiades (doary, BEEPed as doaro).  Unfortunately it is not mentioned in the text.  Which is not unexpected, as it probably was irrelevant for whatever astrology is discussed in the book.
[..]

Not quite.
Even if someone assumes that this labels the handful of stars here, it not necessarily means "Pleiades"; it could also mean "seven", "the seven sisters", "the bright ones" or anything else.
As long as we have no idea about the source language or accent and it's specific naming for this "obvious" star constellation, that cannot work as a crib.

Bad luck again.

RE: Why Voynichese doesn't have cribs? - Jorge_Stolfi - 27-01-2026

(27-01-2026, 05:48 PM)Stefan Wirtz_2 Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Even if someone assumes that this labels the handful of stars here, it not necessarily means "Pleiades"; it could also mean "seven", "the seven sisters", "the bright ones" or anything else.

Defintely!

Quote:As long as we have no idea about the source language or accent and it's specific naming for this "obvious" star constellation, that cannot work as a crib.

I understood Rafal as saying that a crib is a word which we suspect to be the code for a certain word.  If we must know for sure, then, indeed, that doary is not a crib...

All the best, --stolfi

RE: Why Voynichese doesn't have cribs? - Rafal - 27-01-2026

Quote:I understood Rafal as saying that a crib is a word which we suspect to be the code for a certain word.

Well, I haven't invented this term and I am not even sure if I am using it 100% correctly as it is some cryptoanalyst slang/jargon and slang terms are often fuzzy

But I believe a crib may be certain or suspected, working or not working, real or false (we think it is a crib but it isn't a crib) and so on.

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The method they identified to work out the Enigma settings relied on the use of cribs. The term crib was used at Bletchley Park to denote any known plaintext or suspected plaintext at some point in an enciphered message. Effectively code breakers realised that the Germans were regularly sending Weather reports (in German Wetter Vorhersage) and could identify the ciphertext containing these words (based on the time of the day these reports were sent). Another message that Germans often used was the message “Nothing to report” (in German Keine besonderen Ereignisse) which was also used to identify useful cribs.

This word actually seems to have a hundred of meanings:
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I believe that cryptology meaning comes from the colloquial meaning: trick, cheat, swindle. You don't tediously check by brute force millions of combination for the cipher but use a clever trick to get the message.

RE: Why Voynichese doesn't have cribs? - Grove - 27-01-2026

Isn’t a crib just a word or phrase we expect to exist in a text? When trying to decipher a text we guess what words might be found and possibly where we would expect the word to be found. We also have to assume a language for the plaintext or try our best set of cribs in multiple languages to see if we can make it fit.

I would assume for example that in the herbals, the word herb would appear often. 

If the manuscript is encrypted text, then it does have cribs… we just haven’t found a way to make something work consistently.

RE: Why Voynichese doesn't have cribs? - Rafal - 27-01-2026

Quote:Isn’t a crib just a word or phrase we expect to exist in a text? When trying to decipher a text we guess what words might be found and possibly where we would expect the word to be found. We also have to assume a language for the plaintext or try our best set of cribs in multiple languages to see if we can make it fit.

Yes, when you are not sure about the language you can try "universal" words.

Michael Ventris, when working with Linear B, wasn't sure it is very old Greek. For a long time he suspected Etruscan or other language. But he assumed Knossos must be more or less the same in any language. It turned right, it was Konoso.

Later when he had a few symbols deciphered, to his surprise he started getting Greek words.

RE: Why Voynichese doesn't have cribs? - obelus - 27-01-2026

A You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. on the question of cribs covered, among others, apparent 'houses of the moon' in You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view..

RE: Why Voynichese doesn't have cribs? - Bernd - 28-01-2026

The 'crib attack' as you say relies on a framework of conditions that must be met in order to be viable. I am sure there's more but here are a few.:
  • 'Voynichese' encodes text
  • 'Voynichese' encodes text in a way that at least somewhat preserves its original structure
  • 'Voynichese' encodes meaningful text in a way that at least somewhat preserves its original structure
  • The text is connected to the imagery
  • The text is connected to the imagery in a similar way a known or expected plaintext would be.
  •  The author copied the imagery from a source understanding its original meaning
  • The author copied the imagery from a source understanding and preserving its original meaning
So far, we have no proof, not even reasonable certainty, of any of the statements above. But considering all attempts of finding cribs have ended in nothing so far, we should consider the possibility that at least some of those statements might not be true. My doubts continue to grow.

RE: Why Voynichese doesn't have cribs? - Zauriek - 28-01-2026

In the context of this thread: "otoldy" as a title is used to reference multiple things for some reason.
   
Personally, gave up on solving the text by my own a long time ago... So much wasted time, it was fun tho.

RE: Why Voynichese doesn't have cribs? - Jorge_Stolfi - 28-01-2026

(28-01-2026, 12:12 AM)Bernd Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.The 'crib attack' as you say relies on a framework of conditions that must be met in order to be viable. I am sure there's more but here are a few.:
  • 'Voynichese' encodes text
  • 'Voynichese' encodes text in a way that at least somewhat preserves its original structure
  • 'Voynichese' encodes meaningful text in a way that at least somewhat preserves its original structure
All statistical analyses of the text (like Zipf plots, word patterns, etc) weakly support these three statements, to the extent that they are not terribly wrong for natural languages.  Whereas the opposite of those claims would probably have shown up clearly in those statistics.  Like a very flat Zipf plot, much higher or lower entropy per word, much bigger or smaller lexicon size, etc.

Quote:
  • The text is connected to the imagery
  • The text is connected to the imagery in a similar way a known or expected plaintext would be.

These may be true for some details of the imagery. 

Like, in the Bio section, I believe that only the organ-like things and some tubes and tubs are part of the meaningful contents.  Everything else, including the nymphs and big pools, is decoration, or at best figurative representations of abstract concepts like "humors".  The labels on the tubes may refer to them; the labels on the nymphs, boh, who knows...

Again, I believe that the drawings in the Zodiac section are 100% decoration, and the only meaningful contents of each page is the list of 15 or 30 labels -- which refer to 1-degree sectors of the Ecliptic.  EDIT: and also the text rings. The labels are not mentioned in the text because the latter has nothing to say about any specific sectors.  Just as the preface to train timetable may not mention any specific train.

Quote:
  • The author copied the imagery from a source understanding its original meaning
  • The author copied the imagery from a source understanding and preserving its original meaning
The imagery was copied, yes -- but by a Scribe that, by all we know, was not the Author, and did not understand a word of the text.

All the best, --stolfi